The Child’s Perspective of Pedophilia
Listening to children, or former children, about their experiences or desires of sexual activity with adults


     To understand the difference between healthy adult-child sex and childhood sexual abuse, part of what we need is to hear the child’s point of view. Here are some stories of positive childhood experiences of physical intimacy with adults or older youngsters, or the desire for it. The details of the stories are very different. Some are told by people still in their teenage years, others by adults looking back. Some stories are very sad, while others are quite joyous. Most of the relationships described were completely consensual, although some do show the adult entreating the child to secrecy. On the other hand, several of the stories involve rather direct advances of a child on a reluctant adult. While this is just a small sample of stories, it does seem to at least demonstrate that there are children out there who are interested in sex with older people and that they can enjoy it without damaging effects.

     Stories marked with the face icon: are verified. This means that the person is publicly known, such as a published author or the subject of a major news story. Stories with a face icon include a note on the means of verification. Other cases are anonymous and so impossible to verify, but most appear to be quite authentic.

     Experiences are covered here in the following categories:



A Boy with a Man or Older Boy: 30 Cases


     A man recounts his earliest sexual experiences, including with his best friend’s father at eight years old: “He became my second very, very, very best friend and so began a wonderful, loving relationship. I still adore that man :-)”
     See A long and varied career by Ambar on BoyChat, July 2005.
Source: Posted in reply to Survey: How many of you had sex as kids?


     A 17-year-old reports on the anguish in his life stemming from sexual activity with his grandfather from age seven and attributes the worst aspects to society’s attitudes about it: “I think if this sort of thing was tolerated I would not have felt so fucking alienated, so hated, as a child, I would have not been an outcast.”
     See letter from John in HFP Mailbag and Sexual Abuse from a Victim by John Tate, December 7, 2004.


     A man recounts his first experience of sex with an adult at seven years old: “suddenly fun was "in" … gosh, what was that twirling feeling which went all thru me ???” He also speaks of such encounters with many other men, saying, “NOT A SINGLE ONE EVER ABUSED ME ! I was free to say 'YES!!!!' and also knew how to say 'no' if there were ever anything I might not want.”
     See count me IN !!! :)) by siao on BoyChat, July 2005.
Source: Posted in reply to Survey: How many of you had sex as kids?


     Famous poet Allen Ginsberg commented on the 1977 pedophilia scandal in Revere, Massachusetts, “I had sex when I was 8 with a man in the back of my grandfather’s candy store in Revere, and I turned out okay.”
     Quoted in Boy Crazy in Boston Magazine, May 2001.
      Verified: Famous poet


     A man in his mid-20s tells his story. When he was nine or ten years old, he responded willingly to the seduction of a 16- or 17-year-old neighbor boy. They had a passionate love affair for over a year until they were discovered and his father beat him savagely. The older boy’s family disappeared from town. This man wrote of that affair as the best thing that ever happened to him and attributed his deep problems at the time of writing to the brutal way it was torn away from him.
     See My Story: A story of a boy by Elf on BoyChat, October 1998.


     A 15-year-old boy writes about his adult lover: “When I was 10, I found myself a mentor, a wonderful old man that needed me as much as I needed him. … J has been the best thing that could ever have happened to me. Everything I am today I owe to J. He and Mom are both educated people who believe that I must prepare myself for adulthood by learning how to learn, how to think for myself, and how to believe in myself … Mom sees the results of my association with J, and she could not be more pleased.”
     See About Me by Spike on his website.


     A boy proclaims his interest in adult men and says, “You should be able to love whoever you want when you want and as long as you both happy it dont matter what anyone else thinks.”
     See About Me by Hoby on his website.


     A 13-year-old boy makes an impassioned plea for sexual freedom: “I want to love and be loved by whom I want. For the last two years I have an older friend. I am not gay, I like girls. He doesn’t, but we understand each other very well. It is nobody’s business what we do or don’t do. … Stop protecting me, please!”
     See My Complaints by David Alejandro, December 1996, on his website..
     Note: His site history page indicated that he was 13 when he posted this page and 15½ in June 1999. The English index pages said that he lived in the “Land of the Incas.”


     Acclaimed ballet dancer and choreographer Rudi van Dantzig tells the story of his brief romance at twelve with a Canadian soldier at the end of World War II.
     See Voor Een Verloren Soldaat (For A Lost Soldier), autobiographical novel by Rudi van Dantzig, 1986 and 1992 movie made from it (Wikipedia).
      Verified: Published book by a known personality


     A 12-year-old in Holland says, “I will tell you about my BEST friend. He’s 28 and works at home. I love him the most in the world and he loves me. He says I’m the cutest boy in the world.”
     See Stefan’s homepage by Stefan.


