Fear mongering and hatred seem to be the new common sense. Scare us enough and we will believe just about anything, no matter what logical arguments are presented. There are some people in this world who are forced to fall victim to the world’s blind discrimination, or “societal norm”, just so the rest of the world can feel safe and secure and hide from the fact that reality is actually uncomfortable and challenges us to be better people. But someone wise once said that it’s more comfortable to be miserable, to pretend like we’re happy and stay exactly the way we are, than it is to confront things that scare us and grow as human beings. It’s perfectly normal to be afraid, but it is incredibly important that we do not give into the fear, because living in truth is so much more liberating than worrying every moment of every day.

On that note, be prepared to confront one of those uncomfortable truths right now. Ready? No? Oh well. Here we go anyway.

Pedophiles are human beings.

I know. Scary, right?

But wait, there’s more. Pedophiles are not only human beings, but they have jobs, families, and hobbies. How would I know this? Because I am a pedophile, and I certainly am a human being. I like things and people. I have a job. I’m a living, breathing human being with emotions and feelings and interests.

But that doesn’t fit the comfortable picture of a pedophile, does it? I’m supposed to look like a heroin addict and abduct children from their backyards, only to torture them with my sick sexual fantasies. That’s what a pedophile is supposed to be, right?

Surprise! That’s not reality. That’s a narrative that’s been created by those in need of someone to blame. Some sick person abducts a child and sexually abuses them. As has been proven by various psychologists, sex crimes are not so much about sex as they are about power. So this person’s sexuality is as relevant as their hair color or their opinion of the Woody Allen classic, Annie Hall. Which is to say, it isn’t. But because there’s sexual abuse involved, people assume there’s sexual attraction. Which means they’re a pedophile. Which means they’re not human, obviously.

This has all been constructed so that you have someone to blame when things go wrong. Child gets kidnapped and dies? Pedophiles. Catholic priests systematically abuse kids and cover it up? Pedophiles. Community gets cancelled before its six seasons and a movie? Pedo- actually, I don’t think that was pedophiles. But it’s frustrating and someone needs to take the blame.

What I’m getting at here is that we as a society feel the need to “other” the pedophiles of the world. When you put a face to something, when you have a connection with someone, when you look into their eyes, it’s impossible to feel rage. When you realize that your brother, your sister, aunt, uncle, best friend, is a pedophile…it makes it a little harder to maintain your ignorance. So those who promote fearmongering give people the easy way out: they convince the world pedophiles don’t deserve compassion, so you don’t need to feel guilty or uncomfortable or attempt to grow your worldview, and everyone remains in their comfortable little bubbles where the world is perfect.

We treat pedophiles as though they can’t be normal humans, when they are exactly the same as everyone else. This happens because ignorance permeates into our minds without us even realizing it. What I find to be the most humorous about this practice is when people I know try so hard to convince themselves I’m not a pedophile by assigning human traits to me, as if it would make me less of a pedophile.

For instance, when I was in high school, I volunteered at a day camp. Several of the kids came to the camp multiple times, and they were quite fond of me. They all wanted to take turns holding my hand and sitting on my lap and receiving hugs and kisses. At the time, I’d recently discovered my desires for children and, given my intentions were completely pure, I saw no reason why any of this should be a problem. However, I was in for a rude awakening.

We were in a large room doing a craft activity and, prior to beginning, I sat down next to this girl I knew. She was 9 at the time and I was head over heels in love with her. This was toward the end of the day, and we’d been more or less attached at the hip all day. I sat across from her and held her hand and leaned toward her, raptured by her every word. I don’t even remember what we were talking about, but, moments later, I received a tap on the shoulder. One of the adult chaperones for the day was smiling at me and he beckoned me to follow him. We took several steps to remove ourselves from the group and he looked at me for a moment before speaking in a hushed tone.

“Is that girl your sister?”

I realized what he was getting at. He thought I was being too affectionate with this girl. But it’d be okay if she was my sister.

Because having a sister would make me less of a pedophile.

I shook my head no and said, “She’s my friend’s little sister.”

Which was true. I had a few classes with them. That’s how this girl and I had originally bonded, because I knew her sibling.

He continued in his hushed volume.

“Is she your neighbor?”

Because having a neighbor would make me less of a pedophile.

I shook my head no again. He looked back at the girl, then to me.

“Why don’t we give her some space?”

