The inbox for Virtuous Pedophiles gets messages from many kinds of people. Lots of pedophiles, of course, but also journalists, therapists and people who want to share their ideas on the problem. One particularly interesting group of people who write are sexual abuse survivors.
A few are hostile, but most are not. Below are the lightly edited words of eight women (two lengthy accounts and six shorter ones). All except Margaux are identified by pseudonyms.
I am a sexual abuse survivor and author of Tiger, Tiger, a bestselling memoir which has been translated into 19 languages.
My abuse began when I was 7 years old, after I met Peter Curran, who was a retiree and collector of exotic animals. Though Peter abused me, he also gave me praise and emotional support that counterbalanced my horrific home life—a viciously critical father and mentally ill mother. Peter committed suicide in 2001, when I was 22, and it emotionally shattered me. I would say that suicide in general is so desperately painful for abuse victims that I’d plead with even known offenders not to take that route. I have read the scientific literature that pedophilia is an orientation, not a choice, and that as long as it is not acted upon, it remains “dormant” so to speak and thereby harms no child. Virtuous Pedophiles is committed to protecting children like the 7-year-old Margaux who could not protect herself and whose family did not protect her. I wish Peter had chosen a Lewis Carroll-type relationship with me that involved no acts of sexuality and then I would’ve been spared countless psychological problems and years of therapy. If an organization like this one had been available to Peter perhaps he would have never offended against me and my life would have been infinitely improved.
Virtuous Pedophiles is an extraordinary website where those struggling with feelings of attraction to children can find support and a community. It is here that they can form positive links with others and resist the impulses to offend against children. This website does a tremendous service to both children and parents by serving as a kind of Alcoholics Anonymous wherein everyone strives to “stay clean” and honorable. I believe that this website will do far more to lower child abuse rates than our current system of punishment, social ostracism, and threats of violent reprisal. I support VP wholeheartedly as an abuse survivor, as a worker with human trafficking victims, as a mother, and as an American citizen. We need more websites like this and so I hope they will thrive and flourish as it serves to protect the most vulnerable and precious members of our society—the children.
Never before has a website led to such an outpouring of feeling in me. I guess this letter falls under the category of Abuse Survivor stories, but that’s not my main reason for writing.
My story: I’m not sure why but if there is such a thing as a sexualized child, I must have been one because I’ve been a magnet since I was 5. The first perpetrators were my own female playmates. As their house guests, I wouldn’t be allowed bedsheets without performing sexual acts on them – where they learned this behavior at that age, I don’t even want to contemplate. When I was 7 and 8, I was molested by multiple men, all neighbors, all living within a few hundred yards of one another. I can’t believe men discuss this together – I have to believe they all acted independently and arrived at the same conclusion. I remember my main molester keeping me silent by imploring me to not send him to jail, but my mom says now I also said he threatened to kill us all. She’s probably more accurate, as for its own preservation, my mind has seemingly blessedly blocked out a lot. Around the age of 9 one of my mother’s boyfriends figured out what was going on. When we were alone he confronted me and I admitted it. It would seem it took one to know one, I’ll never forget it, because after being forced into the worst confession of my life, my forced confessor then made me grope him. How weird is that?
Regardless, I’m grateful to him because my mom then knew and the abuse stopped, not because men stopped trying but because now I was informed, smarter and stronger.
All that wouldn’t have compelled me to write to you. This is what does: I have a fantastic set of old 45s from original artists like the Beatles and Steppenwolf, and vague memories of the cool, great guy who gave them to me and our friendship with him. It was long after I got the records and I was old enough to understand that my mom told me the story that follows. My mom had a way about her so that people always confided in her. She felt incredible guilt that when our friend gave me the records and also offered us a bike and stereo, my mom didn’t see the signs that he was giving away his belongings because he wasn’t going to need them anymore. He’d talked many times with my mom of suicide as a result of his pedophilia, and that he’d rather die than hurt a child. She did her best to talk him out of it, but he hanged himself. This was a good person who maybe, if he’d lived in the internet age and had a forum like this with other people to relate to, could have come to terms with himself and not felt so alone, so helpless. It hurts my heart still. I feel for you all – born into something you can’t control with no recourse except the admirable one you’ve chosen in joining Virtuous Pedophiles.
