What Can A Young Person Do When He Realises He's a Paedophile, But Doesn't Want To Act On It?

What do we know about paedophilia, and are there any ways of preventing it? The truth is, that there's very little knowledge, due to the extremely complicated ethics that come with it. Of course, most of the laws designed to protect children from abuse, such as mandatory reporting, have been of great help. But the flipside of them is that people who realise that they have paedophilic urges they have never acted on, and who want to seek psychiatric help to curb them, are even less likely to come forward.

The little evidence that we have suggests that most paedophiles start feeling attracted to children at around 16 — the age of the usual sexual awakening. For some, it can be a depressing and horrifying experience, and the realisation that this is the struggle they'll have to live with for the rest of their lives.

This article tells the stories of several young men who have experienced just that and created a group to help each other remain "clean": never offend a child, and never watch child pornography. In 2014, the author of this article helped this small group to get in touch with a researcher, which, hopefully, has led to some improvements for them.