Mixed media messages make for teen trouble.

Just as an alcoholic can't start to cure his problem until he confesses he has a problem, I have finally reached an epiphany in my life. It's time for me to confess, I finally admit it. I am a paedophile.

Does it shock you to know that I'm attracted to thirteen year old girls?

It's easy to say, but the blame for this affliction from which I suffer lies firmly with the media.

Irresistible S-club Juniors in their make-up and boob tubes are just too much of a temptation. Junior "Talent" shoes with pre-teens in high heels and miniskirts. Cor!  Teen pop stars thrust sexually everywhere I look. I'm exposed to "Dirty" "filthy" little dominatrixes, non of whom are old enough to have finished a higher education. Empowered, or so they say. I guess you don't need to be schooled when you're selling thousands of records by shaking your ass. Don't they realise they're putting the young girls at risk, by putting ideas into my head? Even my brother's magazine announces the teen opera singer is "almost legal now, lads!" Young mothers dress their young daughters like miniature versions of themselves; how can I not develop this these unnatural urges, this perversion from which I suffer?

Man, have I got a problem now. My girlfriend of sorts, wants to announce us as an item. I've only kissed her twice and now I'm sorely regretting having ever met her outside the school gates. I'm sure her friends already know, but it's only a matter of time before this sordid little secret gets out. I'm attracted to young girls. What will my parents say when they find out? The neighbours will brick the windows in and I'll be forced to leave the village in disgrace. I'll move to another town, but they'll no doubt find out too. I heard that in prison, paedophiles often get attacked and their testicles cut off. I really don't like the idea of having my testicles cut off.

I need to start dealing with this problem before it gets worse. Check myself into therapy, someone discrete who can treat this terrible affliction before it escalates. I could end up named and shamed in the tabloids, harangued in the council estates, and prevented from going anywhere near schools. It's not all bad. It's such a weight off my shoulders, finally confessing my passion for little girls.  The ones in my PE class, especially. I really wish I could get back to the proper business of having a kick about in the park, playing computer games, and fantasizing about getting a scalextric or a bike with gears, as any normal prepubescent boy should.  It seems I can't even pick up a newspaper these days. Would Jenny, aged seventeen, from Essex please put your shirt back on?- It's just too much for a young, impressionable mind to take.

by Anon, London, aged 12 1/2.