One of the questions I am most often asked is why I think that I am an amarso. Indeed, this is one question I often ask myself. Unfortunately, however, after reading study after study on the topic, I have realized that nobody really knows. While a number of theories exist as to why I am the way that I am, none have been definitively proven. Not suprisingly, my interest was piqued last week when I read that Canadian researchers have discovered that men with a primary sexual attraction of children have a much higher likelihood of being left-handed than the general population. Being left-handed myself, I found this fascinating. But on a more profound level, the suggestion that there is a neurological component to pedophilia forces all of us to question the prevailing theories as to the etiology of pedophilia. Furthermore, it begs further research and examination.

In a study entitled Handedness in Pedophilia and Hebephilia, researchers at Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health studied 400 sex offenders. The reserchers, led by Dr. James Cantor, used phallometric testing to determine the primary sexual focus of the study participants as well as asking them questions about their handedness. They discovered that fully 30% of those whose primary sexual interest was in children younger than twelve years old were left-handed. This figure is three times higher than the occurrence of left-handedness in society in general and of sex offenders who were primarily attracted to adults. The study also found a weak link between left-handedness and hebephilia, or the attraction to adolescents.

Whilst this study is by no means conclusive in proving a neurological link to pedophilia, it certainly does raise the very strong possibility that there is one. Dr. Cantor and his team have suggested that neurological factors, perhaps during pregnancy, may contribute along with other factors to the occurrence of pedophilia. If this is indeed the case, the entire rationale behind current ‘treatment’ methods for this phenomenon must be examined. Futhermore, the classification of pedophilia as a ‘paraphilia’ must be reconsidered.

At this point, as Dr. Cantor acknowledges, there is the need for more research. Rather than continuing to cling to past stereotypes that are largely the result of patching together data from forensic and clinical settings, fresh new research needs to be conducted. There is already exciting research being conducted about the causes of homosexuality, such as experiments on sheep being conducted in Oregon by Dr. Charles Roselli. Roselli is conducting experiments to see if there is a link between hormonal levels during pregnancy and the occurrence of homosexuality. By controlling these hormones, he is hoping to breed gay rams. Such studies could be expanded to include research into whether there are hormonal links to pedophilia and other ‘paraphilias’. Researchers in Austria recently discovered that a single genetic mutation caused female fruit flies to seek female mates and Swedish researchers have found that male pheromones excite certain parts of the brains of homosexual men whilst similar female pheromones have no effect.

The real inhibitor to conducting such research at this point is the fear of many researchers to approach this subject. Dr. Roselli has pointed out that most of the interesting research into the causes of homosexuality are occurring in Europe, as American researchers are simply unable to secure grants for research. Despite the fact that homosexuality has mainstreamed in many parts of the nation, enough of a stigma remains due to the power of the religious right to make many donors wary of funding such research. If it is difficult to fund homosexuality research, it will be a yet more formidable task to fund pedophilia research. Indeed, there are many recent examples of academics being persecuted for papers that are perceived to be ‘pro-pedophilia’, most notably Drs. Rind, Tromovitch and Bauserman for their now-infamous 1998 report A Meta-Analytic Examination of Assumed Properties of Child Sexual Abuse Using College Samples. More recently, Judith Levine came under fire for her book Harmful to Minors and Professor Harris Mirkin was widely criticized for his paper The Pattern of Sexual Politics: Feminism, Homosexuality and Pedophilia.

The risk of conducting research is that a definitive answer to the causes of pedophilia may lead to efforts to find a way to ‘cure’ it or to prevent it from occurring in the first place. If there are hormonal links, some may attempt to introduce pre-natal hormonal ‘therapy’ to prevent its occurrence. Genetic links could be detected in the fetus and a decision made on how to proceed. It will be very interesting indeed to see how the religious right, usually hostile to the idea of genetic engineering or family planning for that matter, when they discover that they can ‘eliminate’ or ‘rehabilitate’ what they perceive to be one of the greatest evils in our midst in utero. Will we progress towards a Gattaca-esque world where we are vetted for the ‘pedophilia gene’ in advance and destroyed or altered to prevent it coming to fruition? Will the world decide that any possible benefits of the genetic or hormonal combination that unlocks pedosexual desires is not worth the perceived negative benefits of having amarsi in our society, in essence passing a death sentence on us before we are even born? Will we come to extinction at the hands of a society that prefers the safety and blandness of moral uniformity to the uncertainty that variety brings? Judging from the increasing desire for uniformity over originality that we can see in so many aspects of American society, the future does indeed look bleak.