Central to the pro-contact position is the idea that if only societal laws and attitudes would change, adult-child sex could be reasonably common and a happy experience for all.

Central to the pro-contact position is the idea that if only societal laws and attitudes would change, adult-child sex could be reasonably common and a happy experience for all.

One strong hunch I have is that if such a transformation did occur, there still would be virtually no prepubescents interested in sex with adults. Social attitudes do not create the strong upsurge in sexual interest that occurs around puberty. In relatively open societies today, young boys and girls do not typically spend much time giving or receiving sexual pleasure with each other. Pedophiles might be happy in theory, but hardly any would ever actually get any sex.

To counter this, some pedophiles claim that sex feels good, so why wouldn't a child be interested in receiving pleasure? I note that adults care deeply about who their sex partners are. Women's vaginas are optimized to provide the physical stimulation necessary for male pleasure, but gay men typically feel active revulsion at the prospect of sex with women. Many straight men love to get oral sex from women but far fewer would want to get it from men. How one could believe that children should not care about who their partners are when adults do is a mystery to me.

Returning to transforming society so adult-child sex is accepted — obviously it would be possible to change laws if elected representatives decided to change them. But what would motivate such a change? It would have to be driven by some combination of children agitating for the right to have sex with adults, and society coming to feel compassion for pedophiles to the point of allowing willing children to have sex with them. I see no sign of either one.

But if we found the motivation, what are the prospects of changing society so children are willing, even if they're not particularly interested?

Compare this to other sexual restrictions we have today. Today, it is considered polite to respond if someone says "hello" to you. There's no law requiring it — it's up to you — but there is an expectation that you will. You can imagine a society where if someone asks you for sex, it is only polite to agree to it. It would make them happy, and sex is just sex. I suspect most people will share my revulsion — we don't want to live in a society like that and have no desire to move society in that direction. I also think it would be going against the grain of human nature. Women in particular seem wired to want sex only under particular circumstances — typically a relationship and commitment, or else someone they find notably attractive. This same dubious transformation could be applied to include children as a special case (assuming some means is found that is not physically damaging or painful), and the revulsion is only amplified.

Let's consider a society that is not quite that extreme. There is no social expectation to have sex just because you are propositioned, but there is no shame around sex, and it's entirely up to everyone to have sex if they feel like it.

In that context, consider adult prostitution. Society has mixed attitudes about the subject today. In some places it is legal and regulated. Even where it is not legal, it is widely tolerated. I personally tend to think it should be legal and regulated everywhere. Now let's combine this with our "no shame, individual choice" society. To the extent social attitudes are what make prostitution unpopular as a career choice, it would become more common. Suppose (to my surprise) we found it became much more popular.

This imaginary scenario is where I think pedophiles could get their big break. For many an 8-year-old girl, the offer of her own pony if she lets you play with her private parts on a regular basis would be a very tempting offer. She may find it tedious — she might even dislike it — but it would be worth it to have a pony. In this brave new world we will assume parental advice and consent (I suspect that many girls would accept the deal in TODAY'S world if they could get parental consent). In this new hypothetical society, I suspect so many girls would be willing that the price would drop. Perhaps such sexual access would then only buy some fancy clothes.

Could one "cook" society to make that change so that everyone would be happy, and no regrets? I have my doubts, because I think sex is special. There's no reason for me to think prostitution would be more popular among young boys and girls than adults.

Even if it is possible, I have a "yuck" reaction against it — and I'm a pedophile. I think of myself as mostly libertarian on social issues, but I can't quite manage it for certain rules around sex. I'm OK with public nudity — and apparently going topless is legal in New York City. From the point of view of violating others' rights, I can't think of a good reason why there are criminal penalties for partner sex in public, or public masturbation. Yet I have the same "yuck" reaction that I do to children choosing prostitution.

I see no motivation among anyone other than pedophiles to make adult-child sex accepted. But even if the motivation were found, I see no path to the pedophile paradise — where large numbers of prepubescent boys and girls like affectionate non-commercial sex with men. If we were somehow to shake up society enough to make this even possible, I predict we would get undesirable consequences such as our newly unashamed children choosing prostitution. One thing that no change in social attitudes can produce is a strong sex drive in prepubescents.

In a society that was willing to go to great lengths to insure freedom for all, I can imagine a scenario. A rare 8-year-old girl says she wants to receive oral sex from an adult man. Perhaps after extensive interviews with 3 different psychologists, the prior permission of both parents, social worker investigation to rule out quid pro quos, and a waiting period, a judge could give permission with some confidence that her freedom outweighs any residual risk of harm. Such extensive measures would be appropriate because the baseline probability of a child being inherently interested is so low. We can imagine it — but the procedure would also sit almost entirely unused.

There are apparently a very few adults who crave to become amputees because that is what matches their self image. There are probably a few children who feel that way too. If we have a radical commitment to human liberty, including children's liberty, perhaps we could set up a similar procedure for a child who swears she is at war with her own self image unless she has an arm amputated. The baseline probability of such a genuine desire is so low that the idea of setting up such a procedure is bizarre.

Many posts back, I said that pedophiles would do well to recuse themselves from the discussion on whether adult-child sex should be accepted, because it was about what was good for kids and society had ample people who cared about children. Within today's societal norms, they have judged it is harmful and not appropriate. The motivation to change society to have different attitudes would have to be much stronger: a significant number of prepubescent children who really want to have sex with adults. That is conspicuously lacking, and I see no prospect of any change in that basic fact.

This content was taken from Ethan's longstanding blog, Celibate Pedophiles. Some of the titles and taglines have been edited for their inclusion at thepword.

