I'm a pedophile.

I first began masturbating and having sexual feelings around the age of eleven, which is a good deal earlier than anybody I've talked to about it. Very early on I had a crush on a girl my own age. We held hands occasionally and I think kissed each other on the cheek, but that was the extent of our relationship. However, I fantasized almost every night of having sex with my "girlfriend", but I never acted on those feelings because I got the feeling she didn't feel the same way. As a kid I hated porn because I hated seeing people not my own age have sex. I found it disgusting, so I looked for pictures of girls closer to my own age, but I never found any cp until later, when I was 16. As I grew up I continued to crave relationships and sex with girls my own age, but again I never acted on any of it because I felt like no one else felt the same way I did. I didn't have sex until senior year of high school at the age of 18. All in all I feel like I had a very normal childhood. I was never exposed to drugs, I was not abused, I had caring parents who took good care of me. I had two very normal high school relationships. I'm also very vanilla in terms of my sexuality. I'm straight, and I have no fetishes.

At the age of 16 or 17 I discovered that there was "child pornography" to be found online. It didn't feel like cp to me though, I just wanted to see girls my own age naked, because I still found typical porn disgusting and fake. In my search for people my own age I of course came across many horrible videos of younger girls, which shocked and disgusted me. I could never dream of watching anything like that.

Unfortunately for me my attractions stopped growing with me somewhere along the line, because now, at 18, I can still find girls as young as nine attractive. This scares the living daylights out of me. I still find people my own age attractive, but in a Humbert Humbert fashion I find women who look younger more attractive. "Normal" porn still doesn't appeal to me, as again it all feels fake and just off.

Before I turned 18, cp didn't feel like too much of a problem. Now though, the potential legal consequences are really terrifying, so I don't actively seek cp anymore. Again, I have never watched and never will watch anything that shows children being harmed. The idea of intercourse between an adult and a child is sickening.

I thought everything was ok with me for a while, until I noticed that my thoughts can also tend towards younger girls. Prepare for a story:

This summer, I spent several weeks in a house by the beach. I would go every day at the same time to fly my kite and read my book, and this girl would be there too. I was ridiculously attracted to her, I still think she is one of the most beautiful girls I have ever seen, but I told myself I could never be with her because she was clearly a couple years younger than me and I didn't think I'd have the courage to try anything anyway. I'm gonna be honest, I just liked being in her presence and being able to look at her. I noticed that she kept looking back at me. We made eye contact several times. One day, I waved at her, and she waved back. We ended up walking together and talking a bit every day on our way back to our respective homes. My last day at the beach came sooner than I had expected, and I realized walking back that this was probably the last time I would ever see her, and told her so. She gave me a piece of paper with her name and email on it, and looked at me really intensely. I thought she wanted me to kiss her, and stupidly I did, a quick press of my lips on hers. Stupid me was really happy. I went home and wrote her an email asking her a couple of questions and telling her a little bit about myself. She replied a few weeks. She said she was 12, she really liked me, she had since the moment she saw me. Immediately I knew I had to break off any kind of relationship we had, it was too damn dangerous. I couldn't believe what I'd done, I felt really guilty and scared. Guilty because despite knowing that what I did was not ok, I still wished I could have a romantic, not even necessarily sexual relationship with someone like her. This was when I knew I had a bigger problem.

I don't know if my problem comes from watching"cp", but either way the problem persists. I find my friends sisters friend, who is nine years old, incredibly attractive. I could never dream of abusing her or anyone ever. I have been alone with and babysat her and other girls her age, and never have I come remotely close to even thinking of doing anything inappropriate. She'll ask for piggy back rides, or hug me, or attack me playfully, or sit next to me at the computer, and every ounce of physical contact with her makes me unbearably sad. Knowing that I feel something towards her that I shouldn't and that neither she nor anybody else suspects anything of what is going through my mind hurts like nothing else.

Ultimately, I feel far too much like Humbert for my own comfort. In a twisted way I wish I could have a romantic relationship with a girl her age but with the mind of someone far older. It's impossible, it's disgusting, and I hate it. There's also an aspect of imagining how she will be when she's older. I wish I could explain my feelings properly.

I'm not worried that I'll abuse a child, I just need help coping with this. The feeling of isolation is what gets to me. I have never spoken of this to anyone. I feel like anyone I talked to would look at me too differently afterwards. I'm a fairly intelligent person, I am starting up a small business, I'm a year ahead in college. I've tried my whole life to be likable, and I'm really bothered by the fact that most people would find me despicable if knew what I was like in my head. I'm heavily considering going to talk to a psychologist, but just the knowledge that there is even one other person coping with a similar issue would be a tremendous help.

I'm sorry for the long post, but I need to get my thoughts out. Just writing this out has helped a lot. I'm working through my problems, and I'll be ok, but I could use some encouragement.

