But even if there is wild paranoia, wouldn’t a compassionate person put the needs of the child above their own?
Certainly you’d think that, but at the same time everyone has a breaking point. There are going to be people for whom enough preemptive punishment will tip the risk/reward scales in favor of actually committing the offense.
Keeping in mind again, we’re talking about things like “the OP is allowed to pick up his kids from school without getting flack for being in an area with schoolchildren” but not “the OP should be allowed to spend time alone with unrelated 11-yr-old girls”. Reasonable precautions are perfectly acceptable, and I’m pretty sure the OP would agree.
Thank you for this. I sent off an email to Dan Savage, I’ll let you know if anything happens.
While I hold no grudge against you, this comment demonstrates the prevalent attitude toward people who desire underage females, and is precisely why I started this thread. People (meaning society as a whole) automatically assume that pedophile=dangerous.
Yes, I have sexual desires. Yes, my sexual desires are disgusting to most people, I can live with that. Yet I would venture to say that EVERYONE has sexual desires. Most peoples desires would fall into the range of acceptable, maybe even encouraged. But having sexual desires does not make one dangerous towards the people that they desire. Would a man who is my age (41) who desires 41 year old women be dangerous to every 41 year old woman he meets? Of course not. What would make him dangerous is having no conscience.
I know, without a doubt, that if I were to ever allow my desires to come to fruition that I would not be able to live with myself. I know, without a doubt, that no good could come from it. I know that the object of my desire would most likely be emotionally scarred for the rest of her life. Therefore I don’t allow myself to act on the desires that I feel. I do have a conscience.
I’ve never doubted that I am not the only one. I’m sure there are others out there that are cursed with sexual desires that they know they can never fulfill. What I don’t know and don’t have any way to find out, is how many there are.
It is such a taboo subject that anyone who feels these desires would believe that he can’t talk about them. I myself have NEVER talked about it.
BigT, I hope you are still reading this thread, as it as taken me awhile to get up the courage to respond to everyone. If you are, could you elaborate a bit on the OCD, angle. I know next to nothing about OCD, except for what I’ve seen in movies.
As far as talking to a therapist, at this point I am not willing to risk talking to someone face to face. As I said earlier, the one time that I did try to seek help I had barely gotten what was bothering me out of my mouth and she wanted to report me as a danger to others.
This is going back about 13 years now, so my memory is a little hazy on exactly what happened. This would be when I first found myself attracted to my oldest daughters friends. As I said earlier, whenever either daughter had friends over, I would make myself scarce. I did not do this with my son, since I am not attracted to young boys. She noticed this and guessed (correctly) what the problem was.
You’re welcome, and thank you for the kind words in your post.
There were many causes and conditions leading up to our divorce. My sexual inclination, while not directly a cause, was almost assuredly an indirect cause. Her biggest complaint with me was that she did not feel loved. While I can say with absolute certainty that I did love her, I can see how she would have felt that. I NEVER was the instigator in our sex life. While I did find my wife attractive, the sexual attraction I felt towards her was minimal.
This is just like what happens in my life today. I do have sex on a semi-regular basis, and the women that I am sexual partners with I usually find attractive, but the sexual desire is almost (but not quite) non-existent.
I would just like to point out that, given what generally happens to pedophiles in prison, that threatening to contact the FBI so that I can spend the rest of my life getting gang raped is, in my opinion, much more of a death threat than "I hope you say that to [someone prone to stabbing people] and they stab you.
I am not wishing for St. Anger to receive a warning. Just saying…
Given that the asymmetric power balance is one of the things that disgusts me about my desires, and the fact that I find the body of an 11 year old attractive, I would have to say its her body.
I would also like to reiterate the fact that I seem to have no control over what it is that I desire. I do, however, have control over how I react to those desires.
If I may ask you a question, What is your experience with pedophiles?
If I may say so, I find this the single most insulting comment in this thread. This is another comment that demonstrates the prevalent attitude in society that pedophilia=dangerous.
Not to worry though, fuzzypickles, my oldest daughter is 23 and my youngest is 19.
Whatever defect it is in the brain that causes a man to sexually desire an inappropriately aged girl, I have that defect. I don’t like it, I wish I could change it, but I do have it.
