Cruel Attachments

The Ritual Rehab of Child Molesters in Germany

John Borneman

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9780226234076
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

There is no more seemingly incorrigible criminal type than the child sex offender. Said to suffer from a deeply rooted paraphilia, he is often considered as outside the moral limits of the human, profoundly resistant to change. Despite these assessments, in much of the West an increasing focus on rehabilitation through therapy provides hope that psychological transformation is possible. Examining the experiences of child sex offenders undergoing therapy in Germany—where such treatments are both a legal right and duty—John Borneman, in Cruel Attachments, offers a fine-grained account of rehabilitation for this reviled criminal type.Carefully exploring different cases of the attempt to rehabilitate child sex offenders, Borneman details a secular ritual process aimed not only at preventing future acts of molestation but also at fundamentally transforming the offender, who is ultimately charged with creating an almost entirely new self. Acknowledging the powerful repulsion felt by a public that is often extremely skeptical about the success of rehabilitation, he challenges readers to confront the contemporary contexts and conundrums that lie at the heart of regulating intimacy between children and adults.

Index

abandonment, 4, 28, 37, 86, 133, 134, 138, 139, 156, 172, 173

abuse: as child sex abuse, 1, 2, 3, 4, 11, 27, 32–36, 40, 41, 45–50, 52, 53, 55, 56, 58, 59, 61, 66–68, 71–86, 91, 94, 97, 99, 100, 102, 106, 107, 108, 110, 112, 121, 122, 125–27, 135, 136, 138, 139, 141–46, 152, 156, 157, 174, 176, 178, 180, 186, 189, 199, 200, 206, 211, 219, 220, 223, 228–31, 233–36; as physical abuse, 3, 16–17, 23, 45, 66, 76, 84, 85, 157, 161, 173, 184, 185, 188, 189, 192

androgen deprivation treatment (ADT), 57

Aries, Philippe, 222

assault, 54, 68, 78, 79, 85, 94, 115, 150, 228n16, 231n9

authenticity, 42, 52, 53, 141

Beech, Anthony, 93, 121, 157

Behandlung, 62, 107, 120, 128, 214, 226n7

Berkel, Irene, vii, 55, 82, 106, 118, 122, 230n1

Bion, Wilfried, 100, 102, 143, 144

Butler, ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Prolegomenon
• One / The Phenomenon of Child Molestation
• Two / Incest, the Child, and the Despotic Father
• Three / Rehabilitation of Pedophiles
• Four / Knowledgeability and the Materiality of Child Sex Abuse
• Five / Seduction and Empathy
• Six / New Germans
• Seven / Loose End
• Notes
• References
• Index