     The publisher of Steam magazine says, “When I was 12 and 13 years old I would have joined NAMBLA in a minute, because I knew I was gay and I wanted to go out and get laid, not just read The Gay Mystique all my life; I needed personal contact.”
     See Scott O’Hara obituary, quoting O’Hara at the Spirit of Stonewall Press Conference, New York City, June 24, 1994.
      Verified: Magazine publisher
Source: Quoted by NAMBLA


     An aircraft maintenance worker describes his first experience at thirteen with a man of about 30 who had hired him to do yard work. After inviting him inside and showing him pictures of men wrestling, the man “started rubbing my crotch, and I was both nervous and really excited by it.” He went on to seek out other significantly older men. “I never felt used. I really wanted it, and except for the first time I always felt like the aggressor”
     Quoted in Minor report by David Tuller in Salon.com, July 22, 2002.


     A married man reports on his 6-year-long relationship with a man who showed him erotic art and masturbated him. The relationship later turned platonic and the younger man was at the older’s deathbed 37 years later.
     See Ik Wilde Meer! (“I Want More!”) in Martijn (PDF, 6 Mb), December 1980, page 16-18, in Dutch..


     A teenaged boy describes his loving, sexual relationship with his soccer mentor, who had recently died.
     See tribute to frank by mick15 on BoyLover.net, December 7, 2005.


     A 15-year-old boy writes about his adult lover: “He is the best thing that has ever happened to me. … I wish this world would just open its eyes and see that relationships like this are healthy and good for boys my age—but yes only if the boy wants the relationship.”
     See I want to speak out!!!!!!!! by “15 yr old boy” on BoyChat, September 2000.


     A 13-year-old in the 10th grade writes about the emotional support he gets from his older friend, Angel, who is helping him overcome the hatred cast upon him by his family and school for liking other boys. Angel and Adam have never met in person and do not plan to do so. Their relationship is entirely nonsexual, although it is definitely one of love and mentorship.
     See There is Magic Out There by Joshua Adam on his website.


     In his 2001 book, How I Learned to Snap, Kirk Read tells of his sexual experiences with adults starting at age 13, which he says saved his life.
     See Amazon.
      Verified: Published author
Source: Reviewed by NAMBLA


     Noted gay novelist Edmund White (Wiki) talks about picking up men at Chicago beaches and public restrooms from the age of 13 or 14. “I was very oversexed, absolutely driven wild by desire. ... The first one was a handsome architect, who actually had children older than me. I was absolutely fascinated by him, and I seduced him. I followed him to his car, walked right up to him and started talking to him. My mother was away and I said, ‘Come back to my apartment.’ And it was terrific.”
     Quoted in Minor report by David Tuller in Salon.com, July 22, 2002.
      Verified: Published author


     Best-selling Canadian author James Dubro was 14 in 1961 when he started having sex with a 22-year-old college student who remains his friend 40 years later.
     See Boy Crazy in Boston Magazine, May 2001.
      Verified: Published author


     A 14-year-old gay boy in Australia says, “I have one really good adult friend that knows about my sexuality, … Steve has never tried anything sexual with me, although I often wish he would.”
     See Page 4 by Shane on his website.


     A man recounts his first experiences of sex, including with an adult neighbor at 14: “[He] did with me … what he had been wanting to do with me since I was 8 years old. We are friends to this day.”
     See Under My House . Tent Sleeping . Neighbors Bedroom by Linca on BoyChat, July 2005.
Source: Posted in reply to Survey: How many of you had sex as kids?


     A man describes his childhood sexual experiences with adults. The first was anal sex with a benedictine monk at 14 years old: “I was't stupid, at 14 I knew my way around … He was very nice and very gentle, and I liked him alot.” [1] Next was a relationship that lasted for a year and a half with a man and his two sons. [2]
     See [1] It isn't always bad. by hyacinth on BoyChat, May 2002, [2] It happens sometimes by hyacinth on BoyChat, July 2005.
Source: [2] Posted in reply to Survey: How many of you had sex as kids?


     A 14-year-old boy wrote a series of love letters, unsuccessfully courting an adult friend for a more intimate relationship.
     See Letters of a Loving Boy--Excerpted letters and diaries of boys, edited by Jarod Benjamin, 1997.


