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The below are answers given by selected members of the VirPed forum who are all pedophiles. They are speaking for themselves and not for the organization.
Someonewithnojudgment asks;
I was sexually abused as a child. I am now a grown up person. I am simply trying to understand why it happened. When I ask psychiatrists and other so called professionals, they simply don’t know. Why do you think you have these urges? Where does it come from? I am suffering, but I know you are too.
Thanks for this question and I understand the desire to know why what happened happened. I am really sorry for what happened to you.
Unfortunately, it is difficult for someone like me to give an answer, or to offer any special insight on this. I have never abused a child so it’s hard for me to know what might contribute to that process. In addition, I think the causes are varied and complex. Offenders themselves give differing accounts of what happened. Some of them say it was because they were attracted to the child, some of them say they weren’t. Some of them blame a compulsion, others say it was a choice. Some say it was about love, some say availabilty, some say that they never really thought about it. These must all be hard things to hear when you are the victim/survivor, because I doubt any of them really tell you about what you experienced in the situation and why you feel the way you feel about it - nor why it happened to you and not some other kid.
I have often wondered why I just didn’t turn out a regular heterosexual man following a standard course of life. I’ve read articles, looked at what scientists think, and also heard a lot of armchair theorists speculating that I must have been abused myself (I wasn’t) or that I made a choice to be this way (I didn’t) or that I was influenced into it (I wasn’t). It’s become clear that this is one of those areas in life where there are few facts, and yet people seem to have so many certainties. Maybe that’s because people are more scared of experiencing doubt than they are of making up unhelpful stories.
Ultimately, child sexual abuse and pedophilia are distinct (sometimes overlapping) mysteries. You have experienced abuse and might never get to know why. I have experienced attraction to kids and am now certain I will never know why. Was your abuser someone like me, or someone who was completely unlike me? I can’t tell. A lot of what I have gained from VirPed and from therapy has been coming to terms with the fact I will never have definitive answers and making peace with it. I think as each of us gets older, we all approach that conclusion from many starting points. I hope you can also find it.
Coming from someone who is both a pedophile and a CSA/CSEM victim:
Its a simple answer, because they choose to. Not because they were a map, but because they decided to use their free will to do such things.
Sure, there are factors outside of that, but at the end of the day the tipping point was the decision to commit CSA.
I have these attractions because my brain responds to stimuli of many different things, including children, with chemicals that make me have those feelings. Nothing more, nothing less.
That’s life and we are all subject to the whims of neurotransmitters and chemicals making our brains go “grrr” or “oh wow.” The thing that matters is what we do with those emotions, those feelings, those thoughts, those urges, and everything else we are subjected to without a choice.
So the only thing we can do is decide how our behavior will be, what we do and how we respond to all of these feelings. That’s life and just about everyone has to learn this.
Everyone is suffering, that is the one constant we have, what we choose to do despite it is what matters.
If you’re asking why child sex abuse happens, it’s because an adult makes a choice, ultimately. Some may not see certain cases as cleanly as that, but when you boil it down, that’s what you get.
If you’re asking why we are pedophiles…any reason… every reason… no reason at all…?
I want to be careful not to misconstrue my argument: pedophilia not homosexuality or transness, its not acceptable for a adult to seek children as partners, but it is inherent in the same way that those things are inherent. We seem to have been born this way.
Speaking for myself, I don’t have urges. I have a sexual orientation that controls my attractions. But I have free will that has always and will always control my actions. Can I generalize as to what motivated the individual that abused you? I really can’t. I don’t know why it happened or what motivated their action. But blaming it on urges seems to be a deflection imo.
We tend not to know what caused our attractions. Searching for the cause of what happened to you may remain equally frustrating. But I’d recommend not taking it out on others who have an attraction. I can only offer my sympathies with the struggle you’ve had to go through.
I’m very sorry to hear that you were abused, no child should ever have to suffer through that. I won’t be able to suddenly make things better for you, and I don’t even think I’m in a position to give you a satisfying answer, but I’ll do my best. First of all, being a pedophile and molesting children are not the same thing, and one doesn’t automatically imply the other. The experiences of non-offending, anti-contact pedophiles won’t answer why you were abused, because generally when someone abuses a kid, there are other factors leading to the abuse, not just pedophilia. Many of us go through our entire lives without ever coming close to abusing a kid, and there are abusers who aren’t even pedophiles, but situational offenders (perhaps they abuse children out of opportunity, or the power dynamic, rather than a genuine attraction). Perhaps you were abused by a situational offender.
