For those who may not know, I am one of the rare pedophiles that came forward for professional help. A little over five years ago now, I had worked myself into a mental place where I hated my attractions because of being abused, and I thought my attraction meant I would hurt a child. So, I tried to kill myself, and ended up in a mental ward when a friend called an ambulance. What I did not know is that there was help available, which I found out in the mental ward. Almost all of my friends still support me to this day.

From the mental ward, I got on a waiting list at the University of Minnesota’s Center for Sexual Health, which ultimately helped me understand many things about myself, pedophilia, and how professionals see a sexual attraction to children. These are professionals, by the way, that are affiliated with the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers (ATSA) and international organization dedicated to keeping children safe. They treat anti-contact pedophiles, child sex offenders (both preferential and non-preferential), victims, and people with other kinds of sexual behavior issues. Making their program work was a difficult commute, but well worth the time and money spent.

So, I feel I can speak to what kind of help a pedophile might expect by coming forward to professionals, and how professionals see mandatory reporting laws (at least in the state of Minnesota). My therapy consisted of individual meetings, and meetings with a group of people from a variety of backgrounds.

**Trigger Warning**

The remainder of this post contains descriptions of harmful thoughts that may be triggering for some people. Be prepared to stop reading if you need to.

Part One: Seeing That I Was Not Alone

The first part of the process was meeting other people who had an attraction to children, or were victims of sexual abuse (often both), who chose to be a part of the support group. I say process, because each person was in very different places with their mental health, and each person was there to support others, as well as get their own needs met. These were people I became close to, some of whom completed the therapy program, some of whom were still there when I completed what I wanted to accomplish.

There is an age-old cliche in mental health of telling people they are not alone, and I can say from experience, it is one thing to hear that, and another to see it in action with people relating to what I shared. Seeing first-hand that I am not the only pedophile who wanted help, nor the only sex abuse survivor, and to see survivors talking about their experiences, and everyone being able to relate to each other, was very powerful. It helped me break the notion that no one could understand what I was going through.

Part Two: Tackling Attraction And All Its Delusions

One of the hardest parts was looking at the different ways I was telling myself untrue things about myself, like everyone would hate me if they knew that a sexual abuse survivor was wrestling with a sexual attraction to children. Couple that with the other ideas and patterns I had… like beating myself up when I am angry, hurt, or annoyed with someone… thinking that everything is falling apart… thinking I am a failure that cannot do anything right… that I am not good enough… that no one will understand me… that I need to tackle my emotions on my own… that I need to annoy people to make sure they care and will not leave me…

None of these thoughts are helpful. Not communicating when I am feeling strong emotions is a recipe for the emotion getting stronger and does not help me deal with it. All these lies I tell myself blur the line between reality and my brain, and make it very difficult to not be depressed and anxious.

So, naturally, taking a look at my attractions involved a similar look at the things I was telling myself that were not true… that I was a monster for liking children… that I would inevitably hurt a child… that everyone would hate me if they knew… that no one could love a pedophile… that pedophilia is something I could change if I tried hard enough… none of these really addressed the reality that I do have a sexual attraction to children, and no, I cannot change it.

So, psychologically, I was a mess because I believed a lot of very harmful, very degrading things about myself. Changing some of those beliefs took time, and a long process of looking at and determining how I can challenge these beliefs. Sometimes, it was asking people for help (something no man in America is ever supposed to do, by the way, so that by itself was a challenge). Sometimes, it was by writing things out.

Part Three: Planning For Safety

The final part of therapy was putting all of what I was learning about myself and how to change what I believed into action. In other words, it was about how to care for myself when these triggering thoughts came up, and what I could do to challenge them and see myself more accurately. Some of it was addressing specific situations and what I could do to avoid the thoughts and triggers in the first place. Some of it involved looking at what emotions come up on a regular basis for me, and finding ways to avoid having those emotions come up. Some of it is looking at situations that lead to the thinking, and making sure those situations do not come up.

Regardless of the specific plan, the important thing for me was knowing my personal issues and risks and what led to the thinking that puts me in a risky mental state for beating myself up, thinking I am a monster, and that sort of thing. It was not about trying to deny my attractions, or beat myself up more for having them, it was about making sure my needs were met and my thinking was clear.

A Word About Sexual Attraction

Some might be wondering what the guidance was as far as my attractions to children were concerned.

For my situation, I needed to address the reality of things I could and could not change. My attractions are something I cannot change. What I do in response to them, however, can change. Rather than beating myself up for having fantasies, I was guided to accept them as separate from reality and move on with my day. While the ability to have a fantasy without feeling guilt or shame took some time, it is possible, and it is healthier because I ultimately spend less time thinking about my attractions and about children as a whole.

What I found was that giving the attractions less energy by accepting them, embracing them even, I ultimately spent less time thinking about children in sexual ways, so that of course makes things easier on me, and makes me less of a risk. Provided I see the distinction between fantasy and reality (which is not difficult), there is no reason for therapists — or me — to be concerned about my attractions.

