Before we get started, can we all agree that there's a difference between trying to understand something and condoning it? There's nothing on Earth so awful that we should avoid talking about it completely. If anything, the more scared you are of a thing, the more you should try to understand it. Talking about a subject like pedophilia isn't going to make it worse. But refusing to talk about it -- or accusing those who do of glorifying it or normalizing it -- definitely will. No problem has ever been solved with ignorance.

And we are ignorant; pedophilia is almost a total mystery to modern science. We don't know what causes it, or how to prevent it, or how to cure it (short of a form of castration), because the moment a test subject admits they're a pedophile, they're ruined for life. Why would anyone ever come forward? Thus, society's insistence on taking the harshest possible position winds up exacerbating the problem.

So, here it goes: We sat down with several self-professed (but non-offending) pedophiles, as well as David Prescott (a therapist who specializes in sex offenders) and Dr. James Cantor (a scientist who studies their brains). They said ...