Psychiatrist faces sex assault trial

Yet another child sex case involving a psychiatrist, this time from Wisconsin. As seen in the Journal Sentinel.

A psychiatrist already serving four years of probation for possession of child pornography was ordered to stand trial Friday on a sexual assault charge after a 14-year-old boy tearfully testified that the doctor molested him during a counseling session in 2006.

At a preliminary hearing to determine whether the case against Eric B. Schwietering of Milwaukee should proceed to trial, the boy testified that Schwietering questioned him during a counseling session about his sexual habits and asked him to disrobe July 10, 2006.

When he declined, the boy said, Schwietering forced him down on a couch, partially disrobed him and touched him indecently.

Schwietering, 41, was charged in October with sexual assault of a child younger than 16, a felony.

According to testimony Friday and a criminal complaint, the assault occurred when Schwietering was associated with Cornerstone Counseling, 16535 W. Blue Mound Road, Brookfield. Schwietering no longer practices at the center.

After the assault, the boy testified, Schwietering told him not to tell anyone about what had occurred and said he would hurt him if he did.

The complaint says the matter came to light in the fall when the boy, now living at a residential school in Keokuk, Iowa, told his mother in e-mail that he had been assaulted by Schwietering, who specialized in treating children and adolescents.

Schwietering's attorney, Paul Bucher, sought to have the case dismissed, telling Waukesha County Circuit Court Commissioner Martin Binn that the boy's testimony and statements to authorities were not credible.

But Binn rejected the argument and ordered Schwietering to return to court Feb. 6.

In May, Schwietering was placed on four years of probation in Milwaukee County Circuit Court on two felony counts of possession of child pornography.

Psychiatric Center for Teenagers Is Mired in Patient Accusations of Rape

From the August 7th NY Times

A widely respected residential psychiatric treatment center for teenagers in Manhattan acknowledged yesterday that it was cooperating with law-enforcement authorities who have charged three former employees with sexually assaulting girls at the center in recent years.

The suspects, all child-care workers for the August Aichhorn Center for Adolescent Residential Care at 23 West 106th Street, were fired in May and early June after being indicted on multiple counts of rape, sexual abuse and sexual misconduct involving at least four girls younger than 17. The allegations were reported yesterday by The New York Post.

“The August Aichhorn Center is deeply concerned by the allegations of illegal conduct made by current and former residents against members of our staff,” Dr. Michael A. Pawel, a psychiatrist who is the center’s executive director, wrote in a statement posted on the center’s Web site.

The statement added: “Aichhorn has been fully cooperative with the New York County district attorney’s office in its investigation and we will continue to cooperate with all relevant investigations so that it can be determined whether these allegations are true or false.”

Court records listed the suspects as Milton Venable, 46, Phree Noel, 32, and Edward R. Tapia, 26, all Manhattan residents who had worked for years at the treatment center and have families and roots in the community. All pleaded not guilty at their arraignments in Manhattan Criminal Court and at the request of their lawyers were released without bail for court appearances later this month and in September.

According to the court records, most of the sexual assaults occurred during the last two years, although one occurred in 2002. Mr. Venable was charged with two counts of rape and two of sexual misconduct, Mr. Noel was charged with numerous counts of rape, and Mr. Tapia was charged with multiple counts of rape, criminal sexual acts, sexual abuse and other misconduct.

Dr. Pawel’s statement did not name the accused men or detail any of the allegations, but it noted that the center’s patients were among “the most severely troubled teenagers in the New York area,” and that the center had strict rules for handling allegations of misconduct.

“The center follows stringent, documented procedures for the protection of both residents and our staff, as a healthy and safe environment is necessary for the successful treatment and rehabilitation of the adolescents in our care,” Dr. Pawel wrote. “All allegations of mistreatment which are brought to our attention are taken seriously, internally investigated and always reported to the proper authorities for an outside, independent review. We have followed these procedures in this matter.”

Efforts to reach the accused men and their lawyers were unsuccessful yesterday, although Mr. Venable’s father, Frank, said in a brief telephone interview that the charges against his son were false. Dr. Pawel did not respond to calls, and Carmen Torres, an administrative aide, referred a reporter to his Web site statement.

The Aichhorn center, a co-educational residential facility for 32 patients who range from 12 to 16 years old when they are admitted for treatment, takes in some of the city’s most troubled teenagers: boys and girls with records for assault, robbery, arson and other criminal activity, who have been shuttled among foster homes, state hospitals, juvenile detention facilities and mental health centers. Treatments take an average of 30 months.

