Disclaimer: like most pedophiles, I have never approached a child with anything sexual or otherwise inapporpriate, and I don’t plan ever to do so. I recognize the harm in such actions, and I don’t want to hurt the very people I love. If you expect AMA with a child molester, this ain’t it.
The account is a throwaway, hope you’ll understand this decision given the sensitivity of the topic.
Edit: Thank you for keeping civil and genuine in your questions. I did envision hostility, yet here you are, amazing as always. Lemmy is a wonderful place to be, thanks to you all!
Edit 2: Apparently we have another brave pedophile here in the comments, and he came with a good note I should include in the post: if you find yourself attracted to minors, that’s okay. Acting on your desires is dangerous, but having them isn’t. If you’d like to have some support and/or community that would help you get your bearings or just listen without any prejudice (we’re all in the same boat), there are places that can help you. removed
The two issues are poorly linked, and experience of other pedophiles and generally minor-attracted people is very often strongly negative.
Unfortunately, a lot of therapists, even LGBTQ+ friendly ones (no strangers to non-traditional attractions, huh?) are completely unequipped to deal with the issue and can make it much worse.
That situation sounds extremely challenging. I can just imagine my own frustration if I went to a LGBTQ+ specialist with this only to be told they cant help me, or worse.
I wish you the best of luck.
Thank you! It means a lot.
That being said, I had one free session with a competent specialist once. Unfortunately, I cannot afford their help, but this one session was already very transformative, as it was the first time I was accepted, face to face, by someone who is not attracted to minors themselves. Got me through a lot of emotions then.
I hope we’ll have more of it, and I strongly believe a more understanding culture would be beneficial for everyone - including children who’ll be more safe.
This makes sense; 90% of LGBT therapy is telling them their sexuality is fine and helping them to make better connections with their community which is pretty much the exact opposite of what you want to do in this case.
On a similar note though I do like that you said the thoughts are fine in themselves; I have had several OCD patients with violent and sexual obsessions that are terrified that they could possibly be a pedophile and the anxiety and intrusive thoughts feed each other from there. The more they obsess about how disturbing their thoughts are and the thought that it’s because that’s fundamentally who they are, the worse the thoughts get. One of them I had to print off an OCD advocacy factsheet for that had the stats on it about how people with ocd pretty much never act on such things, they’re too afraid to, but the things they do to avoid the thoughts can often be dangerously self injurious.