Devin is a happily married man in his mid-60s with four grown children. “I have advanced degrees from prestigious universities, a very good job, a lot of friends and am well-respected in my community,” he writes on his Web site. “In short, I have a very good life.”
But he’s also a pedophile. While he experiences some attraction to adult women, he only fantasizes about pubescent boys -- and none of his family or friends know.
Devin is the co-founder of a new organization for men like himself: Virtuous Pedophiles. “We do not choose to be attracted to children, and we cannot make that attraction go away,” reads the group’s Web site.
Ethan Edwards, the 57-year-old co-founder of Virtuous Pedophiles, is attracted to girls as young as four and has sexual fantasies about them.
(Edwards is a pseudonym, and so is Devin.)
James Cantor, a clinical psychologist and editor in chief of the scientific journal “Sexual Abuse,” says, “It is hard to imagine someone who would feel more isolated than someone who recognizes he is sexually interested in children. In my experience, it is in those phases of greatest desperation that a pedophile is most likely to do something desperate, risking harm to a child,” he says. “Mutual support among people who share the same daily battle with their own desires can go a long way in addressing the extreme isolation, serving as a potential pressure valve, adding layer of protection".
“Almost any group in the world can hold a convention, look out on a sea of faces, and say, 'these are people like me,’” says Edwards. “We can't.”
There is plenty of community to be found online for pedophiles. The message board BoyChat is filled with justifications for adult-child sexual contact
Edwards wants to shine a spotlight on the sort of pedophiles that don’t make the evening news.
https://www.salon.com/2012/07/01/meet_pedophiles_who_mean_well/
