Hello T-Money!
Well, I have to say, I REALLY appreciate what you are doing here. Very civilized conversation between two "armies" that, well, have had some tensions in the not so distant past. Very commendable - this inter-situational dialog might actually produce something, as compared to the fairly useless (or even destructive) postings of JD.

Anyways, I thought I would contribute to a few things that you mentions, but didn't want that thread to go too long down (its hard to follow after a certain length), so I thought I would mention it in a new post.

...

Aww crap. Lol, in the process of me writing this, Godspell managed to pull off a post before I could post mine, so I got to change some stuff ...

One things I would like to mention about the alcohol analogy (that I am surprised no one else brought up) is that, whether you look at the "fake beer" or the "AA" part of it, it still depicts pedophilia as something wrong. While Alcoholism may be argued as not wrong, there is a biological basis for its addiction - actually making something wrong in our heads. For pedophilia, I don't know of any such thing (but I've been wrong before). Thus, pedophilia is really only wrong in the eyes of society. Yet, generally this is enough. But it doesn't mean that it is a disorder that must be fixed. Maybe society must change??

But yes, society doesn't like us, and we have to cope. And as this board does not condone sex with children or anything else illegal (not do I, and many other posters), this board is basically here for support. Not support for a disorder that must be fixed, but rather support for the repression that society places upon us. I guess maybe the best analogy of what we are like would be a group of gays meeting for support in the 60's or whatever. They were ostracized, marriage was illegal, etc. But they didn't have a disorder that they were trying to fix. They were trying to cope with their feelings in an unaccepting society.

"find the root cause of your problem"

There we go with the word "problem" again :P But anyways, if we replace that with "orientation", then we can start looking. As a university student, I have access to zillions of psychological journals. While I didn't look to far into it to avoid much attention being drawn to myself, I checked out a couple articles regarding pedophilia and homosexuality. There is mounting evidence for genetic association with sexual orientation, and even more recently, evidence for gene-environment interaction (meaning neither genetics nor the environment is the answer in itself). While not a whole lot of info can be found on the causes of pedophilia, what I found seemed to be along the same lines. And this I can accept. We've already killed the topics of "were you molested" or "did you like older men", and other such questions - as they all led to very inconclusive results. Similar to what has been psychologically stated, environment plays very little role in this in itself.

there are parents on my board that are furious to think that someone could be thinking about their kid in such a way"

Very understandable! If you read back a ways, you would find that I too would be very angry (even as a pedophile) if another BL was putting the moves on my kid or sexualizing him in his mind. But as long as I don't know, I guess its ok. Now, this isn't just "ignorance is bliss". Rather, if I cannot actually tell that this person is sexualizing my son, but rather just being a good friend and mentor, then who am I to say what his motives are or if he will be good or bad for my child. But the second he moves for something sexual or inappropriate, then I would be in there in a flash with avengance! (sp?)

I guess ya, thinking about having sex with a boy might be bad. Lustful thinking, etc. And if it was bad it might lead to action. But the very thought itself, if controlled from ever reaching the outside world, should be fine as far as society is concerned. Society doesn't know the many deep dark secrets in the minds of everyone else, and normally doesn't really care. I don't think this should be any different.

What's the reason for the pedophilia?

Like I said above: beats me. Probably the closest and most supported guess would be gene-environment interaction, but anything more is simply speculation, and probably beyond just the group of use message-boarders figuring out without actual research stuff. Oh, and once again, you called us "messed up". I bet to you we are. But then to us it is crazy that you cannot see how beautiful some boys are. Weird!

Oh, and yes, what Godspell said about jd420 is true - I gotta love the guy, I think he's hilarious in a way that makes me very nervous. But that doesn't mean I agree with what he says all the time. And the same should be said for every poster here - none of us can really represent anything collective from this board through themselves due to the absolute diversity on here. But there are some general things that normally hold true thoughout the board - but I am in no position to say what they are.

Anyways, that was very long. If you get through that all, congrats and thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed. Hopefully you respond a little bit - I enjoy conversation/friendly-debate :D

Talk to you soon!
Graces of God,
Deliverance