Pedophilia: Laws Fighting Nature Instead of Coping with It
![handle is hein.journals/swulr43 and id is 267 raw text is:
PEDOPHILIA: LAWS FIGHTING NATURE
INSTEAD OF COPING WITH IT
Andrea Friedman*
Left-handed people or lefties have been discriminated against
throughout history. They have been ostracized by society, had their
dominant hand tied behind their back, and even burned as witches.' In fact,
the words for left or left-handed in many languages have negative
connotations. For example, the word for left in Latin is sinistre, from
which the word sinister is derived. Yet being a lefty is not a choice, people
are born left-handed. In fact, handedness is directly linked to dominant
hemispheres in the brain. Historically, efforts have been made to convert
lefties into righties, such as forcing them to learn to write with their right
hand.' However, despite these efforts, natural lefties continue to prefer the
left hand.
So what does left-handedness have in common with pedophilia? Well,
the answer is actually that the two have a lot in common with each other. It
all comes down to science. Recent research indicates that pedophilia, a
sexual attraction to pre-pubescent children, is actually a biological condition
in the brain that individuals are born with, similar to handedness.7 In
* Federal Judicial Law Clerk, Central District of California; Member, California State Bar;
J.D., Southwestern Law School; B.A. Syracuse University, S.I. Newhouse School of Public
Communication. The author would like to thank Professor Catherine Carpenter at Southwestern
Law School for her guidance and support.
1. ED WRIGHT, A LEFT-HANDED HISTORY OF THE WORLD 4 (2007).
2. Id.
3. Id.
4. Id. at 9; see also discussion infra Part I.
5. Stefan Kloppel et al., Can Left-Handedness be Switched? Insights from an Early Switch
of Handwriting, 33 J. NEUROSCIENCE 7847, 7847 (2007), available at http://www.jneurosci.org/
content/27/29/7847.full.pdf.
6. Id.
7. James Cantor, Lecture to the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers in
Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Brain Research and Pedophilia, What it Means for Assessment,
Treatment, and Policy (Nov. 2011), available at http://vimeo.com/33793616 [hereinafter Cantor
Lecture].](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/swulr43&div=13&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Pedophilia: Laws Fighting Nature Instead of Coping with It
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