A Story about a Pedophile (and a Message to Medium)

Last week, Medium suspended the publication “Pedophiles About Pedophilia.” In many ways, the writings published there saved my life, and they convinced me to reach out online and find help. I worry for those who need that now.
The following is an essay I had previously started writing about my own life, including the role that the publication played in it. I hope that the publication will return. If it does not, then see this as a judgment on those who made the decision that empathy and protecting the vulnerable are not worth feeling uncomfortable and having beliefs challenged.
(Note, some details have been changed to protect my own anonymity, and the anonymity of those whom I write about.)
My name’s David. I’m a pedophile.
This is a hard story for me to tell. It’s a hard story for me to really comprehend. I’m sure it is a difficult story to hear. When I decided I finally needed to tell it, I had a very hard time choosing where to start. In my mind, it’s disjointed, and confusing, and a difficult place to bring myself back to.
So I’ll start with this basic fact: I didn’t choose to be a pedophile. Someone who is sexually and romantically attracted to pre-pubescent children. Nobody makes that choice. I got extremely unlucky for my brain to be this way, and that stroke of bad luck will stay with me for the rest of my life. I want to be sure not to minimize that, because that fact about me has made my life very difficult, and I would change it if I could.
The first time I remember really thinking about it, I was in my mid-teens. I was in the passenger seat of the family car, my mom was driving. The radio was tuned to NPR, playing “This American Life”. The episode, called “Tarred and Feathered,” told the story of another teenager, going by the name Adam.
Adam, as a teenager about my age, had become addicted to child pornography. He realized it was wrong, stopped using it, and first found help online when no other options were available to him.
I waited for my mom to turn it off, or change the station, expecting that she would. But she didn’t, and she said nothing. I didn’t say anything either. I stared ahead at the road and tried to make sense of what I was hearing, and what I was feeling. I glanced over a couple of times, when she wasn’t looking. She was trying not to show anything on her face, but if I had to guess, she looked some mix of agonized, worried, and disturbed. She probably glanced over to me and saw the same thing.
Because by that time, I had started to have thoughts about kids much younger than myself. I remember specific dreams I had, back when my young brain was flooded with new hormones, and how I had to wake up, calm myself down and convince myself they didn’t mean anything. After hearing the story, I did just that. I reminded myself of all the ways that Adam wasn’t like me. His attractions and mine seemed very different. I was still attracted to some people in my age group. I didn’t ever watch child pornography. I knew that some people were incidentally attracted to minors, and that didn’t make them pedophiles.
I felt deep down that a part of me was like Adam. But I couldn’t bring myself to believe that I was a pedophile too. I entered a state of denial. It was too scary to think about, so I put it out of my mind and tried to forget about it.

“I don’t fit any of the stereotypes for people who grow up to be pedophiles.”
To that point, I’d had a very normal, very happy childhood. I wasn’t a social outcast, I wasn’t abused, I don’t fit any of the stereotypes for people who grow up to be pedophiles.
When I was around ten years old, I remember my parents good-heartedly teasing me about how I would start liking girls soon. I didn’t know much about gay people, but from what I thought I knew from misguided stereotypes, I wasn’t gay. As far as I knew, that was the only other option. So I was pretty sure that I would, in fact, start liking girls soon.
I don’t know to what extent that expectation influenced how I experienced puberty, but the earliest crushes I recognized were on girls my age. From talking to my friends, I got the impression I had slightly fewer of these crushes than the rest of them did. I would also sometimes find another boy attractive, but I didn’t ever dwell on it. This wasn’t a sign of anything, and there was no reason at that time for me to think it was. If this story ended the way I thought it would, these details wouldn’t have mattered at all.
I rode the bus home from school every day around the time when I was 11 or 12. There were a lot of younger boys on the bus, and while the other kids around my age would ignore them, I would talk to them. I had always liked kids, always valued being a good older sibling. And I just felt strangely happy whenever I interacted with the boys on my bus. As far as I knew then, this was completely unrelated to my developing sexuality. Everything was still normal.
Maybe with hindsight, I can look back and see signs that things would progress the way they did. But maybe those signs weren’t visible until after. I can construct a narrative for myself where the destination seems obvious. But I can’t be certain of any of the warning signs. I won’t ever find a cause for my attractions. I will never find a reason I am the way I am, no matter how much I want something to blame.
So I don’t know if I was deceiving myself, but I thought of myself as a normal kid. I’m relatively certain I wasn’t processing everything I was feeling. But at the time I was so sure of who I was.

“As far as I knew then… Everything was still normal.”
I was wrong about who I was, or who I would be. I learned this very gradually. By high school, I started noticing the other girls and boys in my classes less often. I didn’t think much about it, if anything I was relieved not to have to deal with all the awkwardness, which at that point hadn’t ever resulted in a relationship anyway. But I started noticing the younger kids more, boys more often than girls. I became an upperclassman in high school, and young-looking freshmen boys continued to catch my eye, and I still didn’t know how to contextualize that. Any romantic or sexual feelings I would shrug off, and tell myself they weren’t real, or at the very least they weren’t important. But there’s a limit to how much that can happen before you start to question it. And the feelings kept happening.
I remember reading books, either on my own or for classwork, that had young boys in them. And something about the way I pictured them in my head, and how they acted on the page, stuck in my head a little longer than the others, and made my mind formulate uncomfortable thoughts.
I had a summer job in high school serving food at a place near a beach. Sometimes young kids would show up with their parents, still in their swimsuits, the boys not wearing shirts. I would serve their ice cream, and it would take all my effort not to look at them too long. I knew this wasn’t normal. I was afraid, and I said nothing.
And then, in high school, there was a freshman boy who joined a group I was in as a senior. He looked young for his age, in fact he had skipped a grade as well, and you could tell when he spoke that his voice hadn’t changed yet. And he was so beautiful to me, and I found myself fantasizing about being with him. And over time I started to get to know him, and I got the horrible, sickening sense that I was starting to fall in love.
That’s when I was absolutely sure there was something wrong that wasn’t going away.

