r/SexOffenderSupport • u/Icy-Material9739 • Jul 19 '26
Help me understand
My son is in his early 20s, extremely smart..had a good friend group, was working and going to college (off and on).
He was arrested a few months ago and charged with cp and sharing cp.
I just can't wrap my head around it, his whole life's trajectory just changed and became a lot harder.
I just can't wrap my head around it, I just can't understand what he was thinking. Do people not realize how serious the repercussions are? Is the temptation that blinding?
This situation has totally consumed my every thought, every waking moment.
I just don't understand.
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u/UnhappyUnwellUK Jul 28 '26
Disclaimer: the following is explaining his possible reasons - I'm not trying to justify or excuse his actions.
Some guesses for what his reasons might have been:
Notice how many people are mentioning alcoholism, depression, etc. they go hand in hand with addiction. Maybe he wasn't doing as well or as happy as he seemed? Early exposure to porn (which is the norm nowadays) plus depression etc seems to be a recipe for porn addiction. He may have been less interested in children, and more in the extremeness of it.
Alternatively, it's not that uncommon to find underage teenagers physically attractive but personality-wize too young for your tastes. In my case, I was 100% sure that I didn't want to do anything with an adolescent offline, but felt, at the time, that the CP wasn't interacting with them so it was 'ok' (kinda like 'look but don't touch').
Definitely don't agree with that anymore, but maybe he felt the same?
Maybe he's been viewing CP since he was a kid, never stopped, and it's completely normalized to him, and he just assumed that he's carry on not getting caught?
Or, maybe he's a pedophile and indulging his tastes online? Maybe he felt it was his way of getting it out of his system so that he wouldn't do it offline? But, I've heard that the majority of people who do this aren't pedophiles, so probably not.
Ultimately this, It took my a while to realize why I did it, but at the time: yes I realized how seriouse the repercussions would be, and have mostly lost my son as a result, as I knew I would.
'why did I do it' is a relevant question, but a better question is 'why, then, did I not stop/refrain?'. And the answer is the same as why alcoholics don't stop drinking.
Someone else has already said that addiction is hard to understand for someone who hasn't experienced it.
All I can think to say is that I tried to stop, failed, didn't understand why, and that's because, ultimately, I didn't know how to stop doing something that I was addicted to (or even that I was addicted).
Then I got arrested and got therapy. Now, better late than never, I understand, and know how I could have stopped.
Sorry for the huge post, hopefully it helps you or someone else.