Thanks. I try. It is discouraging to get so much negative feedback, and when it gets personal it hurts, but I try to steel myself for it. I feel more than a bit like a sheep in wolves’ clothing, though I realize others will suspect the opposite.
It’s only personal because you’ve made this topic part of your identity. That’s why other posters were recommending you read through the sequences on identity, and why it may be worth reconsidering what you base your identity on.
When people say with some heat that they don’t believe what I say about my own actions and motivations, that seems pretty personal and has nothing I can see to do with identity.
“Celibate pedophile” is a pretty unusual identity. I think of it more as a description. It’s hardly a bandwagon one jumps on. If (as seems true) a fair number of people have never heard of it before, then it doesn’t seem like something that reinforces tired old patterns of thought. A far more common identity is more or less “NAMBLA”—believing adult-child sex is just fine if only it was legalized. I decisively reject that identity.
Thanks. I try. It is discouraging to get so much negative feedback, and when it gets personal it hurts, but I try to steel myself for it. I feel more than a bit like a sheep in wolves’ clothing, though I realize others will suspect the opposite.
It’s only personal because you’ve made this topic part of your identity. That’s why other posters were recommending you read through the sequences on identity, and why it may be worth reconsidering what you base your identity on.
When people say with some heat that they don’t believe what I say about my own actions and motivations, that seems pretty personal and has nothing I can see to do with identity.
“Celibate pedophile” is a pretty unusual identity. I think of it more as a description. It’s hardly a bandwagon one jumps on. If (as seems true) a fair number of people have never heard of it before, then it doesn’t seem like something that reinforces tired old patterns of thought. A far more common identity is more or less “NAMBLA”—believing adult-child sex is just fine if only it was legalized. I decisively reject that identity.