Feminine pedophilia

clinical and social drama of the pedophile is marked by his active movements, by the passage to the 
act of a disturbed mind that has started to fall ill in its first years of life and with a history in which 
no one could intervene. 
This thesis is formed by two parts: a general part, formed by four chapters, on which it is explained  
what is pedophilia; a specific part, also formed by four chapters, which studies and analyzes the 
feminine pedophilia in particular; an experimental part in which it is investigated, through an 
informative questionnaire, the myths and beliefs that hide feminine pedophilia behind a dangerous 
halo of “non existence”. 
General part: What is pedophilia? 
In the first chapter it is described the historical evolution of pedophilia, giving prominence to the 
fact that sexual abuse of minors has always existed and assumes a different meaning according to 
the historical period and the dominating culture. 
In the second chapter it is described the definition of this pathology, its peculiarities of “hostile 
love” and its diffusion. 
In the third chapter it is described a survey about the most significant pathogenic hypothesis and 
about the various diagnostic criteria for pedophilia. 
Finally, in the fourth chapter, it is described the pedophiliac argumentations regarding their “special 
love” towards children, so reminding the importance to know in depth the “pedophiliac thought” in 
order to find an effective strategy in the struggle against this terrible social evil. 
Specific part: feminine pedophilia  
In the first chapter there is above all a description of the principal factors that obstruct and/or 
prevent the identification, in the public imagery, of the woman as a possible and potential 
pedophile; subsequently there is an examination of the women’s movement from a passive position 
to an active position, especially in the sexual sphere, with the connection to the particular form, 
primarily feminine, called pre-pedophilia; finally I examined the various aspects of feminine 
pedophilia: familiar or extra familiar, on-line, with handicapped victims and in satanic cult. 
In the second chapter I tried to outline an “identikit” of the female pedophile analyzing her 
personality, with the relative psychological and psychopathological aspects, examining the 
seductive strategies she uses, the principles of selection of the victims and finally the techniques 
used to keep the victims subdued. 
The third chapter is dedicated to the victim, to the identification of the various indicators of sexual 
abuse (cognitive, physical, behavioral and emotional), which recognition is essential for a sudden 
intervention, and to the consequences, at short and long term, of the abuse suffered. The chapter 
ends with the analysis of the phenomenon of pedo-pornography and of minor prostitution. 
 7
In the fourth and last chapter it is proposed a panoramic of the possible practical ways of prevention 
and intervention orientated to all actors of the abuse drama (abuser, victim, family, society). 
The variety of the proposed intervention recalls from one side the complexity of the preventive 
themes about pedophilia, but on the other side allows to aim to a plurality of intervention to be 
carried out and that shall encourage a culture of a minor sexual abuse able to transform this event 
from private or familiar into a problem of public health involving the whole society. 
Experimental part: informative questionnaire on feminine pedophilia 
This work intends to investigate the complex web of knowledges, myths and beliefs delineating and 
characterizing, in public imagery, the figure of the pedophiliac woman. The purpose of this inquiry 
has been to know exactly what are the principal myths that may “protect” and hide this pathology in 
its feminine connotation reducing the possibility that it may be recognized and come out into the 
open. The elimination of this “collective refusal” shall be the purpose of various preventive 
interventions, which are due to broadcast a correct information in order to protect the psycho-
physical well being of the child and to promote a serene childhood. 
 8
FIRST PART 
 
WHAT IS PEDOPHILIA? 
 
CHAPTER ONE 
 
1. PEDOPHILIA IN CENTURIES 
Sexual abuse on minors has always existed in every human group, therefore it is not to be 
considered as an historical accident but is to be written and read inside the social and cultural 
relationship, assuming different meanings according to the related historical period and 
dominating culture […]. The different meaning which the pedophile relationship assumes and its 
historical relativity leaves out of consideration the fact that there is the steady presence of a 
minimum common denominator, i.e. the dissymmetry existing in the relationship between the adult 
and the child (or the adolescent). This dissymmetry is constituted in any case as a hinge of a 
relationship of abuse, inside which it is determined the difference of power which any exchanged or 
smuggled passive consensual acquiescence may annul or reduce.
1
 