You read that correctly. Not “you.” He said “we.” As though he had some part in my relationship with this child. Like my friendship with her somehow also included him.

Obviously, I didn’t want to rock the boat and throw suspicion on myself, so I reluctantly agreed and said I understood. But for the rest of the day, I proactively avoided any affection with the kids. They came over to me and hugged me without even asking, because that’s what they were used to. I had to lightly hug them back and then take a step away, in fear it’d look like I was enjoying it a little bit too much.

One of the kids in my group had to go to the bathroom and she asked me to go with her. The aforementioned adult offered to take her, but he didn’t even know her and she wanted me to go with her. I insisted we’d be fine, but he insisted on going with us. At the time, I just thought it was weird, but I later understood why. It was because he didn’t trust me. I can’t pretend that didn’t hurt. The insinuation I would hurt anyone, let alone a child I love, makes me more furious than I thought possible. Fun fact: the first time I dropped a F-bomb was when I was accused of wanting to hurt children due to my sexual preferences. You’d better believe I had some choice words when I found that out. Because the thought of anyone, especially children, being in pain is enough to make me want to cry.

People don’t want to talk about pedophilia because then it will be “normalized.” Believe it or not, normalizing pedophilia would only help the world. Those who hide this gigantic part of themselves from the world, such as myself, would have the world’s biggest weight lifted off their shoulders. Some of the happiest moments of my life have been when I told a close friend about my sexuality and they gave me a hug and told me they still loved me. Though we all have secrets, most people don’t understand just how difficult it is to look at someone and wonder, “Would they still love me if they knew who I really was?” Most people have some sort of struggle, but seldom does anyone have to worry about being shunned unapologetically. If you abandon a friend with an eating disorder, then you’re the jerk. The person has an eating disorder, for crying out loud! That’s someone who needs support. However, if you tell someone you’re a pedophile, they can call you disgusting, and everyone agrees with them. Just for a second, picture that.

If pedophilia was brought to mainstream consciousness, we wouldn’t have to live in fear of our lives being ruined should our sexuality come to light. Because we’re human, we feel the everyday stress everyone else has, and we also have to hide a huge part of who we are as well. Imagine everything you go through on a daily basis: maybe you’re behind on a car payment or your mortgage; maybe you’re battling with a mental illness, like depression or anxiety; maybe you’ve got to balance time with your family and your work. Imagine having all that, plus being told that not only are you not allowed to manifest your sexual desires, but you’re a terrible person, you’re garbage, you’re inhuman for even wanting to in the first place.

Now multiply that by a hundred and it might come close to the burden placed on pedophiles every day. There are some days I sit down in my living room and say out loud to myself, “God…I deserve a trophy for this.” And I am not a part of the Millennial attitude of getting trophies for just showing up. I believe you have to work hard for things. So when I finish a day and say I deserve a trophy, then I deserve a freakin’ trophy.

And yet the establishment, “society,” as it were, continues to pretend pedophiles either don’t exist or exist on a separate plane of reality, one where it’s considered acceptable to watch torture porn featuring crying, traumatized children, or exert our power over a child to satisfy some sort of messed up sexual craving. I assure you that we very much exist on the same plane of reality as the rest of you.

Believe it or not, you know a pedophile. Odds are you know quite a few, actually. There’s no way to know for sure how many pedophiles there are, due to the taboo within society, but some have said it’s as many as 1 in 10 or 1 in 20 adult males are pedophiles, though others say it’s far lower, such as 1 in 100. The rate is smaller in adult women, but female pedophiles do also exist.

So think about it this way. Every year in school, a child has lots of teachers. Depending on the school, they may have one teacher, or they may have a regular teacher, and a music teacher, and a gym teacher, and other specialty teachers. In the older grades, they’ll definitely have around 5-10 teachers per day.

Since some statistics show that approximately one in every 10-20 people is a pedophile, odds are every child has a pedophile teacher every year. Maybe every other year. Or maybe they’ll have two or three pedophile teachers per year. Even if that number were closer to 1 in 100, that still means your child will most likely have a pedophile teacher before they graduate high school. And odds are every church has at least one pedophile employee. And every post office, every library, every supermarket. In your daily life, you’ll most likely interact with a few. We are everywhere. Lack of awareness of our existence does nothing to affect the fact we do indeed exist. In your lifetime, you’ve met lots of pedophiles and, I would guess, you’re quite fond of many of them. How much would your perspective change if you knew their sexual preference? We try to convince ourselves that we’re protecting our children from these vile creatures called “pedophiles,” but, in reality, we love your children too and we want nothing more for them to grow and prosper.

