[Tom4784]

I remember a topic on here a few years back about the idea of peadophiles that are sickened by their own perversion, I think there was a few articles within it linked to stories of peadophiles who were trying everything to rid themselves of their urges.

It's an unpleasant topic to discuss through and through In some respects I could have sympathy for the ones who never hurt anyone but I just can't have any empathy for them regardless. It's a difficult subject to talk and think about.

[The Slim Reaper]

Originally Posted by Smithy

There was an interesting documentary C4 did about this a few years ago called The Paedophile Next Door (I think it’s on Netflix now - if not probably all 4) where they interviewed a guy who says he’s never been able to help that’s he’s been attracted to children, that he’s never acted on it and never will but yeah it was an interesting watch

I think I saw that. Was it something like "the virtuous paedophile?"

[Smithy]

Originally Posted by The Slim Reaper

I think I saw that. Was it something like "the virtuous paedophile?"

No it was The Paedophile Next Door

Youtube video

This is the full thing

[Ammi]

...one person’s story for Rob or anyone who may find it interesting...and not too long a read...


It’s a long time since I’ve described myself as a paedophile.
Paedophilia is a disorder, a deeply distressing sexual orientation.
For me, it's triggered by traumatic experiences in childhood.
I’m in my sixties now, but when I was a young boy my mother used to sit me on her lap while she dried me off after my bath, and she would fondle my genitals.
Her behaviour never felt sexual but, looking back, of course it was. I can’t remember exactly how long that went on but it was a long time. By the time it was over, I was self-harming.
I think my attraction to young boys came from what my mother did to me.
I first acknowledged my abnormality around the age of 15. That was when I first realised that I wasn’t changing mentally in the same way that other boys were changing.
They were taking an interest in women or, in one or two cases, in men. But I never did. I remained fixated on pre-adolescent boys, which was the age at which I had been sexually interfered with.
It was horrible.

I never even contemplated abusing a child. It was a million miles away from what I wanted to be - which was a normal adult man.
I hoped that as I grew older I’d grow into an adult sexual orientation, but it was like my development had stalled.
It was completely terrifying, and I felt revolted with myself.
I realised that it was likely that I would lead a very lonely life. I was scared that if people found out about my terrible thoughts it could lead to violence, physical attacks.
I went to university, where I had a group of friends and spent several years battling against the reality of my mental state. I had almost no sexual experience at that time.
I was eventually forced to face the fact that I wasn’t changing when I was outed by a housemate.
I guess he had noticed that if we started talking about children, I would change the subject. If we walked down the street and saw a family with children I would get uncomfortable.

I was sitting in the front room. All my mates were cooking the evening meal and I don’t think they realised I’d come downstairs. They were chatting away and I heard my friend say something like: “I think Jack’s interested in young boys.”
I put my coat on and quietly walked out of the house.
Walking out of that front door was like leaving one world and entering another.
I went to the university GP the next day. I said, “I’m a paedophile. Can this be cured?”
The conventional view of paedophilia is that it’s an incurable condition. But this doctor laughed - he laughed! And he said, “Of course it’s curable.”
It was an absolutely huge relief. The doctor didn’t challenge my identification with paedophilia, he just accepted it and said: “No problem, we’ll sort it.”

I got a referral letter to the Portman Clinic, which – amongst other services - offers specialist treatment for people with problematic sexual behaviours.
I went to London for my assessment a few weeks later. It was a midsummer’s day in 1972 and I remember walking on Hampstead Heath, watching the trees, listening to the birds, and thinking: “I’m going into a new life.”
The Portman Clinic’s treatments are long-term. I was seen by them for several years.
You talk freely and, over time, they construct a picture of your subconscious drivers.
After treatment, I was a very different person. I even developed a sexual interest in women, which felt extraordinarily liberating.
But there was a lot about me that was shy, inexperienced and naïve.
In a sense, I had to experience my adolescence years after all my peers. I'd had minimal sexual experience, all my friendships had been warped by my self-hatred and I had a huge lack of self-esteem.
I’m now in a good relationship, and have been for a long time with a woman whom I love.
She has always known about my former orientation, which will always be something I carry with me. No one else knows, not even my family.
I’ve since done things that I’m proud of in my life. They’re not huge achievements, but they’re achievements nonetheless. If I’ve got one regret, it’s that I’m only now doing this kind of advocacy work for paedophiles.
I work with a charity called StopSO, a specialist treatment organisation for the prevention of sexual offending. It’s a UK-wide organisation offering therapy to anyone who feels at risk of committing a sexual offence.

