Re: I have to disagree...

Whenever I make a new friend, I tend to wait a while before coming out to them, just until they get to know me well and realize that I'm a good person who does not break the laws and is not harmful to kids. I don't want to give any hints that I'm attracted to AG's because I don't want to alarm anyone, particularly her parents, or to cause a scene in a public place. I only said something to the 12 year old once, when she spoke to me first. But I'm reluctant to initiate conversation, since no one expects a man my age to have anything to talk to an adolescent about. Hence, I avoided giving the girl too much attention and stuck to conversing with the other adults. My new friend really loves children, so I have to find a way to break my sexual preferences to her in a gentle way, with no possibility of miscommunication. I would be really hurt if she ceased bringing me around her friends' teen daughters out of fear that I might become attracted to one of them. Thanks to Oprah and her ilk, the average person thinks that MAA's routinely break the law and try to initiate sexual acts with underage people, and yes the average person doesn't know the difference between pedophiles and ephebophiles, so they might have thought that it was my intention to molest either of the girls.

As much as I hate it, I have made my peace with the fact that I need to avoid contact with AG's as much as possible. Currently, the majority of people who have kids or love kids in a non-sexual way are terrified at the thought of people having a sexual attraction to them and automatically think that we are worse to kids than the bubonic plague. I am always worried about accidentally giving hints to people that I'm attracted to teen girls. Though I am "out" to most of my friends I don't wear a neon sign on my back announcing my attraction to teen girls, and with good reason. I don't want people who are not close friends of mine but who I am just meeting for the first time who happen to be parents with teen girls to be afraid to bring their daughters along when they have dinner with me or otherwise hang out with me.

Though you say that no one will suspect me, the fact remains that in this paranoid time period any stranger who they do not know may be suspect. I worry that even casually talking to their daughter for more than a minute at a time may come off as "creepy" to them. After all, what could a 40 year old man possibly have to say to a 12 year old girl? The current cultural attitude is that we can't possibly have anything in common, and the stereotype is that a hebephile has no self-control and would try to "groom" the girl into a sexual encounter with me. So I think it's better to be safe than sorry.