1.1. Pedophilia in ancient Greek 
The phenomenon of sexual activity made by adults towards new generations has always existed, 
handing on in centuries, and has been expressed in remote and different cultures and societies. 
The term pedophilia derives from Greek and is made up by the word paìs, paidòs, which means 
child/young boy and the word filia which means love. The sexual culture in Greek citizens in the V 
and IV century a.c. kept in high consideration an idealized form of pedophilia, which corresponded 
with the etymology of the word paidòfilis (i.e. “lover of children”) and that even had the meaning of 
educational relationship in youth, since the ideal of beauty perfectly corresponded with the 
esthetical ideal of the young boy
2
.  
The tie between a free man and an equally free boy was seen in the elite intellectual circles as the 
purest and highest form of love. The erastes was the lover, which means the one who had the 
initiative and organized the courtship; the eromenion was, instead, the loved one. The boy, object of 
love, had to be a pubescent, that is he had to be at least 12, otherwise the relationship was severely 
punished. 
                                                 
1
 Schinaia C. 2001 “Pedofilia, pedofilie. La psicoanalisi e il mondo del pedofilo” Bollati Boringheri, Torino. 
2
 Jaria A. Capri P. 1987 “La pedofilia: aspetti psichiatrico-fornesi e criminalogici” in Ferracuti F. (care of), Trattamento 
di criminologia, medicina criminologia e psichiatria forense, VII Giuffrè Milano. 
 9
At the beginning of the VI century a.c., the legislator Solone, which was a pederast himself, 
imposed death penalty to be applied to anyone discovered with children under the pubescent age. 
Plutarco, however, affirms that, notwithstanding the rules, sexual abuses on children under 12 by 
pedagogues and teachers shall regularly take place
3
. 
The pederast practice involved many masters of that period, among which Socrate and Platone, 
which identified the Eros as the philosophic assumption of the teaching; Eros was intended as 
desire, pleasure and love at the same time “the loved one will give himself because he desires 
education and knowledge of every kind”
4
. The pederast/pedophiliac relationship was characterized 
by rights and duties: the erastes, i.e. the lover, had the right to enjoy of a rapid pleasure and the duty 
to protect, sometimes even economically, the young boy: the eromenion, the loved one, had a 
passive role and should not enjoy directly of the sexual pleasure but was to enjoy the pleasure given 
to the other
5
; the loved one existed therefore only in function of the lover, without a psychology on 
his own but only as an object and means of pleasure. 
Saffo, a Greek poetess of the VI century a.c., was the leader of a community of young girls and was 
the mistress of the intellect and of the body; her school was in fact open to the charm of beauty and 
sex and her girls loved one another in a passionate and intense way. In Sparta, Lesbo and Milinate 
adult women used to have adolescent females as lovers, and it was common to couple with the girls 
before marriage as well as adult male used to couple with adolescent males.
6
 
1.2. Pedophilia in ancient Rome 
In ancient Rome the Greek idealization of pedophilia/pederasty faded, sex was no longer made with 
free young boys of high classes, but with young slaves, assuming most of the times the forms of 
sodomy. 
Plutarco tells that the Romans used to put a gold bulla round the neck of their sons, in order to 
avoid they be mistaken for slaves since they played naked, so protecting them by possible attempts 
of seduction. 
7
The young Roman was trained to be a conqueror from his earliest years, was trained to impose his 
will, to subjugate all and everybody, and this rule of life reflected even on the sexual ethic: “never 
with free boys”, Cicerone wrote, since in adulthood they should learn to impose and not to undergo 
other’s desires. The Lex Scatinia punished with pecuniary sanctions  the stuprum cum puero, 
obviously if the boy was free. The Greek inheritance of love for young boys was therefore 
                                                 
3
 Cantarella E. 1995 “Secondo natura". La bisessualità nel mondo antico” Rizzoli, Milano 
4
 Platone, 1979, “Simposio” Adelphi; Milano 
5
 Picozzi M. Maggi M. 2003 “pedofilia non chiamatelo amore” Guerini e Associati, Milano 
6
 Cantarella E. 1995 “Secondo natura. La bisessualità nel mondo antico”, Rizzoli, Milano. 
7
 Focault M. 1984 “L’uso dei piaceri. Storia della sessualità 2” trad. Feltrinelli, Milano 
 10
substituted with the tendency to strength, brutality and overpowering. The pueri serviles lived in the 
same home of free children, often receiving the same education by the pater familias, but they were 
object of excitement and desire and acted as delicia to the masters and in domestic parties.
8
In the Augustan age there was a change. The pederastic relations lost their characteristic of brutality 
and social and sexual overwhelming and gained the smoother and gentle features of romantic love 
that this time had as its object even free young boys, following the Greek model that so much 
influenced Romans culture. 
In an additional note to Tre saggi sulla teoria sessuale (1905), Freud underlines that: 
The most significant difference between the romantic life of ancient times and the one we live today 
is the fact that in the past the instinct  was emphasized, on the contrary we emphasize  its object. 
The ancients exalted the instinct and were willing to ennoble with it even an inferior object, while 
we do not exalt the instinct activity in its own but we justify it only for the eminent quality of the 
object
9
. 
 