“We get the youngsters nobody else can handle,” Dr. Pawel, who founded the center in 1991, told New York magazine in 1999. The magazine described the center as “part hospital, part jail,” and said the living quarters had the feel of a college dormitory, with rooms decorated with movie posters and the covers of hip-hop magazines.

The center, in a six-story brownstone, has four living units — three with eight single rooms and one with four double rooms — and has its own school, a clinic and recreational facilities. The full-time staff of 86 includes therapists, teachers and 46 child-care workers, all of them screened and trained. Rules of the center prohibit staff members from being alone with a patient.

The work of the center, which receives more than $5 million in public funding, has drawn wide praise from state and city mental health officials and others in the juvenile-justice field. In 2001, Gov. George E. Pataki hailed the center in a letter to Dr. Pawel. “Through the committed work of community-based organizations like yours, we will continue to advance the well-being of young adults in your community and the entire state.”

Case against psychiatrist took years to assemble

As seen in the San Francisco Chronicle

There were warnings for almost two decades that Dr. William Ayres, the retired child psychiatrist from San Mateo accused of molesting five former patients, might have been abusing boys sent to him for counseling.

But some of the alleged victims couldn't be found or wouldn't cooperate, and Ayres continued to receive scores of referrals from San Mateo County's juvenile justice system for years, according to police reports, court records, other documents and interviews.

When a criminal case against him was finally filed earlier this month, it was partly the result of years of digging and prodding by a 52-year-old freelance writer from New York City who had never met Ayres, but became the most dogged advocate for many of his alleged victims.

Ayres, now 75, was treating boys sent to him by juvenile court judges as late as 2003, 16 years after the first complaint about him was filed with county officials. From 1987 to 2002, government agencies received at least four complaints involving allegations that Ayres was molesting male patients, according to records and police officials. Authorities alerted juvenile court judges after the fourth complaint was filed, police said.

"He continued to be a primary care provider for years," said Jeff Lugerner, who was a licensed clinical social worker when he brought a complaint to authorities in 1987 after one of Ayres' former patients told him the psychiatrist had fondled him at age 15. "That's what I'm really floored by."

Authorities said there were plenty of impediments to building a case. Not the least was the difficulty of verifying accusations brought by once-vulnerable or troubled youths against a former president of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry praised by county officials in 2002 for his "tireless effort to improve the lives of children."

"We took quite extraordinary measures in this case because there was so much out there, but nothing we could substantiate for a long time," said San Mateo Police Chief Susan Manheimer, whose agency has investigated Ayres several times since 1987.

"By the time it became apparent to us it was real -- there's smoke here, and now it's fire -- once we determined that, we took very aggressive steps," said Manheimer, who became chief in 2000.

Ayres was charged this month with masturbating five boys in his private, soundproof office from 1988 to 1996 under the guise of giving them medical exams. The psychiatrist, who is married and has adult children, has declined to comment about his case other than to say, "These are all very complex situations."

He acknowledged under oath in 2004 as part of a lawsuit filed against him that he sometimes conducted physical exams of patients, but he denied ever masturbating them, according to a transcript of his deposition. He has not entered a plea on the current charges.

At least thirty-seven men have accused Ayres of molesting them as boys dating to at least 1969, but most of the cases fell outside the statute of limitations and couldn't be charged, prosecutors said.

The first known complaint against Ayres was filed with the county social services agency in 1987, six months before the psychiatrist allegedly fondled the first of the boys he is now charged with molesting, records show. San Mateo police determined the report was unfounded, and the case was never formally referred to prosecutors.

The original police file, including a copy of a $1,000 check that Ayres allegedly sent to the boy's mother in 1985 because of an "accounting error" after the youth refused to go to more sessions, is missing, according to a 2005 police report.

The case probably wouldn't have been prosecuted without a corroborating witness or other evidence, said Deputy District Attorney Melissa McKowan, who is handling the current charges against Ayres.

"You have a prominent psychiatrist saying, 'I didn't do it,' and a troubled youth who's seeing a psychiatrist," McKowan said. "You have to be able to prove a case beyond a reasonable doubt. ... It doesn't mean I don't believe that boy today."

Two other complaints were received in 1994, including one from a former patient who told the state Medical Board that Ayres had molested him in 1966, San Mateo police Capt. Mike Callagy said. Board investigators could not find that man, however. The other accuser -- a Folsom State Prison inmate who told a nurse that Ayres had molested him as a boy during court-ordered sessions -- refused to cooperate with police, according to records and police officials.

