Moral Panic summary of end of article

The article is challenging the belief that others do not talk about it, if they were they would be thought as defending paedophiles. Therefore this article makes a clear discussion about paedophilia and how it has an increased horror to it by a moral panic.

Moral panic does not mention masculinity or even treatment for paedophiles, the media are only concerned with locking them up. The article states that nobody has dared to mention it is a mental illness suggesting that people are afraid to talk about it and perhaps defend paedophiles.

Paedophiles are associated with evil connotations such as : perverted, twisted, monstrous and sex maniacs. The definition of a paedophile however, is not clear. Panic is created because of the connotations it is linked with.

Megan’s’ law was passed immediately in 1996 in New Jersey after she was raped and murdered by a released sex offender. Individual states had already made laws to keep sex offenders in prison when due to be released. But when Megan kanka, a 7 year old girl, was killed it became a national law.

The article also states that the panic is unnecessary. Parents don’t need to be anxious about everyday events when concerning paedophiles. In fact more sexual abuse comes from within or around the family. (La Fontaine, 1990) The construction of paedophilia misrecognises real threats to children (McNeish and Roberts, 1995) -children are more likely to get harmed in accidents then by adult abuse, showing parent worry is panicked by the media which exaggerates the issue.

Paedophilia discourse misrecognises paedophiles as real men and instead they are a small minority who are different to normal men.