Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

This Group Wants to “Affirm” Pedophilia
City Journal ^ | 2 May, 2025 | Christina Buttons

Posted on 05/03/2025 5:42:37 AM PDT by MtnClimber

B4U-ACT is part of a growing movement to legitimize sexual attraction to children.

An alarming new movement insists that sexual attraction to minors is not a psychiatric disorder to be managed but an identity to be affirmed. Leading this effort is B4U-ACT, a Maryland-based organization founded in 2003 to support pedophiles, or as they call them, “Minor-Attracted Persons” (MAPs). From May 2 through May 4, 2025, the group will host a conference in Ohio to train mental-health providers in “affirmative MAP therapy,” which seeks to help clients accept their “age of attraction” as an intrinsic and valid part of their identity. This approach abandons clinicians’ traditional risk-management focus when treating pedophiles and raises serious concerns about public safety.

Historically, mental-health professionals have classified pedophilia as a paraphilia, a psychiatric disorder characterized by an abnormal or harmful sexual interest in anyone or anything other than a legally consenting adult. For decades, clinicians treating pedophilia have sought to manage clients’ harmful impulses, prevent abuse, and protect potential victims. Researchers and clinicians working in this tradition aim to understand the condition and develop prevention strategies. They are in a tough position: to get pedophiles to participate, they must create nonjudgmental environments where they feel safe enough to disclose sensitive information, even though the language used can seem, to outsiders, to validate pedophilia. Working with pedophiles can help prevent child abuse, but the public often wrongly accuses these professionals of condoning it. Researchers typically distinguish people with pedophilic inclinations from those who act on them, and believe that such impulses can be effectively managed with cognitive-behavioral therapy, medications that lower sexual drive, and structured support groups.

B4U-ACT, however, advances a different model. The group believes that attempts to alter pedophilic desires are not just ineffective but unethical, and it insists that efforts to reduce patients’ attraction to children through “reconditioning methods” or sex-drive-reducing drugs are harmful—drawing direct comparisons to conversion therapy for homosexuality. The organization discourages clinicians from diagnosing clients with Pedophilic Disorder and instead claims that pedophilia is a “sexual age orientation.”

Founded by social worker Russell Dick and convicted child sex offender Michael Melsheimer, B4U-ACT includes pedophiles in its working group and invokes the activist slogan “nothing about us without us,” arguing that pedophiles should help shape therapeutic models. Though the group states on its website that it does not endorse sexual contact between adults and minors, individuals familiar with B4U-ACT note that its language around consent is worryingly ambiguous, allegedly referring to so-called “willing” children.

Affirmative MAP therapy, the alternative treatment model that B4U-ACT promotes, encourages individuals to integrate their attraction to minors into their sense of self. The group argues that “one’s attraction to minors is often an important part of an MAP’s identity, in some cases being the most important aspect of their sexual identity.” Their therapeutic approach draws from LGBT-affirmative psychotherapy, which “treats sexual feelings as innate, unchangeable, and subject to personal acceptance.” B4U-ACT also borrows from American Psychological Association guidelines on “sexual minorities,” encouraging “acceptance of one’s age of attraction.”

B4U-ACT repeatedly compares pedophilia with homosexuality, likening the stigma gay people once faced to the “oppression” experienced by pedophiles. This is a misleading comparison: unlike adults in same-sex relationships, children can never consent to sex with adults. Equating these fundamentally different forms of sexual conduct erases the moral and legal distinction between adult relationships and child victimization.

The group nevertheless casts pedophilia in a sympathetic light. Its materials describe pedophilic feelings as a form of “romantic affection” and a “desire for friendship,” and claim that pedophiles often seek to “protect children and make them happy.” It frames pedophiles as members of a “marginalized” community who “face stigma, discrimination, and oppression on multiple levels.”

In one document discussing purported “injustices” faced by pedophiles, B4U-ACT presents the case of one fired from his high school teaching job after getting caught posting on a pedophile chat forum. As he described it: “I was fired from a HS teaching position because the school admin found out I was posting on BoyChat. I was put on a watch-list. I took my credentials to other districts and went right on with my teaching career.” B4U-ACT presents this as employment-based discrimination, but one who is sexually attracted to children should never hold a position with proximity to, and authority over, minors. Public safety trumps concerns about adult employment prospects.

