My lawyer has recommended I see a sex offender treatment therapist to evaluate me and to testify in court on my behalf. I’m nervous. I don’t believe I’m a monster, but what if this therapist, a respected professional with years of experience, disagrees?

The therapist is in his mid-fifties with a tweedy, academic air, the kind of look that judges find persuasive. We talked for over an hour about my family, childhood, and the details surrounding my criminal case. I also completed a battery of tests aimed at uncovering any possible mental disorders:

How often have you had thoughts that are not your own?

Good news—I’m not psychotic.

Afterwards, the therapist told me about some of his past clients, including a man who received a relatively light five-year sentence for raping his eleven-year-old daughter regularly over a period of three years.

The therapist admitted he believed that the extreme sentences in child pornography cases are unjustified. The rationalization that people who possess child pornography are intent on harming children is a “logical stretch” of which there is no evidence.

My evaluation will continue next week when we meet again to answer more questions relating to my sexual interests.