Some children initiate adult contact and are active participants.

Sorry, just trying to get your facts correct. You and u/herrhiskelig imply that a child would never choose to initiate or willingly participate in a sexual relationship with an adult. Studies show that you are both wrong.

You imply (wrongly) that only a person who is not entirely sound of mind would believe a child want to have sex with them.

Quote from: http://www.mhamic.org/sources/constantine.htm

research and clinical reports leave little doubt that some children do initiate the contacts and many participate willingly. Nine studies in the review confirmed this, although initiative on the part of the child was rare in father-daughter incest.

Children can enjoy sex and masturbation, many do. Children can initiate sex and some do. Children can be willing and even enthusiastic participants.

you should understand that NO, a child does not want to have sex with you

Yes, sometimes a child does want to have sex with an adult

No, a child cannot make choices in sexual matters b/c he/she is not developmentally capable of understanding the consequences and complexities of adult sexuality nor the risks involved. He/she doesn't yet know who to trust and why, how to protect himself, how to advocate or be an equal partner, etc. In many cases, the child isn't even physically developed enough for that level of interaction.

No, a child cannot make choices in sexual matters b/c he/she is not developmentally capable of understanding the consequences and complexities of adult sexuality nor the risks involved. He/she doesn't yet know who to trust and why, how to protect himself, how to advocate or be an equal partner, etc. In many cases, the child isn't even physically developed enough for that level of interaction.

Many children know how to be quite firm with their opinions, many are more firm with their opinions than adults. Though not all do, the study I linked originally found that passively unwilling children were the most often harmed by an adult/child sexual experience, actively unwilling children generally sought help quickly and actively or passively willing children generally enjoyed the experience and thus were less often harmed (some even benefited from the experience).

The "consent" part it mostly just opinion. This Alderson would disagree.

Alderson performed seven studies (some in collaboration with other scientists) throughout the 1990s on children’s capacity to give informed consent to medical procedures, and concluded that children as young as 5 or 6 are capable of informed consent if adequately informed. Waites (2005) argued very convincingly that her work and its conclusions translate readily into the sexual sphere, though he argues (badly) that children are not adequately informed about sex in our society and therefore cannot give informed consent to sexual activity. (The answer to that is obvious.) As far as I know, Alderson’s work constitutes the only sustained and detailed scientific analysis of children’s capacity to give informed consent, and before the 1990s no such analysis existed. Ages of consent were certainly not set on the basis of such capacity, and Waites shows how consent was not a genuine factor in so-called ‘age of consent’ legislation until the second half of the 20th century.

So 5 or 6 year olds are capable of making decisions on medical procedures (including "informed consent") if adequately informed, but not of consenting to sex. The only reason for this is that our society tries very hard to make sure that children are not "adequately informed" when it comes to sex. Which ironically, can lead to higher rates of unsafe sex when young t(w)eens begin to engage in sexuality, but have not been educated on safe sex - though I'm assuming we both agree that "abstinence only" sex education is a terrible idea.

You make a few more assumptions/implications about the sexuality. One is that any adult/child interactions are "adult sexuality", but in reality only a small minority of "sexual abuse" involves actual penetration and intercourse; likely because when the child is a willing participant and respected by their partner, than the child will say no when they don't enjoy something (and many children are not physically ready for intercourse) and have that choice be respected.

"oh this 10 year old wants to have an adult sexual relationship"

Again, you seem focused on the "adult", but you don't know that they original subject (the pedophile from the podcast) was in or wanted an adult sexual relationship. As I said above, most child/adult sexual interactions do not involve intercourse. It is more likely that the adult was participating at the child's level in order to make it fun for the child, or because the child did not want to participate in intercourse.

There are quite a few online communities (including r/pedofriends) of pedophiles who don't harm anyone. I am a pedophile myself and would never harm a child. Over 50% of child molesters are not pedophile (they have some other mental condition that leads them to molest a child).

Many pedophiles avoid children to avoid sexual feelings. I am not part of that group, I actively associated with children and have one girl I am very close with. I love her and would rather hurt myself than hurt her.

That said, there is a question of what exactly constitutes "harm". What if the child is a willing participant (maybe even the one pursuing more), society would say that kissing a child; even one who wanted to be kissed by you, is harmful. I don't agree with that, but I do follow the social rules in order to avoid legal issues (and to be able to keep seeing her)