well yes I guessed it would be something like that. It's all such a grey area. My own problem has been rather different. For me, my sexuality got completely tied up with the way a boy looks and not about me being actually involved in any way. At some point I put a camera between me and boys to prevent any possible involvement - although this happened so gradually that I didn't realise what was happening. I gradually lost the emotional connection with my sexuality and it became a strange sort of 'aesthetic' thing (which perhaps ties in with my own 'artistic' nature . . . .) in which I virtually 'disappeared' and only the boy (as an image that I was looking at) was left . . .
When I realised how this had happened (by talking about it on the course) I knew that it was imperative to reconnect emotionally and things changed for me very rapidly: I was suddenly attracted to young men again (after years of scarcely being aware of this side of me). Once I had put my own 'being' back into the picture boys became an impossibility because there is just no feasibility of it actually happening like that (because it would need to be wholely mutual). The yawning gap between my age and the age of a boy (maturity-wise) became a reality which impinged on my fantasy and altered the nature of it. This seemed such a step forward for me that it seemed to me a holy gift rather than a sordid secret.
Since then, however, there are times when I slip back into 'aesthetic uninvolved' mode again and begin to disappear (rather like that photo in 'Back to the Future 1' if you remember) . . .
I suppose the point that I am trying to make is that sexuality is not separate from God's purpose for us but very much a part of it (even, I think, if we are called to celibacy (which I think I certainly am)
For God to make sexuality such an important part of our lives and then to render it 'sinful' is obviously absurd but he does call us to sexual maturity and there's the rub . . . . if we are locked in a corner by our sexuality then something is clearly wrong (because it prevents us being fully ourselves in a warm and loving way, and he will be calling us to move out of that corner and not to stay in it. This can only happen by really honest talking; only possible through the patient understanding of another person and that is something not given to all of us. Bearing this in mind, there is no doubt about God's compassion for us in all of this. Our sin is what keeps us locked in our unhappiness, it isn't what makes God angry in some disciplinarian way.
Just one final thought on 'celibacy' (which I think many 'paedophiles' might well be called to) I remember a monk telling me that, when he took vows, he knew his sexuality would 'always be something of a mess' and a totally unfulfilled part of his life ('a sacrifice I needed to make', I think he said.)
I am sitting here now wondering whether I can say that he was probably right or probably wrong . . . . . I have met other monks who were clearly able to integrate warmth and a great deal of love into their relationships with others and I think that has to be a sign of sexual as well as spiritual maturity. . . . thinking about it it is clear that the two walk hand in hand in a way which only God can know . . .
I wonder if I dare go a step further and say that, unless God is present, mutual sexual love can never be the glorious thing that He has designed it to be . . .
where true love is God must be there also.
I will probably wake up in a sweat in the night wondering if this is completely misjudged!