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As my grandmother would have said: If you are going to think about sex all day anyway, you might as well get a job at it. And I have now been fortunate enough to have been engaged in sex research, teaching, writing, and training new scientists, for over 25 years. The main question driving pretty much my entire career has been: What makes people sexually interested in what they're sexually interested in?
My own training in psychology was at Boston University (M.A.) and McGill University (PhD). Since then, my appointments have included Associate Professor (University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine), Editor-in-Chief (Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment, official journal of the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers), and Senior Scientist (Centre for Addiction and Mental Health). The research area to which I have been able to contribute the most has been the role of the brain in human sexual interests, especially atypical sexualities. Yet, after publishing more than 100 peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and other works, I have still barely even scratched the surface about the many important and fascinating questions there are. More about my team's work and our results is under My Research. |
University of Toronto; Toronto, Canada
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There is no shortage of public interest about sex, and as a scientist and teacher, I am a firm believer in sharing that science with audiences widely, translating it into everyday language and helping society to integrate it into effective public policy. For news and and commentary about the world of sex research, visit Sexology Today! or follow on twitter @JamesCantorPhD.
My fact-checking of the American Academy of Pediatrics policy statement now downloadable as a .pdf.
“The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recently published a policy statement entitled, Ensuring comprehensive care and support for transgender and gender-diverse children and adolescents (Rafferty, 2018). It was quite a remarkable document: Although almost all clinics and professional associations in the world use what’s called the watchful waiting approach to helping GD children, the AAP statement rejected that consensus, endorsing only gender affirmation. With AAP taking such a dramatic departure from other professional associations, I was immediately curious about what evidence led them to that conclusion. (Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and all that.) As I read the works on which they based their policy however, I was pretty surprised…rather alarmed, actually: These documents simply did not say what AAP claimed they did. In fact, the references that AAP cited as the basis of their policy instead outright contradicted that policy, repeatedly endorsing watchful waiting. ”
“The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recently published a policy statement entitled, Ensuring comprehensive care and support for transgender and gender-diverse children and adolescents (Rafferty, 2018). It was quite a remarkable document: Although almost all clinics and professional associations in the world use what’s called the watchful waiting approach to helping GD children, the AAP statement rejected that consensus, endorsing only gender affirmation. With AAP taking such a dramatic departure from other professional associations, I was immediately curious about what evidence led them to that conclusion. (Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and all that.) As I read the works on which they based their policy however, I was pretty surprised…rather alarmed, actually: These documents simply did not say what AAP claimed they did. In fact, the references that AAP cited as the basis of their policy instead outright contradicted that policy, repeatedly endorsing watchful waiting. ”
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CBC documentary:
I, pedophile http://www.cbc.ca/firsthand/episodes/i-pedophile “Kim Iverson leads an eerie demonstration. She’s a mother of two who cannot let her children play in the front yard without the lingering sensation that they are being watched. Today she confronts her nightmare, and uses a loud speaker to torment the convicted sex offender confined under house arrest. Inside his home, he wears an ankle bracelet that tracks his every move. To Kim, that is not enough. She’ll do whatever it takes to see three time offender James Conway relocated. |
(Courtesy CBC/Radio-Canada)
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“Demystifying the cause of pedophilia is charismatic expert Dr. James Cantor. Years of research and MRI scans have led Dr. Cantor to his groundbreaking yet controversial hypothesis that pedophilia is caused by a developmental disorder, resulting in a literal cross-wiring in the brain.
“We follow Dr. Cantor to Germany, where Prevention Project Dunkelfeld (Dark Field) is the only facility in the world offering truly anonymous treatment for people attracted to children. Its founder, Dr. Klaus Michael Beier reflects on the overwhelming turnout to the program, their expansion to multiple locations throughout Germany, and that, by Dunkelfeld’s estimates, one out of a hundred men are born pedophiles. Attending Dunkelfeld therapy sessions, a former school teacher named Anton walks out a changed man after learning to empathize with his victim, an 11-year old girl.
“Enter the underground world of pedophiles, and the maverick doctors who fight on their behalf.”
“We follow Dr. Cantor to Germany, where Prevention Project Dunkelfeld (Dark Field) is the only facility in the world offering truly anonymous treatment for people attracted to children. Its founder, Dr. Klaus Michael Beier reflects on the overwhelming turnout to the program, their expansion to multiple locations throughout Germany, and that, by Dunkelfeld’s estimates, one out of a hundred men are born pedophiles. Attending Dunkelfeld therapy sessions, a former school teacher named Anton walks out a changed man after learning to empathize with his victim, an 11-year old girl.
“Enter the underground world of pedophiles, and the maverick doctors who fight on their behalf.”
Press
- National Post: Researchers tout rehab, not prison; Man who desired to be eaten by a large, dominant woman;
- Global News: Sex addiction on the rise, more women than ever affected; "I thought I'd be that way forever"
- CBC: "Born that way?"; Virtuous Pedophiles group gives support therapy cannot
- BBC: The Prevalence of paedophilia; The Nature of Pedophilia; Analysing the child sex offender
- CNN: Newsroom, A link between homosexuality & Church abuse? Newsroom, "Do pedophiles deserve sympathy?"
- New York Times: When a rapist's weapon is a pill
- Washington Post: The Jared Fogle case: Why we understand so little about child sex abuse
- L.A. Times: Boy Scouts board delays vote on lifing ban on gays; Researchers taking a different view of pedophilia"
- Dan Savage's Savage Love: "The Ethical Sadist," "Bro's," Podcast, Podcast