Many professional efforts to support us are based on the idea of preventing crimes. Do they actually work?

We don't know [how effective prevention programmes are] for several reasons.

(1) because there are only very small populations of pedophiles that seek out or receive treatment before or instead of an offence.

(2) It's impossible to measure who *would have* offended without intervention in individual cases.

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(3) It's only recently that there have been systemic attempts to reach out and offer support to pedophilic individuals who have not offended, or who are offending but have not yet been caught (now there are @StopSO_UK
, @DontOffendIndia
, @StopItNowUK
, @B4U_ACT
+ more.

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(4) In the case of the already-offending group there are a whole set of issues around mandatory reporting or ethical disclosure for professionals, for which there are different rules in different countries.

(5) Most therapy takes place with individual practitioners

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who do not collate or harmonise their approaches to this taboo issue, and would feel a strong need to be cautious in how they would discuss it in the public sphere, because of taboos.

(6) Many of those just discovering they are pedophiles and best placed to benefit

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from early intervention are themselves still legally children, which means if they reach out their parents will be told, their school might break confidentiality and generally have no clear idea or policies on how to deal with a disclosure of attraction toward minors.

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There are other issues too, but all of these align to create a situation where support is too seldom asked for, offered, publicised or comes with an assurance of expertise UNLESS a person already offended (and even then it's at best patchy).

MAPs hope this can change. ::

About the author: I have been writing and talking about the experience of being a pedophile since 2017. Once on twitter until my account was banned in 2020, I co-led Virtuous Pedophiles from 2021 to 2025. I now continue to look for ways to improve the lives of pedophiles, but never at the expense of harming children. I have never viewed illegal material, and never sought or engaged in sexual activity with any child. The rest of my life is countryside walking, friends, Radio 3 and feeling doleful about ageing.

This content was removed from Twitter in 2020 because the author's account was suspended.

the p word is a collection of 319 articles, blogs, podcasts and threads in the voices of pedophiles and others who oppose adult child sexual contact and sexual exploitation of children. Despite our mainstream views, this content is frequently removed from social media or blog sites because openly discussing pedophile attractions or avowing them are not tolerated. Our side of the conversation continues here.

editor at the p word net | Except where stated, all images are AI and do not depict real people. | Download the whole site.

regret of early sex in "diary of a teenage girl"

terminology: cp versus csem

we have to protect children, even the ones you hate

ethan edwards

The early sex was ultimately a serious obstacle to be overcome, not a simple early pleasure.

ethan edwards

I have a whole series of posts on child pornography, often abbreviated as CP. Another more recent phrase for this is "child sex exploitation material", abbreviated as CSEM.

bly

A group of adolescents, many thousands strong, are struggling with self-hatred and fear, and most people don't think that's a problem.

The early sex was ultimately a serious obstacle to be overcome, not a simple early pleasure.

I have a whole series of posts on child pornography, often abbreviated as CP. Another more recent phrase for this is "child sex exploitation material", abbreviated as CSEM.

A group of adolescents, many thousands strong, are struggling with self-hatred and fear, and most people don't think that's a problem.