[ed. See also, this follow-up post: My week inside the vile right-wing hate machine.]
I was born without my right hand. As a child, this deformity quickly set me apart from my peers. In public I wore a prosthesis, an intimidating object to other youngsters because of its resemblance to a pirate’s hook. Even so, I wore it every day; I felt inadequate without it. I was shy, uncoordinated and terrible at sports, all of which put me on the outs with other boys my age. But I was good at drawing and making up stories for my own entertainment, and I spent more and more time in my own head, being a space adventurer or monster wrangler or whatever character I could think up. These would ultimately prove to be useful skills, but for now they only served to further alienate me from other kids. On top of it all, I still struggled with bladder control—likely due to my heaping pile of insecurities, to which this problem only added more—well into my elementary school years.
But none of this would compare to the final insult the universe would deal me. I’ve been stuck with the most unfortunate of sexual orientations, a preference for a group of people who are legally, morally and psychologically unable to reciprocate my feelings and desires. It’s a curse of the first order, a completely unworkable sexuality, and it’s mine. Who am I? Nice to meet you. My name is Todd Nickerson, and I’m a pedophile. Does that surprise you? Yeah, not many of us are willing to share our story, for good reason. To confess a sexual attraction to children is to lay claim to the most reviled status on the planet, one that effectively ends any chance you have of living a normal life. Yet, I’m not the monster you think me to be. I’ve never touched a child sexually in my life and never will, nor do I use child pornography.
But isn’t that the definition of a pedophile, you may ask, someone who molests kids? Not really. Although “pedophile” and “child molester” have often been used interchangeably in the media, and there is some overlap, at base, a pedophile is someone who’s sexually attracted to children. That’s it. There’s no inherent reason he must act on those desires with real children. Some pedophiles certainly do, but many of us don’t. Because the powerful taboo keeps us in hiding, it’s impossible to know how many non-offending pedophiles are out there, but signs indicate there are a lot of us, and too often we suffer in silence. That’s why I decided to speak up. (...)
Ultimate Causes:
It’s easy to assume that pedophilia is always the result of some early sexualization or abuse, and certainly there seems to be a connection in some cases. However, evidence suggests there’s no magic bullet that pedophilia can be traced back to. For every pedophile who was sexually abused as a child there’s another who wasn’t. Likewise, most abuse victims never manifest pedophilic desires. Some researchers surmise that pedophilia can be traced back to genetics. Others believe the cause is congenital, and still others that it’s environmental. Personally, I think the ultimate cause is likely some combination of those, and that it varies from person to person.
Another issue is the role feelings of inadequacy play in forming our sexuality. Pedophilia may not arise from such fears (otherwise there’d be a lot more pedophiles), but those fears can certainly reinforce it. I think it’s safe to say that many pedophiles have deep-seated feelings of inferiority in one way or another, or at least we did when our sexuality was forming, and this becomes a downward spiral during puberty and beyond. Anything can be the trigger of this: disabilities, weight issues, or just general feelings of unattractiveness to peers. These feelings can be influential on one’s developing sexuality, such that even the severe cultural taboo is not enough to override it. Indeed, the taboo itself can negatively influence these vulnerable children.
I recall an event from when I was 11, sitting in the family jeep with my dad and his friend Andy when a news piece on the radio reported the sexual abuse of a girl, to which my dad said to his friend something like, “They should take people like that and place weights on top of their genitals until they smash.” Pretty horrific imagery for an 11-year-old to process, and I couldn’t help but sympathize with the abuser. After all, I could recall my own molestation perfectly, and I hardly felt it warranted that kind of response.
The bile has only multiplied since then, and I believe all that hatred just serves to reinforce pedophilia in youngsters predisposed to it. It’s a form of cognitive bias called the Backfire Effect or polarization. Everyone does this to some extent. When challenged on deeply held beliefs, no matter how uncertain or incorrect they may be, we tend to dig in our heels. With sexuality, that effect is likely magnified because there’s a physiological component, a drive every bit as powerful as belief. In essence, your brain knows what it likes and isn’t going to take no for an answer. For that reason, the nature or nurture question with respect to sexual preference is ultimately irrelevant—it becomes all but hardwired soon enough, until it’s all you know. And it’s self-reinforcing, no matter how much you wish to dig it out. Eventually it all tangles together with the rest of who you are.
