Method writing is a practice that I believe in and follow as much as I can. I tend to draw on personal experiences to imagine how my characters feel. I get into the skin of the subject matter to infuse a sense of realism in my pieces. That is why I haven’t written success stories yet.
Unfortunately, the subject for this write-up has put me in a fix.
Googling, “Age bracket to qualify as a victim of paedophilia” resulted in “13 or younger”.
Googling, “Age bracket to qualify as a paedophile” resulted in “At least 16 years old, and at least five years older than the victim”.
Assuming Google meant physical and not mental age, I couldn’t qualify as a victim. At the time of writing, no one in my vicinity was (physically) five years younger than me. The community of paedophiles had a strict door policy. Failure to meet either criterion left me feeling dejected. My vivid imagination was the only retreat.
All the hatred and brouhaha against paedophilia stems from our immense love for our children. Parents and other adults, in general, are hopelessly in love with them. My four brothers and five sisters are a testament to the above statement. Sadly, adults don’t realise that kids are but rowdy demons sent by Satan (which explains why Christian priests are so after them) to ruin their perfect lives as a happy couple. They wear cute little masks that wield power to hypnotise adults into making do with their histrionics. Just by looking at the population graph, one can say that they are quite successful at their job.
“Update this graph, son!”, exclaimed the midwife while safely handing me a newly born baby.
“Where were you an hour ago when I needed inspiration? Damn!” I said to my sixth sister.
Paedophilia, while gaining notoriety from the masses, is inadvertently stealing away the limelight from its even more, if not equally, horrible counterpart, paedophobia, the fear of children. Paedophobia could be a potential reason which drives affected people to sexually assault kids in an attempt to eliminate their worst fears. Remember the 1994 comedy classic, Baby’s Day Out? While the audience applauded the baby’s victory over the goons, I, on the other hand, had a different interpretation of the film. For me, the film was a bildungsroman, as three miserable lives get tormented by the antics of a little devil and gradually become paedophobes. It is the phobia that should be responsible for all the negative criticism currently targeted towards the philia.
Paedophilia is a widely misunderstood concept. It is high time that people realise that paedophilia and child sexual abuse are not the same. The words, however, are often used interchangeably by the ignorant. Thanks to Sushant Singh Rajput, awareness of mental illnesses in India is on the rise. Business conglomerates have started to milk mental health awareness as a marketing strategy to target emotional Indians. In these times, when all kinds of mental issues are getting their 15 minutes of fame, poor paedophilia fails to receive its due recognition as a psychological disorder. Instead, it gets conflated with sexual assaults on prepubescent children. Remember, correlation does not imply causation! All paedophiles are not child abusers and not all child abusers qualify as paedophiles.
After a drilling session of reading through this barely readable write-up, here is a set of self-composed DARK jokes to end the piece on a LIGHT note.
Paedophiles on average love kids more than anyone in the world.
Thank God, my parents weren’t paedophiles.
Ba Dum Tss!
I often wonder why paedophiles haven’t studied enough to become paediatricians. A thorough understanding of a child’s body, coupled with more hands-on experience makes for a perfect child specialist. I would prefer taking my kid to a paedophile than a paediatrician. They wouldn’t even ask for a fee.
Ba Dum Tss!
That was my time ladies and gentleman. Thank you all for coming!