I have my own issues. I struggle with alcoholism. I could easily play the victim and blame it on my past, but I don’t. It probably would have come about in any case for the same undefined reasons as pedophilia does to you. Maybe it’s a genetic predisposition. I’m pretty sure I was just brain-hardwired that way, and maybe I just like knocking out my self-hating prefrontal cortex for a few hours of lizard brain – even though my self-hating brain will soon be back hating me more than ever.
Regardless, I thank you for this website for giving me greater insight. Almost immediately after I saw it, I saw another article with a lesbian saying she shouldn’t be discriminated against because she can’t help her sexual orientation, unlike pedophiles who should be accountable. She probably didn’t think anything of it. A few hours earlier, I probably wouldn’t have thought anything of it. Now I know. And you taught me: pedophile is not synonymous with child molester. Thank you for that.
Thank you Todd, Nick and Ethan—what a treacherous ground you dare to tread! Bless your efforts to bring this to the light. Your ‘First Words’ tab had tears rolling down my cheeks. I’m better for having visiting here.
I am a survivor of sexual abuse. I was not the offender’s first target. His daughter was. Then her friend. Then his next wife’s two children. Then me. … it was awful. It was horrible. I still have night terrors although I am almost 20 years old… But I do not blame those pedophiles who do not act. Instead, I wish to extend support to them. Because hearing it described, it is like being homosexual and afraid to come out… I applaud every single man and woman who recognizes their attraction but does not take it out on a child. Wanting a younger person doesn’t make someone a bad person. Acknowledging the attraction and abstaining from abusing the power of being older and larger – THAT is what makes a human golden.
Thank you from a former sexually abused child … A big swollen and heart-filled THANK YOU. I never thought in my wildest dreams I would have the capacity to say those words to a pedophile, being a 32-year-old woman who has experienced painful sexual abuse as a child myself. It’s because you, and the other virtuous pedophiles of the world, haven’t done anything wrong for being in the world as you are but have only worked to try to figure out how to make things RIGHT in the world in dealing with this immensely charged and difficult issue. What’s more is I can see how you did this and persevered against all odds, in a very hostile world, risking everything…where people would rather seriously hurt you instead of HELP you and other people like you. Naturally, I was no different and used to feel the same hate and rage. But now I know such feelings do nothing to actually effectively deal with this problem in any fair or helpful way.
I was actually molested as a child … It messed me up in a lot of ways, and caused some severe trust issues. I still deal with emotional flashbacks and panic attacks, and I always worry about other kids being put through similar. It gives me hope seeing a site like yours, and I thought it would be helpful for you and your members to hear from people like me who bear the scars of those who didn’t have enough honor to control their desires/urges … I think sometimes those who molest children reach a point that they lie to themselves that they aren’t harming, they aren’t hurting innocents… I lost so much of my glowing darling self at such an early age, something no child should have to deal with. Thank you for having this site, and I hope you give many pedophiles the strength they need to keep children safe.
I was molested by a pedophile in my own family: my grandfather. It put me in a unique position to see a pedophile beyond how normal people see them - as more than “monsters”… I want the world to acknowledge that no one chooses this life! … If anyone should have a right to be angry, it’s me, right? But I’m not. I wish more people could put themselves in someone else’s shoes and have an inkling of what pedophiles must go through, and how utterly alone they must feel… I just want those in this group to know that not EVERYONE hates them! There are some who feel for them, and want to help.
I am a woman who was sexually abused by several men as a child. Needless to say, I’ve wondered why men would want to have sex with children. I was very interested to read that for some this is a sexual orientation that a person is born with. I do think that some people abuse children to experience a sense of power, but that is a different issue. I want to tell you that in spite of having been abused (and knowing the suffering that many others who have been abused have experienced), I feel compassion for those of you who recognize you are pedophiles and are struggling to live with that orientation. I honor you for facing the truth and for fighting the urge to act in harmful ways. I do hope that those of you who seek help will be able to find it. I hope that you can find ways to accept who you are and to have satisfying, meaningful lives while refraining from abusing children. I hope that you will not live in despair and depression - you don’t deserve to if you do nothing that harms another.
I heard about this group from Luke Malone’s “Help Wanted” radio segment, and was hesitant to listen at first. I was abused at 5. However, after listening, I realized that I had an emotional reaction. I just want to say thank you for having such a group in the first place. I would not have believed that I could feel this way about this topic, but we are all human and dealing with our own individual problems, and sometimes we just need to talk with people who are like us, whatever way that may be. This might be a little weird, but if your organization needs help with things, I would like to assist if possible. We as humans should help those who need it, regardless of how we are different.