Pedophiles should be encouraged to seek therapy and help, but efforts to destigmatize their condition can do more harm than good. Some stigmas serve a critical function: socially reinforcing moral boundaries and protecting vulnerable populations. Efforts to normalize or affirm a sexual attraction to children risk undermining public safety and weakening the social barriers that prevent exploitation and abuse.

That push for affirmation is wrapped in the language of progressivism, as seen in the agenda for B4U-ACT’s upcoming conference. The meeting features sessions on “Promoting Social Justice and Advocacy for MAPs,” “Intersectionality, Neurodivergence, and Age Dysphoria,” and several on “Self-Acceptance.” It also advertises financial assistance for attendees with “multiple minoritized identities” and offers “BIPOC” (black, indigenous, and people of color) attendees a 10 percent discount.

The group’s website highlights the speakers’ social-justice credentials. One presenter, Nadav Antebi-Gruszka (“they/them”), is described as a therapist who “proudly serv[es] and celebrat[es] sexual and gender diverse people, and especially MAPs.” Another, social worker Kristin Spooner (“she/they”), earned a doctorate in social work with a focus on “antiracism, social justice, anti-stigma, and sexual health,” and is passionate about “offering sex-positive and judgment-free treatment to individuals navigating minor-attraction.” Spooner’s dissertation and capstone projects focused on addressing social worker stigma toward pedophiles, specifically by “creating an anti-stigma curriculum for master’s level students.” Such efforts could help these seemingly marginal ideas take hold among professional social workers.

A distinction must be maintained between pedophiles and other supposed minority groups. Pedophilic attraction is a terrible aberration. Those afflicted with it who have not acted on it should be helped. But their pedophilic interests should never be affirmed as an important part of their identity.

To the extent that paraphilias can be managed, the clinical focus must remain on impulse control. Analogies from other psychiatric conditions are instructive. In obsessive-compulsive disorder, compulsive behaviors become more entrenched the more they are indulged. In cases of post-traumatic stress disorder, repeatedly revisiting traumatic memories can reinforce their psychological hold. Paraphilic disorders operate similarly: entertaining or affirming deviant fantasies tends to intensify the underlying urges. This is the central danger in encouraging individuals to incorporate such desires, particularly those directed at children, into their self-conception. Suppression, not affirmation, offers the clearest path toward reducing pathological attractions over time.

Therapy is not meant to validate every feeling or affirm every identity claim. Its purpose is to help individuals confront harmful impulses, not weave them into their sense of self. Yet under the influence of progressive activism, groups like B4U-ACT are recasting pedophilic attraction as something to be accepted rather than contained. In doing so, they risk collapsing critical moral distinctions and shifting the focus away from the safety and well-being of children—the population most in need of protection.


TOPICS: Society
KEYWORDS: b4uact; groomers; grooming; intercession; leftism; lgbtpics; lgbtq; lgbtqpics; minorattractedperson; pedophile
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 41-6061-8081-100101-118 next last
To: MtnClimber

https://youtu.be/C9QuSCZUoC8?si=j0qULQpROs4RX7hu


61 posted on 05/03/2025 7:54:45 AM PDT by Smellin Salt (AT A POLITICAL )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Da Coyote

Maybe Mr. Smith and Mr. Wesson might have something to say about this.


62 posted on 05/03/2025 8:17:48 AM PDT by SkyDancer ( ~ Am Yisrael Chai ~)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

You cannot rehabilitate a rabid dog. This is a natural outgrowth ( and actual goal ) of the entire tranny BS. There can be no compromise with this. None. Do not give an inch. In fact, every time this sort of crappola is brought up the push back should be bringing back the death penalty.

All Democrats, too. Always Demos.


