Did your parents play a role in your paraphilia?

Well, I want to note one important thing. People have the tendency to see human causes behind many things. People with paraphilias grows up in very different families, I don't think we can find a single thing that all have in common. Also the things people think may cause someone to have paraphilia aren't specific for people with paraphilias. So we can't find a reason for being paraphilic this way. At very least we would have to compare ourselves with people without paraphilias and then we could talk about some probabilities, but we still wouldn't be able to say with certainty.

Zebramouse wrote:Arik, are you sure that what you have is a paraphilia? A paraphilia is sexual. You want to have a female body for non sexual reasons.

I came here because I felt I had a good reason to believe I am a pedophile: prepubescent females are more beautiful than adult women.

Zebramouse wrote:I felt like that as a kid, but I think it was all in my head. No one ever told me it wasn't okay to be a boy, I just felt it.

No one told me that either. It was easy to see how my sisters were treated differently from me, the only son.

Zebramouse wrote:P.S. the girl in your avatar is very cute.

Thank you. My character's wife, Hikaru, would appreciate it.

Yorkshirelass wrote:Could it be possible you have mild Aspergers?

I do have many of the symptoms.

Yorkshirelass wrote:Did you feel warmth/love/empathy?

Yes. I have many many many fond memories of times where I shared all those good emotions with my parents.

Yorkshirelass wrote:Could it be that your parents or one of them was Aspergers? That would explain why they weren't bothered about a social life because it was not important to them. Was their approach to parenting practical but undemonstrative?

Neither of my parents have been diagnosed with anything, and from my experience I think it's highly unlikely that either one of them has Asperger's. Both are a little... weird, sometimes, but it's nothing compared to that of my brother or sister. Both my parents are great with people, but they almost never choose to be around people. It honestly seems to be a matter of personal preference for them to live a relatively lonesome life and not a result of any illness. They are happy on their own or with people, they just prefer the former.

I should probably mention that my pedophilia surfaced more than 5 years after I entered puberty. In other words, I lived through 5 years of exclusive sexual interest in adults before "becoming" interested in kids too. My psychologist thinks that I simply conditioned myself to like kids by masturbating to those fantasies over and over, and if I just stop having the fantasies then I'll probably lose the attraction again. It's been three months of no sexual fantasies about children, and while the attraction is easier to ignore and less intrusive in my life, it is still a part of me and its as strong as ever when I happen to see a child. I've given up hope that I will "unpedofy" myself someday. Not sure how to tell my psychologist this.

I'm kind of torn between the idea of being born this way and having conditioned myself irreversibly. All in all, I don't think it makes a difference, because the outcome is the same: A lifetime of pedophilia lies ahead, and I am okay with that. I just have to develop the necessary skills to ensure I never hurt a child.

SpecialCuteHugs, can a person condition themselves to have a certain sexuality? I'm curious how your therapist reached that conclusion.

SpecialCuteHugs
Neither of my parents have been diagnosed with anything, and from my experience I think it's highly unlikely that either one of them has Asperger's. Both are a little... weird, sometimes, but it's nothing compared to that of my brother or sister. Both my parents are great with people, but they almost never choose to be around people. It honestly seems to be a matter of personal preference for them to live a relatively lonesome life and not a result of any illness. They are happy on their own or with people, they just prefer the former.

I met a friends brother and his family recently, I had been warned they were 'a little odd'. I liked them, but they were slightly weird, couldn't quite put my finger on what it was though.
They have chosen to life in a beautiful but rather remote part of Canada. They have a daughter and a son. The son is obsessed with snakes & reptiles he has a large python, four tarantulas and various other snakes, he doesn't bother or see the need for small talk.
He is undiagnosed, his family seem oblivious to his 'differences'. Hes happy enough. He is 25 has never had a girl friend and shows little interest sex
After observing him I pretty sure he is Aspergers, I mentioned this to my friend and he agreed that it did fit. The daughter is normal. They are a happy and loving family. They too are OK round people but choose to spend most of their time on their own.
The father is normal but very laid back but mother is weird, likeable but weird. I suspect she has Aspergers too.
Apparently Aspergers in females is hard to diagnose.
To me this sounds like your family?

KevinG31 wrote:SpecialCuteHugs, can a person condition themselves to have a certain sexuality? I'm curious how your therapist reached that conclusion.

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I think a person can definitely condition themselves to have a certain sexuality. I have occasionally watched porn and been turned on by stuff I'd never even though of.
I think some one inadvertently coming across, say, paedophilia on a website might find themselves horrified to find themselves turned on. The question is has that website 'Woken The Sleeping Dragon? Has it put thoughts there that were never there before? The problem is if you then keep returning to that website and it becomes a sort of addiction maybe it will condition your mind.
Whatever you think about most becomes bigger and stronger.

KevinG31 wrote:SpecialCuteHugs, can a person condition themselves to have a certain sexuality? I'm curious how your therapist reached that conclusion.

