Salon’s Todd Nickerson on Pedophilia: ‘I’m Not a Monster’

Salon writer Todd Nickerson has released a video in which he admits his love for a 5-year-old girl and why he thinks it’s justified.

The three minute video begins with Nickerson describing how he first fell in love with a child he babysat when he was 18.

“I remember looking up and just seeing her and just going… ‘Wow, she’s beautiful,'” Nickerson explains. “I knew I was in deep, I had fallen for the girl.”

He goes on to explain that he never hurt the girl. Todd mentions that a lot of his fantasies revolve around young girls that are more powerful than himself and that his breaking point came when he would have to excuse himself while babysitting to masturbate in the bathroom. He left town shortly after to “get his head straightened out.”

The video advertises an online forum for pedophiles alike called “Virtuous Pedophiles,” with the purpose of educating others on “moral pedophiles.” Under the “Who We Are” section of the forum, you find this statement:

Our website is intended to reduce the stigma attached to pedophilia by letting people know that a substantial number of pedophiles DO NOT molest children, and to provide peer support and information about available resources to help virtuous pedophiles remain law-abiding, and lead happy, productive lives.  These are our stories.  There are brief bios of the two founders of the site and collections of other personal stories.

The online forum also contains a list of Frequently Asked Questions including, “Why you should care about pedophiles,” to which they give this reply:

It could be your son.

According to the best available evidence, most pedophiles first become aware of their condition in their early teens. We start like everyone else. We first become attracted to kids who are our own age. As we grow older, however, the objects of our attraction do not. Gradually we become aware of our condition. Believing the popular wisdom that we are evil and will inevitably abuse children, many of us experience depression, self-loathing and sometimes become suicidal.

Todd Nickerson adds that pedophiles and society must find some sort of middle ground, otherwise people like him end up as fatalists. The video ends on a audacious note: “We love kids and we want to protect them too.”