I have, in the past, been a manny, or male nanny. It’s a rough profession for men, as there are constantly paranoid parents, and those are just the parents of the boys. Don’t even get me started on how long it took me to get a family who would hire me to babysit their daughter.

There was one day awhile back that I was contacted by a family about last-minute babysitting. The kids had a day off of school and their mom needed the house quiet so she could work. I accepted, not knowing much about them, and vice versa. The job would entail me hanging out with the boys in the park, playing football, reading books, the works. They’d have some friends there, and their friends all had nannies as well. Pretty simple gig and one that, honestly, didn’t require much trust from the parents. Wide open space with people they knew. I was there as an extra pair of eyes, really.

I arrived at the park and I called them to make sure I was in the right place. Once we found each other, introductions were made and the mom started asking me questions about myself. As soon as she started, I knew what was up. She wanted to feel more comfortable leaving her children with me. She wanted reassurance she’d picked someone trustworthy. “Trustworthy” meant “trustworthy,” but, for male nannies, and men in general, it also meant “not a pedophile.” I can’t say I blame her, since she knew nothing about me besides the fact I was available, interested, and had prior experience. As someone who wants the best for children, I appreciated that she was being thorough, though it amused me that she was only doing it after hiring me. She began asking me questions like:

“Where are you from?”

Because being from a place on Earth would make me less of a pedophile.

“Do you have any siblings?”

Because having siblings would make me less of a pedophile.

“You said you liked [insert musical artist here]. My son also loves them!”

Because liking music makes me less of a pedophile.

Are you beginning to see a pattern here?

Finally, after many reassurances and discussing my previous experience and meeting up with friends, the mom seemed satisfied and she left. That day, the kids and I played ball and climbed trees and I sat and talked with the other nannies about being a nanny and what their lives were like.

When the afternoon was over, I took the boys back to their house and they gave a beaming report to their mother. They talked about how much fun we had and I said they were well-behaved and they were welcome to call me anytime.

Most my interactions with kids usually end this way — with them telling their parents how much fun we had and how they want to see me again and play with me more. In all my days of teaching and being a manny and just living life in general, I’ve made a difference in the lives of a lot of children, including a lot of young girls. They’ll come climb into my lap and I’ll give them kisses and hugs and tell them I love them. And they’ll sigh contentedly and cuddle into me as I wrap my arms around them lovingly and protect them from the evils of the world.

But none of this seems to matter to the amorphous monster known as “ignorance”, “indoctrination”, or “common sense.” All that matters to fear is that you stay fearful. It comes out in subtle ways so that no one realizes they’re being run by fear. They genuinely think they’re doing the most logical, reasonable thing.

I once knew a girl who was extremely cuddly. She was six or seven years old and one of the quietest kids I’d ever met. I had met her through teaching one of her classes and she became very attached to me. During breaks from class, she would come over to me and climb into my lap, without any prompting from me. We were sitting together one day when another girl from the class came up to us, cocked her head, and said, “Uh…are you two related?” I told her we weren’t and she said, “Cause this is weird.”

Now, I didn’t want my little angel becoming self-conscious about her desire to cuddle with me, so I tried to handle the situation as best I could and said that I didn’t think it was weird at all. This is the kind of thing that happens all the time. And all I could think of was, “What’s weird about love? What’s wrong with two people caring about each other?” In the end, that is my beef with the ignorance and the fearmongering: the “system”, society, turns pedophilia into something it’s not. It turns pedophilia into something ugly, something that’s about abuse instead of love. Anyone who has seen me interact with a child knows this. The people who have been the most accepting of me are the ones who see the infinite love in my heart and know that love always wins.

Parents will see me with their children. They’ll know how much I love Linkin Park or Shania Twain or 5 Seconds of Summer or Michael Bublé. They’ll know I’m from Houston or Hong Kong or Melbourne or Buenos Aires or London. They see that I’m a kind, loving soul who lives to make the world a happier place. Who wants nothing more than to see the kids he loves prosper in their lives and grow into amazing humans who contribute positively to the world.

They’ll see a kind heart.

They’ll see a good human being.

They’ll see someone who genuinely loves children, because love always wins.

Guess that means I’m not a pedophile.