Hey! I'm not OP, but I am also a pedophile. Thank you so much! I do want to just point out that while we may be mentally ill in some ways (chronic depression for me), pedophilia isn't one. It's simply our sexuality. The DSM does list pedophilic disorder, which is if our attractions cause us distress, but that's not the case for me anymore.

I really appreciate your input, though! Thanks! I wish you the best!

Hi there! I'm not OP, but I am also a pedophile.

I'm going to "yes, and" you on your first point there: the primary focus should be on protecting children, and one of the best ways to do that is by providing support to pedophiles. Many pedophiles discover their attractions between the ages of 12 and 17. Most of them never talk about it with anyone (I certainly didn't). According to research, this puts them at increased risk of commiting a contact offense against a child. It also I creases the risk of suicide. Many teen pedophiles kill themselves when they realize what they're attracted to. Getting support, either from a therapist or from anti-contact peers, diminishes those risks significantly.

You are correct that the way society is currently designed, a lot of the ways we "protect children" has nothing to do with protecting children and everything to do with persecuting pedophiles. Society would much rather have us incarcerated, or better yet dead. It would solve the problem of our existence pretty cleanly. But that's not realistic, and people only want that for the unknown boogeyman idea of a pedophile. Not for their son or daughter or cousin or parent or friend.

Your comparison to veganism is apt. Anti-contact MAPs are content with using ethical, non-harmful outlets that don't hurt anyone.

Thank you for your sympathy (you said to OP, put presumably to all pedophiles), but I'm not sad about what I am anymore. It's been a very painful journey, but it's shaped me into a very kind, empathetic, caring person. I am happy with who I am.

lol, thank you. People tend to think of us as morally bankrupt with out of control sexual impulses and urges. The truth is that... we're people just like you in many ways. Different in some, but fundamentally the same. We need help and support and acceptance the same as anyone else.

I'm not OP, but I'm also a pedophile. I am out to friends with kids and they trust me around them. My friends know me deeply and believe that I am a good person and that I am trustworthy.

I understand the why of your question, but it still stings. This is like asking straight friends do people let you around women (or men, depending on which gender they're attracted to). I'm not a danger to anyone, just like you aren't in danger of sexually assaulting any attractive adult you might see or be alone with. I recognize that this answer may have you brand my friends as naive for trusting me. Maybe you think that all pedophiles will always eventually touch a kid, or that merely having an attraction I didn't choose makes me a risk and a danger. I hope that you'll examine that belief, maybe even take the time to get to know some of us. It's not true that we all hurt kids, but thst societal belief does make us think it's true. Before I found Virped and MAP Support Club I thought I was the only one, and I thought it would just be a matter of time.

This article talks about all the pedophiles you may know who aren't out and who you'll never find out about because we don't do anything:

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/KpMNqA5BiCRozCwM3/social-dark-matter

Not OP, but also a pedophile. Well, because of my religion I ended up marrying a woman. That was a mistake. I was never out to her, and I'm not now. We broke up, and my current boyfriend does know. I don't think I'll ever be in a relationship with someone who doesn't know and can't be at least somewhat comfortable with it again.

I'm not just a pedophile. Minor Attracted Person "MAP" or Youth Attracted Person "YAP" are more applicable. I'm a pedophile, a hebephile, an ephebophile and in some cases a teleiophile and a nepiophile. I don't consider myself truly exclusive, though I am more exclusive than I want to be.

I've never been outed, but I have come out to just over a dozen friends. That's gone well except in one case where two friends who are a couple chose to cut me off.

I'm not OP, but I am a pedophile. I'm not seeing a therapist, and I haven't seen a therapist for this exactly. I did try conversion therapy at one point because I didn't want to be gay anymore. What I will say is I have done an immense amount of work on myself, I've read things and talked to friends... I have done the work of therapy essentially without a therapist. Once I got peer support for being a pedophile, everything else clicked into place, and I've been able to apply everything I learned and gained. It's been amazing. I'm not afraid of myself anymore. I'm not afraid that one day I'll slip up, I know that that won't happen. I don't think I have to kill myself or cut this part out of myself. I'm just okay. Right now a lot of my time and energy is put into supporting other people with their struggles. I find that very rewarding.

I also detailed in another response why it's difficult and risky to seek therapy for this particular issue. It's not all about the money. Therapists can out you or call the police on you even if you haven't done anything and don't plan to do anything. All they have to do is suspect that you might be a danger to kids.

Not OP, but also a pedophile. I never experienced any sexual anything in my childhood, not even porn. I started masturbating a few weeks shy of 17 and realized I liked to think about boys while I did it. I thought I was "just" gay, and that was already really bad because I was religious. As time went on, I realized it was so much worse. At least that's how I thought at the time. I'm pretty sure I was genetically predisposed to develop this way. It's a sexuality just like other sexualities. It's just one that can't ethically be acted on the same as other sexualities.

not OP, but also a pedophile. I don't know that we experience "urges" per se. We have a sexuality, just like anyone else. If you would say that urges are a part of any (non-asexual) sexuality, then yes we experience urges in the same way. FSM (shota/loli) is legal in my country, and I do use that as a harmless outlet. (Harmless in the sense that no real person is harmed in the production of the material I use).