Getting Schooled:
Things went along OK until I was two years away from graduating college. I began to smoke pot, a drug I’d experimented with after high school but didn’t much care for then. I didn’t like it the second time around either; it made me anxious more often than not. But I did it anyway, largely because many people I respected smoked it, and I wanted to be more like them. I was trying desperately to reshape my identity before I was thrown out into the real world. I’d even begun working out, lifting weights and exercising to get in better shape. On the outside I might’ve seemed pretty normal, but on the inside I was screaming in terror at the prospect of having to “grow up” and be “normal”—which to me meant getting a real job, finding a girlfriend, eventually getting married and raising a family. Oh, I wanted to be normal, believe me, yet I knew myself well enough to know I wouldn’t be able to carry that charade off for long, and every fiber of my being resisted the forced transformation.
After graduation I fell into the deepest pit of despair imaginable, one that lasted several years, and I’ve only just begun to pull myself out of it. You can’t experience that much blind terror and pain for that long without being seriously impacted by it. I still worked out every other day, so I was hurting constantly, since depression saps your brain of the feel-good chemicals that helps to counteract pain; but I feltsomething, and that was better than the emotional numbness that had overtaken me. Thus, my project to remake myself into a regular person a complete failure, I retreated inward like a kicked dog, often spending days on end in my bedroom. At the nadir of my depression I was contemplating suicide daily; some days I could think of little else. I found some relief in opiates, which I had to obtain illegally because doctors won’t prescribe them for depression and anxiety. The occasional hydrocodone gave me a moment of respite from the agony I was going through. I’d tried antidepressants, but they were a joke.
In the midst of that dark era in my life, I discovered an unhealthy pedophile forum. Nothing illegal was happening there, but many of its most influential members were pro-contacters, meaning they believed that sex with children was theoretically OK and supported the elimination of age of consent laws. That forum still exists and I won’t name it here, but suffice it to say, I found myself taking up the same pro-contacter chants, if only to feel like I belonged somewhere. At the time it was all that was available in terms of an actual pedophile community, and I had nothing left to lose by joining the cause, misguided though it was, and even decided to out myself on that forum. Over the ensuing years, though, I was often at odds with the pro-contacters and flitted in and out of their clique; I wanted desperately to be friends with people who shared my sexual orientation, even if they held crazy beliefs, but I could never quite reconcile with their viewpoint.
Not long after I self-outed, a group of web vigilantes called Perverted Justice showed up. You’ve probably heard of them; they’re the people behind the now-defunct TV show “To Catch a Predator.” I was no predator, but that mattered not one iota to these guys; they lumped me together with the child rapists and internet creeps just the same. As I was already out of the closet as a pedo, I was an easy target, becoming one of the first people they profiled on their Wikisposure page, a site devoted to outing online pedos whether they’d broken any laws or not. It has since changed hands but still exists online, buried in a dark corner of the internet, and yep, I’m still on it. Not that I much care anymore. Perverted Justice had their day, but they eventually burned their own house down. Back when they were in full effect, however, they managed to make my already miserable existence that much more miserable. After their expose came out, I was fired from my job at Lowe’s.
But things are getting better. Slowly. These days I struggle with bitterness and apathy; it’s a constant uphill battle, and there are days I just don’t feel like making that climb. I eke out a living (barely) on a freelance graphic design business, in a small town where too many people know who and what I am. Now I have a bachelor’s degree in journalism that I’ve never used and I’m living well below the poverty line, existing on food stamps and the couple hundred dollars I manage to scrape together every month, sometimes augmented with financial help from my parents if the bills get too high. I tried filing for disability over my arm and my emotional issues, but that was a no-go in my conservative Southern state. This is what a law-abiding pedophile has been reduced to in this society. At times I’ve wondered why I’ve even bothered to stay legal. Maybe prison would be better, even at the risk of getting shanked as a Short Eyes. At least then it would all be over with. But alas, I could never hurt a child. No matter what, some small part of me still holds out hope that things will go back to normal, or as close to normal as a celibate pedophile with little prospect of a future can get. Besides, like I said earlier, I just couldn’t allow myself to foist this abomination onto another human being. So I simply endured. Until …
I was born without my right hand. As a child, this deformity quickly set me apart from my peers. In public I wore a prosthesis, an intimidating object to other youngsters because of its resemblance to a pirate’s hook. Even so, I wore it every day; I felt inadequate without it. I was shy, uncoordinated and terrible at sports, all of which put me on the outs with other boys my age. But I was good at drawing and making up stories for my own entertainment, and I spent more and more time in my own head, being a space adventurer or monster wrangler or whatever character I could think up. These would ultimately prove to be useful skills, but for now they only served to further alienate me from other kids. On top of it all, I still struggled with bladder control—likely due to my heaping pile of insecurities, to which this problem only added more—well into my elementary school years.
