This is not something that will be achievable for a significant minority, though. For these (as well as people who feel only partially fulfilled in their relationships with adults), the availability and provision of sexual outlets that are legal and non-abusive becomes even more important to avoid a “life of absolute chastity” (Participant 21). Throughout the interviews, several participants highlighted potential legal outlets that they might use, such as stories, cartoons, and child-like dolls. Despite these outlets being identified as potential sources of addressing sexual frustration and working toward fulfillment, there was often a sense of frustration about the lack of acceptable availability of such outlets:
Participant 20 hat geschrieben:
I use a lot of fantasy a lot of y’know fantasy about made up people and stuff like that and then erm y’know just masturbating about that kind of stuff…it’s kind of more difficult because there’s not really a lot of outlets y’know for us so it’s really annoying. (Participant 20)
Participant 17 hat geschrieben:
The way I get partial satisfaction is from erotic stories and innocent pictures/videos of girls. Society’s notion of what’s legal/acceptable has tightened a lot in those regards in the past 10-odd years, which is a cause for some anxiety. (Participant 17)
Evident in these extracts is a sense of limited satisfaction, with both participants alluding (explicitly, in the case of Participant 17) to a sense of only “partial satisfaction”. Again, we see references to the limited availability of both legal and acceptable sexual outlets, which links to the distinction discussed earlier in relation to Participant 3’s first extract in this theme.
This sense of never being fully satisfied is consistent across most participant narratives, and speaks to the frustration being experienced by the blockage of this important primary human good. These participants also discuss the anxiety that they feel in relation to navigating potential sexual outlets, and cite social attitudes and legal developments as a source of this concern. The changing nature of what is considered acceptable (and legal, in some cases; for a discussion, see Chatterjee, 2020) adds an additional level of difficulty, with some participants getting to a point of total exasperation:
Participant 10 hat geschrieben:
In the U.K. there was a guy who was arrested because he had he ordered a erm child sized like sex doll and they arrested him for it because it was like y’know it was like obscene or whatever and I read that and was like “really?” cus he’s just trying to deal with his shit here in a way that was safe and not hurting anyone and you’re like “ew that’s gross you have to go to jail” y’know and so those kinds of reactions I feel like there’s a lot, erm in a lot of ways society sets us up to fail…I’m sorry you might as well and go and look at the real thing if you really wanna do that because you’re still gonna go to jail so whatever y’know and it’s ludicrous I don’t understand it. (Participant 10)
In perhaps the most direct example of the lack of available legal sexual outlets contributing to an increased risk, Participant 10 argues that the social and legal response of criminalizing potentially useful non-abusive sexual outlets (e.g., child-like sex dolls) might cause some people with attractions to children to simply offend because “you might as well and go and look at the real thing…because you’re still gonna go to jail”. With what is considered here as an equal outcome for them (in terms of going to jail) for both behaviors, the narratives suggest that individuals may instead seek out what they perceive as being potentially more fulfilling (i.e., seeking out child sexual exploitation material) rather than synthetic alternatives if these are criminalized in the same way.
In summary, there is a sense of hopelessness and desperation that emanates from participant narratives related to their desire to address sexual frustration. Across the board there are mentions of the need for legal sexual outlets that do not create victims, and thus we can infer a commitment to non-offending and child protection in these participants. However, we also witness layers of frustration in their extracts. The first relates to sexual frustration in the primary sense—it is difficult to achieve sexual satisfaction and fulfillment as somebody with attractions to children, with this being especially hard for those with no attractions to adults. A second layer of frustration emerges from society’s response to this population looking for safe and legal sexual outlets.
Despite a lack of evidence for an increased level of risk attached to such outlets (e.g., Harper & Lievesley, 2022), social responses to these are incredibly negative, which leads to defensive legislative action under the guise of harm reduction (Chatterjee, 2020; Danaher, 2019; Harper & Lievesley, 2020).