Are paedophiles born or made? Forensic psychiatrist reveals the dark truth
Dr Sohom Das is a forensic psychiatrist, from London, who also runs an eponymous YouTube channel. He shares content about crime, mental health conditions, and psychology, among other topics.
His previous video topics include how having ADHD can affect your love life, why women are more likely to binge watch true crime than men, and six reasons why female prison officers have sex with inmates.
In this clip, titled Are you born a pedophile?, he discussed whether the crimes are due to nature or nurture.
According to the American Psychological Society's dictionary: 'Paedophilia, in which sexual acts or fantasies involving prepubertal children are the persistently preferred or exclusive method of achieving sexual excitement.
'The children are usually many years younger than the pedophile [...] Sexual activity may consist of looking and touching but may include intercourse, even with very young children. Pedophilia is rarely seen in women.'
Speaking in the video, the expert said: 'Are you born a paedophile? Well, essentially, no, but the answer is quite complicated, because it's both nature and nurture.'
Dr Das went on to explain that while people 'might have inherent, actual preferences [...] at the same time, external events or scenarios can massively increase the risk'.
According to the psychiatrist, those who have suffered sexual assault themselves are most at risk.
Research released in 2024 showed the staggering scale of the online sexual exploitation and abuse of children, suggesting that more than 300 million are victims every year.
In what marked the first global estimate of the scale of the crisis, researchers at the University of Edinburgh found one in eight, or 12.6 per cent, of the world's children have been victims of non-consensual talking, sharing and exposure to sexual images and video in the past year, amounting to about 302 million young people.
In addition, 12.5 per cent of children globally (300 million) are estimated to have been subject in the past year to online solicitation, such as unwanted sexual talk which can include non-consensual sexting, unwanted sexual questions and unwanted sexual act requests by adults or other youths.
Offences can also take the form of 'sextortion', where predators demand money from victims to keep images private, to abuse of AI deepfake technology.
While problems exist in all parts of the world, the research suggests the United States is a particularly high-risk area.
The university's Childlight initiative – which aims to understand the prevalence of child abuse – includes a new global index, Into The Light, which found one in nine men in the US (almost 14 million) admitted online offending against children at some point.
Surveys found seven per cent of British men, or 1.8 million, admitted the same, as did 7.5 per cent of men in Australia.
The research also found many men admitted they would seek to commit physical sexual offences against children if they thought it would be kept secret.
Childlight chief executive Paul Stanfield said: 'This is on a staggering scale that in the UK alone equates to forming a line of male offenders that could stretch all the way from Glasgow to London – or filling Wembley Stadium 20 times over.
'Child abuse material is so prevalent that files are on average reported to watchdog and policing organisations once every second.
'This is a global health pandemic that has remained hidden for far too long. It occurs in every country, it's growing exponentially, and it requires a global response.
'We need to act urgently and treat it as a public health issue that can be prevented. Children can't wait'.
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