Paedophilia is not understood.
People think paedophilia is synonymous with child sexual abuse. But I would never have abused a child.
Most paedophiles have two warring drives within them: the urge to offend, and the urge to be normal. Most paedophiles are desperate for those desires to go away.
There are online communities where non-offending paedophiles can support each other.
I once discovered a woman online who was exactly like me. She was attracted to infants of the age at which she had been abuse. She also received therapy to treat her paedophilia.
But the demonisation of paedophiles makes it more difficult for non-offending young people who are worried about developing this sexual orientation to seek help.
I think every town in the country should have a clinic like the Portman. But we’re far from that. NHS budgets have been cut, not just in this particular area, in the whole field of psychiatric and mental health care.
We should be identifying sexually damaged young people and potential abusers, and treating them as early as we can. That’s a key way to break the cycle of sexual abuse.
Instead, if you’re a paedophile who has not offended, but you want help, it is very rare to get treatment on the NHS. Most of the time, you'll only get help after you've offended and already hurt someone.
I was lucky. Because of the help I got, I’ve been able to live a normal adult life. I’ve been able to address my issues in ways that others cannot.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/artic...9-54586689ae3c

[Josy]

Originally Posted by Smithy

There was an interesting documentary C4 did about this a few years ago called The Paedophile Next Door (I think it’s on Netflix now - if not probably all 4) where they interviewed a guy who says he’s never been able to help that’s he’s been attracted to children, that he’s never acted on it and never will but yeah it was an interesting watch

I can remember this documentary, I couldn't watch the entire thing I had to switch off.

[Ammi]

...actually it is quite a long read...../..but interesting...

[Josy]

I dont want to quote that post due to the length but if it's an illness that he could be 'cured' from then how can he also claim it's a sexual orientation?

Sexual orientation is natural imo it's not something that can be changed or 'cured'

[Josy]

And also, sexual orientation refers to the gender that a person is attracted to whereas paedophiles are attracted to children

[Smithy]

Originally Posted by Josy

Sexual orientation is natural imo it's not something that can be changed or 'cured'

@ conversion camp enthusiasts

[Josy]

Originally Posted by Smithy

@ conversion camp enthusiasts

Yeah I was thinking that that's what he was basically describing his treatment was.

Bull**** imo

[Toy Soldier]

Originally Posted by Josy

And also, sexual orientation refers to the gender that a person is attracted to whereas paedophiles are attracted to children

Depends if you're talking common usage or literal usage. In common usage, yes, it's talking about sexuality. If we're talking literal, it would mean literally any form of sexual desire (as "orientation" is a very broad term that could mean anything).

I have recently argued on here that common usage is always the more linguistically correct usage, though... so yes if I was the editor for this article I'd probably have recommended rewording that.

Regarding conversion therapy, that's where it becomes a very hot topic, because obviously people are going to want to brand it "impossible" to address for fear of adding fuel to the fire of people who advocate conversion therapy for perfectly normal sexualities.

It's not the same thing, though. As he's pointed out, paedophilia is usually a result of trauma and trauma IS very treatable - thus, treating childhood trauma could (almost as a side effect) "cure" paedophilia. I think it is important to frame it as a trauma-related mental health problem though, as it pretty much always is, rather than an orientation. He actually does DESCRIBE it as a trauma-related problem, so it's a strange choice of words for naming it.

I have read before that anonymous surveys have shown that (scarily, I suppose) the vast majority of paedophiles DON'T ever commit an offense or even tell anyone. The abnormal feelings and the ability to actively harm someone are two completely separate things.

[Rob!]

Thanks for that Ammi - yeah that's exactly the sort of thing I meant.
I think the temptation is to umbrella all pedophiles into the Saville stereotype because sexual attraction to children is abhorrent to us and so it makes our minds feel better to associate it with evil.
I mean, I feel like I'm sounding like I'm defending the behaviour of acting upon it, of course I am most definitely not and I hope that's clear but I feel the simple stamp of "EVIL MONSTER" that is automatically assigned to the topic without wanting to understand any other motives or reasoning behind the thinking of everyone in that group doesn't help the people that genuinely want to change and those people MUST exist.

[Marsh.]

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier

I have read before that anonymous surveys have shown that (scarily, I suppose) the vast majority of paedophiles DON'T ever commit an offense or even tell anyone. The abnormal feelings and the ability to actively harm someone are two completely separate things.

Yeah, true. I suppose it's like the difference between having feelings of pure anger and being a violent person. Experiencing the former doesn't automatically make you a person prone to do the latter.

[Firewire]

Originally Posted by Marsh.

Screaming

[Mystic Mock]

Pedophilia is not a sexual orientation imo, Pedophiles who haven't acted on their urges need psychological help, not instead having someone on Facebook talking about it like it's okay to be a Pedophile.

[Mystic Mock]

Originally Posted by Josy

I dont want to quote that post due to the length but if it's an illness that he could be 'cured' from then how can he also claim it's a sexual orientation?

Sexual orientation is natural imo it's not something that can be changed or 'cured'

This.

