Self-help program

Intimacy and sexual needs cannot always be fulfilled according only to one's own wishes. Everyone has periods in their life when their sexual desires and needs are not fulfilled the way they would like. Preferences can also make it more difficult to express sexuality.

However, sexuality is not an unchanging state, but rather new ways of experiencing and expressing it can be identified throughout life. You can positively develop and challenge yourself also in this area.

Preferences and fulfilling them are two different matters

Sexual interest in children does not automatically lead to sexual acts towards children.

Although sexual interest in children seems to be a fairly permanent trait, sexual preferences and fulfilling them are two different things. People rarely act automatically guided only by their sexual desires.

You can change your ways of thinking and acting

Life is full of various temptations. Different types of cravings are often accompanied by thoughts and emotions that pass rapidly.

For people who are sexually interested in children, seeing a child or stimulus related to children can almost automatically create a feeling of wellbeing. That can give rise to the thought of satisfying one's own sexual needs, for example, by looking at children or pictures of children.

This kind of harmful thinking and behaviour towards children can be questioned and changed. People who are sexually interested in children can control their harmful thinking and behaviour just like everyone else.

Why do fantasies related to children pose a risk?

Different fantasies are common and a key part of the spectrum of sexuality. Sometimes fantasies involve ideas that are neither possible nor permissible. The association of sexual fantasies with children can increase the risk of actions that could be harmful or damaging to children or constitute criminal activity.

This can also lead to watching illegal material that depicts child sexual abuse. Such material is also called child pornography. However, it is not pornography, but images and video recordings of sexual abuse and exploitation of children, meaning criminal sexual offences.

How can we regulate our own actions?

You can control and learn to control your sexual impulses. Not everyone will ever act on their tendency. For some, sexual interest in children remains at the level of mental images and sexual fantasies.

Even if sexual interest cannot be changed, some people who experience sexual interest in children are able to also become interested in adults. Sexual interest in adults can be promoted and strengthened.

This self-help program will help you to regulate harmful activities.