Whatever defect it is in the brain that causes a man to sexually desire a member of his own family, I do not now, nor have I ever had, that defect. I can assure you that the entire time my daughters were in my care growing up, I was never a danger to them. There was never any desire there. (thankfully)
As I said, my daughters are now 23 and 19. Now let me ask you this: If I told you that right now, today, that I find a girl (not my daughter) who is 21 years old sexually desirable, knowing nothing else about me, would you advocate that I limit my contact with my daughters since they are around the same age as the girl I am sexually attracted to? Would you think that I may pose a danger to them? Of course you wouldn’t!
I am curious so I am going to ask a second time, what experience do you have in dealing with “these people”? And how would you ever know if you were “dealing” with someone like me. I can assure you that if you and I were to bump into each other somewhere, you would never assume me to be a pedophile. If we were to get to know each other and become friends, I would still never tell you the desires going on in my head. Remember that this is the first time I have told ANYONE. And I haven’t spent my entire life in a cave somewhere, devoid of all human contact.
No, by all outward appearances, you would never know. If you were to follow me around, day after day, and observe everything I did and listen to everything I said, you would still never know. Outside of the desires that I feel, as unacceptable as they may be, I am as normal as the next guy.
I have no idea if I’m a unique pedophile or not. Nor can I see how anyone else could know. People like me don’t talk about it, and don’t act on it. How many are wondering around out there, living life as best they can with the cards they were dealt? How many are filled with shame and guilt for what they are feeling, not what they are doing? How many men find that they are attracted to young girls, but also have a conscience so they will never take action on those desires? There is just no way to tell because the stigma is so horrible that they aren’t talking. (Like me until now)
So it is my opinion that your experience in dealing with pedophiles is perhaps slightly skewed. It is quite possible that you have in your acquaintance someone who is just like me. But you wouldn’t know to consider them in your experience with dealing with pedophiles, because you simply wouldn’t know what secret desires they are harboring.
While I appreciate the vote of confidence, if anyone were to ask me to babysit their 11 year old daughter, I would most likely find a reason, any reason, why i couldn’t. Especially if I found her attractive.
That’s not to say that I think I would not be able to control myself. But why put myself in that position?
I just noticed that St. Anger is banned. When did this happen?? Off to check ATMB…
Pduol, do you think you are attractive to women your age?
When I look in the mirror, I can find nothing attractive. However, I have been told my entire life that i am very attractive.
Is anyone doing research with or into men with this condition?
I am a brain donor as I suffer from a rather rare condition. When the time comes, my brain is going to college!
It seems a civic duty (or at least a neat thing) to find and volunteer to further research.
Or I could be wrong.
Have you thought about seeing a psychiatrist (medical professional) experienced in this line of issues? As I was told that if we have a patient with a possible diagnosis of pedophilia or child abuse that the medical doctor can simply call up the proper agencies and they can report the situation anonymously without indicating the name of the patient as a sort of “If I had a patient X who told me blah blah blah, is it an offense?” and the abuse hot line or such would tell the doctor if he has a right to report the issue or not, and how to proceed further along. I’m not sure if that’s quite how it works everywhere, but it was told to us as a way to make us feel more comfortable with dealing with patients with “questionable” life choices that if we weren’t sure if we had to report them or not, there was a number to call without compromising the patient where we could get more information.
So that might be something to consider- is to talk to a medical professional in psychiatry about the issue, and see what your options could be if counseling is truly the best way (and they may have access to therapists who would be better suited for that sort of an issue) or if there are medications that might be able to help you instead.
Pdoul, here’s how I see it:
Since you’ve committed no act that is illegal or immoral I wouldn’t restrict you. On the other hand, if I knew your proclivities I wouldn’t knowingly leave you alone with a child - I mean, why tempt you unnecessarily? For the same reason I wouldn’t offer alcohol to a reformed drunk, or offer to play poker with a reformed gambler. The main difference is that you haven’t needed “reforming”, but you (I gather) sort of need the same sort of “keep me out of trouble” system.
I have had heard of at least one other case of a pedophile who successfully fought off a lifetime of such urges. His was a more extreme case, as I gather his only sexual focus was young children, but he remained single all his life, told family he did not want to be around children, especially alone, and so far as I know never harmed anyone in his lifetime. So it is possible to do that, though I imagine it is difficult. Very difficult.
