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Self help modules:

Taking responsibility of your sexual behaviour

This module aims to help you explore and gain understanding of:

  • Immediate changes to help you take control of your behaviour
  • How you may have used justifications to allow your problematic behaviour(s) to continue

Objectives

This module aims to help you explore and gain understanding of:

  • Immediate changes to help you take control of your behaviour
  • How you may have used justifications to allow your problematic behaviour(s) to continue

Module chapters

Making changes
Change can be hard and take time. It is important that you have strategies to manage your behaviour in the short term whilst you work through the modules
Minimising or excusing behaviour
If you do something that you know is wrong and does not fit with your values and beliefs such as harming a child, then people will often use excuses, justifications or minimise the impact of their behaviour

Making changes

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Change can be hard and take time. It is important that you have strategies to manage your behaviour in the short term whilst you work through the modules. Some practical things that can help you to do this are:

  • changing your route to or from places if you know it is likely to bring you into contact with children coming out of school;
  • moving your computer to a high traffic more public area of the home to make it less likely that you will access anything inappropriate;
  • changing your employment if your current job brings you into contact with children;
  • don’t take your dog for a walk at school drop off or pick up times.
  • use techniques to manage any inappropriate sexual thoughts, such as distracting yourself;
  • try and spend more time with others, giving you less time to spend on inappropriate thoughts;
  • put things in place to avoid having unsupervised contact with children if you are concerned about your thoughts and behaviour;
  • contact a support person if you are finding it difficult to manage your thoughts, or call the Stop it Now helpline
  • having security software installed on your laptop so that you cannot access pornography;
  • set your password to be a reminder of something you would lose if you offend
  • only use computer when others are in the room or in public places where you would not access the material;
  • only use the computer for specific purposes such as internet banking, do not allow yourself to ‘browse’;
  • unplug your wireless router at night so you have to make more effort to go on-line and therefore have more time to think about and stop what you are doing.

Exercise:

Make a list of three things you can do to immediately reduce your risk of sexual offending. For example, someone concerned about online and offline offending who engages in part-time work and enjoys participating in swimming might make the following changes:

  1. Install security software on computer
  2. Leave work later to avoid coinciding with school run
  3. Change to adults-only swimming evenings

Minimising or excusing behaviour

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If you do something that you know is wrong and does not fit with your values and beliefs such as harming a child, then people will often use excuses, justifications or minimise the impact of their behaviour. This makes it easier to continue the behaviour.

Here are some examples. As you read through the list, make a note of any that sound familiar to you.

  • “It was only once in a while.”
  • “I needed to get my needs met somewhere.”
  • “They are very mature for their age.”
  • “It was just looking.”
  • “At least I’m not as bad as so-and-so.”
  • “My situation is different from everybody else’s.”
  • “Just this one last time and then stop.”
  • “Just this second time more and then stop.”
  • “Well, I’ve already started so what the hell.”
  • “My wife (husband or partner) isn’t responsive to my sexual needs.”
  • “It doesn’t hurt anyone because…”
  • “It’s just my way of relaxing.”
  • “I only do this in private so it isn’t affecting anybody.”
  • “They are already sexually experienced.”
  • “They are not like other children their age.”
  • “They were flirting.”
  • “I’m helping them explore their sexuality.”

If you identify with the statements in the list then denial could be helping you to keep doing a behaviour (whether this is indulging in sexual fantasies about children, masturbating to sexual thoughts of children, or sexually touching a child) that you know is harmful. It is important that you challenge these thoughts if you recognise them.

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Concerned about your thoughts or behaviour?

Self-help, information and support for people troubled by their sexual thoughts about children and young people.

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Problem of immediate gratification

This module aims to help you explore and gain understanding of:

  • Why immediate gratification is so powerful
  • how to manage the desire of immediate gratification
Immediate gratification
understand why you prioritised your immediate needs despite the consequences
What can you do?
One way to counter the power of instant gratification is to think about how you will feel if you do the behaviour, compared to how you feel if you don’t
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Triggers and warning signs

This module will help you to explore, different types of triggers, your own triggers, potential warning signs of sexual abuse, including grooming and situational and environmental risks.

