Your friend tells you they're a paedophile

[pocaracas]

This is messed up, Rob...
Where does this idea come from?

As for the challenge itself... I don't know how I'd react... most likely, I'd distance myself from that person and encourage anyone I know who may have contact with him/her to follow my lead.
At the time of that friend's confiding, I'd probably advise seeking professional help to tame such desires, as they are one big ticket to jail. And then... bye bye!

And this is the reason that people don't seek help

Huh? They prefer to hold on to that ticket to jail?

People are messed up...
But a person that would have the guts to talk to a friend should find it relatively easy to seek proper professional help.

[Losty]

And this is the reason that people don't seek help

Huh? They prefer to hold on to that ticket to jail?

People are messed up...
But a person that would have the guts to talk to a friend should find it relatively easy to seek proper professional help.

There is no ticket to jail. Honestly...it isn't illegal to be a pedophile. And I don't even think it makes you a bad person. It just makes you sick. If someone considers you a close enough friend that they feel comfortable coming to you about this problem they have then a reaction where you stop being their friend and tell everyone what they've said and call the cops on them even though they haven't done anything illegal...people fear this exact reaction. Why would anyone ever try to get help if simply saying you have a problem could destroy your friendships, your family, your career...

We as human beings have the potential to look at a group of people with compassion (or even general scientific interest) and try to learn about their problem, try to find a solution, try to come up with a solution that could help them. Instead we call them monsters and wash our hands of them. I don't think this is the right answer to any problem. We want to keep our kids safe and that's obviously the most important thing. But we don't have to stop there. Thats all I'm saying.

[robvalue]

Thanks everyone for your answers. It's been very interesting.

I got the idea from the other thread about this subject. I'm trying to explore people's feelings about this, to get them thinking about paedophiles as people.

*Edited out bits I'm not referring to

This is one of the major problems I find when people talk about paedophilia IMO. It's like a knee jerk reaction is to deem all discussion about it 'messed up'. It's so uncomfortable for people to think about.

We're not talking about molesting our own kids here. I think it's a very valid question and the answers say a lot on how society views and deals with this problem. 

I strongly believe that paedophiles don't choose to be paedophiles, controversial as that may be. I don't think that simply being a paedophile == being a child molesting rapist either.

Paedophiles are people. Same as gay/straight people are people. Same as BDSM lovers are people. Same as Donald Trump supporters are people. Murderers and rapists are people too, and how we deal with people is always dependent on context and their behaviour. 

Treating paedophiles as sub-human purely because of the fact they are a paedophile, is literally thought policing and does fuck all to solve the problem of kids getting raped. 

I don't know what kind of forums there are or if paedophiles can even get help, but if a friend came to me and admitted something like this, I wouldn't consider myself a very good friend if I immediately demonized a person who I had otherwise considered good enough to be my friend in the first place. 

Obviously, if they turned around and said "oh hey I've fucked 12 kids", then I'd be straight onto the police. But I don't think that's the scenario the OP intends to discuss, correct me if I'm wrong.

Excellent post, I totally agree!

[mlmooney89]

See the thing is you can say you believe your friend cause they are 'good people' but you don't -know-.

Do you know what it's like to be told you are lying about your rapist because: he is a good man and he wouldn't do that, I'm his best friend and I know he wouldn't do that, he has never shown any bad signs toward that.

Well I know what he did to me so I KNOW he would have sex with a child. He just knows how to hide his demons. Even when my mom was divorcing him she still went back and forth accepting because who does she believe? Her husband of over 15 years or her 17 year old daughter that claims he was abusing her for years? You can think you know someone and their intentions and you can believe they will be a better person but you can never know.

If someone is already admitting to being attracted to kids you can already KNOW there are demons hiding. There can be no trust to be a better person because you risk too much. You risk your daughter growing up with paranoia, distrust, OCD, PTSD, and severe anxiety... Simply because you wanted to see the best in someone.

A few say you would be their friend but keep your kids away... So now you allow that it could happen too someone else's child.

If they acknowledge that they have a problem they need to work on staying away from all children regardless of if their parents say it's ok. They need to be proactive in keeping away the urges. This is not something to be accepted as just who they are. People can die from the aftermath of being molested. Protecting my sisters is the only thing that got me through alive.

[robvalue]

Huh, you can't discuss this at TTA? Why is that?

[pocaracas]

Huh? They prefer to hold on to that ticket to jail?

People are messed up...
But a person that would have the guts to talk to a friend should find it relatively easy to seek proper professional help.

