Facing the subject we once wouldn’t mention

                  by Kenneth Bagnell

      The shocking and sad destruction of the reputation of Canada’s great filmmaker, the late Claude Jutra – famed for his world renowned work Mon Oncle Antoine – will not soon go away. A recent book claims – it could be wrong – that in his early years he was an active pedophile who exploited young boys, thereby diminishing (or permanently wrecking as psychiatrists long ago in university told me)  the child’s future normalcy. This shocking revelation, has, but one positive aspect and I now explore it: what is its cause? And what is its cure?  

     Some positive possibilities are now emerging, more than we realize. Today, in the wake of the Jutra revelation is a good day to reflect on them. The possibilities stem from research done right here in Canada, overseen by a world renowned psychiatrist and psychologist named Dr. James Cantor at Toronto’s renowned CAMH (the Center for Addiction and Mental Health), a huge hospital. Dr. Cantor is held in high international esteem as a world leading “sexologist” studying pedophilia. The New York Times referred to him not long ago by commenting that past analysis of this disorder claimed it was a psychological disorder triggered by an early life trauma. I thought so. Wrong. The Times reports that many experts now see it as a biologically rooted condition that doesn’t change orientation, a revelation confirmed by a decade of research by Dr. Cantor at the Center for Addiction and Mental Health.

      Cantor, in a recent lecture at a meeting of The Association for the Treatment of Sex abusers looked back deep into medical history to the view of a Austrian-Germanic psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebbing, expressed in an 1886 book “Psychopathia Sexualis,” which reasoned that homosexuality and pedophilia, were conditions provoked by a mental state that ultimately were instigated by a brain disorder. False says Cantor after a great deal of study on men. His enormous research on males defines various “paraphilia” inclinations as pathologies that evolved because of a specific mental state. That in turn is traceable to a brain disorder that, obviously, is nobody’s fault. (Any who are still pure puritans of the 1800s, please skip this coming sentence even though it’s very relevant.) In his scientific anatomical research (with convicted sex offenders) Cantor and staff showed images of nude children (in an exercise called “phallometry”) while a scientific device measured blood flow rates toward the penis. It is thus able to measure sexual desire in almost 100 percent of the men tested. (To describe the revelations discovered by the brain research would require a thesis, but it can be said that pedophilic attraction to children cannot be snuffed out. It’s claimed that from one percent to five percent of men are pedophilic.

    For those interested in a summation of why and what region of the brain Dr. Cantor and colleagues focus on, the answer is complex but understandable by lay people. In a paper he prepared called Understanding MRI Research on Pedophilia, he says this: “The CAMH team compared large groups of pedophilic men with men who committed nonsexual offences; we found that pedophilic men had significantly less tissue in two widespread regions of the brain; these two regions (called the superior ‘fronto-occipital fasciculus’ and the right ‘arcuate fasciculus’) are not at all what previous researchers had expected to find (including us). Instead of being in charge of any specific function of the brain (such as self-control or sexual response), these particular brain structures are made up of ‘cables’ (or ‘axons’) that connect other brain regions. This suggests the possibility that sexual attraction to children versus adults is not caused by some difference in any one region of the brain, but in the way that multiple regions work together….” He concludes his paper with a hopeful note: “Although there are a great many technical challenges to conducting such research, I feel confident in predicting that we will see such studies coming out within the next few years.”

      These possibilities may be more accessible if a difficult attitudinal barrier is set aside: in today’s culture of sexual diversity, the pedophile is the most loathed but maybe, if we knew, some of them are not just idealistic but honorable. We should have, now that we have a more open society, a realization of the personal misery and self-loathing many men go through because of just one charge of sexual interference with a child. In recent times, a small group of men, all pedophiles – what a word! – have taken a stand that will not only help them but could help society. They’ve take an oath never to make a move on a child. They belong to a credible organization called Virtuous Pedophiles, which has a policy that each member acknowledges he has a sexual attraction to children but emphatically does not follow the attraction. The reason: each one believes it is wrong today and wrong forever.

        Yet another contribution to our social culture and its welfare comes from Toronto’s renowned scholar, James Cantor. He supports the group along with other scholars and is its advocate. As he has put it in support:  “It is hard to imagine someone who would feel more isolated than someone who recognizes he is sexually interested in children. In my experience, it is in those phases of greatest desperation that a pedophile is most likely to do something desperate, risking harm to a child. Mutual support among people who share the same daily battle with their own desires can go a long way in addressing the extreme isolation, serving as a potential layer of protection, helping pedophiles to keep their behaviors under control.” A group like that is not only good for them but for us and our attitude to them. I wonder if it might helped the renowned Claude Jutra. If so we might not have to put up with the rude acts and hateful words directed at a very gifted and maybe very good Canadian.

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