Is it OK to have sexual fantasies about children?
Thoughts are just something that go through our heads. We often have thoughts that we don’t necessarily want. There is no 'thought police', and you’re allowed to have thoughts and fantasies.
We still don’t know exactly what thoughts are or where they come from. We do know, however, that controlling our thoughts can be difficult. Maybe you have experienced a situation where, for all intents and purposes, there’s something specific that you want to avoid thinking about. But no matter how hard you try, you can’t help thinking about that very thing. Most people have tried that.
While it isn’t illegal to have certain thoughts, we all need to learn how to control our thoughts. Maybe that way, you can come to feel better about yourself—because you’re worried about your thoughts. If you have better control over your thoughts, you can also better control your actions.
Can you suppress your thoughts?
Here’s a little exercise that can help you understand how our thoughts work.
Read one sentence at a time and try to imagine what it says:
- Imagine a polar bear
- Make the polar bear green
- Put a hat on it
- Put the polar bear in an inflatable boat
- Put the inflatable boat on the roof of a house
- Now: Don’t think about the polar bear for the next 30 seconds.
You probably find it difficult to stop thinking about the polar bear. You’re not the only one. The exercise should give you an idea of how difficult it is to suppress your thoughts, no matter how hard you try.
Even though our thoughts are a great tool that can make us creative and help us to solve problems, they can also mix different things together that make us worry. It’s important that we listen to our concerns. We know that our thoughts can affect our emotions, bodily sensations, and actions. We therefore recommend that you try to notice a number of things about your sexual thoughts about children:
See if you can notice the following about your thoughts:
- How long have you had sexual thoughts about children?
- How often do you have these thoughts?
- Have your thoughts developed since you first had them?
You can get help if you can’t control your thoughts and/or you have many difficult feelings. Remember that your thoughts don’t make you a bad person. They’re just thoughts. And you can get help to deal with them.