Eliza, I've been following this and your other thread with interest. Thanks for some civil discourse on the topic I think you do well to avoid engaging with detractors.

As to your last point: "What also concerns me is the apparently widespread nature of this paedophilia. It's everywhere, they're everywhere. Why? What possible pleasure can there be in such ghastly stuff? I'm very upset."

As someone who has learned certain amount about it, I think it's worth aiming our disgust at *perpetrators* of child abuse, not at those who may - for whatever reason - have a dysfunctional or disturbed sexuality.

This is a point that rarely ever gets heard or understood, but paedophiles are not necessarily evil or disgusting people, they just happen - to very sadly - have an erotic fixation on pre-pubescent children and this may be something that is completely out of their hands.

What isn't out of their hands, is how they then conduct themselves, knowing that they have sexual desires that can never be fulfilled without harming another person.

Believe it or not, there non-abusive paedophiles, the numbers of non-abusers are not known (not by me certainly) as it's an incredibly taboo subject, which - unfortunately though unsurprisingly - leaves the *sufferers* (and I do mean sufferers) very reluctant to seek help and support.

We have a better idea of the numbers of abusers, as these are the paedophiles who abuse and whats more get caught abusing. Child abusers are pretty much a lost cause so far as any treatment is concerned, they've made their choices and have learned to validate them to themselves. Not so those who struggle with their affliction in shame and silence. Those paedophiles who are attracted to children but do not act on that attraction, deserve our respect and support as much as those who do act upon it deserve our disgust and condemnation.

We need to learn to put our fear and disgust of their desires to one side and try to judge them on how they act not on what they feel. Otherwise paedophilia will forever be a taboo subject and those who struggle in silence won't get the support they need. And of course it serves children no benefit whatever for society to alienate and ostracise those adults who are attracted to them.