Ayres, in his civil deposition in 2004, said the county's juvenile justice system, its court-appointed attorney program, pediatricians and social workers all referred patients to him for decades. He estimated that he had seen about 2,000 patients in 40 years of practice in the county.

Police and later the district attorney's office were under no legal obligation to report the allegations to people who were sending boys to Ayres for counseling, said San Mateo County District Attorney Jim Fox.

"Obviously, you want to minimize the harm; you don't want people to be put in a position that we believe is dangerous," Fox said. "If we had known about it and there were still referrals, we would probably have taken action, but obviously hindsight is 20/20."

In September 2002, a complaint to San Mateo police from a man who said Ayres had molested him starting in 1976 resulted in a criminal investigation. County referrals to the psychiatrist continued, however, and payments from juvenile courts were not cut off until December 2003, after police alerted court officials and social services.

Juvenile Court Supervising Judge Marta Diaz, who records show referred a patient to Ayres as recently as January 2003, declined to comment about the psychiatrist or the juvenile court referral system, citing judicial guidelines against discussing pending cases.

Police considered the case reported by the man in 2002 a solid one, but their investigation ended abruptly when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a state law in June 2003 that had retroactively extended the statute of limitations for filing child-molestation charges. The alleged victim then sued Ayres in December 2003; the psychiatrist agreed to a confidential settlement about a year and a half later.

Criminal charges against Ayres might never have been brought if not for a chance contact that the 2002 accuser made with a New York freelance writer and victims rights advocate, Victoria Balfour.

A mutual friend had suggested that the man call Balfour about tips for finding writing work. Among Balfour's credits was a 1999 piece in Vogue magazine about eating disorders, in which she wrote of having been molested as a child. During their conversation, the former patient mentioned that Ayres had abused him.

Over the next four months, Balfour urged him repeatedly to call police, she said in an interview. The man finally did so, but after the Supreme Court ruling that killed his criminal case, investigators' interest in Ayres flagged, Balfour said.

On her own, she pursued leads from the civil case, placed postings online and took other steps, compiling a list of 15 possible victims by 2005. She pushed authorities to prosecute the psychiatrist.

"It was like treading water," Balfour said. "I felt like the police didn't know how many victims there were."

One alleged victim sent an e-mail to Balfour in the fall of 2005, in which he wrote, "I'm not strong enough to pursue anything. It makes me very depressed. The (San Mateo) police, courts, city officials will never tell the truth. It will make them look bad. No way will they do that for me."

Two weeks later, the man was killed in a motorcycle crash. Balfour called it the catalyst for her. She sent Callagy, the San Mateo police captain, an e-mail saying, "I think the time has come to figure out a way to find new victims."

Callagy responded later that day, saying he was prepared to take a "real long shot" to obtain a search warrant for Ayres' patient records and seek victims whose accusations would fall within the statute of limitations, e-mails show.

"I am willing to do everything I can to make sure justice prevails," Callagy wrote.

Callagy asked Balfour for the names, phone numbers and dates of alleged molestation victims she had compiled to "show a sustained pattern of cases," e-mails show.

"I know the amount of work that you put (into) this has been unbelievable," Callagy wrote to Balfour a few days later. "I am personally going to write the search warrant."

Police served the warrant on Ayres' home and a storage locker in March 2006, seizing records for more than 800 former patients, authorities said.

After trying to track down those former patients, police came up with three alleged victims, a process Callagy called "a little like looking for a needle in a haystack." After charges were filed, more than a dozen additional accusers came forward, and prosecutors have added two of them to the criminal complaint against Ayres.

Callagy said police worked the case "pretty steadily" for years, but he acknowledged that Balfour's efforts really helped.

"What is most important is that these victims came forward," Callagy said. "I don't know if the victims would have come forward without her encouragement."

Peadophile Psychiatrist released on tripled bail of $750,000 - Faces 18 counts

From the San Francisco Chronicle

A prominent retired psychiatrist charged with molesting five former patients was released from jail Friday after posting bail that a San Mateo County judge had tripled earlier in the day.

More than three dozen men have accused Dr. William Ayres of molesting them as boys dating to 1969, and additional charges are likely, prosecutor Melissa McKowan said.

The 75-year-old Ayres, former head of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, had been released from jail after his wife posted $250,000 bail Monday. On Friday, he returned to jail after a judge increased the bail to $750,000.

