VirPed Panel: 02 June 2024

“Wai Me” asks:

Is it illegal, anywhere in the world, to be a non offending and non violent pedophile?

I am pretty sure you can’t make something illegal which is a spontaneous, involuntary biological process - provided that process happens in a way that nobody else can detect. Even if you did make something like this illegal, it would be unjust to do so.

This is the case with pedophilia. We don’t choose to have the attractions, but we can conceal that we experience them. If we couldn’t do this, none of us would ‘pass’ and god knows how we’d be treated. Maybe people would try to legally take our lives. Maybe instead our sheer numbers would demonstrate that it’s pointless to try to punish us out of existing.

At the moment what’s illegal is sexual contact or exploitation of children and various kinds of sexual images of children. Governments are also increasing the number of types of fictional content (not involving real children) that it is illegal to make, share or possess. The further this goes, the harder it will be to enforce, but also the closer we will get to making pedophiles ourselves illegal. It’s a very weird and frightening thought to me that one day I might be a criminal simply for existing. If we ever get to that situation thousands upon thousands of people will grow into adults in miserable, silent, lonely desperation. I couldn’t regard a world that allowed this to happen as civilised.

My hope is that one day, instead of just banning things, governments get more willing to gather evidence instead, and to find out exactly to what extent pedophilia predicts that a person would abuse a child. One certainty is that It’s possible to exist with pedophilia and to not be a risk to children, so making pedophilia a crime would punish those innocent of causing any harm.

I think the answer is yes, by my definition of all the words you used. You can go to prison for owning a child-like sex doll or looking at loli porn in many places. Behaviour that is neither offensive nor violent towards anybody, but which is inherent to paedophiles, is punishable with prison time.

Maybe that doesn’t count. Maybe that doesn’t work with your definitions.

In that case, it’s not illegal yet, but you can achieve anything you set your mind to. If I were one of these lawmakers, I’d write the law something like this: “It is a punishable offence to admit to, or be found to have felt, any arousal or sexual attraction towards children both real and fictitious."

Either that, or the police commissioners and attorneys general could instruct their police forces to charge anybody who has admitted to an arousal to children on the internet with “disturbing the peace” or some other vague and obtuse law. In that sense, maybe it is illegal already, and we’re just not trying hard enough.

We could be doing so much more to ruin people’s lives.

I think I’ll have to consult my pedo files. Sorry, this question has brought out the cynic in me. I’m also a little perplexed by the choice of the term non violent. Pedophilia is a sexual orientation like homosexuality. Acting on one’s homosexual orientation between consenting adults is legal in most, not all of the world. Acting on a pedophilic orientation through sexual contact with a child is not, in virtually all of the world, although age of consent varies, jurisdiction by jurisdiction.

But nowhere is an attraction illegal, nor should it, of course. As a pedophile, I often feel like society views simply being sexually attracted to children as both immoral and illegal. But one can’t fix or eliminate the attraction. Actions can be controlled by individuals based on their moral compass.

Unchosen feelings are not illegal, or at least, I am not aware of any countries that have outlawed unchosen feelings like pedophilia, and even if there were, how would they police that? We can’t read people’s minds and accurately determine their sexuality, so many of us remain hidden. Of course, it’s illegal to have sexual contact with a child, but that is different from pedophilia. Many people conflate the term which leads to confusions like this. I remember hearing an anecdote from someone who admitted their pedophilic feelings to a therapist, and the therapist ended up calling the police, only for the police to explain that it’s not illegal to have these feelings if the individual hasn’t molested a child or downloaded CSAM.

Of course, even if it’s not illegal, getting publicly outed as a pedophile can damage lives. We could lose our jobs, our families, our housing, the stigma is that high. And there are countries where even non-abusive outlets such as written erotic stories involving fictional children are illegal. So even though pedophilia itself is not illegal, getting outed still has severe consequences and engaging in non-harmful behaviour can still get you arrested. It’s a sad reality, but at least having unchosen feelings on their own is not illegal, and they never should. What happens in someone’s head is never the business of anyone else, and definitely not the business of the police and governments.

I also wonder what is meant by ““non violent””. Is it implied that pedophiles are inherently violent, that our fantasies about kids are always violent? This is simply not the case. The children in our fantasies aren’t real, and many of us fantasize about kids who are a willing participant, and who enjoy what goes on. Obviously this can’t happen in reality, but it’s a fantasy, and as long as we understand that fantasies can’t be applied to reality, there’s no harm in letting our fantasies go wild. There’s also absolutely no evidence that pedophiles are inherently violent people, or that pedophilia makes someone more likely to be violent. We are just like everyone else, our unchosen feelings don’t affect our impulse control.

