Disclaimer: like most pedophiles, I have never approached a child with anything sexual or otherwise inapporpriate, and I don’t plan ever to do so. I recognize the harm in such actions, and I don’t want to hurt the very people I love. If you expect AMA with a child molester, this ain’t it.
The account is a throwaway, hope you’ll understand this decision given the sensitivity of the topic.
Edit: Thank you for keeping civil and genuine in your questions. I did envision hostility, yet here you are, amazing as always. Lemmy is a wonderful place to be, thanks to you all!
Edit 2: Apparently we have another brave pedophile here in the comments, and he came with a good note I should include in the post: if you find yourself attracted to minors, that’s okay. Acting on your desires is dangerous, but having them isn’t. If you’d like to have some support and/or community that would help you get your bearings or just listen without any prejudice (we’re all in the same boat), there are places that can help you. Visit VirPed (18+) or MAP Support Club (13+; scroll down for details), or refer to other resources through the MAP Resources website.
So, I’m just kind of reading through this here out of intrigue. It’s actually really nice to see how civil and like, chill everyone is being. I can only imagine on a different platform, it would be much easier to get swept up in anger.
My question is kind of specific and I’d understand if you didn’t have an exact answer: I’m going to school soon to become a social worker (may or may not try to specialize in children’s rights) and I was wondering if there was anything you wish social workers would know about pedophiles/pedophilia?
I’m not sure if I can provide an answer good enough since I never got involved in social work circles, but I’ll do my best.
Since, I imagine, they work with cases involving children being molested among other things, they may benefit from knowing many (little over 50%, if I recall correctly) child molesters are not pedophiles and may need a different approach based on whatever led them this way. For example, it would be ineffective to apply a prevention program designed for pedophiles to a person who abused a child due to hypersexuality and kids just being easier to take advantage of, and so on.
Same realization can help in noticing more types of behaviors as risk factors.
Also, most pedophiles are extremely hard to spot: we are not staring at kids and licking our lips or something :D We are not all men in our 40’s (in fact, pedophilic thoughts normally arise first during puberty and then last a lifetime), we don’t all wear round glasses and a moustache. In fact, for the most part, there is no need to identify us in the first place since most of us are entirely harmless. And yes, some of the social workers, teachers etc. will undoubtedly be pedophiles, most without any malicious intent.
That’s all I can think of off the back of my head that can be useful. Feel free to ask further questions!