Pedophilia - childhood abuse or not?

Hello,

I'm nervous about posting this because i don't know what kind of reaction i'm going to get, but here goes.

How many pedophiles on here have some history of childhood sex abuse?

I'm starting to feel like i'm the only one who hasn't been abused in some way as a child. I don't mean this to sound offensive and sorry if it puts people off, but it's almost like i've got no 'excuse' for being this way. Or for acting out sexually with my peers from age 10 onwards. I didn't do those things because i'd been 'instructed' to, or i'd got the idea from somewhere or some adult abuser, i just wanted to do it. Even if they didn't like the idea so much i'd still talk them into it. I feel like i've got absolutely no explicable reason why i'm like this or acted out sexually with other kids when i was young, other than the belief - which i can't seem to shake - that i'm just a born "child molester". Even as a kid myself that seems to be what i was geared towards, despite there being no history of child abuse for me at all.

Am i the only one like this?

I wasn't abused, and I know a good number of others who weren't either

Does it have to be about abuse? Surely any other form of becoming sexually aware would suffice, would it not? My sexuality kicked in around the time of turning ten, which is the lower age I find myself properly attracted to, though I wouldn't consider myself a paedophile so much as a non-exclusive teleiophile.

I've seen a number of pedophiles on this forum say that they were never abused, while some others say that they were. Even the ones who were abused can't know for sure that the abuse caused the pedophilia. Hell, even some homosexuals still believe that their orientation is the result of abuse.

That's the thing about paraphilias: sometimes the causes are readily apparent and obvious, but other times they seem to be completely illogical and random. Paraphiliac brains are just wired differently, and there is no reason why the same type of wiring could not be caused by different factors in different individuals.

Thanks for replying Borgesius and GinaSmith,

I guess it's just that there's been a lot of posts recently about pedophiles who've been abused as children and then acted out with others in sexual ways because of that sexual abuse. I was just wondering whether other pedophiles out there thought that's the only reason why they might have acted out as a kid themselves with other kids, or whether that could 'only possibly happen if you've been abused first'? If that makes sense? Because if that's the case, then i can't explain why i did.

But GinaSmith's reply is quite interesting. In that i guess you're saying that acting out with other kids at 10 or so years old is a 'natural' part of sexual development, regardless of whether you happen to be a pedophile or not?

Though, having become a pedophile now, it just seems like there was more to it than that for me, given the memories that i have.

Any thoughts on that?

likewise wrote:I've seen a number of pedophiles on this forum say that they were never abused, while some others say that they were. Even the ones who were abused can't know for sure that the abuse caused the pedophilia. Hell, even some homosexuals still believe that their orientation is the result of abuse.

That's the thing about paraphilias: sometimes the causes are readily apparent and obvious, but other times they seem to be completely illogical and random. Paraphiliac brains are just wired differently, and there is no reason why the same type of wiring could not be caused by different factors in different individuals.

@likewise
Hey man, thanks for your reply, that means a lot. I'm starting to come to the conclusion (which you assert) that being a pedophile doens't necessarily stem from any one singular thing in particular. But what had got me concerned is that other pedophiles on here have said that they'd "acted out" on kids their own age when they were the same-ish age and that was because they'd experienced sexual abuse in the past and that it was beyond their control because they'd been abused. But considering that i've done somewhat similar things as a kid and have absolutely no reason or past experiences for doing those things that i can draw on, i can't think what else would have compelled me, other than i'm a monstrous, sick "natural born child-molester"! If that makes sense? (sorry to put it in those terms). It just feels like i've wanted to be that way with kids for as long as i can remember, and i have nothing in my past to draw on - no reasonable explanation - that might explain it. I'm just completely and utterly this way and never have been anything else, and never will be. Which, for various reasons, is difficult to deal with. I'm sure not as difficult as having been a victim of abuse, but it still doesn't make sense somehow!

Thanks for the comments so far.

Anyone else have anything to add?

I wasn't abused as a child, though I remember on my eighth birthday I was out with parents and friends playing ten pin bowling and when I approached the back of the seating area where the balls are stored a rather creepy guy said to me "you're playing well" and I said "thanks" and then he said "here, I've got something to show you, you want to see it?". I said "what?", and he said "I have to show you in private, come into the toilets with me and I'll show you there", and I said "no" and walked off. I told my parents but he'd already left the building.

Anyway, I digress. I wanted to add that when I was seven and my younger brother was five I initiated a kiss with him - it was a prolonged, 'sexual' kiss, but I was merely mimicking the role of film stars - it had no sexual content. Does that constitute 'acting out', because for me it meant nothing, and I am now not attracted to boys or five-year-olds.

GinaSmith wrote:Does it have to be about abuse? Surely any other form of becoming sexually aware would suffice, would it not? My sexuality kicked in around the time of turning ten, which is the lower age I find myself properly attracted to, though I wouldn't consider myself a paedophile so much as a non-exclusive teleiophile.

tlkproxy wrote:It just feels like i've wanted to be that way with kids for as long as i can remember, and i have nothing in my past to draw on - no reasonable explanation - that might explain it.

I don't think there is any one age where sexuality is magically switched on. Most young children seem uninterested in sex, probably due to low levels of hormones. However, there are some who report having different types of sexual feelings at a much younger age, even preschool, but they normally don't become pedophiles. Sometimes a precocious interest can be triggered by abuse or seeing something, but not always. There are other children who discover how to stimulate themselves but don't associate it with anything. And of course it's common for schoolchildren to have nonsexual "crushes" on other children that correspond to their eventual orientation.

