[The Slim Reaper]

Originally Posted by Niamh.

There's a lot more to it than just not being able to help who they are attracted to when it comes to paedophiles. It certainly isn't a natural attraction. A lot of paedophiles have been victims of abuse as children themselves, a lot of times the motivation behind abusing children, like with adult rape is more about power and control rather than sexual attraction. I think just making a statement like "you can't help who you are sexually attracted to" is just simplifying it too much. You can't have a "relationship" in this category of sexual orientation (if that's what you want to refer to it as) without destroying the other person's life.

That's why I said it was it was a difficult conversation to have that we weren't ready for. A lot of the points you raised there were points that were formerly charged against gay people.

Sexuality isn't a simple thing, and we know that people are attracted to lots of things that are weird/deviant to 99.9% of us. I think it's actually too simplistic to say that it isn't a genuine sexuality. Also, the point I made was about people living with this, and yet unable to get help because merely admitting these feelings exist could get them in trouble.