1.3. Pedophilia in the Middle Age 
This historical period is strongly pivoted on the dualism innocence-guilt, which is the constant 
object of Christianity from its earliest centuries. This dualism was at the base of the Middle Age 
pedagogic ethic, parted between the consideration of childhood as desensualized or inclined to any 
kind of vice. 
In the scripts of the Fathers of the Church the word young boy indicated imperfection and, 
according to the Saint Agostino, childhood weaknesses, such as jealousy, selfishness, avidity and 
arrogance were the winning proof of the existence of the original sin.
10
 In the Middle-Age therefore, 
more than ever, childhood was a deficiency, a not being, and an abnormality. 
According to DeMause, the history of childhood is a terrible nightmare from which we have only 
recently waken up. 
11
Low, much too low is the degree of attention shown for the child in this historical period; the child 
is often abandoned, killed, beaten, terrorized and sexually abused.  
DeMause believes that: 
The use of children as scapegoats to relieve the individual internal conflict was the route to 
maintain our physiological collective homeostasis. The ones who dare to oppose to this collective 
fantasy risked to be declared wicked and disturber of the worldwide peace. 
                                                 
8
 Becchi E. Julia D. 1996 “Storia dell’infanzia” Laterza, Bari 
9
 Freud S. 1905 “tre saggi sulla teoria sessuale” in Opere, Vol. 4 Boringhieri, Torino. 
10
 Becchi E. 1994 “I bambini nella storia”, Laterza, Roma-Bari 
11
 DeMause L. (care of) 1974. “Storia dell’infanzia” Italian translation Emme, Milano 1983 
 11
Terrible documents confirm how the young boy in the Middle Age was hardly defended, not 
recognized in his own individuality and in his own needs, forced from time to time in the role of 
victim and even in the role of protagonist of a diffused violence. Eveline Hasler has traced 
documentation regarding episodes of children that were considered possessed by the evil, and 
therefore tortured and burned alive in order to expiate their wrongs.
12
 These children were no other 
than scapegoats to give vent to lustfulness, political-religious resentments, superstitions and fears of 
an entire community.  Therefore, the sexual abuse of a child do not assume a great meaning of 
social reprobation, since it is the feeling of childhood in itself that strongly lacks in this historical 
period.
13
The finding of numerous contracts of the XIII century regarding the rent of children to masters 
proves how common was the custom of an apprenticeship in home of strangers, where normally a 
relational and sexual promiscuity was established between adults and children. This was a reality 
lived by many apprentices young boys working as “lads” or “pupils” in “adult” masters 
workshops.
14
Beyond the extra-territoriality ethic in art workshops, there are literature reports of a less sublimated 
and less invested pedophilia, according to which the streets of many towns of XIV century sprang 
up with young boys and girls selling their body.
15
As Aguglia confirms, one of the differences between pedophilia in ancient times and from Middle 
Age onwards is the money variable, that from one side is well inserting in the social economical 
context of a west getting richer and richer and more and more industrialized and, from the other 
side, will take root in the “hungry” rest of the world that will need that money more and more.
16
 
1.4. Pedophilia in the Modern and Contemporary age 
There is in these centuries an alternation of repression and tolerance towards sexuality in general: at 
the beginning of the XVI century the outbreak of syphilis brought to a period of severity and 
condemnation towards sex. In the following centuries everything changed again, there was even the 
flourishing and spreading of a form of erotic literature.
17
 Marquis de Sade published in France his 
first novels, giving his name to the sexual perversion known as Sadism.  This wave of dissoluteness 
in customs followed up in Italy with the mèmoires of Casanova, who described sexual activities 
with a great number of minors both male and female. 
                                                 
