https://www.virped.orgA very touchy subject to say the least, and some people might despise me for even posting my view on this matter, however its a subject that I find extremely intriguing and always am looking to dive deeper into when given the chance. Read at your own will and turn your discourse brain on, because this is a controversial area of research that interests me ⬇️
I knew that I wanted to be a professional who studies sexuality when I first felt empathy towards people who identify with pedophilia. Pedophilia is defined as a psychiatric disorder in which an adult or older adolescent experiences a primary or exclusive sexual attraction to prepubescent children. Now you might being to think, EMPATHY?! How could this girl feel empathy towards someone who sexually abuses children?! My answer is always the same - its not that I support child sexual abuse, or abuse of any kind of for that matter. In fact, pedophilia and sex offenders are two different sides of the same coin. People can have pedophilic interests without ever acting on them, and this idea is what made me discover empathy towards this small percent of the population. According to Dr. Justin Lehmiller (a social psychologist and a Research Fellow at The Kinsey Institute that I work with at the Sexual Health Alliance) proposed in his research around sexual fantasies that 6% of the human population identifies with pedophilia. This sparked my curiosity even further and made me start to really ask more questions about people like this. The empathy piece I keep bringing up comes from a place of human connection, where I feel and understand that there is a small percentage of people out there in the world who have a sexuality that the law does not permit. Who would choose to have a sexuality that is completely and utterly unaccepted by all of human kind? Who would choose to have to be forced to repress their sexuality for the sake of other humans physical and mental safety? This is also where the controversial piece comes in - should pedophilia be considered a sexual orientation? My answer/opinion is yes - because of the cases I have seen, I believe that this is something a rare group of people find within their sexualities and don't choose to have these interests. I understand how this idea in this current climate can be harmful to repressed groups of sexual orientations that have fought for so long to be considered as one, or perhaps have fought against the label as "pedophile" when they simply just identify within LGBTQIA+. However, as we continue to research, I firmly believe that they are obviously separate entities, but very valid ones. A few websites and an amazing resource for people who struggle with their pedophile identities have really pushed my beliefs in this, and have confirmed all that I have thought to be true. By no means do these websites promote or encourage adults to pursue sex with children, however they provide a safe, anonymous platform for struggling individuals to find out and hear others stories just like their own when they thought they were alone in this world.
Those websites are:
- https://www.b4uact.org/know-the-facts/
To sum up, pedophiles are a population that I want to work with in my therapeutic practice as a therapist, and I believe it is my job to help by publicly publishing my opinion that pedophiles who don't act on their desires needs to be destigmatized in the name of their mental health as well. Again, I do not and nor will I ever will support adults performing any kind of intimate or sexual act on a child. I do not support sexual abuse or sex offending. What I do support, is the mental health of humanity, and stigmatized populations are included in that. If you're reading this and are having a hard time digesting, let's have a conversation!