[user104658]

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.