63 posted on 05/03/2025 8:37:38 AM PDT by bobbo666
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber; Da Coyote; exnavy; Redleg Duke; PGalt; Bob434; Liz; jagusafr; Reddy; ghost of nixon; ...
Swipe, save, and share:





















64 posted on 05/03/2025 8:42:35 AM PDT by Albion Wilde (Think about it: The Supreme Court is nine lawyers appointed for life by politicians. —David Horowitz)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

“This Group Wants to “Affirm” Pedophilia”

Democrats?


65 posted on 05/03/2025 8:47:44 AM PDT by faucetman (Just the facts, ma'am, Just the facts )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Albion Wilde

All good stuff!


66 posted on 05/03/2025 8:54:46 AM PDT by SkyDancer ( ~ Am Yisrael Chai ~)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 64 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

“Affirm” them by hanging them in the public square. Leave them up to rot.


67 posted on 05/03/2025 9:13:33 AM PDT by Noumenon (You can evade reality, but you cannot evade the consequences of evading reality. KTF)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Albion Wilde

NAMBLA has been around for 40 Years..


68 posted on 05/03/2025 9:14:44 AM PDT by Big Red Badger (ALL Things Will be Revealed !)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 64 | View Replies]

To: Albion Wilde

Thanks.


69 posted on 05/03/2025 9:15:11 AM PDT by PGalt (Past Peak Civilization?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 64 | View Replies]

To: Big Red Badger

NAMBLA has been around for 40 Years..


The National Association of Marlon Brando Look-Alikes?


70 posted on 05/03/2025 9:15:27 AM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 68 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

We all knew it was coming when the homosexual lobby started coming out.

They denied it, but we saw the end game.


71 posted on 05/03/2025 9:54:44 AM PDT by metmom (He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon." Amen. Come, Lord Jesu)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: dfwgator

ELVIS has Left the Building.


72 posted on 05/03/2025 9:59:03 AM PDT by Big Red Badger (ALL Things Will be Revealed !)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 70 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber
For decades, clinicians treating pedophilia have sought to manage clients’ harmful impulses, prevent abuse, and protect potential victims.

.45 will do all that in an instant, and if properly administered, only needs one application.

73 posted on 05/03/2025 10:11:21 AM PDT by Repeat Offender
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Big Red Badger
NAMBLA has been around for 40 Years..

Does that legitimize another attempt to normalize child predation?

74 posted on 05/03/2025 10:26:34 AM PDT by Albion Wilde (Think about it: The Supreme Court is nine lawyers appointed for life by politicians. —David Horowitz)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 68 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

And folks say stoning was inappropriate.


75 posted on 05/03/2025 11:09:10 AM PDT by If You Want It Fixed - Fix It
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber; All

NO! No! No! This is the hill to die on! They do not get to have unfettered access to children! The society will not be fit to survive and be supported if they go this way!This needs to be fought and messages sent deep into deep state territory...harsh messages. American must not be allowed to sink to this level or there needs to be a major split in this nation between righteous and away from the the unrighteous who support this horror! Scorched Earth if necessary. This is not science, this is Satanic Evil behind a veneer of “reasonableness”!


76 posted on 05/03/2025 11:20:37 AM PDT by mdmathis6 (A horrible historic indictment: Biden Democrats plunging the world into war to hide their crimes!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Albion Wilde

Stupid Question Amigo...
.
Child Predators been around since
Sodom and Gomorrah.


77 posted on 05/03/2025 11:23:48 AM PDT by Big Red Badger (ALL Things Will be Revealed !)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 74 | View Replies]

To: mdmathis6

Scorched Erf?
How Old Testament!


78 posted on 05/03/2025 11:25:37 AM PDT by Big Red Badger (ALL Things Will be Revealed !)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 76 | View Replies]

To: Albion Wilde

Thanks, AW!


79 posted on 05/03/2025 11:27:50 AM PDT by pookie18 (You don’t have to be high on crack to enjoy Pookie’s Toons! - Tell It Right)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 64 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

God helps those who help the innocent

No rules applied


80 posted on 05/03/2025 11:28:49 AM PDT by Vaduz
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 41-6061-8081-100101-118 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson