It’s such an ugly word. Like “phlegm” or “fetus”. Just the word itself makes people cringe with disgust and that’s the response lawmakers and media want when talking about registered citizens, so “pedophile” is often what they call them. Unfortunately, it’s not accurate at all when describing most sex offenders.

Pedophiles (as defined by the fifth Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) are individuals who are preferentially or solely sexually attracted to prepubescent children, generally 13 years or less.

Also, as we all know, not all pedophiles are child sex offenders and not all child sex offenders are pedophiles. In fact very FEW sex offenders are pedophiles.The 2008 study by Michael C. Seto, PhD, titled “Pedophilia and Sexual Offending Against Children: Theory, Assessment, and Intervention” found that less than 5% of registrants would be diagnosed as pedophiles.

Same with the word “predator”. It’s used interchangeably with offender, but those who know, know that very few registrants are “predators”, many don’t even have a direct victim. Or “child molester” for that matter… some registrants’ crimes had nothing to do with children or no physical contact (or even attempted) at all!

In the past year or so, we started using the phrase “registered citizen” to describe someone on the sex offender registry. It’s not just that it’s a less offensive phrase, but it’s because it more accurately describes the individual. Since the media and politicians can’t seem to comprehend the difference and use names like “pedophile” and “predator” synonymous with “sexual offender”, we need to take the opportunity to correct this misinformation.

When you see an article online where the word “pedophile”, “child molester” or “predator” is used to describe all registered citizens, please take a moment to post a comment underneath correcting it.