There is no ticket to jail. Honestly...it isn't illegal to be a pedophile. And I don't even think it makes you a bad person. It just makes you sick. If someone considers you a close enough friend that they feel comfortable coming to you about this problem they have then a reaction where you stop being their friend and tell everyone what they've said and call the cops on them even though they haven't done anything illegal...people fear this exact reaction. Why would anyone ever try to get help if simply saying you have a problem could destroy your friendships, your family, your career...

We as human beings have the potential to look at a group of people with compassion (or even general scientific interest) and try to learn about their problem, try to find a solution, try to come up with a solution that could help them. Instead we call them monsters and wash our hands of them. I don't think this is the right answer to any problem. We want to keep our kids safe and that's obviously the most important thing. But we don't have to stop there. Thats all I'm saying.

I don't recall saying I'd call the cops...
I'd encourage them to seek professional help. I know how crap I am dealing with other people's mental problems, so it's better to let someone who knows what to do to provide the correct help.

If a friend is telling me about something like this, he is, in essence, seeking help. I can't provide it, but can point in the right direction.
If he's not seeking help... Then what? Why talk about it?

If he doesn't seek proper help, then there's a high likelihood that he'd act on that, sooner or later... And that tends to lead to jail time.


But then again... If someone knows me well enough, they wouldn't bring that to me on the first place. (Exactly because I suck at helping in those cases)

[Edwardo Piet]

1) Do you keep it confidential?

d) Yes

2) Will you still be their friend?

a) No, cut all contact

or

b) Yes, but distance yourself

3) If yes to the above, will it change the contact you allow with your children?

a) Yes, cut all contact

4) Will you support them?

a) No, don't want to hear anything about it

[FatAndFaithless]

See the thing is you can say you believe your friend cause they are 'good people' but you don't -know-.

Do you know what it's like to be told you are lying about your rapist because: he is a good man and he wouldn't do that, I'm his best friend and I know he wouldn't do that, he has never shown any bad signs toward that.

Well I know what he did to me so I KNOW he would have sex with a child. He just knows how to hide his demons. Even when my mom was divorcing him she still went back and forth accepting because who does she believe? Her husband of over 15 years or her 17 year old daughter that claims he was abusing her for years? You can think you know someone and their intentions and you can believe they will be a better person but you can never know.

If someone is already admitting to being attracted to kids you can already KNOW there are demons hiding. There can be no trust to be a better person because you risk too much. You risk your daughter growing up with paranoia, distrust, OCD, PTSD, and severe anxiety... Simply because you wanted to see the best in someone.

A few say you would be their friend but keep your kids away... So now you allow that it could happen too someone else's child.

If they acknowledge that they have a problem they need to work on staying away from all children regardless of if their parents say it's ok. They need to be proactive in keeping away the urges. This is not something to be accepted as just who they are. People can die from the aftermath of being molested. Protecting my sisters is the only thing that got me through alive.

Bolded mine.

I don't think anyone in this thread is saying this. That these people need help is pretty much a universal part of the responses here.

[Losty]

See the thing is you can say you believe your friend cause they are 'good people' but you don't -know-.

Do you know what it's like to be told you are lying about your rapist because: he is a good man and he wouldn't do that, I'm his best friend and I know he wouldn't do that, he has never shown any bad signs toward that.

Yes, I do.

This conversation is so hard to have because people let their emotions drown out everything else. It's an understandable reaction. I can't do that because I already have to completely block out any emotions on that topic anyway. I think it makes it easier for me to consider the actual discussion at hand.

Try to bear with me here. I'm not suggesting that you should trust someone who tells you they're a pedophile. I don't honestly think you can 100% trust another person anyhow. I'm not suggesting that you do nothing. I'm not suggesting that if you see this person babysitting someone else's kid you should turn a blind eye.

What I am saying is that this person is still a human being. I'm not charging you personally with helping them because obviously some people won't be able to for completely valid reasons. But we as a society should not be demonizing people with something I consider to be a serious mental illness (this is all my opinion still). A general reaction that would be good is to not judge the person for thoughts and desires they cannot control. You give them advice to tell any friends who have kids or if they can't to end all contact with those kids until further notice. You advise them to seek professional help. You be there for them as a friend (if you can). You help them in any way you can, and if you can't help them you at least refrain from destroying them.

It's an entirely different case if a child has reported someone for abuse.

[Losty]

Huh, you can't discuss this at TTA? Why is that?

I don't know the history behind it really. All I know is there was some discussion that caused some upset years ago and the owner of the site stepped in and said no discussion of pedophilia.