Thank you for reading. If anybody has any advice or anything at all to say really, please don't hesitate.

You are not alone.

It kind of pisses me off that Humpbert is the closest thing we get to a well known, sympathetic representation in the media. He's a self-serving psychopath who fails to drug and molest a child because of self-serving fear, rather the reason all the rest of us do, because we have a conscience.

For all the flack the Twilight series gets (and it deserves so much), Jacob Black is, I think, a better representation (at least in the films; I never read the books). His feelings hit him involuntarily, and he actively curses fate for screwing around with him on this. He gets immense flack for falling in love with Edward and Bella's daughter even from people who know full well it isn't in his control. He wants the object of his affection safe and happy first and foremost, and while he might want more, that desire never overrides the drive to see her safe and happy.

I'm actually somewhat more extreme than you. My age of attraction is 0-10. As a result, I didn't end up having sex in high school, because high school girls weren't attractive to me. Subsequently the closest thing I had to a sexual relationship was with an age appropriate girl who definately had feelings for me, and I her, but she was asexual, I was a pedophile, neither of us really talked about it, and things fizzled out.

I hope you'll find it in yourself to get past the self-hatrid. It isn't doing you or anyone else any favors. You aren't a bad person for being attracted to children. You've done the right thing over and over again, and despite the fact that you're living in a society that gives you zero credit for that.

Be well.

I can now honestly say I am no longer ashamed to say I am a paedophile, Im quite proud of myself actually to be able to fantasise about my sexual preferences without actually harming anyone. I suppose I am similar to the alcoholic who no longer drinks..although i didnt abuse in the first place, but the urge is always there!
I cannot stop thinking about my 9 year old bride lying next to me in bed, both of us naked kissing and loving each other, I think of her more as a very young lady rather than a prepubescent child. The frustration is palpable, thank the lord for the power of dreams and imagination where I can live out my fantasy..!

Embrace who you are and don't be ashamed of it just because everyone acts like you should be, if you don't do anything to children on a sexual level be happy with that and embrace who you are. I am proud of who I am as an exclusive pedophile but I am not proud of the children that I have hurt, but I served time for that which I don't feel like makes up for it but I have learned my lesson when it comes to being selfish and acting on my lusts and desires. Be happy with who you are at all times!

[quote="YouthRightsRadical"]You are not alone.

It kind of pisses me off that Humpbert is the closest thing we get to a well known, sympathetic representation in the media. He's a self-serving psychopath who fails to drug and molest a child because of self-serving fear, rather the reason all the rest of us do, because we have a conscience. [quote]

Why don't you stop worrying about whether the media treat you like a nice person and instead focus on not being awful

Why don't you stop worrying about whether the media treat you like a nice person and instead focus on not being awful

Wow, why don't you stop being awful? Quit harassing the people here. Seriously, they have it hard enough without people like you coming in to pick on them. Go away.

They aren't awful omg, the people you're picking on haven't hurt any children.

11alexandra wrote:

YouthRightsRadical wrote:You are not alone.

It kind of pisses me off that Humpbert is the closest thing we get to a well known, sympathetic representation in the media. He's a self-serving psychopath who fails to drug and molest a child because of self-serving fear, rather the reason all the rest of us do, because we have a conscience.

Why don't you stop worrying about whether the media treat you like a nice person and instead focus on not being awful

For the record, you have to use this character to close your tags: /

Anyway, it's been shown time and again how much easier it is to fall into negative patterns when you lack positive role models. I should think that anyone who isn't awful would want to see fewer pedophiles fall into negative patterns.

But then, it's never really about ensuring that kids are made safer with you people, is it?

11alexandra wrote:

YouthRightsRadical wrote:You are not alone.

It kind of pisses me off that Humpbert is the closest thing we get to a well known, sympathetic representation in the media. He's a self-serving psychopath who fails to drug and molest a child because of self-serving fear, rather the reason all the rest of us do, because we have a conscience.

Why don't you stop worrying about whether the media treat you like a nice person and instead focus on not being awful

Ugh. Girl, please.

If you're going to come in and behave like a tit, don't come it at all.These are some of the nicest people I've ever met (and I generally hate people), and a couple of them have become very good friends of mine.

#HaveASeat

YouthRightsRadical wrote:You are not alone.

It kind of pisses me off that Humpbert is the closest thing we get to a well known, sympathetic representation in the media. He's a self-serving psychopath who fails to drug and molest a child because of self-serving fear, rather the reason all the rest of us do, because we have a conscience.

Humbert is a very poor example of a role model for sure. A nicer place to look might be T. Rivas's "Positive Memories", it's an account of one-hundred-eighteen positive reflections on past relationships that kids (now grown up) had with adults.

If anybody is interested in watching a movie that sympathizes with pedophiles, watch The Woodsman with Kevin Bacon.