“I knew this wasn’t normal. I was afraid, and I said nothing.”
There was one day when it all boiled over. I got home from school late, I had dinner with my family, and I retreated to my room, the feelings I had pushed away for years having built up again. I knew I wasn’t normal anymore. I thought back to that day in the car. I went online and looked up Nick’s story again. Luke Malone, who wrote the segment on This American Life, also wrote a widely acclaimed article on Medium on the same story. I read it, and soon after I found “Pedophiles About Pedophilia” as well.
I remember a particular story written by a user under the name “Ender Wiggin” about his experience realizing his pedophilia. And I knew, this time, that I was also reading about myself. I thought of myself for the first time as a pedophile.
And despite the understanding I found there, it was the worst night of my life. I remember every desperate, panicked thought I had, each one repeated over and over. I was a pedophile. I would be one my entire life. I wouldn’t ever be able to love who I wanted. If anyone knew, they would hate me. I was less than human. I spent the long hours alone in my room, sobbing, trying desperately to keep my crying quiet enough that no one in my family would hear me.
If one of them had come to check on me, I don’t know what I would have done. But the hours stretched on, and I endured them alone, crying until it physically hurt me. I was so afraid, and so lonely, that the rest of the world seemed to just be gone. And I knew I had to do anything I could to hide who I was, to hide what I was, from everyone.

“If anyone knew, they would hate me. I was less than human.”
In the time since then, I have had more hard nights like that one. I have struggled with wanting to tell someone, and knowing it’s not safe. I started hurting myself, and then making compromises with myself not to. I have searched for ways to see a therapist, but not having the money myself and still being on my parents’ healthcare, I don’t see a way to make it happen. And even if I could, I don’t know that I would be able to trust a therapist enough to get help, knowing there is the chance that I would get reported as potentially dangerous, and the people close to me would find out. Instead, I’ve had to deal with all of this on my own.
I haven’t told anyone in my family either. I think my parents would eventually be accepting of me, but I also know that finding out their son is a pedophile would hurt them almost as much as it hurt me finding out. I can’t ask them to bear that burden as well. So instead, I’m alone.
The way things stand now, I’m most attracted to young boys. This is still hard for me to process. I’m also non-exclusive, meaning I’m attracted to some adults. Sometimes men, sometimes women. But those feelings are never as strong, and it’s frustrating. I worry about the direction that frustration leads others.
If “Pedophiles About Pedophilia” hadn’t been up, here’s one way it could’ve gone for me.
I could’ve found my way to one of the many places online that advocates for abusive relationships between adults and underage children, in a vulnerable state. I could’ve found that I was accepted there for who I was and not judged for something I didn’t choose. I could’ve been indoctrinated into their way of thinking. I could’ve been convinced to view child sexual abuse imagery, or to hurt someone myself.
But I found articles on Medium instead, and this is what I learned from them:
· Nobody chooses who they’re attracted to, but everyone chooses how they act
· I have a responsibility not to harm children
· Child pornography is never acceptable
· It is possible to live a virtuous life as a pedophile, without harming kids
· As long as I live in this way, I am okay for who I am
But for now, in this place at least, that message is gone.

“Too many people depend upon having someone to speak out”
The “Pedophiles About Pedophilia” publication on this site saved me. It has saved so many people like me. It has, in turn, likely saved many children from abuse. Taking it down was cowardly, and will cause people who are in desperate need of guidance not to get it.
I wonder if I will also have my account terminated for posting this. But I will not stop having my voice heard about this topic. Too many people depend upon having someone to speak out. Too many children would otherwise end up being hurt.
In the years following my realization I was lucky. I am eternally indebted to other authors on this site, Ender Wiggin, and TNF 13, and Robert West, and many others, whose articles I would read and re-read when I felt like resorting to self-harm. I am indebted to the outreach of groups like VirPed, for helping me find understanding and support. And I am lucky, because the existence of these kinds of messages is not guaranteed. And they’re already so rare that I might never have found them if my life had gone even a little differently.
So my biggest desire from my life is to pay that forward. I want to be that kind of voice for people, if I can, to say that to be a pedophile is not to be fated to hurt kids. And to say that life gets better. At my worst moments I felt sure that because I could not change my sexual attractions, I would never leave the darkness I was in. I now know that’s not true. The attractions remain, but I can accept that now, I can trust in myself that I won’t act on them, and I can live a fulfilling life.
I’m accepting who I am now. My message to anyone who may be reading this in a similar place to where I was, is that it is possible for you too.
That message cannot be allowed to die, and for as long as I am able, I will do everything in my power to help it continue.
You can find David at @FilledWithNoise on twitter, his direct messages are open to anyone.
If you or anyone you know is struggling with an attraction to minors, I recommend visiting and anonymously contacting virped.org or stopitnow.org. Support and help not to offend is available.