But none of this would compare to the final insult the universe would deal me. I’ve been stuck with the most unfortunate of sexual orientations, a preference for a group of people who are legally, morally and psychologically unable to reciprocate my feelings and desires. It’s a curse of the first order, a completely unworkable sexuality, and it’s mine. Who am I? Nice to meet you. My name is Todd Nickerson, and I’m a pedophile. Does that surprise you? Yeah, not many of us are willing to share our story, for good reason. To confess a sexual attraction to children is to lay claim to the most reviled status on the planet, one that effectively ends any chance you have of living a normal life. Yet, I’m not the monster you think me to be. I’ve never touched a child sexually in my life and never will, nor do I use child pornography. But isn’t that the definition of a pedophile, you may ask, someone who molests kids? Not really. Although “pedophile” and “child molester” have often been used interchangeably in the media, and there is some overlap, at base, a pedophile is someone who’s sexually attracted to children. That’s it. There’s no inherent reason he must act on those desires with real children. Some pedophiles certainly do, but many of us don’t. Because the powerful taboo keeps us in hiding, it’s impossible to know how many non-offending pedophiles are out there, but signs indicate there are a lot of us, and too often we suffer in silence. That’s why I decided to speak up. (...)
Ultimate Causes:
It’s easy to assume that pedophilia is always the result of some early sexualization or abuse, and certainly there seems to be a connection in some cases. However, evidence suggests there’s no magic bullet that pedophilia can be traced back to. For every pedophile who was sexually abused as a child there’s another who wasn’t. Likewise, most abuse victims never manifest pedophilic desires. Some researchers surmise that pedophilia can be traced back to genetics. Others believe the cause is congenital, and still others that it’s environmental. Personally, I think the ultimate cause is likely some combination of those, and that it varies from person to person.
Another issue is the role feelings of inadequacy play in forming our sexuality. Pedophilia may not arise from such fears (otherwise there’d be a lot more pedophiles), but those fears can certainly reinforce it. I think it’s safe to say that many pedophiles have deep-seated feelings of inferiority in one way or another, or at least we did when our sexuality was forming, and this becomes a downward spiral during puberty and beyond. Anything can be the trigger of this: disabilities, weight issues, or just general feelings of unattractiveness to peers. These feelings can be influential on one’s developing sexuality, such that even the severe cultural taboo is not enough to override it. Indeed, the taboo itself can negatively influence these vulnerable children.
I recall an event from when I was 11, sitting in the family jeep with my dad and his friend Andy when a news piece on the radio reported the sexual abuse of a girl, to which my dad said to his friend something like, “They should take people like that and place weights on top of their genitals until they smash.” Pretty horrific imagery for an 11-year-old to process, and I couldn’t help but sympathize with the abuser. After all, I could recall my own molestation perfectly, and I hardly felt it warranted that kind of response.
The bile has only multiplied since then, and I believe all that hatred just serves to reinforce pedophilia in youngsters predisposed to it. It’s a form of cognitive bias called the Backfire Effect or polarization. Everyone does this to some extent. When challenged on deeply held beliefs, no matter how uncertain or incorrect they may be, we tend to dig in our heels. With sexuality, that effect is likely magnified because there’s a physiological component, a drive every bit as powerful as belief. In essence, your brain knows what it likes and isn’t going to take no for an answer. For that reason, the nature or nurture question with respect to sexual preference is ultimately irrelevant—it becomes all but hardwired soon enough, until it’s all you know. And it’s self-reinforcing, no matter how much you wish to dig it out. Eventually it all tangles together with the rest of who you are.
