Jared Fogle has no easy road to recovery, sex addiction experts say

Indystar    Identifying those with pedophilic or sex addiction, as well as victims of sexual abuse, can be challenging

Bill Cosby. Josh Duggar. Dennis Hastert. And now Jared Fogle.

In the past few months, allegations surrounding these men and sexual activity with minors, male and female, have surfaced in headline after headline. In the latest, Indiana’s own Fogle just agreed to plead guilty to charges that include having sex with teenagers and distributing pornography involving children as young as 6 years old.[...]

Researchers delving into the personality characteristics of those who engage in online deviate behavior, of which child pornography is one type, know that you can rarely predict offenders.

There is no one type of person that engages in child pornography, no one profile,” said Kathryn Seigfried-Spellar, an assistant professor in the department of computer and information technology at Purdue University who studies this area. “It’s because the behavior itself is very dynamic and complex.”

Some people will download child pornography but never try to contact a minor for a sexual encounter, she said. Others might network, share information and reach out to children. Now researchers have noted another category — those who contact minors online but have no intention of ever meeting them in person.[...]

Although people who do jail time for viewing child pornography have low recidivism rates, the same is not true for those who contact their victims, Seigfried-Spellar said. [...]

“You cannot be cured of this,” she said. “It is like any other addiction. You can learn how to manage it ... but you have to work on this every day of your life when you have this compulsion.”