To my fellow pedophile readers,

In the face of an onslaught of anti-pedophile rhetoric, ranging from 'eww, gross' to jokes about woodchippers and suicide-baiting, I fear some people might internalize the narrative that there's something inherently wrong or distinctly unpleasant about pedophilia. There isn't.

Minor-attraction, commonly referred to as 'pedophilia', is a beautiful thing. Far from representing a desire to rape children, it encompasses a wide variety of positive feelings, such as the drive to mentor, to fall in love... and yes, to express that love physically with the younger partner's consent. We have an important natural place in the world, no matter how much the masses may wish to see it extinguished. And that's why we are surprisingly common, if almost silent in this sorry era.

Consensual adult-minor sexual contact is not necessarily harmful, and your desire to engage in it does not make you a bad person. Hell, actually engaging in it would not make you a bad person, though I don't recommend doing so given the extreme sociolegal consequences for both yourself and the child. You are not harboring terrible feelings, nor merely a weak moment away from committing a monstrosity. There's no need to say "I'd never act on my fantasies", as if doing so would be a grave sin. And even your fantasies, unless they're uncommonly sadistic, are beautiful.

There are people with our orientation who have behaved unreasonably, even horrifically. That does not make our orientation wrong. We don't see the public foaming at the mouth over the evils of heterosexual men, despite the many atrocities committed upon women by their kind. When you read about a man raping a child, remember that he has no more in common with you than a rapist has in common with a normal heterosexual man. The fact that the public conflate so readily is a reflection of their ignorance, or their hatefulness, or perhaps a combination of both.

By now, virtually all nations have criminalized all depictions of child sexuality, including consensual relations between children. In many jurisdictions, this includes those made entirely by a computer or sketched with a pencil, with no victim at any stage of the process. And so, at this point, it is impossible for our detractors to reasonably argue that their laws and mores are solely about protecting children.

We are a group of people who want nothing more than to cherish and adore children, and to sometimes express that love physically with consent. Yet the public find that icky, and over time they have constructed a false narrative that our feelings are deviant and dangerous. With that as an excuse, and because they need a boogeyman to hunt with relentless zeal, they seek to find any and all ways to imprison us, to drive us to suicide, or to make our lives utterly miserable until the day we die. They are bloodthirsty, vicious wolves. Such sadistic bullies say that we ought not to exist. I would argue it is they who have no moral place in this world.

Friends, you should be thoroughly outraged at what the public do to us, and you must never turn their bitter hatred on yourself. When someone states that we should be murdered in the most painful way possible, I want you to imagine murdering them in an equally painful way, sort of meditate on it until you start to feel warm and fuzzy. When you reach that point of transcendence, their words will no longer affect you so acutely. I now laugh when people tell me to kill myself, and believe me, it happens all the time!

You might not be able to change the world, but you can affect how it orbits around you. This starts with accepting yourself as a pedophile (preferably a philosophically pro-contact one), and not reaching out to those awful pedophobic 'prevention' charities* who treat any expression of your sexuality as wrong. It means interacting with children, albeit lawfully given the potential consequences. Get a job working with children. Make a young friend. And always remember that those who attack us are the true monsters, caring not about protection but about the sadistic hunt of a beautiful group of people who love children.

Be very proud... and very angry.

• If you need support due to the way pedophiles are relentlessly bullied, please consider stopping by LifeLine chat, with a team of volunteers who are pedophiles themselves. For paid support, B4U-Act is also a good option, and they are not moralizers despite their name.