Salon

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.

It’s easy to assume that pedophilia is always the result of some early sexualization or abuse, and certainly there seems to be a connection in some cases.  However, evidence suggests there’s no magic bullet that pedophilia can be traced back to.  For every pedophile who was sexually abused as a child there’s another who wasn’t.  Likewise, most abuse victims never manifest pedophilic desires.  Some researchers surmise that pedophilia can be traced back to genetics.  Others believe the cause is congenital, and still others that it’s environmental.  Personally, I think the ultimate cause is likely some combination of those, and that it varies from person to person.

In the midst of that dark era in my life, I discovered an unhealthy pedophile forum.  Nothing illegal was happening there, but many of its most influential members were pro-contacters, meaning they believed that sex with children was theoretically OK and supported the elimination of age of consent laws.  That forum still exists and I won’t name it here, but suffice it to say, I found myself taking up the same pro-contacter chants, if only to feel like I belonged somewhere.  At the time it was all that was available in terms of an actual pedophile community, and I had nothing left to lose by joining the cause, misguided though it was, and even decided to out myself on that forum.  Over the ensuing years, though, I was often at odds with the pro-contacters and flitted in and out of their clique; I wanted desperately to be friends with people who shared my sexual orientation, even if they held crazy beliefs, but I could never quite reconcile with their viewpoint.

I was still caught up in the same nonsense at the pro-contacter forum last year when Ethan Edwards started posting at the forum.  Actually he’d been there for a while.  I didn’t take much notice of him at first, but when I realized he was the constant target of the pro-contacters’ attacks, I sympathized with him and began to pay closer attention to his posts, realizing that he was an anti-contacter like me.  He was there to win over people who were either on the fence about the contact issue or didn’t agree with the pro-contacters’ position but had nowhere else to go to talk about their sexuality.  Until now.  Ethan and his friend Nick Devin founded Virtuous Pedophileson the notion that pedos needed an alternative to those other forums, a place where they can feel comfortable and get the support they need without the pressure to support sketchy views about adult-child sex.          

I really can’t praise this organization enough.  It’s been a lifesaver for me.  I still get depressed and anxious sometimes, but I’m improving.  I feel better about myself and a little more hopeful about my future these days.  I have other pedophiles in my life that I’m actually proud to call friends, people I would trust my children with if I had any, knowing they’d be safe there.  Many, like Ethan, have raised families of their own, or are still doing so.  A large number of them are quite young.  Despite the prevailing stereotype of the dirty old man, the average age of posters at VP hovers around mid-twenties.  I’m so glad that younger folks are flocking to Virtuous Pedophiles, where they can get the coaching and support that was not available to us older pedos at their age.  It’ll make all the difference as they settle into themselves and learn to accept who they are.