If anything his case just proves that it's a mental health issue.

[thesheriff443]

People always seem to talk about this subject in the same way.

For some peodophiles, there are countries that they can go to and fulfill their sickest desires because the children’s parents actually prostatue their kids.

So sleeping with kids is the normal thing to do.

[Ammi]

...I’m not sure that even with an anonymous survey, how much it could be trusted in any accuracy because saying...’I have never..’...obviously allows for some kind of possible understanding that ‘I have acted on...’...would never allow for...

...the therapy used is something called psychoanalytic psychotherapy, I don’t know exactly what that would be and whether/how it would compare to conversion therapy...


...I believe it to be a mental disorder, I said earlier and wouldn’t describe it as a sexual orientation...abuse of a child is often by someone who themselves have been abused but it isn’t always and I don’t know whether it’s mostly...it’s also very much power and obviously perversion...there would never surely be a ‘cure’ as such for a mental disorder, so much as it would be more to help control it/to prevent that acting on it...and I guess that’s possible to have success for an entire lifetime....

[Kizzy]

Reading the article Ammi posted which was really interesting I was surprised it's referred to as a sexual orientation, it isn't..well not in his case anyway it was the result of his own abuse, so a deviance. His sexual urges were deviated due to childhood trauma.
I can understand and sympathise with that due to his explanation.
I wonder how the extreme side of peadophilia rationalise their sexual urges? How can it be that some are disgusted with it and others act on it.
Is it like sociopathy rather than sexuality?

It's a really uncomfortable subject being so taboo, I'm really conflicted part of me thinks that help is good, and yet worried as Josy said of it becoming normalised :/

[Toy Soldier]

Originally Posted by Kizzy

I wonder how the extreme side of peadophilia rationalise their sexual urges? How can it be that some are disgusted with it and others act on it.
Is it like sociopathy rather than sexuality?

It's a really uncomfortable subject being so taboo, I'm really conflicted part of me thinks that help is good, and yet worried as Josy said of it becoming normalised :/

I think the self-control aspect and people actually acting on it is probably a separate thing. In people with totally normal sexual urges it's not inevitable that someone who is sexually repressed will act on it, but a small number do. The vast majority of adult men who can't find another adult to have consensual sex with don't automatically decide to rape someone instead... They have the desire to have a sexual relationship with a woman but they're not going to harm someone to get it. But then there are those who do. It definitely must be partly an empathy issue, but I doubt rapists are generally sociopaths, which is uncomfortable in itself. When it comes to active child molesters it can be even more messed up because with "grooming" they can even convince themself that the child was a willing/consenting participant, which is really what a lot of these groups are about - trying to convince people that the kids are OK with it, because they actually believe it. Grim. It's compounded by the fact that a "groomed" child often seems totally fine while the abuse is going on and really doesn't understand what it is. Then they hit their teens and early adulthood when they can understand that they were abused, they realise what happened to them, and their mental health collapses. Like an abuse time-bomb. So if the child doesn't seem traumatised, or even upset, at the time... The child molester can convince himself that what he's doing isn't so bad.

[arista]

[Paedophile Mark Sutherland loses human rights court challenge]



[Mark Sutherland's appeal was unanimously rejected by Scotland's
Supreme Court judges]


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-53416056

[Niamh.]

Originally Posted by arista

[Paedophile Mark Sutherland loses human rights court challenge]



[Mark Sutherland's appeal was unanimously rejected by Scotland's
Supreme Court judges]


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-53416056

good

[Livia]

It must be awful to realise that you're sexually attracted to children. However, once they attempt to act on that urge I have no sympathy at all and would like to see them taken out of society forever.

[Tom4784]

Originally Posted by arista

[Paedophile Mark Sutherland loses human rights court challenge]



[Mark Sutherland's appeal was unanimously rejected by Scotland's
Supreme Court judges]


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-53416056

I get so conflicted over this subject in particular, vigilantism should be left to films and comic books and I do think that most groups probably do more harm then good but I can't really oppose people who expose this sort of thing. I know there's some organisations that do things the right way but I do think that, before long, there'll be incidents of stings gone wrong and I think people could get hurt.

I think the practice of basically anyone becoming a hunter should be discouraged but I can't oppose the more organised groups that do things by the book and get results.

[Niamh.]

Originally Posted by Dezzy

I get so conflicted over this subject in particular, vigilantism should be left to films and comic books and I do think that most groups probably do more harm then good but I can't really oppose people who expose this sort of thing. I know there's some organisations that do things the right way but I do think that, before long, there'll be incidents of stings gone wrong and I think people could get hurt.

I think the practice of basically anyone becoming a hunter should be discouraged but I can't oppose the more organised groups that do things by the book and get results.

Yeah and a person who is such a danger to children "getting off" on a technicality would be despicable