Therapy
I am sexually attracted to little girls. It's not a sickness (as everyone here seems to agree with.) It's an orientation. Some people like spicy foods; I do not. Some people like to sit in the back seats of an airplane; I like to sit in the front seat. Some people laugh at a distracted woman talking on her cell phone as she walks into a plate glass door; I do not.

Life is full of difficulties. If someone needs help dealing with those issues, then they need a therapist. I, on the other hand, sit back and enjoy whatever challenges life hands me. If I fail at preventing the sky from falling, well, I live with it. I suffer. I move on. So, one day, at the direction of the prison’s sex offender therapist, it was my turn to "sit in the hot seat" and tell of my convictions to my "therapy group". I began:

I was charged with aggravated sexual battery and forcible sodomy. I plead guilty because, by the legal definition, I violated those laws. However, while the terminology and intentions of the wording of these convictions indicate that there were violent acts committed against a little girl, there was no violence. In common language, for several years I regularly touched Her clitoris to bring pleasure to Her. Occasionally, I kissed Her clitoris which She most assuredly enjoyed. Nothing more. "American jurisprudence", laws such as what I violated, would have you believe that my little lover was beaten into submission (aggravated sexual battery) and I rammed my penis up her butt. But this disparity is but an obfuscation in semantics. I liked what I was doing with Her. She liked what I was doing with Her. Today, I sit here (in prison) and must explain why I was doing it. I just explained it. I liked what I was doing then, I like it now, and I will like it until I die. She liked it, then. American jurisprudence has a problem with it. I understand that.

As my mandatory release date approached, I consented to attend a parole hearing. I explained:

So long as you, as a society, leave Her and I alone, I don’t care what you think. But you, as a society, won’t leave Her and I alone. To protect any possible lover I would have in a hypothetical future, I avoid the loving. Not because I might go to jail, but because She might get hurt. Because I would love Her, I would never expose Her to that risk. (As a result, I now suffer; She now misses out on good, healthy loving; and society is ignorantly happy in its mental illness to think it is doing something good.)

I know what, years ago, I did just as the judicial system back then did. But that judicial system wanted to make it look much worse than what it was. In October 2013, the incarceration rate of the United States was the highest in the world, at 716 per 100,000 of the national population. While the United States represents about 5 percent of the world's population, it houses around 25 percent of the world's prisoners. I was lucky, very lucky, because I got out of that cesspool. My therapy mates have not been so lucky. Upon completing his prison sentence, the American jurisprudence saw to it that my cellmate would not ever leave the prison he was sentenced to. In spite of the “therapy” we all received while in that prison system, American jurisprudence has little faith in the “therapists” for people like us. So what is the justification for keeping him in the prison? He is sick and needs therapy. (If so, why was he in prison in the first place? If not, why keep him in prison since he is now innocent?)

But, “therapy” is a huge money-making venture. Consider:
http://www.camft.org/ScriptContent/CAMFTarticles/Misc/TherapyInAmerica.htm

More than one in four American adults has received treatment for a mental health problem in the past two years, via talk therapy, medication, or a combination of the two, according to Therapy in America 2004, a Harris Interactive poll. The study was a survey of 501 adults and a follow-up online survey of 1,731 people known to have needed or received treatment. Psychology Today, its online Therapy, and PacifiCare Behavioral Health, were its sponsors. Among the key findings:

Mental health treatment has become an important part of American life. 27 percent of adults, or an estimated 59 million people, have received treatment in the past two years. More than one in three who need treatment are not getting it. The leading barriers to receiving care include cost, lack of confidence that treatment helps, and lack of health insurance. 81 percent of those with a treatment history report taking a prescription medication. 47 percent have used medication alone, 34 percent have used drugs and psychotherapy, and 19 percent have received psychotherapy only.

In the last two years, 27 percent of the general adult population has either seen a mental health professional for therapy or taken a prescription medication for a personal, emotional, or mental health problem. Women are disproportionately represented among those likely to have needed treatment (making up 58 percent of the total), as well as among those who have received it. Of the group that has received treatment, women make up 63 percent, versus 37 percent for men.

Suicide Rates Rise Sharply in U.S., By TARA PARKER-POPE, Published: May 2, 2013, New York Times.
Suicide rates among middle-aged Americans have risen sharply in the past decade, prompting concern that a generation of baby boomers who have faced years of economic worry and easy access to prescription painkillers may be particularly vulnerable to self-inflicted harm. More people now die of suicide than in car accidents, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2010 there were 33,687 deaths from motor vehicle crashes and 38,364 suicides.

Assuming that I am sick, it seems that “Therapy” and Therapists can’t do much.

Assuming that I am not sick, I’m happy the way I am. I’m sad that society won’t let me love someone. But, as my boss always says, “It is what it is.”