Many people ask us - "why is [stigmatized] paraphilia activism important to youth liberation?"
The answer is simple - because paraphilias aren't an adult-only experience.
Statistics show that 50% of paraphilias begin before the age of 18. Paraphilic minors are rarely ever considered or discussed in topics of para activism. In fact, even just suggesting that a child could have a fetish, kink, or other atypical attraction often leads people to cringe or vehemently disagree, because children are deemed "pure", and paraphilias are deemed "dirty."
We see this happen even with common paraphilias, like foot fetishes and BDSM - suggesting that a minor may experience those desires often leads to people accusing you of sexualizing children. But it's not "sexualizing children" to acknowledge that paraphilic children exist.
This is why inclusion of paraphilias in sex education would help young paraphiles to a phenomenal degree. Both teaching them that they aren't alone, and also teaching them safe kink/fetish practices.
Paramisia often leads to paraphiles developing mental health issues, like depression, anxiety, OCD, and even self harm or suicidal desires. Destigmatization of paraphiles would save children from self harm and suicide.
Additionally, non-paraphilic children could know paraphiles. Their friends, siblings, parents, uncles, aunts, grandparents, etc, might be a paraphile. And since purity culture and paramisia leads to the stigmatization of paraphiles, a child may notice that someone in their life is struggling from internal hatred or external hatred, but have no context or understanding as to why.
This can be confusing and anxiety inducing to the child in question, as they can tell something is wrong, but nobody will explain to them what it is.
And one final, very important note - the destigmatization of paraphilias actually leads to less CSA, because there are less paraphiles who get groomed into pro-contact spaces. More on that here [link].
