The arbiters of desire and the stepchildren of nature: a controversy on the psychiatric classification of pedophilia

Abstract

The article discusses the original psychiatric classification of pedophilia and investigates the scientific controversy surrounding its pathologization. “Pedophilia” emerged as a medical category in psychiatry, within the classification of “sexual perversions,” now referred to as “paraphilias.” The article examines the category as it appears in the 5th edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), published in 2013, using a documentary research of 69 articles from the period 2002–2015 that express the debates around the establishment of this classification. The approach uses “controversy as method” (Giumbelli,; Latour). A central controversy regarding this diagnostic category is analyzed, specifically the debate over whether pedophilia should be included or excluded from psychiatric classification, that is, whether it should be defined as a condition of sexuality per se or as a mental disorder within the sphere of sexuality. The arguments used by representative authors from different thought collectives and styles are identified and analyzed. “Controversy as method” is used to investigate the forces at play in the political decisions concerning a manual of national and international outreach.

Keywords
Pedophilia; controversy; DSM; pathologization