     In an essay about sex between adolescents and adults, David Tuller relates his own desire as a 15-year-old “tormented homosexual wannabe.” Upon seeing the movie Summer of ’42, in which a young widow “pulls Hermie into her arms and, in her grief, into her bed,” he says, “I cried while I watched, ... because I so yearned for the tender moments that Hermie found.”
     See Minor report by David Tuller in Salon.com, July 22, 2002.
      Verified: Published author


     A gay healthcare professional in his 50s discusses how the relationship he pursued with a family friend in his early 20s helped him learn at the age of fifteen that men could care for each other. “It was clear that it certainly felt good to both of us. ... In some way it was a real lifesaver, because it made me feel that love and affection and closeness and sex would be possible in my life. ... when we were together, it was like a little oasis where we could be ourselves.”
     Quoted in Minor report by David Tuller in Salon.com, July 22, 2002.


     A businessman in Denver recounts his two-year relationship, from age fifteen, with his 29-year-old boss at the restaurant where he worked. “It was frightening and invigorating and I felt clumsy and awkward. But he was playful and fun and very gentle. I never felt coerced. As foreign as it was to me I was very open to it. Afterwards, I felt good, like I'd experienced something I'd wanted to for a long time.” Speaking of how it affected his life at the time, he says, “I wasn't an awkward, out-of-place kid anymore. I felt appreciated for being gay, instead of being an outcast and made fun of. Suddenly I had this new self-confidence. I didn't have to hate myself for being gay.”
     Quoted in Minor report by David Tuller in Salon.com, July 22, 2002.


     A 22-year-old man talks about the 67-year-old man he met at the museum where they were both volunteering when he was 13. A friendship emerged based on unusually common interests for such a pair. The relationship evolved into mentoring and eventually romance, which became sexual two years later. They remained occassionally intimate for five years while the teenager also began to explore relationships with his age peers. Looking back on the man’s death when he was 20, he says, “He enhanced the quality of my youth, and his influence will likely enhance the quality of my entire adult life. And I enhanced his old age. We both got something out of it.”
     See Just Like Greece? — Gay Teen Dates Septuagenarian, an interview of “:John ”: by Brandon K. Thorp in Mogenic, June 2006.


     A 15-year-old boy talks about his adult lover on his website.
     See Aaron’s Place and his blog, Aaron’s World.


     NAMBLA published a book with first-person accounts of 29 boys about their relationships with older men. Titles include The Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me by Greg, 16, It Shouldn’t Be a Crime to Make Love by Bryan, 12, If It Wasn’t for Mark I’d Probably Be Dead Today by Carl, 14, I Need My Lovers by Tyrone, 16, and It Was Me Who Started It by Frank, 15.
     See Boys Speak Out on Man/Boy Love, NAMBLA, 1981.


     Jarod Benjamin’s 1997 study of male-male pedophilia includes a section that reports on pedophile relationships from the point of view of boys in them. Reference is also made to 620 quotes of boys in Edward Brongersma’s Loving Boys.
     See The perspective of a loving boy in On Boys and Boylovers by Jarod Benjamin, 1997.


A Boy with a Woman or Older Girl: 5 Cases


     A 17-year-old writes about an incident in which his 16- or 17-year-old babysitter engaged him in sex games when he was seven or eight, including felating him. He was punished for it and grew up sexually repressed. He later came to the conclusion that the sex games were okay and his problem had been the way his parents reacted to it. He wrote, “I laugh at myself for calling someone doing me a favor like that ‘abuse.’”
     See Revised Thinking About Former Sexual Experience by Porn-Dog in All About Sex, 1998.


     A man in pre-revolution Russia looks back on his aristocratic and prudish upbringing and the twists and gambols he went through to learn about human sexuality. This had been left by his parents entirely up to him to research in the musty family library and with whatever friends, servants, or servant’s children knew enough and were willing to show him.
     At ten years old, Victor was molested by a young woman servant almost twice his age. The woman grabbed his hand and thrust it under her skirt while grabbing his penis with her other hand. The boy chastized her and thereafter avoided being alone with her. Far from being traumatized by the event, it played an important part in his budding awareness of sexuality.
     I believe this case shows, not only that a prepubescent boy of ten can be capable of resisting what he does not want, but also that when it is gently forced on him, he can be capable of processing the experience in his young mind and turning it to positive effect in his life.
     See The Confessions of Victor X, circa 1910, Chapter 2: Enlightenment. See also publisher’s ad for history of the book.


