All people — regardless of sexual interest — have a right to seeing their civil rights observed

This shouldn’t be controversial, but when it comes to child protection, the civil rights of people with paedophilic sexual interests is a topic of fierce debate.

From a scientific perspective we know that paedophilia can be viewed as a form of age-directed sexual orientation. Key scholars, such as Michael Seto (currently Editor-in-Chief of the journal Sexual Abuse) and James Cantor (Director and Founder of the Toronto Sexuality Center), have written prominently about the innate and apparent unchangeable nature of sexual interests in children.

We also have personal narratives from people with such sexual interests. Most notably, bloggers such as Ender Wiggin and Stepping Out Sam have bravely shared their stories of living with sexual interests in children, and the stigmatisation they face on a daily basis. Ender even runs a Medium publication to give paedophiles a voice — Pedophiles about Pedophilia.

This stigmatisation has massive effects on the psychological wellbeing of people with paedophilic sexual interests, as Ender himself recently described.

Of course, legislators and large corporations — including self-appointed bastions of free speech such as the social media giant Twitter — use public opinion to shape their policies. Just in the past 12 months we have seen Twitter suspend the profiles of prominent paedophiles on its platform.

Not only is this unacceptable from a civil rights perspective (yes, I know that Twitter is a private corporation, but it has a virtual monopoly over the public discourse in contemporary society), it also does more harm than good from a child protection perspective.

Online communities, such as Virtuous Pedophiles, afford people with paedophilia a space to interact with like-minded individuals, and to support each other — not only from a child protection standpoint via a strong anti-offending ethos, but also a psychological position. By having such communities, members know that they are not alone in their striving to live a fulfilling life in spite of their sexual orientation, and they have the opportunity to achieve other human goods linked to relatedness and community.