1st of May

New York Times – A Conversation With: Psychiatrist Dinesh Bhugra, Expert on Deviant Sexual Behavior


Q.

How can we explain sexual attraction to children in India?

A.

Work done by an American sociologist, Vern Bullough, divides cultures into ‘sex positive’ and ‘sex negative’ cultures. Sex positive cultures are those where sex is seen as a positive activity where people enjoy sex, and procreation is seen as a byproduct rather than the main function. In sex negative societies it is the other way around: sex is purely for procreation and not for pleasure. What he said was that Indian culture was sex positive for centuries, but post-Mughal and post-British rule it became much more sex negative.

This indicates that sex is not about pleasure but about control and power. Particularly for men who come from poorer backgrounds, it could be the only way to demonstrate their power, by taking control of young girls, of women and of children.

But it is also true that there are people who are almost sort of biologically attracted to younger children. Nobody has come out and said that a brain lesion is what causes it, but there is some suggestion that there are neural networks in the brain which do not function properly in such cases.

Read the full article