A Word About Mandatory Reporting

Mandatory reporting was not something I easily understood at the beginning of therapy. My impression at the beginning was that if I shared my fears that I would hurt a child, I would go to jail. However, the reality was, they would only involve the police if I was afraid of hurting a specific child, in other words, the fear itself was not enough, they would need to be aware of a specific situation involving harm or the imminent risk of harm to a specific child in a specific location.

While mandatory reporting laws vary by location, it is safe to say that a psychologist who understands pedophilia and has worked with victims, abusers, and non-offending pedophiles, will be very familiar with what kinds of things make someone a risk for hurting a child, and thus be able to more accurately understand and apply the mandatory reporting requirements as they fit an individual’s situation. Even psychologists who are less familiar with pedophilia, sex abuse, and related issues can accurately apply the reporting requirements and refrain from outing a pedophile to the police simply for their attractions.

While not every psychologist is the same, and vetting psychologists is important to ensure they will treat you professionally, it is safe to say that the majority of professionals understand the consequences of outing someone in that manner, just as the police understand the consequences of making false arrests.

Wrapping Up

My professional therapy did not involve telling me to avoid fantasies. It did not involve a lot of discussion around risk, beyond emotion, situations, and the specific thoughts that were unhealthy for me. It involved directly addressing the negative thinking and looking at the reality that harming a child is a choice, and one I can choose not to make. I think professional therapy can seem a lot scarier for a pedophile as they are looking at it, and not every pedophile needs therapy to address the thoughts and beliefs that are not healthy for them. Many do just fine in support communities like Virtuous Pedophiles.

So, for pedophiles out there, I would say write down the ideas that make you upset. Talk to people about those ideas and get support with them. Yes, ask for help. Involve a therapist if you do not think things are getting better, and do some homework into organizations that can help.

For people that tell pedophiles to get help with their attractions… understand that those who do that will not hear what you might think they will hear from professionals who specialize in these subjects. Pedophilia is not something that can be changed with current science, and herding pedophiles onto an outcast island is neither realistic nor moral. Killing them, even more so. The best way to help pedophiles is not to bully them, silence them, troll them, isolate them, or hate them.

The best way to help pedophiles is to show compassion and support them.

The post Yes, I Did “Get help!” Already appeared first on Pedophiles About Pedophilia.

Recently, I have been working with a young man who has a sexual attraction to children (young boys) and, like me, comes from a religiously Christian background. Some of his thoughts and ideas give the impression that it is morally right for pedophiles to hate themselves for their attractions to children (the idea that pedophilia by itself is a disorder), and that they are obligated to hate child molesters for similar reasons: They are sick weirdos that deserve to be miserable. From this viewpoint, this is particularly true if the pedophile has attractions to boys, as a man, because of the supposed condemnation of homosexuality in the Bible.

As a Christian, I think this perspective needs examining, and that is the purpose of this post.

What Is The Point Of The Bible?

To begin, I need to discuss the Bible. What do you get out of reading it? To most Christians, the Bible is a source of truth, and a place to find moral guidance. However, that is not the overarching theme that runs through the Bible. No, the overarching theme of the Bible is that God cares about people and wants them to be in relationship with Him. That relationship must exist within boundaries, and that is why God provided those boundaries.

Indeed, you find the theme of love throughout the Bible in many forms, some more obvious than others. In the Old Testament, God’s love is often demonstrated through the image of a parental dictator who wants His children to do what He tells them to do for their own good. In the New Testament, God’s love is often demonstrated by sending Jesus to die on the cross for the sins of all mankind, and all we need do is rely on God and believe in His offer of salvation for our sins. That is it. That is all we have to do. It is heavily suggested that we respond to that offer and demonstrate our belief by living out Godly principles, but these “works” are not a requirement of salvation, but a natural result of that salvation.

So It Is About Love?

Yes. Even if you take the most conservative look at the Bible, you get the picture of a God who loved humans enough to send His Son to die for them on the cross, and wants humans to follow His rules. Among them is “Love others as yourself.” Hate is not a Godly perspective to have towards anything but sin, and our mandate is to hate sin and all evil. This does not extend to those who commit sin and evil, it only applies to the sin and the evil itself.

This line is frequently blurred, not only because Christianity is made up of followers who are human, but because many people believe that behavior is a reflection of someone’s personality. To an extent, it is, but our personality cannot only be defined by our behavior. I think for most, a one-time event in a person’s life can certainly have an impact, but most would not say that event defines their life, where someone who repeatedly engages in the same type of behavior is treated differently.

If Christianity Is About Love, Then…

…what do we do about someone who clearly loves God, but seems to violate something found in the Bible? What do we do about someone who has an attraction that most people have difficulty empathizing with? How do we handle issues that the Bible does not seem to cover?

I think the best thing we can do is apply biblical principles to that person. Most theologians will tell you that there are logically sound methods of interpreting the Bible, and there are methods of interpreting the Bible that are less logically sound. It is generally accepted practice to take not only the English translations of the verse in question, but also the cultural, linguistic, and historical context into account when determining how a verse would have been understood by a contemporary of the writer of that verse.

