UNITED STATES
Huffington Post
Hunter Stuart
Hunter@huffingtonpost.com
In a move toward destigmatizing pedophilia, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) in its updated Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), distinguishes between pedophiles who desire sex with children, and those who act on those desires.
The former group — those who want to have sex with children but whose desires are not distressing or harmful to themselves or others — is no longer classified as having a psychiatric condition in the updated DSM.
“The difference [from the last edition of the DSM] is, you’re not automatically saying that as soon as someone has a marked, unusual erotic interest that they have a mental disorder,” said Ray Blanchard, who cowrote the chapter on sexual disorders in the new DSM.
The change in the DSM, a kind of Bible among medical professionals, lawmakers, and drug and insurance companies, doesn’t just apply to pedophilia, but to several other deviant sexual desires listed in the manual. It represents “a subtle but crucial difference that makes it possible for an individual to engage in consensual atypical sexual behavior without inappropriately being labeled with a mental disorder,” explains the APA in its DSM-5 Paraphilic Disorders Fact Sheet.
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