Ayers, arrested last week at his San Mateo home, removed his wristwatch, tie, suit jacket and wedding ring in a Redwood City courtroom and handed them to his wife before two bailiffs escorted him out. Ayres, who walks slowly and has a list of medical ailments, was allowed to keep his cane.

Still clutching her husband's belongings as she left the courtroom, Solveig Ayres walked quickly past a group of reporters.

"I can't say anything to you," she said. "I'm sorry."

Judge Carl Holm increased Ayres' bail Friday to $750,000 after prosecutors brought four new child molestation charges Thursday involving two more alleged victims. Ayres is now charged with molesting five boys from 1988 to 1996 when they were from 8 to 12 years old.

McKowan had sought to increase Ayres' bail to $1.8 million -- $100,000 for each of the 18 counts of lewd and lascivious acts with a child under 14 that he faces.

A sheriff's official at the County Jail said late Friday that Ayers had posted the increased bail and had been released.

Philip Barnett, a defense attorney who appeared with Ayres on Friday but will not take on the case because he has represented one of the alleged victims, said Ayres was not a flight risk or a danger to the public.

"If he was going to flee, he would've fled," Barnett said. "The fact is, he's in poor health."

Holm called the charges "very serious" but noted that Ayres is elderly, has no criminal record, is now barred from seeing patients and has no grandchildren or other apparent means to come in contact with young boys.

"I don't see that as likely anymore," Holm said of the possibility that Ayres poses a risk to the public. .

Outside court, McKowan called the bail increase "appropriate."

Prosecutors contend that Ayres, who received scores of patient referrals from the county's juvenile justice system, used his position to victimize vulnerable and troubled boys, knowing they would be hesitant to come forward and probably wouldn't be believed if they did.

At least 37 men have accused Ayres of molesting them as boys, but the bulk of those allegations fall outside the state's statute of limitations, McKowan said.

California law requires that molestation charges be brought before the accuser turns 29 or that the alleged crime occurred after Jan. 1, 1988.

More Charges possible in Ayes Molestation Case.

As seen via the San Mateo County Times. More charges are waiting in the wings as more people have come forward. The accused psychiatrist has made bail after it was reduced to a mere $250,000, to the disappointment of police.

Dr. William Ayres, the prominent San Mateo psychiatrist arrested Thursday and charged with 14 counts of lewd and lascivious acts with three children younger than 14, posted bail early Monday afternoon, county officials and police reported.

Ayres, 75, was released from the Maguire Correctional Facility about 2 p.m. on $250,000 bail.

The bail was posted by Ayres' wife, according to Chief Deputy District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe.

On Friday, within 24 hours of Ayres' arrest, a San Mateo County Superior Court judge slashed Ayres' initial bail of $1.5 million to $250,000 — an 80 percent reduction which Wagstaffe called "very disappointing."

Prosecutor Melissa McKowan had advised the judge against reducing Ayres' bail on the basis that the child psychiatrist was a potential flight risk, adding that he recently had sold his home.

Ayres, a former president of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, practiced in San Mateo County for decades, seeing thousands of patients referred to him through local school districts and the county's juvenile court system. He also maintained a private practice.

Police first began investigating Ayres in 2002 after being told by a man who had been a patient of Ayres in the 1970s that the doctor had molested him on multiple occasions. But the case had to be dropped after a Supreme Court ruling effectively changed the statute of limitations on such cases.

Childhood molestation charges can only be brought by victims who are younger than 29 or whose alleged abuse occurred after Jan. 1, 1988.

The San Mateo Police Department reopened the case in March 2006. A search warrant was executed for Ayres' records, and a list was compiled of more than 800 patients.

To date, the investigation has unearthed 21 people allegedly molested by Ayres. Three witnesses — men in their late 20s and early 30s who were aged 9, 11 and 12 at the time of their alleged molestation — fall within the legal stature of limitations.

The national media attention brought by Ayres' arrest has prompted more people to come forward with information, and police continue conducting interviews, Wagstaffe said.

Although prosecutors have not revealed much about the case in development against Ayres, Wagstaffe revealed Monday that one man allegedly molested by Ayres told police that the child psychiatrist threatened him for expressing discomfort during a session.

"It was then that the doctor threw out the comment to him, 'Nobody will believe you, anyway. You're a troubled youth — hey, nobody's going to believe you over me,'" said Wagstaffe.

Ayres is expected to enter a plea at his arraignment Wednesday — during which the district attorney will charge Ayres with additional counts, said McKowan. The district attorney also will use the arraignment as an opportunity to request an increase in the psychiatrist's bail.