12
 Hasler E. 1997 “La strega bambina” Italian translation Longanesi Milano 1999 
13
 Ariès Pg 1960 “Padri e figli nell’Europa medievale e moderna” Italian translation Laterza, Roma-Bari. 1994 
14
 Burke P. 1979 “L’artista: momenti e aspetti” in “L’artista e il pubblico, Storia dell’arte italiana, Vol. 2 Einaudi, 
Torino. 
15
 Giallongo A. 1990 “Il bambino medievale”, Dedalo, Bari 
16
 Aguglia E. Riolo A. 1999 “La pedofilia nell’ottica psichiatrica” Il Pensiero Scientifico Editore, Roma. 
17
 Stone L. 1995 “La sessualità nella storia”, Laterza, Bari. 
 12
The Victorian age and the spreading of the Romantic thought brought to a renewed tendency to 
sexual continence and to asceticism. This tendency concerned more the woman (considered in the 
first case as the angel of the home and in the second case as an entity too pure to be contaminated 
by the sexual desire) than the man, who, on his part, felt legitimated to give vent elsewhere to his 
instincts. Prostitution flourished more than ever and it brought to new waves of syphilis and 
gonorrhea. The fear of infection of these diseases, towards which medicine was powerless, brought 
to more unhappy consequences. On one side the great request of virgin prostitutes, on the other side 
the fantasy according to which doing sex with a virgin healed syphilis. 
As the century went on, there was an increase in the request of childhood prostitution.
18
 In 1658, 
Mandelso refers cases of young girls raped at ten, eight and even six. Tardieu described a Paris in 
1800 infested by minor prostitution and in 1865 in London it was founded the Home of Leytonston 
receiving young boys and girls affected with venereal diseases. 
19
In the same period a circle of English poets, known as the “Uranians”, practiced pederasty in the 
name of the Greek tradition. 
 
1.5. Pedophilia in mythology 
Myths - narrative containers of universal fantasies and primordial anguishes, among which the 
pedophiliac ones - had a fundamental role in the avoiding of the concretization of violent fantasies 
in destructive actions and served as social prophylaxis for the connective tissue of community. 
The recurrent themes of mythology offer the image of the lonely and abandoned child, generally 
because an oracle has welcomed his birth with dire portents for him or for his family; this is the 
story of Edipo, abandoned when he was an infant on the Citerone Mountain.
20
The lonely and abandoned baby represents the loneliness of the primordial element: it is the world 
at his birth, the child reflects the image of childhood of humanity. If the divine child should survive 
to extraordinary and cruel dangers, like Zeus, or rise again from death like Dionisio, then he will 
become a hero.
21
Pedophilia/pederasty is represented in different myths and described in different forms: 
anthropophagous-incorporated, more ancient, like the Pelope myth;
22
 raped, like the myth of Laio and 
Crisippo
23
 and the modern one tied to the kidnapping like the myth of Zeus and Ganimede
24
. 
                                                 
18
 Tannahil R. 1985 “Storia dei costumi sessuali” Rizzoli, Milano. 
19
 Cunningham H. 1997 “Storia dell’infanzia XV-XX secolo” , Il Mulino, Bologna. 
20
 Rank O. 1905 “Il mito della nascita degli eroi” Trad. it. Libreria Psicoanalitica Internazionale, Nocera Superiore 1921 
21
  Pitto C. Shinaia C. 2001 “Mito e pedofilia” in Shinaia 2001. 
22
 Pelope was the son of Tantalo, king of Lidia. Tantalo in order to thank the Gods for the invitation at their table, 
offered them the meat of his son Pelope, cut in to pieces and cooked for them. When the Gods discovered the fact they 
were horrified by this cruelty and had a furious but reparative reaction: they give life to Pelope again and condemned 
Tantalo to eternal hunger and thirst. Pelope grew up as a very powerful and cruel man so much to kill and cut in to 
pieces Stifalo, king of Arcadia, reproducing in this way the same cruel act made by his father. (Ferrari A. 1999 
 13
Kidnapping for love is strict to the fantasies of appropriation of children’s beauty and the myth of eternal 
youth: in fact the kidnapped boy shall become adult in order not the break the spell. In the same way the 
children seduced by pedophiles in our times, even if they do not suffer a manifest violence, remain blocked 
in their psychical development 
25
.In fact, as Calasso reminds, to seduce, in the Greek language phtherein, 
also means to destroy.
26
  