Jumping from the OP’s argument. Would those who say they wouldn’t leave him with your daughter leave, say, me with your wife? I am sexually able, not bad looking and interested in women (right now I could probably walk by Jennifer Connelly naked in my bed and not take a second look, but that’s besides the point). Would you fear for your wife being raped by me? Do you leave in constant fear or every female on your lives being raped by random guys interested in women?
But if you come on to my wife, the most likely outcome is that she’ll laugh in your face, possibly after having slapped it. If you try to rape her, at the very least she’ll try to give you one hell of a crotch shot.
If you come on to my 10 year old daughter, she probably doesn’t have the tools to deal with it. She may be very frightened, even if not physically touched or harmed. In general, children may be much more easily overpowered, coerced, tricked, bullied, or otherwise persuaded into something dangerous or damaging.
So if you lose a little control and make a pass at my wife, it’s probably no big thing. But if Pdoul loses control the potential for damage is much greater.
So the two situations are hardly analogous. Children need extra protection compared to adults when facing similar dangers.
And that’s awesome. It’s also a better then bad (not using good since you really can’t say anything related to pedophilla is good) sign that you’re turned on by the body rather then the inherent imbalance of power. Maybe the reason you find yourself fixtated is due to the fact that you may have romanticized that first realtionship, and it seems perfect to you, so that’s why your brain fixtated on it. Maybe you just think 11 year old girls are wicked cute That in turn may have led to your brain to think " I think this girl is hot. Let’s make them a sex object!"
You still haven’t told us if you have Asperger’s or ADD or another issue like that. A condition that can stunt your emotional development may be responsible for your obession. I remember when John Karr (that guy they thought might have done the JonBenet Ramsey killing) was all over the news I got a distinct " Asperger’s “vibe” from him. I remember reading someplace that most pedos have a secondary dx. It’s quite possible if you got any emotional issues under control, then maybe that would help a lot in this area.
While I do agree with this viewpoint to some degree, though mostly when dealing with actual convicted criminals who have served their time or are expected to return to society, if his idea of lashing out at people judging him is to molest a kid who’s got nothing to do with anything, well, then that is an awful lot of responsibility for a bunch of strangers. Sounds about as justified as some guy shooting up a mall because some women don’t want to date him.
A good point. Although if you try to make a pass at my 4-year old, she will probably either not get it or just run away from you and to me as she does from most male strangers. Children are normally well trained to distrust and avoid strangers. Young and inexperienced adults are more likely to fall for lame tricks and pickups. An 18-yr old might be more at risk than an 11-yr old in some cases.
Without doubting your good intentions, I hope you understand if the OP is not too inclined to share his medical history. It is not like we can treat and diagnose him over the internet anyways.
I’ts not really so much about justification or lack thereof for the act of child molestation as it is about preventing child molestation from occuring by applying a measure of “innocent until proven guilty”. That is, I don’t think those of us taking this position think it’s about the justification or lack thereof at all.
You can’t run to daddy if daddy is not there. You were (at least I thought) responding to someone saying they wouldn’t want to leave their young daughters alone with Pdoul by asking if they were then also afraid to leave their wife alone with you. I was responding to that. A 10 year old alone with an adult is (IMHO) usually going to be much more easily manipulated than an adult.
In some cases, possibly, but in general I think younger children are going to be more easily cowed or manipulated, especailly when alone with the adult.
True. In a babysitting scenario, kids tend to obey the person in charge.
Pdoul, just wanted to say how sorry I am for your situation. I hope you can get help of some sort so this doesn’t weigh on you so heavily. And please don’t hate yourself. That just causes more pain. Be proud of yourself for resisting the urge and doing what you need to do to prevent any harm from coming to anyone.
If it makes any difference to you, this is coming from someone who was sexually abused (by my ex-stepfather) and has spent 20+ years repairing that damage. I wish he had shown the same restraint and self-awareness that you have.
True, but just suggesting that it might be something to look into with dealing with his OCD-ish issues with his obessions over 11 year old girls. Maybe if he got help controllig one disorder then the OCD issues would stop.
He could just say " I’m having really bad OCD issues (without getting specific) to the doc. It does seem he’d be happier if he got treated.
I gotta admit, it seems weird that you’re conflating OCD with a paraphilia. Is there evidence that the two are linked that I’m not aware of?