People have always sexualized children. Personally, I'm not a fan of sexualizing real children (I'm something of a cartoonophile, so I almost prefer cartoons anyway?) But, I will say that private thoughts and fantasies can't hurt anyone, and as long as a person keeps those things between their own ears, there's nothing wrong with it. I do think that commenting in spaces that a child may see what is said is harmful. I don't think a child should ever know that a pedophile is attracted to them. I also don't like people using AI to generate pictures of real children. AI as a whole is a big mess that I don't like. I think that if it's trained using actual CSEM images it's pretty unethical, but if it's extrapolating virtual CSAM based on what it knows porn looks like and what it knows kids look like maybe it's okay? I think it's gray, but dark.

What's our endgame? Well, that's a great question that we need society's help untangling. When you say "if it were permissable" I'm assuming you mean adult-child sex? That's not what I want, nor is it what any anti-contact pedophile wants. We believe the risk of harm to a child is too great, and we stand against it even in places where adult-child sex is legal or permissable. But back to our endgame: let's say that everyone who is or will grow up to be a pedophile is killed or ceases to exist right now. In 13 to 20 years you will have a whole new crop of pedophiles. We are an unfortunate, but natural and kind of normal quirk of sexuality. I guarantee that you know at least 1 or 2 pedophiles who are not out to you or maybe even themselves. So what are we going to do with us if we aren't going anywhere? Well. We need resources. We need therapy and mental healthcare. And we need it regardless of our income. If society wants to help us not offend we need to be able to be open about who we are, we need to be able to seek help, and we need to have access to sexual outlets that don't cause harm (even if they're "gross" to the rest of society). I believe the fictional sexual outlets cause no harm, adult-in-adult ageplay causes no harm, child dolls cause no harm, etc. Are those things unpalatable to society at large? Yes, probably. But better that we have access to ethical things that are kind of icky than have sexual frustration and tension build inside us.

How do we reconcile that kids will age out? Is it a Michael Jackson thing? Well... realizing that kids will age out isn't a thing for me. I don't pine after real kids so much. Cartoon children can be children forever. As far as just preferring children's company... some of us are like that. Some of us mentally and/or emotionally feel much younger than we are chronologically. Some people may refer to themselves as trans-age or age regressors. But many of us are not like that. For myself, I wouldn't mind having a 10-year-old body with my current adult brain. Not even for sexual reasons, I just find having a body that age appealing and true to how I want to exist in the world.

To your last point: getting therapy is a very tricky undertaking. Mandatory reporting laws make it a requirement that therapists report us if they even believe we are a danger, and for some therapists merely having this attraction makes us potentially dangerous and therefore reportable. I know some people who have had the police called on them from a doctor or therapist's office when they asked for help. I know some people who have been outed to family members by a therapist. It's not always safe for us to seek therapy even if it is affordable. As there is more research about us, I'm hopeful that that will change, and there are resources out there for us to seek safe therapists, but these therapists may not be in our network, further complicating things.

Hi! Not OP, but also a pedophile. I used to get really angry at God/the universe, in fact it's one of the reasons I left my religion (how could a loving God make me or anyone else this way?) but today I accept it about myself and I'm not mad anymore. I'm out to several friends who all know me well, and so far all but two people have accepted me.

I'm going to turn your original question back on you a little bit. If you see someone in your day-to-day life that you're attracted to, but you don't have consent to do anything with, how difficult do you find it now to act on your feelings? It's the same for me. In the words of Penn and Teller, I do rape and murder all I want. And that amount is zero.

You're welcome! Sounds like you're already on VP and MSC, then? Might want to edit your original post and link both sites in case any other lone MAPs find this post and need help and resources. www.mapresources.info would be good to link also.

Hi there, I'm also a pedophile. What does "committing pedophilia" look like? Pedophilia is an unchosen attraction to children. Child molestation/abuse is something that some pedophiles (and also non-pedophiles) do. I'm assuming you are talking about committing abuse. Many of us don't struggle with not abusing children, but we do struggle with internalized societal hatred. Imagine if you woke up tomorrow and realized you were a pedophile. You'd feel like the world was ending, I imagine. We need more free resources like Germany's Project Dunkelfeld. If pedophiles can feel free to reach out for help they are at reduced risk of harming themselves or others.

I'm also a pedophile and user on Virped. Everyone can feel free to ask questions directly to the VirPed board, if they're curious about us: https://virped.org/ask

Also, if you experience attraction to children and you need help, please check out the following:

https://www.mapresources.info

https://www.mapsupport.club

https://www.virped.org

these are peer support and resource options that are available to you. You aren't alone, and you aren't a monster. You can live a happy, fulfilling life and you don't have to hurt anyone.