VirPed Panel: 02 December 2024

Louis a Riel asks;

Do you ever try to share this part of yourself with people who don’t know but in subtle ways? Pedophile jokes for example. Or do you ever go in the other direction and overcompensate? Stuff like always making a point of saying that such and such is predatory and wrong when it’s probably just obvious.

For me, this one is quite simple and straight forward. It’s a topic that I won’t engage with at all with others, unless I know they are also pedophiles. Otherwise, I just steer totally clear of the topic. I won’t do anything subtle or overt. If the subject comes up, I simply avoid it until the subject changes.

I try to avoid both extremes and I also try to avoid out and out hypocrisy and lies, but I don’t beat myself up for doing what’s necessary for self-preservation.

I think people mostly talk about child abuse and pedophilia as a sort of bonding thing. They expect everyone to join in the condemnation or share in the disgust, so really the worst thing you can do is to stand out from the average person’s reaction. If you seem too blase about it, they will think you’re too soft on pedophilia; if you foam at the mouth and rant and rave about it, you start to look defensive and that’s suspicious too.

As a person, I’m pretty calm, reasonable and objective on most issues, so when someone else raises the topic of pedophilia I try not to be out of character. This frequently means not giving my actual views. I guess it’s sort of lucky that most people find this a difficult topic to talk about, so most people react with a certain amount of shaking their heads or blowing their cheeks out or by changing the subject because “let’s not talk about that!” so I have cover to do the same.

I’ve never had to do this, but generally if the topic of pedophilia comes up and one person says, “look, sorry, could we please not talk about it?” then people usually readily agree to that request and then make their own assumptions about why the subject might be painful for the person who made it. I’ve figured I can probably rely on that if it really gets too much.

I never bring it up. When it comes up in conversation, I shut down. That’s the truth. I can barely talk about it to the people I have come out to, let alone people who are none-the-wiser. I will simply not talk, and totally disengage from the conversation.

I was recently in a situation where I couldn’t just disengage, because it became central to a conversation between me and a friend (we were talking about anime). My whole body seized up. You could tell from a mile away that I was deeply uncomfortable with the conversation. We swiftly moved on. I don’t think my friend suspected anything; plenty of people are uncomfortable with paedophilia.

I would love to come out some day, and speak freely, and not feel like my whole world can collapse at any minute. I wouldn’t do this, but I think about bringing my whole world down on purpose and just admitting my attraction publically, if only for the freedom to talk about it. I want so desperately to talk about it. I am so proud of who I am. I am so happy being who I am. I don’t think talking is worth losing everything else in my life.

I’ve told two people in my life about being on here but I was saying it was because I was interested in it from a under studied psychology point of view. It was a way of testing the waters about maybe coming out. Didn’t get great reactions, so that went nowhere. Otherwise I more or less act normal. I have something of a dark sense of humor so I joke about the subject now and then but otherwise I just handle it like normal people do.

There were two moments where I tested the waters with friends. Once when I sent Todd’s Salon article to a friend after overhearing him at school talking about pedophiles in a somewhat sympathetic manner. He was sympathetic to the article, though I didn’t give away that I agreed with it, just that I thought it was interesting. A few years later, I shared a Reddit thread on the subject with a few friends, again not saying that I agreed with it but that I thought it was “a very different perspective” and they had mixed reactions, but not that negative which was good.

These sorts of things are often used by pedophiles to test the waters, though in my case it never led to me coming out because I was still too afraid of the consequences down the line. And it goes without saying that not everyone who talks about pedophilia like this is secretly a pedophile testing the waters. There are many non-pedophiles who are genuinely sympathetic and will sometimes share these articles to get the perspective of others.

Apart from those two cases, I have never talked about this issue to anyone in a sympathetic or overly condemning manner. If possible, I try not to bring it up at all, and it does come up I try to say as little as possible without going to either extreme.

Self-preservation is the most important thing to me, so it’s a topic I avoid entirely. Pedophilia is a subject very rarely discussed among the people I talk to, so it’s not much of an issue.

I act as if I was an ally and make all the points I would anywhere else. I’m not going to shy away from the things I believe in just because it’s real life.

My teleiophilic friends know of my interest in the topic of minor-attraction, but that is through the lens of my working towards being a clinician who wishes to work with the population. It certainly justifies my awareness of the issues, and my views towards working preventatively with this population aren’t particularly unpalatable among my close friend group.

Within my day-to-day life, I’m careful never to be obvious about my attractions. While I’ve tested the waters with a couple friends in the past by discussing these issues, and while I do believe I could probably get away relatively unscathed telling a select few, it’s just not worth the risk to me. What I would have to gain is largely provided by other MAPs in my life, while I would stand to lose everything else that is important to me if things went poorly.

The thing is, my friends and I have very dark senses of humor, and we constantly take playful jabs at one another. They sometimes joke about my being a pedophile, not because they actually believe I am one, but because I know about pedophiles and defend the humanity of non-offenders. The way I see it, I’ve got no choice but to play along—to not do so would be far more suspicious. At first, it felt very awkward, but what choice did I have? Now, I’m just accustomed to it, and I’ll sometimes even bring up the joke, myself. It’s a bit of a messed up situation, but I can see the humor in it. I think that if I were to come out to them, they wouldn’t be shocked in hindsight, but I’m careful enough with how I present, how I act around children, what I say about children, etc. to not arouse actual suspicion. The sexual stuff aside, my friends have no desire how much I adore children beyond occasionally referring to a kid “cute.” Even that is something I wouldn’t have done in the past, but let’s be honest—if that, alone, was a red flag to anyone, I’d have no desire to remain friends.

What you will never catch me doing is throwing a group of people under the bus in an attempt to save myself. That’s a grossly immature, harmful tactic that only perpetuates unjustified stigma.

Before I came to terms with it and accepted myself I would avoid the topic like the plague (and not just pedophilia - if any sex-related topic came up I would start to look for an excuse to leave the room, fearing that someone was “onto me”). Its a lot easier now - with those I trust completely and who know about my attractions I can speak freely. With anyone else I’m able to talk about the subject in an “objective” manner without it causing me too much anxiety, though I am mindful of not coming across as knowing too much (you know the old “Its difficult to explain the difference between a pedophile and a hebephile without sounding like a pedophile”-joke).

I don’t try to give away subtly hints. The only reason I’d try doing that is if its with a person who I intend to come out to

I have come out to the people I needed to come out to, and yes before actually coming out, I did subtly test the waters with them in ways of starting conversation etc. But I don’t feel the need to do that anymore. If the subject ever comes up, I do what I can to give valid points to our benefit, but it depends on the group of people I am with.