In context, we would take the many passages that describe God’s love for humanity, and how we are to love others (as ourselves, according to Jesus), in their appropriate context. These passages are universally understood to mean that God loves us, and we are to love others. While there are warnings against being selfish, we are also to love ourselves. These passages are very clear, and there is no arguing with their interpretation: We are expected to love God, love others, and love ourselves. To hold a grudge against ourselves where God has chosen to send His Son to forgive our sins is to insult and mock the sacrifice Jesus made on the cross. It would be as if spitting in God’s face. In addition, it is a refusal to see ourselves the way God sees us: Redeemed human beings in the midst of a life-long process of being made holier every day.

Christianity Has Cherry-Picked Interpreting The Bible On Certain Topics

It is here where mainstream Christianity has failed the LGBTQ+ community, particularly homosexuals and pedophiles. There are eight sections in Scripture that seem to address homosexuality directly: Genesis 19, Judges 19.17–25, Leviticus 18.22 and 20.13, Romans 1.18–32, 1 Corinthians 6.9, 1 Timothy 1.10, and Jude 1.7. I will spare you some of the details on each of these passages (because this would be a 25-minute read if I did that).

The first two passages about the attempted and successful gang raping of an individual. In the first story, the attempt is “homosexual” in nature, in that it is men trying to rape another man. In the second, the rape is “heterosexual” in nature, in that men rape a woman. Both acts are condemned, rightfully, as being terribly inhospitable to a guest (in the first story, the guest is an angel), and as being an obvious violation of human rights. Rape is condemned throughout the Bible, not just in these passages. Some have interpreted these stories to mean that God forbids homosexual sex, yet the homosexual sex that we know of today is not rape or gang-rape, it is largely consensual. These stories relate to the last verse as well: The verse is referring to the fact that men were seeking sex with angels, and that such sex amounted to wanton rape and fornication.

The second passages in Leviticus use a word that is not found often in the Bible, and typically only applies to the Holiness Code, a set of principles found in the Torah of how the Israelites were to keep their conduct separate from the actions of other cultures in their day. Further, the passages are likewise discussing rape. According to the Jewish Study Bible (p. 251–252), the same passages referred to rape, of the kind used by animals where one dog dominates another, and interestingly, the first two passages in our set are referenced as being the same kind of domination.

It is the final three passages where interpreting the passages gets particularly challenging because of how modern translators have chosen to translate the words. The first passage in Romans makes reference to works by Plato, and is referring to wanton sexually indulgent behavior, which Plato referred to as “unnatural”. In the Greco-Roman world, “pederasty,” an act that NAMBLA would approve of, where adult men would foster sexual relationships with young boys, was a dominant cultural practice, very similar to the modern-day “bacha bazi” practiced in Afghanistan. Prostitution was also practice. It is likely that these practices and the wanton nature of too much sex was the target of Paul’s condemnation in Romans, particularly considering the final two verses.

In the subsequent passages in 1 Corinthians and Timothy, the words used in the Greek refer to participants in this same practice, on the dominant and submissive side, or to participants in prostitution (client and prostitute). This is why it is likely that Paul’s condemnation was not the heterosexual or homosexual nature of the act, but its wanton indulgence.

In short, none of these passages forbid homosexual feelings. Indeed if they did, the mere existence of someone with homosexual feelings would be in itself a sin, which runs contrary to all of the other sins found in the Bible which are actions or intent to commit actions, not an innate drive. None of these passages appear to condemn homosexual sex in itself, but rather the wanton indulgence in sex, as was popular in the Greco-Roman world.

In Short…

In short, biblical principles and sound interpretation do not condemn homosexuality, nor an innate sexual attraction of any kind. The Bible does condemn actions that are non-consensual, as well as “sex with children” or child sexual abuse, as children cannot consent.

The Bible also does not empower anyone to hate themselves, while it empowers us to first love God, to love ourselves, and then to love others as much as we love ourselves. If a Christian develops a sexual attraction to children, they are not inherently sinful unless they rape someone or have sex with a child. Today, we simply refer to both as rape, and in some cases, the sexual abuse or rape of a child.

If there really are Christian pedophiles who believe that being sexual with a child is moral, then they need to re-read the Bible and re-examine their thought process behind that. However, it is likewise unbiblical for a Christian pedophile to hate themselves for the feelings that they have, and that person needs to re-examine the love that God has extended to us and why He extends that love.

I once hated myself, because well-meaning Christian leaders in my life left me with the false impression that a pedophile is a risk to children and I was going to inevitably hurt someone. I hated that idea of not being in control of my own behavior, but the reality is, I am in control of my behavior. Anyone who gives a pedophile the idea that they are a monster or a disaster waiting to happen has no idea what they are talking about, of that much I am certain.

The post On Christian Pedophiles Hating Themselves appeared first on Pedophiles About Pedophilia.