I got in touch with Amy Phillips of the excellent 50 Minute Hour and asked for her opinion on the paedophilia issue (for no more sensible reason than she generally has clever things to say). She responded with this:

Interesting piece. My main comment would be that I think you need to draw a stronger distinction between pedophiles who have in the past hurt children and those who merely have fantasies or sexual thoughts about children. I think that the best way to deal with pedophilia is a combination of intensive therapy for the latter group and jail time for the former (criminal) group as a punishment/deterrent for acting on perfectly legal, if "deviant" thoughts. There needs to be a punishment for hurting another person, especially a child unable to defend her/himself. On the other hand, you're right, locking people up isn't the answer, and we need intensive medical and theraputic treatment for both child molesters and people who think it might be fun to someday molest a child. It's a tough issue. I've heard, by the way, that a lot of people are having success with a new class of drugs designed to reign in the sex drive. It's not a perfect solution, but for a person who feels the need to hurt kids and doesn't want to anymore (many pedophiles feel terrible about their tendencies and would do almost anything not to want to molest), it may be the best solution.

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