     A man in his sixties, looking back on his sexual adventures from age five to 19, recalls the time that two older girls held him down and fondled him. His initial reaction was to struggle, until he realized that it felt good and he then turned to convincing them to let him return the favor.
     See Part 6 of A Young Boy’s Awakening by “Girl Luvr” on alt.support.girl-lovers, February to March 2001 (In ASGL archives).
Source: Found on Transgressive Resource Center


     At the age of 22, Vili Fualaau tells his story of love for his once sixth-grade school teacher and now mother of his two children, Mary Kay LeTourneau, six weeks after she finished serving seven years in prison for statutory rape: “Mary’s out now and we’re finally together. And we still have the same feelings for each other, times forever.” [1]
     At the age of 14, after she had given birth to their first baby, he said, “I want people to stop seeing me as a victim. My life is going to be fine. Mary didn’t harm me in any way.” [2]
     See [1] Interview (PDF, 250 kb) by Larry Elder, September 15, 2004 and Show Recap, [2] Ex-teacher pleads guilty to rape of boy who was 13 in Seattle Times, August 8, 1997
     See also Wiki article..
      Verified: Famous news story


     A 14-year-old boy writes about his desire for women aged 35 and older.
     See letter from Bayardo in HFP Mailbag.


A Girl with a Man or Older Boy: 7 Cases


     A woman in her twenties tells of a sexual relationship she had with an adult male neighbor from the age of six for at least six years. She writes, “Why should I feel guilty about the wonderful relationship I had with that man … right up until his death?”
     See Why Should I Feel Guilty If I Liked It? by Rachel in All About Sex, 1998.


     The sex this 18-year-old had with a college freshman when she was twelve was not a positive experience, but she says it could have been and should have been, had she been taught better. “Someone should have told me, my family should have not ignored the possibility of me having sex. I realized that they did not care enough to ever prepare me for … the most important aspect of life.”
     See When Fairy Lost her Virginity by “Fairy” in HFP Testimonies, November 2005.


     An 18-year-old writes about being raped as a child, as well as her consensual relationship with a 19-year-old when she was twelve: “I was in complete agreement with all that went on in that relationship, and I was not at all manipulated.”
     See Once against — now supporting by “C”. in HFP Mailbag, April 2005.


     Sex activist Heather Corinna talks about the adult lovers she had when she was a teenager, including a 23-year-old man when she was 15. “…this was also by far the most wonderful and intimate relationship of my teen years. He was more respectful of my sexual boundaries than all of my same-age peers. He held me in higher esteem, and treated me with more respect, care and love than others my age. That may be because he was older, that may be because he was who he was — there really is no telling.”
     See author’s personal account in Rage of Consent by Heather Corinna in Soapbox Girls, July 2001.
      Verified: Published author


     A 16-year-old girl talks about her adult lovers. “When I have been with adults, I’ve always felt much more comfortable. … I felt less inhibited when I was with a man in his twenties.”
     See Miranda’s story in Rage of Consent by Heather Corinna in Soapbox Girls, July 2001.


     A young woman talks about her year-long relationship with 25-year-old man when she was 16. “I look back at it with fondness. I still understand very well why I fell in love and lust with him.”
     See Antonia’s story in Rage of Consent by Heather Corinna in Soapbox Girls, July 2001.


     A grown woman talks about the adult lovers from her teenage years, including a 35-year-old man when she was 17. “They helped to expand my intellectual horizons, teach me more advanced social interactions and give me a different perspective on things from the point of view of a different generation.”
     See Charlotte’s story in Rage of Consent by Heather Corinna in Soapbox Girls, July 2001.


A Girl with a Woman or Older Girl: 5 Cases


     “Catherine N.X. is a 19 year old girl whose girllove relationship [with her mother] started at age 8 and continues happily to this day” [HFP main page]. She writes a column for the website, called Ask Cat!. For her view of her relationship, see her answers to the letter from Rainer. Catherine also has her own website, The Cat’s Meow.


     A 13-year-old girl writes about having “a number of perfectly healthy sexual relationships with adults … [including a current] relationship with a sixteen year-old girl who I understand and who understands me on a level unparalleled by what I believe I could reach with anyone my age.”
     See post by “Gothic Trollita” in discussion of pedophilia is not okay in a forum on Gaia Online, June 30, 2007..


     A 24-year-old woman looks back on the fling she had with a teacher when she was 13. “As I look back on it, I think that it was the fact that I could trust her and that she treated me like an adult, that made me fall in love with her. I needed someone to trust, somebody who did not treat me as a child. … The contact we had was special, really because there was so much trust. She told me about her life and she wanted to hear everything about mine. I told her about my problems, about everything. That’s how she helped me.”
     See Interview: Heidi, in Paidika, 1991.