 
1.6. Pedophilia in tales 
 
We are tales. We are made of tales. The courses of our lives may be seen as tales, as well as the 
fears to be overcome, the “monsters and witches” to fight and  the proofs to be faced.
27
 
Like myths, tales contain the more significant aspects of fantasies and emotions; they represent a 
way to be in contact with the same and therefore help us to face them. 
Tales represent a heritage for children and adults and may be important and reassuring instruments 
through which prevent or discover abuse. They tell, in a symbolic and profound form, about 
problems and uneasiness typical of the journey of infanthood and childhood, about destructive traps 
set up for the little “travelers” by the people with a witch or ogre heart. 
Unlike myths and legends, tales generally do not have a tragic epilogue and always propose an 
escape. They tell about the origin, the reasons, the development and the epilogue (often a happy 
ending) of painful and dark stories. The child that in reality lives these stories may identify with the 
hero or heroine that will face the monster with success. 
As Eric Berne
28
 demonstrate in a meticulous research of similarities between real clinical cases and 
tales, the story may be seen as an instrument to communicate to the child “news stories” of our 
days, facing reality in an honest way without hiding behind a sweetening as well as damaging 
façade.  
                                                                                                                                                                  
“dizionario della mitologia greca e latina” UTET Torino). This story teaches how the violence received in childhood 
becomes active violence in maturity, as it seems to happen in sexually abused children, which often becomes children 
abuser. 
23
 Laio, son of Labdaco and king of Tebe, was forced to escape from its reign. He took shelter in Pelope and fell in love 
with his son, Crisippo. Taking advantage of the interest of the boy in the carriage of carts, he kidnapped him and raped 
him. Ashamed, Crisippo committed suicide. The son of Pelope was avenged by the Gods. In Delphi, Apollo made the 
oracle talk: Laio is destined to procreate a son that will kill him. Laio will be punished by his son Edipo, in the same 
way he caused the death of Pelope’s son (Ferrari A. 1999 “dizionario di mitologia greca e latina” UTET Torino)  
24
 Zeus, dressed with eagle feathers, kidnapped Ganimede who became his cupbearer and lover. In exchange Ganimede 
received the gift of immortality and his father received two of Zeus’ immortal horses and a gold vine branch (Ferrari A. 
1999 “dizionario di mitologia greca e latina” UTET Torino) We evince in this myth the themes of the exchange and 
possession of the boy that passes from one owner to another with a consistent refund of the father. 
 
25
 PicozziM. Maggi M. 2003 “Pedofilia non chiamatelo amore” Guerini e Associati Milano. 
26
 Calasso R. 1988 “Le nozze di Cadmo e Armonia”, Adelphi, Milano 
27
 Parsi M.R. “Più furbi di cappuccetto rosso”, Arnoldo Mondatori Editore S.p.A. Milano 
28
 Berne E. 1979 “Ciao! … e poi?” Bompiani, Milano 
 14
A prototype of tale with a sexual and pedophiliac setting may be Perrault’s tale, Donkeyskin, in 
which the king, after the death of his wife, decides to marry his own daughter finding in her the 
beauty and wisdom of his dead wife. 
The girl will be helped to escape from the desire of almightiness of her father and to her own 
temptation of feeling an adult thanks to the intervention of the fairy. 
Another story with a pedophiliac setting and in particular with an oral-incorporative content is the 
Little Red Riding Wood in which the little girl, disobeying to her mother who told her to walk into 
the woods without speaking with anybody, meets the bad wolf.
29
 The story, in the Grimm 
Brothers
30
 version, has a happy ending thanks to the intervention of the hunter that opens the belly 
of the wolf and releases, still alive, the little riding red wood and his grandma, both devoured by the 
wolf. The premature sexual experience is here represented through the swallowing with strong 
destructive connotations. 
31
 
 
 
 
                                                 
29
 “Bettleheim B. 1975” Il mondo incantato, Italian translation Feltrinelli, Milano 1977 
30
 Grimm K, Grimm W. “Le fiabe del focolare” Italian translation Einaudi, Torino 
31
 Pezzoni F. Schinaia C. 2001 “Fiabe e fantasie pedofile” in Schinaia. 
 15