As far as I’m aware, it isn’t illegal to be a pedophile (in so many words), though it is increasingly difficult to be non-offending (and therefore non-criminal) as our ethical outlets, the ones that don’t involve real children at all, are criminalized. As to “non-violent,” I suppose that’s just meant to be a redundancy to “non-offending”? The majority of us don’t have violent fantasies or desires towards children.

I feel like most people equate the concept of ‘being a pedophile’ with the actions that it usually entails in the public’s eye, like molesting children. From my experience, most people are not aware that non offending pedophiles exist. Some do know and think that we’re lying and that we do secretly offend.

Still, it’s just the acts that are illegal as far as I know , but most people conflate the actions with the attractions. Even without the actions though, our lives can be completely ruined without us having broken any laws if people were to find out about our attractions.

I have not done a comprehensive search of international laws, but I doubt it is illegal to be a non offending pedophile anywhere, not because the world is so open minded, but because it would be difficult to prove.

That may not always be the case going forward. I think it is very difficult for any MAP with internet access never to access potentially implicating data, even if it is legal. Why do you watch so many videos of teen gymnastics? Why do you search for photos of young actors?

Your government probably doesn’t know if a person is minor attracted, but I bet Google knows, Facebook and/or Instagram knows, as does Amazon.

Could a malicious government with a good AI program figure it out? Probably.

Would prosecuting MAPS for ““legal”” but implicating internet searches, downloads, and media be popular with some people?

I think so.

Thought crimes may become increasingly dangerous and that should be of concern to anyone who values personal freedom.

This is a big reason we want to let others know Virtuous Pedophiles exist. Judge us on our behaviors, not our thoughts or attractions, of which we have limited control.

There are lots of ways for something to be illegal.

I’m not aware of anywhere that criminalizes pure pedophilia. Just the thoughts of finding a child attractive are not illegal, and that’s good, because it’s impossible to enforce. Fortunately, we have not yet invented mind reading technology.

What can be criminalized are things surrounding pedophilia. Certainly hurting children is illegal just about everywhere, as it should be. Child pornography is illegal just about everywhere. There are other things that might be illegal too: fictional content about pedophilia, expressing a fantasy out loud, even admitting the attraction.

You might say, “surely no country criminalizes just saying you have an attraction,” but that’s false. For example, in Russia, an anti-gay law passed in 2022 means that “If you openly identify as queer you are a part of an extremist organisation and subject to prosecution." This law extends to be pedophilia as well, making it illegal to publicly express any non-heterosexual orientation or claim that they are “normal."

Surely, VirPed and most of our writing would be illegal in Russia.

As far as I know, purely having pedophilic thoughts is not illegal anywhere. However, the state can make your life hell for being a pedophile: make it impossible for you to find even a safe sexual release or to admit to friends or family that you have this attraction and need help dealing with it.

I wouldn’t be surprised if there exist jurisdictions that criminalize individuals based off their attractions instead of their actions.

The notion that feelings alone should be demonized, let alone criminalized, has always perplexed me. The way I see it is that only decisions and behaviours can carry any real world impact.

Researchers have determined that 1-3% of the general population experience attractions to children. This equates to a far greater number of individuals experiencing these attractions than most would have ever imagined existed in society. This indicates that the vast majority of us actively choose to remain celibate as we too, do not wish to harm anyone.

First of all, I would also like to challenge the questioner’s use of the word non-violent. Why add that? It’s fine we have to add non-offending in some situations to separate us from the ones who offend, but non-violent? That is awkward and hurtful. Should I do that with all my hetero and gay friends? “Oh hey, there comes my non-violent gay friend” It’s just really out of place. Non-offending does the trick, and I do hope that one day we only need to say pedophile and people will understand that it’s only an attraction and not an action.

As many of the other answerers say, I have not heard of any places where an attraction or a feeling is deemed illegal by itself (Edit: I was proven wrong by one of the other answerers when reading them. Makes me sad). Sadly though, sometimes it feels like it might aswell could’ve been. Many people will immediately try to lock you away if you say you are pedophile, because they find the whole idea of people attracted to children so wrong and disgusting.