"I remember the detective who arrested me saying 'you start off taking a photograph in a park and end up raping a child'."

See I think this thing is a matter of perspective.
Possibly child rapists did start out taking pics of kids in the park. They start with something small and work up to something bigger... but it doesn't necessarily work the other way around. That is... not everyone who takes pics of kids in the park is going to end up raping them.
I think the guy who is the rapist has something set up to incline him to rape long before he begins his journey to pics or whatever... and that inclination motivates him to greater and greater risks until he eventually does what he wanted from the beginning and rapes someone.

However, for the average bl, he just wants to look at the beauty of the boy. He has no inclination whatsoever to rape one. Sure he feels sexual attraction, but he has as much self-control as anyone who finds someone attractive.

So the detective's perspective may have been accurate from his experinence of rapists, but his applying that perspective to all boylovers is a serious error of judgement, I believe.

Blessings
Cat.