You can see an earlier version of the blog at the wayback machine.

This content was removed from blogspot in 2020 because the platform banned the author's account, giving only a vague reason.

the p word is a collection of 280 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 mainstream 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 | All images are AI and do not depict real people.

i started debating this question privately with someone recently, and thought i'd address it publicly here. i first thought about the phrase "victimless crime". the first article i looked at on the subject convinced me that it's not really a useful concept. sometimes we are concerned with an uncertain risk of creating a victim (say drunk driving), and other times the victim is the taxpayer. the phrase implies the law is unjust. some laws are unjust, but it's better to discuss them on their own merits of harm, risk to others, what freedoms they curtail, and the costs of enforcement and investigation, etc. i have argued earlier that laws against simple possession of cp are an unacceptable assault on civil liberties. any benefit is not worth the right of people to be left alone, reading and looking at whatever they wish without government interference. in this, i agree with the position of the aclu. but others do not, and think it is fitting to punish people for their private activities if they can trace harm to others. now suppose we (temporarily) turn away from what is legal and what isn't and address only what is right and wrong. this simplifies things enormously. we no longer deal with investigation, discovery, and determining guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. we don't have to deal with the stigma that comes from an investigation of innocent people. now we can just address what is right and wrong, given any particular situation. so, what is the harm in watching cp? i have dealt with this topic before. what are possible sources of harm? one occurs if the person viewing the cp has asked a producer to produce some new cp for him. that is morally egregious. a victim can be harmed is if police seize a person's computer, discover the cp, and notify the victim that such a video has been found. i think this harm can be laid squarely at the feet of society in having passed the laws to allow or require this. a victim can be harmed if the downloader finds a way to contact the victim and does so. another source of harm (not to the specific person in the cp) would occur if the person viewing the cp was as a result more likely to abuse a child. research suggests at most a very small effect and the possibility that it actually . what's more, this can be evaluated by an individual himself. if he is certain that he is not going to abuse a child, then it does not affect him. if he has previously abused a child, we and society might see this very differently. there is harm if the downloader pays for it, and the money makes its way back to the producer, encouraging him to make more. another is if he indicates his approval by writing a message of encouragement. and another occurs if a person decides to host the cp or pass it along to others. but the typical cp downloader does none of these things. all he does is download a file and look at it. the path of direct harm that is asserted is that the person in the cp is distressed to know that others are out there looking at a record of her abuse for sexual satisfaction. how can the victim come to know this? several of the ways above could lead to such knowledge, but the moral responsibility rests on the individual people who do those things. the remaining path of harm is that the download will register in some fashion in web statistics. i can imagine that a victim would be more distressed to know that 1,000 people have downloaded the cp compared to 10. yet of course 10 downloads from a given site means nothing, since the material could appear anywhere due to reposting and forwarding. this would be very hard to trace. it is safe to assume that the average person downloading cp (as opposed to part of some semi-private network) is going to be seeing files that are at large on the internet and have been seen 1,000 or more times. the incremental harm is extremely small. in general, we only pass laws to protect people against significant harm. laughing at someone's unusual appearance or clothing is quite likely to do harm in making them feel bad. but we don't make a law against it. the state doesn't get involved with that level of harm. "looking at cp is not a victimless crime" implies not only harm, but sufficient harm to justify it being a crime. it doesn't qualify. why would someone think it does? because they have this gut-level conviction that a pedophile fantasizing about children sexually is in and of itself a horrible thing, and they cling to any justification for making it a crime, however slim or far-fetched. i have so far been focusing on the minimum, shared morality that we in a diverse society share, which assumes freedom unless we can find harm to others. this is the only morality that should guide the law. yet more extensive and rigorous moral codes guide the actions of most of us. this is a good thing. i suspect that the vast majority of people find looking at cp highly offensive morally. here is a comment on one of my earlier posts, from a pedophile who does not hate his attractions, is not opposed to private fantasizing about children, and has no problem with looking at virtual cp (with no real children in it): "cp is wrong. anyone who contributes to the harm of a child is evil. even if it's the 1000th person watching abusive video and victim doesn't know. even if they had been hurt 999 times, they wouldn't like to be abused for the 1000th time. even if they didn't find out...this is a selfish view. people who care for others and don't want to do anything evil to anyone and are at least slightly altruistic won't do that." this is a moral judgment shared by a great many people, including a great many pedophiles — and including pedophiles who download cp and hate themselves for it. i suspect i share it at a gut level too. if we replace the initial statement with, "watching cp is morally wrong because good people don't benefit from the suffering of others" then it is in the realm of private individuals arguing for their own morality and trying to persuade others, which is totally appropriate. to be consistent, i think such an argument should extend to not enjoying "fail" videos of other people caught in embarrassing situations, and not enjoying a variety of news stories out of a prurient interest. but "looking at cp is not a victimless crime" when unpacked in the legal context relies on the minimum shared morality of harm. this is virtually nonexistent in the typical case, and the statement is wrong.

holden caulfield: pedophile, yes. monster, no.

my boyfriend's a pedophile, version 2

ethan edwards

Suppose we (temporarily) turn away from what is legal and what isn't and address only what is right and wrong?

ethan edwards

Salinger's Holden Caulfield is a decent pedophile. So was Salinger.

ethan edwards

I made a post with this title in 2018. This is an update, two years later.

Suppose we (temporarily) turn away from what is legal and what isn't and address only what is right and wrong?

Salinger's Holden Caulfield is a decent pedophile. So was Salinger.

I made a post with this title in 2018. This is an update, two years later.