Personally, I remember having arousal in connection with my paraphilia before the age of 5. Some people are surprised or incredulous when they hear this, but I find it to be fairly common, especially with sadomasochism (it may be that there is some sort of sampling bias at play, where people with these sorts desires are more likely to report having them at such a young age, as opposed people with normative sexuality). I also remember having romantic type "crushes" on other children from about age 6 or 7, though these were not sexual in nature.

Personally, I remember having arousal in connection with my paraphilia before the age of 5. Some people are surprised or incredulous when they hear this, but I find it to be fairly common, especially with sadomasochism (it may be that there is some sort of sampling bias at play, where people with these sorts desires are more likely to report having them at such a young age, as opposed people with normative sexuality). I also remember having romantic type "crushes" on other children from about age 6 or 7, though these were not sexual in nature.

I can agree with this, and also relate, likewise. I remember being very curious and know for a fact that I was engaging in sexual exploration with two friends the same age as me when I was as young as four or five, including two family members around the same age. It seems that there's almost a pattern with people that have a paraphilia to have been sexually active at a young age, so this could stand to support that having a paraphilia does have some ties to experiences, and not just the brain being wired the way it is. Though I do agree wholeheartedly that people with pedophilia or another paraphilia are this way because of a combination of factors. It just does not seem logical to me that one single factor can be at play to make someone a certain way, but I still believe it's possible. The factors can be experience (such as being sexually active at very young ages, or abuse), hormones, and other physiological factors and brain-mind-body factors.

I do have memories of being physically abused, but never sexually abused. I've confronted those people necessary to investigate the reality of these memories, even people directly related to the abuse, such as one man I remember abusing me, but no one was ever able to confirm a single thing. So, these memories could be true or false, but either way, the possibility stands that being abused could play a part in making one a pedophile. However, if there's a factor from my childhood that has played a major role in making me sexually attracted to children, I'd say it would more likely be the fact that I sexually explored at such young ages versus being abused around the same ages. It could be a combination, too.

The important thing to do would be to examine how impacting abuse can be for children, what effects it has on them, and try to figure out in words how this relates to having a paraphilia later on in life. There could be any number of reasons, but it's perfectly reasonable to dig further into the issue, especially on an individual basis. After all, each person is different, and abuse affects everyone differently, however similar. Also, effects from having been abused at any age have been shown to potentially linger throughout a person's entire life, especially if left unaddressed. Perhaps abuse could play a supportive role somehow in a person with a paraphilia, such as the abuse triggering or unveiling the attraction, or repressing it so that it comes out stronger later in life. I'm just speculating here mainly, so sorry if my post seems to be going everywhere. There's just so much to think about when it comes to this issue.

Here's a potentially naïve theory. Assuming Michael Jackson was a paedophile, then is it not possible that paedophilia can stem not just from sexual abuse but any kind of feeling of loss of childhood? I mean, he was forced to work very hard on his music, and I think his father was 'physically strict' at the very least. I'm making an assumption about his sexuality, but it strikes me that paedophilia could be accompanied by some strong sense of loss associated with unresolved non-sexual desires in the past, such as the desire to play rather than be worked into the ground. One might subsequently go on to find attractive those very qualities one felt one wasn't allowed to have. Or at the very least, there must be a certainly wistful melancholy accompanying the sexual attraction - or perhaps that's just precipitated by the knowledge of the attraction being impossible to fulfil in the fullest sense. Shoot me if I'm being naïve.

GinaSmith wrote:Here's a potentially naïve theory. Assuming Michael Jackson was a paedophile, then is it not possible that paedophilia can stem not just from sexual abuse but any kind of feeling of loss of childhood? I mean, he was forced to work very hard on his music, and I think his father was 'physically strict' at the very least. I'm making an assumption about his sexuality, but it strikes me that paedophilia could be accompanied by some strong sense of loss associated with unresolved non-sexual desires in the past, such as the desire to play rather than be worked into the ground. One might subsequently go on to find attractive those very qualities one felt one wasn't allowed to have. Or at the very least, there must be a certainly wistful melancholy accompanying the sexual attraction - or perhaps that's just precipitated by the knowledge of the attraction being impossible to fulfil in the fullest sense. Shoot me if I'm being naïve.

It's a good theory, but it has the same weakness as the sexual abuse theory, namely that many of those who develop pedophilia had 'normal' childhoods, and of those who had horribly abusive childhoods, the vast majority do not become pedophiles. So if the theory is true, it only applies to a subset of the population. Anyway, sexual and romantic attraction is such a complex phenomenon that one would not expect it to be controlled by a single variable, or even the same set of variables in different individuals. The neuropsychological mechanisms underlying normal adult-oriented, heterosexual attraction are so poorly understood at the moment that it seems we have little hope of understanding pedophilia.

There are so many threads on this forum of people with pedophilia and other paraphilias who have no explanation for their condition it is almost self-parodying. If you wanted evidence that paraphilias do not always have to be caused by adverse experiences, this forum seems pretty irrefutable. And yet there are many "experts" who would try to tell you that the opposite is the case, convincing those who seek therapy that they were abused, or that their attraction is the result of low self-esteem or other such nonsense, even though they have absolutely no evidence of this, that's just how they think it should be. At one point I had a psychologist tell me that my sexual masochism was somehow caused by my controlling mother, and this was in the 21st century. Also around age 17, I had one of my religious leaders tell me that it had to be the result of sexual abuse (he claimed his background in social work with sexual abuse victims as qualifying him to make this assessment). Even at the time I knew that was total bullsh*t, but imagine the damage it could have done if I'd taken him seriously. So ignorance abounds, and so does the willingness of people to give overconfident opinions on topics that they know little to nothing about.