Getting Schooled:
Things went along OK until I was two years away from graduating college. I began to smoke pot, a drug I’d experimented with after high school but didn’t much care for then. I didn’t like it the second time around either; it made me anxious more often than not. But I did it anyway, largely because many people I respected smoked it, and I wanted to be more like them. I was trying desperately to reshape my identity before I was thrown out into the real world. I’d even begun working out, lifting weights and exercising to get in better shape. On the outside I might’ve seemed pretty normal, but on the inside I was screaming in terror at the prospect of having to “grow up” and be “normal”—which to me meant getting a real job, finding a girlfriend, eventually getting married and raising a family. Oh, I wanted to be normal, believe me, yet I knew myself well enough to know I wouldn’t be able to carry that charade off for long, and every fiber of my being resisted the forced transformation.
After graduation I fell into the deepest pit of despair imaginable, one that lasted several years, and I’ve only just begun to pull myself out of it. You can’t experience that much blind terror and pain for that long without being seriously impacted by it. I still worked out every other day, so I was hurting constantly, since depression saps your brain of the feel-good chemicals that helps to counteract pain; but I feltsomething, and that was better than the emotional numbness that had overtaken me. Thus, my project to remake myself into a regular person a complete failure, I retreated inward like a kicked dog, often spending days on end in my bedroom. At the nadir of my depression I was contemplating suicide daily; some days I could think of little else. I found some relief in opiates, which I had to obtain illegally because doctors won’t prescribe them for depression and anxiety. The occasional hydrocodone gave me a moment of respite from the agony I was going through. I’d tried antidepressants, but they were a joke.
In the midst of that dark era in my life, I discovered an unhealthy pedophile forum. Nothing illegal was happening there, but many of its most influential members were pro-contacters, meaning they believed that sex with children was theoretically OK and supported the elimination of age of consent laws. That forum still exists and I won’t name it here, but suffice it to say, I found myself taking up the same pro-contacter chants, if only to feel like I belonged somewhere. At the time it was all that was available in terms of an actual pedophile community, and I had nothing left to lose by joining the cause, misguided though it was, and even decided to out myself on that forum. Over the ensuing years, though, I was often at odds with the pro-contacters and flitted in and out of their clique; I wanted desperately to be friends with people who shared my sexual orientation, even if they held crazy beliefs, but I could never quite reconcile with their viewpoint.
Not long after I self-outed, a group of web vigilantes called Perverted Justice showed up. You’ve probably heard of them; they’re the people behind the now-defunct TV show “To Catch a Predator.” I was no predator, but that mattered not one iota to these guys; they lumped me together with the child rapists and internet creeps just the same. As I was already out of the closet as a pedo, I was an easy target, becoming one of the first people they profiled on their Wikisposure page, a site devoted to outing online pedos whether they’d broken any laws or not. It has since changed hands but still exists online, buried in a dark corner of the internet, and yep, I’m still on it. Not that I much care anymore. Perverted Justice had their day, but they eventually burned their own house down. Back when they were in full effect, however, they managed to make my already miserable existence that much more miserable. After their expose came out, I was fired from my job at Lowe’s.
But things are getting better. Slowly. These days I struggle with bitterness and apathy; it’s a constant uphill battle, and there are days I just don’t feel like making that climb. I eke out a living (barely) on a freelance graphic design business, in a small town where too many people know who and what I am. Now I have a bachelor’s degree in journalism that I’ve never used and I’m living well below the poverty line, existing on food stamps and the couple hundred dollars I manage to scrape together every month, sometimes augmented with financial help from my parents if the bills get too high. I tried filing for disability over my arm and my emotional issues, but that was a no-go in my conservative Southern state. This is what a law-abiding pedophile has been reduced to in this society. At times I’ve wondered why I’ve even bothered to stay legal. Maybe prison would be better, even at the risk of getting shanked as a Short Eyes. At least then it would all be over with. But alas, I could never hurt a child. No matter what, some small part of me still holds out hope that things will go back to normal, or as close to normal as a celibate pedophile with little prospect of a future can get. Besides, like I said earlier, I just couldn’t allow myself to foist this abomination onto another human being. So I simply endured. Until …
by Todd Nickerson, Salon | Read more:
Image: : Mors via Shutterstock
