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I was born without my right hand. As a child, this deformity quickly set me apart from my peers. In public I wore a prosthesis, an intimidating object to other youngsters because of its resemblance to a pirate’s hook. Even so, I wore it every day; I felt inadequate without it. I was shy, uncoordinated and terrible at sports, all of which put me on the outs with other boys my age. But I was good at drawing and making up stories for my own entertainment, and I spent more and more time in my own head, being a space adventurer or monster wrangler or whatever character I could think up. These would ultimately prove to be useful skills, but for now they only served to further alienate me from other kids. On top of it all, I still struggled with bladder control—likely due to my heaping pile of insecurities, to which this problem only added more—well into my elementary school years.

But none of this would compare to the final insult the universe would deal me. I’ve been stuck with the most unfortunate of sexual orientations, a preference for a group of people who are legally, morally and psychologically unable to reciprocate my feelings and desires. It’s a curse of the first order, a completely unworkable sexuality, and it’s mine. Who am I? Nice to meet you. My name is Todd Nickerson, and I’m a pedophile. Does that surprise you? Yeah, not many of us are willing to share our story, for good reason. To confess a sexual attraction to children is to lay claim to the most reviled status on the planet, one that effectively ends any chance you have of living a normal life. Yet, I’m not the monster you think me to be. I’ve never touched a child sexually in my life and never will, nor do I use child pornography.

JFairfax posted:

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Which is why I have stressed time and again that I believe it is imperitave to allow the CHILD to take the lead. In my situation with J, she "came onto" me (in her naive but rather aggressive way) rather obviously and for a prolongued amount of time--I mean over days. She obviously had given her desire alot of thought, and it was both to be touched by me and to touch me in return. She even plotted to trick me--more than once--into making it happen, though I, being 18 at the time, could see through her ruses fairly quickly. Now here is a situation where the child DESIRED to learn more about sex, and this would be no different than if she'd come to me and asked me to teach her to swim. I would oblige either one if society allowed it and didn't poison the waters, so to speak. And I would do it at her pace, working with her as much as she liked for as long as she liked. Now, would I get pleasure out of teaching her? Hell yes! In fact, I did teach a little cousin of mine to swim (not to mention read and write, at least in part) and I enjoyed the hell out of it. Does that make it wrong because it also benefits me?