A lot of people will have known that their collecting was wrong, but still continued to do it anyway. What are your justifications? Take some time to think about these or write them down, before you begin Exercise 4.
Tip: Be honest with yourself. You will never fully be able to understand your collecting if you aren’t acknowledging your true justifications.
Exercise 4 – Challenge yourself
Use the first column in the table below to list your justifications.
Then attempt to assume the role of someone who does not collect such images and consider whether or not they would accept your reasons for collecting. In the second column, write the response that you think the other person would give (you may want to try writing it out as a conversation between the two of you).
| Your justification | The other person’s response |
| Example justification: Nobody will ever know that I have the collection. | Example response: I know about it. And I could go to the police. Even if I didn’t, the police can see what you have accessed and they can track you down through your IP address. You can get in so much trouble and you might go to prison. |
Next time you consider collecting sexual images of children, look back over this table and use the responses to challenge your behaviour. This can be a useful and effective short term deterrent.
