Coming out

Coming out was the main topic of Prague Pride 2013, the first one we attended the parade at. Coming out is a process of acknowledging one's orientation and accepting it (so called inner coming out) and also disclosing one's orientation to other people or publicly announcing one's orientation (so called outer coming out).

Acknowledging one's orientation

Pedophiles typically start noticing that they are attracted towards children at early puberty. A young pedophile can find that he has sympathies towards a certain child and that he would like to spend a lot of time with that child. He* can realize that he would like to carress child's hair and kiss him. He can fall in love with child. He can realize he gets aroused when he sees a child at swimming pool. He can have erotic dreams about children.

Individual pedophiles can differ in their reactions to such findings. Often they are very confused. No one is said at home or at school "It can happen that one day you realize you are attracted towards children." Pedophiles use to be presented as evil people who harm children. That's not something a young pedophile can identify with. After all, he likes children and don't want to harm them. Many pedophiles experience fear - what if someone finds out that I am into children?

It often happens that at first pedophiles don't find the fact they are attracted towards children nothing much unusual. After all we hear that sexual orientation is not settled down in early puberty and it can happen one for example feels being attracted towards people of the same sex despite not being gay. However, as they grow up and the age gap between them and children they are attracted to, they start to realize what they feel isn't very usual and they have to deal with it somehow.

A lot of pedophiles comes through the phase of denying themselves that they aren't attracted towards children. That period can take months, years, some pedophiles never admit their true orientation to themselves. We think living in such denial is dangerous. Sexologist name cases when people didn't admit to themselves they are pedophiles until they sexually abused a child and was ordered a special treatment program. Wouldn't it be better if they knew earlier. Wouldn't it help them better to judged certain situations better, wouldn't it help them to manage certain situations better?

One of the worst possible situations is if pedophile accepts the role given to him by his surroundings and media. If he accepts that pedophiles are child molesting monsters. We don't want pedophiles to accept such role. We want pedophiles to have a positives examples to look at, examples how to deal with pedophilia and live with it without harming others.

Outer coming out

People often wonder why pedophile should tell anyone (with an exception of mental health professional) that he is a pedophile. There are several reasons for that:

A lot of pedophiles have told someone they are pedophiles at some point of their lives. The reaction of people to such coming out may differ. Although many of us expected negative reaction to our coming out, our experiences are mostly different. A lot of people who we told didn't condemn us. They tried to understand our situation and what we feel towards children. Some made us sure it won't change the relationship we have with them. Some were shocked at first and it took them some time to deal with that they were told. Sometimes our coming out made our relationships with people we told about our orientation deeper.

Unfortunately, not all pedophiles have positive experience with coming out. A consequences of such failed coming out can be very negative. It can happen that the person one tells don't keep it for himself. It can damage one's job position, especially if one works with children. We know about cases when people who were told started to spread lies about people who told them to cause them harm.

One of the worst possible situations is a failed coming out to one's parents. We know a few such cases. We know about a case when a parent reacted to the coming out with a complete denial and who still expect his son to marry and have kids. We know about cases when young people were controlled in their contacts with their siblings, we know about cases when people were told insults and threats, we know about a case when parents kicked their son out of their house.

An older story of a pedophile with nick xboy2 illustrate what a failed coming out can look like:

I was freshly 17, it was winter, snowing. I sit in my bedroom as usual and pretended to study. I had a million thought in my head. I was clear I was into little boys and it couldn't be changed. I couldn't hold it any longer, it had to be said, there was no other way out. That day I made two mistake. First, that I decided to tell my parents, second, that I told them the whole truth.

Today, I don't regret that because I found understanding at home and my life is easier. They support me, just like almost every parent. But that day it was completely different.

"I'm a boylover"... "What??" .. "I'm a boylover, I'm telling you, basically a homosexual pedophile".

Literally a massacre. My parents didn't take it following the expected script with friendly hug, no roe running over in the background and ending credits. For the first time in my life I've seen my father cry, my mother faint (fortunately towards my father's hands), I didn't find understanding but xenophobic fears and then xenophobic measures. First visit at sexologist ->"You are a danger to children, you have to avoid being around them, you have to change your orientation, you'll be examined next month and start treatment, I recommend a castration."; isolation from my siblings, checking me every hour by a mobile phone when I went back from school. Depressions. Out of my life I didn't even keep being treated with dignity by my parents. At that time I felt no need to fight back, it was useless. I knew if I jumped under the train, it wouldn't hurt. But I didn't. I met a friend - a pedophile - on the Interned who talked to me and helped me. At that time he saved my life.