We are a group of Finnish paedophiles

Dear Brothers,

We are a group of Finnish paedophiles who have recently come into contact with each other. We are planning to establish some form of paedophile workgroup in Finland, where no such thing has ever existed before. We very much admire the dutch society for its liberal attitudes in these matters, and appreciate the work of Dutch paedophiles in having made this possible. The books by Edward Brongersma, Frits Bernard and Theo Sandfort have been some of our major sources of information about our sexual orientation. This why we would like to establish some form of contact with your group. But first a few more words about ourselves.

Our group was formed through contacts to certain members of SETA, the Finnish Gay and Lesbian Organisation. During the past three years we have had a few meetings in the SETA office in Helsinki, supervised by one of their social workers but not officially under the auspices of the organisation because the majority of SETA's front line people are strongly against incorporating paedophiles into their movement. We keep building our workgroup activities independent of SETA or any other central organisation.

Our intention is not to "come out" in the public to fight for our cause, since no one of us is willing to risk his career and social life for the purpose at the movement. The Finnish society is very conservative in sexual matters, and the issue of paedophilia has practically never been discussed in public here - apart from the unavoidable hysteria caused by occasional violent sexual assaults on minors, of course.

At this point, we would appreciate if you could give us some advice. Out biggest problem is how to find new members to our group. At the moment we are only half a dozen people (males). There must be more of us than that in Finland, but how to let them know that a workgroup like this exists? We have run a couple of ads in the SETA magazine, urging people to contact the Social Advisor of SETA if they feel they are paedophiles. The ads generated no response. We cannot mention the workgroup in those ads since SETA's official line is against us; also, many paedophiles probably don't read the mag because they don't identify themselves as gay or lesbian. We feel that no other magazines or newspapers in Finland would publish ads like that either. Some porno mags used to accept private contact ads of paedophile nature a few years ago but not any more. Also, it is risky to mention even a P.O. Box address in ads like that, since the Finnish police is probably very sensitive in these matters. [...]

We are also planning to publish a small information brochure about paedophilia to be distributed to psychologists, social workers etc. who often don't know much more about it than the general public. Have you got any experience to share in this matter? [...]

[Autograph]

source: Letter to Martijn Association; 1990?