The case against Ayres is "incredibly grave," said McKowan.

"There are numerous people who were victimized by somebody in an extreme situation of trust," she said Friday, following Ayres' initial court appearance. "This is as egregious a child-molest case as you can find."

LawSuit: Child Psychiatrist Abused Patient, Damages Sought

As seen in the Cincinatti Enquirer

A Cincinnati child psychiatrist is accused in a lawsuit of sexually molesting one of his patients.

A 19-year-old man, who was not identified in the lawsuit that was filed Monday in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court, is suing Dr. Leo D’Souza for child abuse and medical malpractice. The man is also suing D’Souza’s employer, Cincinnati Counseling Service, for negligence.

Neither D’Souza nor the counseling center returned a call for comment.

The man alleges in his suit the abuse started between 1999 or 2000 and ended in December of 2005. D’Souza was treating the man at the counseling center’s Westwood office for bipolar disorder, depression and other related conditions.

D’Souza has not been criminally charged.

The man’s parents recently filed a report with the Ohio Medical Board, according to the man’s attorney, Mike Allen. Those complaints are not public until they have been substantiated.

“This was a serious breach of medical ethics with obvious devastating effects for our client,” Allen said. “This kind of abuse you almost never recover from.”

The plaintiff is seeking at least $25,000 in damages.

In the lawsuit, the man said he was 12 or 13 when D’Souza began to include a “physical examination” during office visits. During those exams, which happened at least six times, D’Souza fondled the man, the lawsuit alleges.

“As a direct and proximate result of Dr. D’Souza’s negligence, the symptoms of John Doe’s underlying mental disorders were exacerbated,” according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit names Cincinnati Counseling Service, which has four offices, alleging the company either knew or should have known about the abuse.

Paedophile wants sex change reversed, hearing told

As seen in the Guardian - This is just wrong in so many ways.

A paedophile treated by the UK's best-known gender psychiatrist said today he wanted his sex change reversed.

The patient, identified only as C, told the General Medical Council disciplinary hearing into Russell Reid that he regretted the operation and had requested further surgery to reconstruct his penis.

The male-to-female transsexual, who lives as a man, said he had never lived full-time as a woman either before or after his sex change in 1996. The patient said he had never cross-dressed until his first appointment with Dr Reid in March 1993.

Dr Reid, who ran a private gender clinic in west London until his retirement earlier this year, is charged with serious professional misconduct in relation to his treatment of five patients.

Patient C said today he had only wanted to become a woman in order to win back his ex-boyfriend. His former partner had wanted patient C to become a "motherly figure" to his children.

The hearing was told that patient C had a history of depression and had had to have one of his testicles removed after injecting air into it in an attempt to prove his love to his ex-boyfriend.

The patient said his former partner had briefed him on what to tell Dr Reid in order to get sex changing treatment. He admitted telling a string of lies to Dr Reid, including that he had bought a bikini and habitually cross-dressed.

The inquiry was told that Patient C had concealed his conviction for indecently assaulting a 15-year-old boy from Dr Reid, but he continued to treat the patient even when the truth emerged.

Patient C was referred to two other gender psychiatrists four years after his operation because he was unhappy with the sex change.

The psychiatrists James Barrett and Don Montgomery, both from the main NHS gender clinic at Charring Cross hospital, west London, recorded that patient C looked clearly male and had a beard.

Dr Barrett and Dr Montgomery, as well as two other psychiatrists at the hospital, subsequently brought complaints about Dr Reid's practice to the GMC, which prompted the current hearing.

Dr Reid is accused of rushing the five patients into sex changing treatments without thorough assessment. He denies serious professional misconduct and breaching international guidelines on the treatment of transsexualism.

The hearing continues.

Outrage at sentence of child rapist

A Scottish law chief has demanded a report into why a man who raped a 13-month-old baby was given a five-year jail sentence.

Lord Advocate Colin Boyd QC has said the sentence for the shocking crime is "unduly lenient".

Father-of-three James Taylor, 43, took pictures of himself raping the baby girl. He was caught after posting child pornography on the internet and when police raided his house they found 2,280 indecent images of children on his computer, CDs and floppy disks. He was sentenced at the High Court in Dunfermline after admitting raping the baby girl, indecency towards a six-year-old girl and possessing indecent images of children.

Children's charities are outraged at the sentence, given after a psychologist's report saying Talyor is at low risk of reoffending.