     A woman talks about her teenage love affair with a music teacher in her school. She courted the teacher innocently for about a year and they developed a close friendship. When the teacher was ill and the girl was comforting her at her home, the teacher initiated some kissing and sexual stroking. The girl enjoyed this and later took to intiating such activity herself, although she did find the teacher’s orgasms frightening. The relationship began to attract attention from others at school, which created presure to end it, which they did with some difficulty.
     See Anna in Martijn (PDF, 8 Mb), January 1981, page 18-19, in Dutch..


     A young woman talks about the relationship she had with an adult woman as a teenager. “If more people of any age could have that kind of relationship we’d be better off.”
     See Alex’s story in Rage of Consent by Heather Corinna in Soapbox Girls, July 2001.


Miscellaneous: 8 Cases


     A man from South Africa relates his memories of his older boyhood friend, who introduced him to the birds and the bees, first in a book, and later in practice. They also enlisted the assistance of a still older female neighbor in exploration of human anatomy. The relationship ended when the younger boy found out that what they were doing was a sin, and he spent the next thirty years overcoming the conflict between pleasure and guilt. He wrote, “for an otherwise unsociable kid growing up in one of the most sexually repressed environments in the world, my degree of sexual education and enlightenment is essentially miraculous. This could not have happened without Peter's help, and it is to him that I owe all these blessings.”
     See My Life in the Bush of Ghosts by “albertRoss” on GirlChat, January 3, 2006.


     “As a child I was looking for an adult to share my sexuality with. An adult as a companion, who would also understand my resistance to the current educational system and my skeptical, critical attitude towards the behavior people expected of me; an adult who attaches importance to enjoying instead of striving.”
     See Touching Young Girls by Norbert de Jonge in OK magazine 87, October 2003.
      Verified: Dutch political figure


     A grown man speaks of his childhood sexual experience with an adult: “I wouldn’t have had half the trauma if it hadn’t been for the implantation [of the idea] that sex is bad for anyone, [but that the adult] who approached and touched me was an evil scumsuccer and I had been ‘violated.’”
     See A 13-Year-Old Who Enjoyed His “Abuse” in The Cult of Childhood and the Repression of Childhood Sexuality by Bill Paris, Liberated Christians, 1997.


     “I’m a young teenager in a relationship with an older man and I find that he has been the person who has best treated me, I feel happy, respected, and love.”
     See letter from S in HFP Mailbag.


     A woman talks about her relationship with an adult from the age of fifteen to twenty. “With the peer was what I would describe as a typical teen relationship; somewhat shallow intellectually and emotionally. The relationship with the adult was much more what I would consider a whole relationship; balanced in terms of emotional, intellectual and sexual intimacy.”
     See Beth’s story in Rage of Consent by Heather Corinna in Soapbox Girls, July 2001.


     The appendices of Havelock Ellis’s 1927 classic, Studies in the Psychology of Sex, include The Development of the Sexual Instinct, a series of 25 case studies reporting on childhood sexual activities of people from a wide variety of backgrounds.

Source: E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
     Found in Stories, Tales, Narratives, a bibliography in Volume 3 of Growing Up Sexually (GUS) by Diederik Janssen.
     Volume 3 of GUS also includes three other bibliographies: (Pre)adolescent Boy-Hoods and Body-Hoods, Boyhood Studies (PDF), and Girlhood Studies (PDF), which contain thousands of references.


     Roughly 50 young gay men and lesbians at the Second International Gay Youth Congress in 1985 adopted the following as one of 13 resolutions passed: “As young people, we must be free to choose our own identities and lifestyles. We oppose ages of consent and all laws which restrict consensual sexual activity because, as young people, they limit our sexual freedom and deny us the right to choose who we relate to sexually.”
     See resolutions of the Second International Gay Youth Congress, Dublin, Ireland, July 7-12, 1985.
Source: Quoted in NAMBLA Bulletin, November 1985, page 2


     This listing concentrates on children having or wanting sex with adults. But the HFP site also has received an intriguing number of e-mails from kids as young as 13 asserting that they are themselves pedophiles! Just one example of that is included here because it also seems to support the case that there are kids that young who want sex and are intelligent and mature enough to articulate that desire in a way that seems to demand the right to consent:

AC: “Hello, I am 13 years old … For a year or two, I have had pedophiliac thoughts.”
     See letter from AC in HFP Mailbag.