Well he didn't originally offer that as a concrete conclusion, more of a hypothesis at first. After all, there doesn't seem to be any other reason as to why I just started having strong sexual thoughts about kids after years of being disgusted by the idea like everyone else. Nothing drastic happened in my life over the few months that these feelings developed. Either I conditioned myself or I became a pedophile for no reason at all. Until another, more convincing idea is suggested, I'm inclined to agree with him.

Yorkshirelass wrote:I met a friends brother and his family recently, I had been warned they were 'a little odd'. I liked them, but they were slightly weird, couldn't quite put my finger on what it was though.
They have chosen to life in a beautiful but rather remote part of Canada. They have a daughter and a son. The son is obsessed with snakes & reptiles he has a large python, four tarantulas and various other snakes, he doesn't bother or see the need for small talk.
He is undiagnosed, his family seem oblivious to his 'differences'. Hes happy enough. He is 25 has never had a girl friend and shows little interest sex
After observing him I pretty sure he is Aspergers, I mentioned this to my friend and he agreed that it did fit. The daughter is normal. They are a happy and loving family. They too are OK round people but choose to spend most of their time on their own.
The father is normal but very laid back but mother is weird, likeable but weird. I suspect she has Aspergers too.
Apparently Aspergers in females is hard to diagnose.
To me this sounds like your family?

Okay, yes, that does honestly sound a lot like my family. But I'm not really sure why it's important whether my family has Asperger's. Asperger's is just a collection of symptoms, it's not like a bacteria that infects you. Besides, I am already living the kind of life that someone with Asperger's would live because I exhibit many of the same symptoms, so I don't really care if I actually have it or not.

Yorkshirelass wrote:I think a person can definitely condition themselves to have a certain sexuality. I have occasionally watched porn and been turned on by stuff I'd never even though of.
I think some one inadvertently coming across, say, paedophilia on a website might find themselves horrified to find themselves turned on. The question is has that website 'Woken The Sleeping Dragon? Has it put thoughts there that were never there before? The problem is if you then keep returning to that website and it becomes a sort of addiction maybe it will condition your mind.
Whatever you think about most becomes bigger and stronger.

I used to masturbate to cartoon ponies and I still really like 'em even though I haven't masturbated to them in over a year. I certainly didn't grow up that way.

I think some people's sexuality is more malleable than others. We can't just say that everyone's sexuality is locked down from birth no exceptions. There are plenty of cases where people change sexual interests drastically. It's rare, but it certainly does happen.

SpecialCuteHugs wrote:

KevinG31 wrote:SpecialCuteHugs, can a person condition themselves to have a certain sexuality? I'm curious how your therapist reached that conclusion.

Well he didn't originally offer that as a concrete conclusion, more of a hypothesis at first. After all, there doesn't seem to be any other reason as to why I just started having strong sexual thoughts about kids after years of being disgusted by the idea like everyone else. Nothing drastic happened in my life over the few months that these feelings developed. Either I conditioned myself or I became a pedophile for no reason at all. Until another, more convincing idea is suggested, I'm inclined to agree with him.

Was anything different happening in your life when you first became sexually attracted to children?

KevinG31 wrote: Was anything different happening in your life when you first became sexually attracted to children?

I was working a steady job, saving up money for university, making a few new social connections here and there (but most of which didn't last in the long term). I was even in a romantic relationship for a short while. I was really forcing myself out of my comfort zone. Everything seemed to be on the up and up.

Not sure if this is really relevant, but I met a girl through an old friend of mine and she had two younger sisters who I got to spend a lot of time with and it was great. No sexual thought would cross my mind, I will emphasize. This was pre-pedophilia. I saw them as happy lovable kids and nothing more. At some point me and that family went our separate ways. I only bring this up because this was the first experience I ever had with direct personal interaction with children, so my mind probably assigned great significance to it. Maybe this indirectly led to my attraction to kids, I dunno.

SpecialCuteHugs wrote:

KevinG31 wrote: Was anything different happening in your life when you first became sexually attracted to children?

I was working a steady job, saving up money for university, making a few new social connections here and there (but most of which didn't last in the long term). I was even in a romantic relationship for a short while. I was really forcing myself out of my comfort zone. Everything seemed to be on the up and up.

Not sure if this is really relevant, but I met a girl through an old friend of mine and she had two younger sisters who I got to spend a lot of time with and it was great. No sexual thought would cross my mind, I will emphasize. This was pre-pedophilia. I saw them as happy lovable kids and nothing more. At some point me and that family went our separate ways. I only bring this up because this was the first experience I ever had with direct personal interaction with children, so my mind probably assigned great significance to it. Maybe this indirectly led to my attraction to kids, I dunno.

You could be associating children with that time in your life when you were together with that girl, to do so would be no different than how people enjoy the era of music from an earlier time in their life when they were more happy.