This isn’t to make light of what happened to you, just to illustrate that we really don’t have the answer. Who knows what people were thinking when they decided to abuse a child. One thing we do know is that unlike pedophilia, a child molester makes a conscious decision to abuse a child. Pedophilia is unchosen, can’t be forcefully changed, and to be honest, nobody truly knows where it came from. I was never abused and I had a fairly normal childhood, so I can’t figure out how my pedophilia came about other than being born that way. Even if we did know, that wouldn’t explain the behaviour of offenders, because that is different from pedophilia.
By the way, I don’t agree with calling our attractions “urges” as we experience our attraction to children in the same way that anyone else experiences their attractions to other adults. Being attracted to children doesn’t imply an uncontrollable impulse, and many of us are perfectly safe around children.
I am so sorry this happened to you. You did not deserve it and have every right to be angry. The fact that you can still have empathy for us suggests you have a noble spirit.
I wish I knew why I am minor attracted. As best I can tell I was just born this way. There are some people who are sexually abused, often at a very young age, and that seems to rewire their brain at a vulnerable time such that they develop minor attraction. That does NOT happen to all kids who are sexually abused. Most kids who have that horrible experience do not become minor attracted, but it is a risk factor.
But you are correct when you say “we suffer.” I am not trying to compare our issues with yours, or trying to play the victim, but although I accept my attraction, I sure do not like it. The truth is there is almost no help for us. I was 18 when I knew for real that I was a MAP. I felt I could tell no one. I lived a secret, often unhappy life. I became involved in downloading CSEM much to my shame and ongoing regret, but it happened slowly and once I knew I was making a mistake it was a compulsive behavior that I could not seek help for.
We don’t have the answers but this website is designed to help us feel less isolated and “uniquely wicked” while encouraging each other in developing healthy behaviors while keeping children safe.
Again, I am sorry something tragic happened to you as a youngster. Thank you for reaching out to us. Please know there are many of us working hard to life safe and virtuous lives despite a chronic but unhelpful sexual orientation towards minors.
As far as I can tell, my sexual desires come straight from my genes or similar. I was not abused as a child, I had no early sexual experiences or desires, and none of the other common reasons apply to me. I’m not even sure I knew what sex was before I was 13! I’m just wired this way. It was a real shock when I entered puberty and discovered that.
However, I’ve never even considered hurting a kid. It’s just not who I am. We can all choose how we live, and I choose to live a good life.
What about those who do sexually abuse kids? I know of three reasons people choose to do it.
First, some are just bad people. They prioritize their own needs. I think this is similar to anyone else who commits a crime. It is selfishness and total disregard for other human beings.
A second possibility: that they’ve convinced themselves that it’s not bad to have sex with a child. They think it can be done in a way that is not harmful but loving. There’s a lot of subtlety and complexity to this set of beliefs and how they come about, but some genuinely don’t believe they’re doing anything wrong. (That doesn’t change the impact of their actions.)
Finally, some people who do it are not even pedophiles. It’s a crime of opportunity, or a desire for power, or a desire for the taboo. There’s some scientific research suggesting that a number of cases of child sexual abuse are carried around by people with no innate sexual attraction to children.
I’m really sorry for what happened to you. I wish I could offer you a better explanation, and perhaps you can fit what you remember into one of these frameworks. When someone acts with that kind of selfishness, it can be incredibly hard to understand why they did what they did, as with any crime that hurts another person. All I can say is that if it was because of sexual desire, that was only one part of what happened, and that sexual desire may not have even existed. I hope, whatever it is, that you can move past and know that unfortunately, there are simply bad people out there.
More questions and answers If you want to read what some child abuse survivors have written to usFirst of all, I’m so sorry that you were abused. CSA is something that leave lifelong scars. I hope that it’s something you’ve been able to heal from.
The truth is, all of us, at least in part, want to act upon a sexuality that is immoral to act upon in real life. Independently of this, some people have difficulty controlling impulses. When you combine those two together, it can culminate in to something that can ruin lives. I’m very lucky to be a person that is good at controlling urges devastating enough that need to be controlled, and I’m lucky to be empathetic enough to understand how devastating it can be, despite having never been sexually abused.
I can only speak about this as someone genuinely attracted to children that never would act upon those desires. There are also situational offenders that aren’t attracted to children, but I can’t speak for that in any way.