The whole movie has a surrealistic, magical aspect to it. (And, in what might be a nod to Cantor et al, we have a "poor man's PPG").

Her dialog doesn't project a consistent view. One earlier line is:

"Nobody knew his secret, most probably not even himself."

If he truly repressed his desire and was unaware of it, that seems like an unconscious process that isn't especially laudable. He just thinks he's asexual. We don't act on desires we're unaware of (or at least we become aware as we prepare to act).

But in the more realistic version, she is assuming he felt shame in addition to not acting on his desires. If you've repressed something, you can't be ashamed of it. She didn't say he *ought* to feel shame, she just assumed it without question. And you can argue that the later resolution is intended to apply to the pedophile as well, but isn't a connection the director wants to emphasize.

I felt that Joe's beliefs, isolated from Seligman's critique, form a "backhanded compliment" which actually insults the Pedophile for even having the desire.

True, but that comes at a time when Joe is full of self-loathing. She doesn't think the pedophile is worse than she is. Better in fact, because he never hurt anyone and in her view she has.

But also I'd say that even if she does think his desires are shameful, the backhanded compliment is an improvement from where we are today and I'll take it. VP does not think our desires are shameful at all. Many of our members do, and I gently nudge them to reconsider sometimes.

This dovetails nicely

I don't see the "dovetailing". What's the connection?

into VirPed's central stance that our desires taint our objectivity and that there are topics we must recuse ourselves from discussing because our judgement is necessarily clouded and suspect.

It's not a central stance or even a VirPed stance, but my personal stance. I never said we shouldn't discuss such things among ourselves with humility, and "necessarily" is too strong. It is a reasonable explanation to consider of the mystery of why so many pedophiles would like to make adult-child sex accepted but hardly anyone else does.