Types of triggers
‘Triggers’ are what precede (come before) your thoughts, feelings and behaviours, and can cause emotional and behavioural responses
Warning signs
Warning signs are the things that alert us and other people that something is wrong or that there this a potential danger or hazard
Triggers: situational and environmental risks
Situations can provide the ingredients for a chain of unhealthy behaviours and trigger the offence cycle
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Taking responsibility of your sexual behaviour

This module aims to help you explore and gain understanding of Immediate changes to help you take control of your behaviour How you may have used justifications to allow your problematic behaviour(s) to continue

Making changes
Change can be hard and take time. It is important that you have strategies to manage your behaviour in the short term whilst you work through the modules
Minimising or excusing behaviour
If you do something that you know is wrong and does not fit with your values and beliefs such as harming a child, then people will often use excuses, justifications or minimise the impact of their behaviour
Visit the module
complete

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Fantasies

This module will help you explore and understand your current sexual and non-sexual fantasies, and the link between your fantasies and your online behaviour

Fantasies
In this section, when we are talking about ‘sexual fantasy’, we are referring to something that is imagined which you find sexually arousing
Appropriate versus inappropriate fantasy
So what are appropriate and inappropriate fantasies? We split inappropriate fantasies into three sections
Exercise: appropriate versus inappropriate fantasy
Have you recently had a fantasy about a child? If you have, then without thinking about it in too much detail, work through these questions one at a time and see if these help you think about your fantasies differently
Exercise: When fantasy becomes a problem
A good starting point in considering if your fantasies are problematic is to look at your fantasies in more detail.
Exercise: a fantasy management technique
Many individuals use fantasy management techniques to help stop having these harmful sexual fantasies.
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Living with unusual sexual interests

This section is designed to help you explain terminology around unusual sexual interests (paraphilias) and learn how to lead a healthy life with these interests.

Terminology
A paraphilia involves persistent sexual arousal toward something seen as unusual or outside the norm. This can vary over time, place, and culture
Exploring your sexual interest
A person can have different sexual interests that include a wide range of preferences, but there might be one group that holds the strongest appeal
Practice self compassion
Living with a sexual interest in children has challenges
Make a promise to yourself
If you find yourself struggling with a sexual interest or preference for children, you may have encountered challenges along this journey
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Understanding motivations

This module aims to help you explore and gain understanding of problematic sexual behaviours, motivations, patterns and trends.

Motivation
Sexual behaviour is influenced by your thoughts, feelings, beliefs, values and experiences; however, it is not beyond your control
Exercise 1: making your timeline
In order to understand where your problematic sexual behaviours began, it is helpful to identify what was happening in your life at that time
Exercise 2: digging deeper
To further explore and reflect on your timeline, think about how each point on your timeline made you feel
Problematic behaviour
Although sexual behaviour can be influenced by numerous factors, it is not outside of your control
Cognitive distortions
Cognitive distortions are thinking errors which we use to minimise, justify and excuse behaviours
The offence cycle
A ‘cycle’ consists of a pattern of behaviour where the end leads you back to the beginning and the whole pattern repeats itself over and over again
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Contact us

Our confidential helpline is free and available to anyone concerned about the safety of children.

0808 1000 900
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Lucy Faithfull Foundation offers support and advice for parents, carers, professionals, survivors and communities. Shore is for teenagers worried about sexual behaviour. 

Our helpline 0808 1000 900

2 Birch House, Harris Business Park, Hanbury Road 
Stoke Prior, Bromsgrove, B60 4DJ

Lucy Faithfull Foundation is a Registered Charity No. 1013025, and is a company limited by guarantee, Registered in England No. 2729957.

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