Australian Pedophilia Report Author Confesses to Sex Crime

Michael James Crowley, a psychologist well known in Australia for co-authoring a report on pedophilia in the Anglican church, has pled guilty to "child sex" himself. Prosecutors say that Crowley initiated an inappropriate relationship with the complainant from "early days", first telling her he loved her when she was 12 years old.

Director of Public Prosecutions Tim Ellis, SC, said the woman involved had come forward 20 years later out of disgust at Crowley's hypocrisy in never displaying any remorse or taking responsibility for his actions while developing his work as a psychologist into areas of clinical care with vulnerable people. Mr Ellis said in 1997 Crowley accepted a commission from the Anglican Church of Tasmania to conduct an inquiry into sexual misconduct by clergy and church officials, with particular reference to paedophilia.

Needless to say, this has also called into question the integrity of the report. Many details at the link

School Psychologist Accused Of Molesting 5-Year-Old

More coverage on the case of Donald Stettner, a Pittsburgh public school psychologist, who is accused of molesting a Colfax Elementary School 5-year-old girl.

The defense attorney maintains the nearly 3-year-old case was resurrected after Stettner was charged this year in an unrelated sexual assault case.

Gets worse all the time

Psychologist Granted Bond on Child Molestation Charges

A former child psychologist with the Pittsburgh Public Schools who is accused of molesting his adopted son and a pupil at Colfax Elementary School was granted $100,000 straight bond yesterday and his family was trying to get him out of jail last night (Tuesday) . Donald Stettner, 46, of Spring Hill faces a preliminary hearing today (Wednesday) on charges of aggravated indecent assault, indecent assault and corrupting a minor for the incident at Colfax in 2000. The victim in that case. a handicapped girl, is now 7. More details here

Dr. Judith Reisman on "Kinsey's kooky shrinks"

Dr. Judith Reisman has an column in the World Net Daily about the psychiatric movement to legalize pedolphia.

She is not happy. In fact, she is plenty irate:

You heard right. The movement to legitimize pedophiles has been gathering steam for some time. In the late 1980s, for example, during the two years I spent as principal investigator for a U.S. Department of Justice study on "Images of Children, Crime and Violence" in mainstream pornography, my research team encountered a stable of paid pornography agents we dubbed "Academic Pedophile Apologists."

Like carnival hawkers, these Academic Pedophile Apologists – college professors, psychiatrists and other mental-health professionals – have served as advisers, writers and "expert" witnesses, telling medical, academic, public school, court and government authorities that the barbaric pedophile crimes of child sexual abuse are harmless and, some said, beneficial.

Now, things have gone so far downhill that this May, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) was walking the Academic Pedophile Apologist tightrope, actually publicly debating a proposal for "Lifting [The] Pedophilia Taboo."

and, as detailed in the column, there are more conferances coming up.

Fears Grow Over Academic Efforts to Normalize Pedophilia

Caught this column on the fears some people have on the apparent effort to normalise pedophilia (originally published here)

Cultural experts who agree with claims that the Supreme Court may have opened the door to legalizing pedophilia in its Lawrence v. Texas decision on private homosexual behavior point to the growing movement within academia to de-stigmatize pedophilia.

of course there are protests that this won't happen.

Importantly, it is also noted that

During its annual convention in May, the American Psychiatric Association hosted a symposium discussing the removal of pedophilia along with other categories of mental illness (collectively known as paraphilia) from its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).

After much criticism following CNSNews.com coverage of the symposium, the APA issued a statement reiterating its position on pedophilia.

But in his 1999 article "Harming the Little Ones: The Effects of Pedophilia on Children," Timothy Dailey, senior analyst for cultural studies with the Family Research Council, chronicled the APA's treatment of pedophilia in the DSM and compares it to the APA evolution of homosexuality.

In DSM revisions, Dailey explained that APA "adds a subjective qualification similar to that which appeared with regard to homosexuality: The individual must be 'markedly distressed' by his own pedophilic activity to be considered needful of therapy," Dailey wrote, adding that in the latest revision, pedophilia "is to be considered a paraphilia when the behavior causes 'clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational or other important areas of functioning.'"

Mary Eberstadt, research fellow at the Hoover Institute, told CNSNews.com: "The evidence is plain: there is indeed an ongoing attempt from within the psychiatric and psychological communities to de-stigmatize pedophilia by de-classifying it as a paraphilia in the first place."

You can read that full report here

So if I feel comfortable with my criminal activity, what am I?