USA Today Calls Pedophilia The Most 'Misunderstood Condition' in America

USA Today ran an article on Monday that described pedophilia as “among the most misunderstood” conditions in American society, diminishing pedophilia as “inappropriate,” while it promoted “destigmatizing the attraction.”

“Pedophilia is viewed as among the most horrifying social ills. But scientists who study the sexual disorder say it is also among the most misunderstood,” opens the article, by Alia E. Dastagir. “Researchers who study pedophilia say the term describes an attraction, not an action, and using it interchangeably with ‘abuse’ fuels misperceptions” about pedophiles.

"Not all people who sexually abuse children are pedophiles. Some pedophiles never abuse children, experts say, and some people who sexually abuse children do not sexually prefer them, but use them as a surrogate for an adult partner. They may be disinhibited and anti-social, with impulse control problems."

"There are child molesters and pedophiles. If you think of Venn diagrams, there's a lot of overlap," it goes on. "There are the people who are sexually attracted to children ... (and then) there are some people who molest kids who are not pedophiles. They molest kids because of anger. They molest kids because they're scared of adult women. They molest kids to get revenge, but they don't actually have an age preference for prepubescent children."

“When most of the public thinks of pedophilia, they assume it’s synonymous with child sexual abuse. A pedophile is an adult who is sexually attracted to children, but not all pedophiles abuse kids, and some people who sexually abuse kids are not pedophiles,” the paper told its readers via social media.

“The Internet is forever a******s good try on the delete tho!” wrote Donald Trump Jr. on Twitter. “To me (and probably anyone who has been watching) this is nothing more than the first step of trying to normalize this kind of behavior.”