SOCIALLY PRODUCED NEUROSIS AS A CAUSE OF PEDERASTY BY PARKER ROSSMAN

The following is one of the sections of the fourth chapter of Dr. Parker Rossman’s Sexual Experience Between Men and Boys (originally published in 1976), entitled "Why Do They?", introduced here, and intended to explain why in general some men desire boys, though in practice limited in its evidence to what was then recent in countries with a Judaeo-Christian tradition.

Socially Produced Neurosis

Ollendorff[1] suggests that among the Trobriand Islanders the erotic potential of each child is conditioned by that society to move normally into heterosexual channels because little boys are allowed erotic play with little girls without any prohibitions or anxiety. The boy who has an active sex life with girls from a young age, he says, along with warm and supportive understanding from adults, does not need to develop substitute fantasies, neuroses, or sexual deviance. When this heterosexual experience does not evolve naturally and freely a person’s sexual orientation and preferences can be redirected as suggested by the following cases. One pederast said: “I grew up in a family, neighborhood and society which failed to encourage my normal sexual development. As a result, as I see it, I was given the wrong erotic diet as a child and I grew up with a sweet tooth which I can’t escape now, even if it endangers my health. I refer, of course, to secret types of sex play which developed habits and inclinations which society now tells me are wrong.” Another says: “I am a pederast because I had spent so much of my youth in reform schools where, in isolation from girls when I was sixteen, seventeen and older, the younger boys became more and more attractive erotically. I see now that many teenagers grow up influenced by sex starvation more than anyone seems to notice.” Another said: “If I’m neurotic - and I guess everyone is in modern society - the attraction I feel for boys is clearly the result of my being raised to view all sex as dirty and sinful. An anti-sex society twisted my erotic desires out of their normal shape, so that my preferences found new channels when what should have been permitted was forbidden.”

Another pederast said: “My psychiatric training and analysis gives me confidence that I was an average and normal boy, perhaps a bit sexier than most, which caused me to chase girls more and younger than most. Because I was over and over punished for sexual overtures to girls, and was made to feel guilty for sexual thoughts about girls, after puberty I turned to boys my own age to meet my sexual needs. I found that boys could be great fun - especially young teenagers, who, before their growing spurt, could be as erotically charming as girls. Evidently through this happy sex play with boys I confirmed some polymorphous tastes, continuing and keeping alive the tendency in all of us to have diverse normal sexual interests and capacities. Few young people are allowed to grow in sexually healthy ways, and as we are all molded by society, I evidently got put in the wrong mold - that of a pederast.”

[1] Robert Ollendorff, The Juvenile Homosexual Experience, New York: Julian Press, 1966, pp. 12-13, 44-46. [Author’s footnote]

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