Do People Attracted to Children Deserve Help Too?
Numerous recent reports concerning adults and inappropriate sexual relations with minors have many across the country angry, saddened and frustrated that more was not done to help protect the children; yet one organization has made its focus the plight of those who are attracted to minors.
Established in 2003 as a non-profit, B4U-ACT, was created to help those who find themselves attracted to children find the assistance they need. The organization assembled a list of credentialed practitioners as a resource to help those who find themselves acquiring feelings for minors.
The mission of the organization, found on its website, is “to publicly promote services and resources for self-identified individuals, adults and adolescents, who are sexually attracted to children and seek such assistance.”
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B4U-ACT tries to bring together those who find themselves with those feelings and mental care professionals for the purpose of treating their condition.
Dr. Fred Berlin, of the National Center for the Study, Prevention and Treatment of Sexual Trauma, told The Christian Post the organization: “Wants to encourage people with these feelings to get help.”
Given the negative social perception towards individuals that are attracted to minors, when a person is faced with those feelings, they might have a difficult time in finding an understanding person to talk to.
Berlin compares the situation to the way people used to feel towards alcoholics, before the opening of the Betty Ford Center, and that of minor-attracted persons in the sense that the issue was pushed aside and that particular group of people was stereotyped and generalized.
The American Psychiatric Association defines a pedophile to be a person at least 16 years old who is sexually attracted to pre-pubescent children and has either engaged in sexual activity with a child or feels distressed by the feelings of attraction.
But Berlin does understand that not all people that are attracted to minors are inherently bad or evil, but the negative connotations of the word pedophile hinders efforts aimed at helping. “We demonize people…driving people underground” because society has made them ashamed of their feelings, even if they do not act on them.
With some states and their mandatory reporting laws some individuals who otherwise have good moral character are afraid to seek out the help they need because they are fearful “of being labeled as such when seeking help.”
“These folks ought to get the highest quality of care for public safety,” Berlin said.
If we want to assure ourselves that we are doing everything in order to prevent such instances from occurring we cannot perpetuate a stigma that would make us “seem as a society that wouldn’t understand.”
