#pedophilia I don't have anything to say about the broader situation (besides the fact that it's horrifying and Danny and Grace have acted with deep integrity) but I do want to address Seabolt's attempt to compare pedophilia and OCD, because it's both wrong and extremely damaging https://twitter.com/graceelavery/status/1278313578492309505

OCD comes in various formats, but the specific one Seabolt seems to be citing here is "Pure O" OCD, in which the sufferer experiences unwanted intrusive thoughts of harming someone - a partner, a parent, a child - and obsessively ruminates on these thoughts.

Some Pure O sufferers experience intrusive sexual thoughts about children. The key difference between this and pedophilia is that the Pure O patient has NO DESIRE to /act/ on these thoughts. In fact, they're horrified by them and avoid any situation where they might be triggered.

Pure O is sometimes treated with exposure therapy, under the guidance of a licensed therapist and after the patient has been evaluated and determined to not pose an actual risk to children. This is not the situation that's been described at Menlo Church.

For starters, the volunteer who John Ortberg was treating with "exposure therapy" was never evaluated by any psychiatrist. If he does suffer from Pure O, there's no way to determine that, because no one with the expertise to say so has actually examined him.

But what I find more troubling is the idea that he would - and has - deliberately sought out situations in which he was in close, unsupervised proximity to children. A Pure O sufferer would NEVER DO THAT.

Pure O is marked by avoidance - a parent being afraid to bathe their child, a teacher quitting their job because they don't want to harm their students. This is, by all accounts, not what happened here. The volunteer put himself in close proximity to the very children he desired.

The irresponsibility displayed by the entire Ortberg family (sans Danny) is flabbergasting, but it's especially revolting to me as an OCD patient that they and their followers have attempted to use OCD as a shield against criticism of their behaviour.

Pure O patients are tormented by thoughts of harming a child, but they do not actually want to /do/ it. Once you're talking about someone who desires children sexually, you are not talking about OCD. You are talking about pedophilia. And pedophiles are not safe around kids.

John Ortberg has a phD in clinical psychology. He knows all of this. His behaviour indicates that he willfully ignored everything he knew about psychology in order to cover for his son. He should, at minimum, be removed from his leadership position at the church.

I truly have sympathy for people who were born with desires that they did not ask for. But it's that person's responsibility to act in a manner that reduces the possibility of harm. John Ortberg III did the opposite of that. And his parents and sister aided and abetted.

AND the idea that the Ortbergs truly believed that Johnny wasn't a threat is belied by the fact that they apparently made sure he never spent unsupervised time with certain children. Those children, they wanted to protect. The other kids? Sucks to be them.