While there are some whose minor attraction overlap with other sexual preferences, minor attractions and anything it overlaps with typically do not present any risk. Why? Because we are just like you. We understand that to be sexual with a child is off-limits, and though some of us part in questioning why, and even fewer sexually abuse children, the majority of minor attracted people are fully capable of realizing the harm that child sexual abuse does and is capable of causing. The horror stories are not new to us. In fact, many of us were affected by abuse as well (science is still figuring out what causes minor attraction, though).

Pride In Its Proper Context

The lack of critical thinking around why minor attracted people might choose to adopt the language of LGBTQ+ pride is truly astounding. Adoption of this language is not any attempt to “join” the LGBTQ+ movement, as I have covered before. The point is be unashamed, and to refuse to be stigmatized for it. Why? What undue stigma do we face? I have written about that too from the research on stigma.

The entire point of pride is not that we are somehow “proud” of attractions we never chose to have, the point is to counter the stigma. What kind of stigma? Well…

So, with that being said, let me break down the meaning of the flag as I understand it (which is not necessarily the original intent word-for-word, and no, I did not create the flag):

About the origin of the flag, we have this:

My View On Pride

I am absolutely proud of some things. I work hard on preventing sexual abuse. I am proud of my commitment to not harming kids. I am proud of weathering the hateful comments of trolls to have a lot of success in reaching people about what preventing sexual abuse looks like: On Twitter, I have over a thousand followers and my website gets over 1500 people per week, which is impressive for a one-man operation. This blog gets about 500 people per week these days. Those are all things to be proud of for sure.

The thing is, those are all behaviors that I chose to do, not a sexual attraction that just happened. I cannot feel pride – nor will I shame myself – for things that are not a choice.

What I am most proud of is providing support to other minor attracted people so they can share my commitment of never harming a child, and so they can go on to live healthy lives and even pass on that support to the next generation of minor attracted people.

No amount of hate can ever outweigh those positives, or the amount of positive feedback I have received over the years.

The post Pride… for Minor Attracted People appeared first on Pedophiles About Pedophilia.

Timothy N. Fury

With ideas from many generations who came before me that are too numerous to name, and many people who I sought feedback from. Huge thanks to all of you!

Preamble

This guide details what I have learned on social media, from what works in creating MAP awareness, and what does not, so the bulk of this guide applies a little more to social media than other venues. This guide contains observations and strategic information that may be used to start what I believe will be the ultimate destigmatization of minor attraction and minor attracted people. This strategy plays the long game and requires patience.

Mental Health Warning

For each individual following this strategy guide there will be a toll on your mental health and you will need a support system in place in real life. If you do not have a real life support such as an understanding close friend, partner, or loved one, or at the very least see a therapist who knows about your attractions and is supportive, do not participate in this strategy, and close/delete this document permanently from your system. The very last thing I want to see is someone kill themselves because they did not have the proper supports while using this strategy guide.

Vision

To start a movement of minor attracted people who refuse to be silent about our shared humanity and push society to accept us, warts and all, using a comprehensive strategy and spin a narrative that works to accomplish this. Full stop. This will not look like a civil rights protest, this will look like a snowball rolling downhill, picking up more snow and momentum with one unstoppable goal: People treating us as human beings. We do not approve of sexual harm to children under any circumstances.

Spun Narrative

Any goals around ideology and “rights” are not a direct part of this movement, as this particular movement is to lay the groundwork for that (presuming rights to mean destigmatization of attraction, support, humanization, etc.). Also, people will automatically hear “they want sex with kids” if we put minor attraction and rights together in the same sentence – we need to find positive ways to say this that people will listen to and hear what we actually want, not project what they think we want onto our words and real positions. In other words, we need to make our narrative as spin-proof as possible to ensure the message we want to send is the one people are hearing.

This vision will be best accomplished by publicly adopting a reasonable anti-abuse/sexual violence prevention position that does not condemn people for struggling with images (even if that is a struggle you cannot relate to, take the time to listen to those who have in private), but does condemn abusing kids. No further nuance should be needed in public. There have been many voices that supposedly seek to shift the “overton window” and in doing so have harmed our humanization movement.

There may be the occasional statement about sex abuse prevention being a systemic and multi-pronged approach that is complex, but those complexities are for professionals, not the public. The public tends to simplify complex information, and in this case, that works against us because their simplifications will end up being caricatures of what we really want.

The narrative being pushed is that we, as a group, are against the sexual abuse of children and would be valuable allies in combating and preventing sexual violence, and that we refuse to be silent or shame/stigmatize ourselves for our attractions. All public messaging should revolve around those principles.

Applicable Ideas From Military Strategy

These are a few principles from military strategy that are good to know and remember:

1. Know your enemy – Know what people who want to stigmatize us will say ahead of time, and know what kind of arguments they will use (emotion-based propaganda, not logical arguments).
2. Divide and conquer – Know how this strategy can be used against us (and is already being used against us by trolling, both the obvious and not-so-obvious), and realize that not every social media account is who they say they are. The goal of the enemy is to divide us against one another. Those enemies do not only come from the outside, they can come from within.
3. Protect the medic – Protect your healers from enemy influence. In this case, protect the mental health of the most hard-hitting advocates, amplify their voices as much as possible, and protect the mental health of those who help others.
4. Watch your flanks – Do not fall into the trap of getting so focused on one aspect that you miss the entire picture. This includes engaging with trolls who are actively trying to distract you from your end-goals by using short-term tactics intended to irritate you.
5. Psychological warfare – People WILL try to use this against you. Be aware of what it is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_warfare
6. Knowledge is power – Think of all information as valuable, and use it, talk about it, and share it whenever you have the opportunity.
7. Do not fully commit – This is a little more difficult, but essentially, you do not want to fully commit all or most of your resources to any assault, period. You want to ensure you have backup strategy in place to handle contingencies and adapt to the situation until you know you can win, and the winning strategy is unique to every different situation. In other words, if all you do is attempt a head-on assault with no alternate strategy, you will be in for a long slog that may lead to dire consequences.

For a more exhaustive list, please consult here and here.

Basic Starting Principles

The principles of this strategy guide to remaining safe and free from severe harassment or worse are as follows. This is not a guide to hiding from governments or law enforcement and we will never publish such a guide.

1. Practice good internet security, and safeguard your sensitive information carefully. Avoid using services like Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, etc. Opt for better email providers like Tutanota and Protonmail, and switch over if you can. Relevant resources:
   1. https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/d3devm/motherboard-guide-to-not-getting-hacked-online-safety-guide
   2. https://keepass.info/download.html
   3. http://privacytools.io/
2. Ensure you are pseudonymous: Safeguarding your identity and safety is YOUR responsibility. Principles:
   1. No real names, period. Make a name meaningful to you, but sensible, or use a name generator until you find one you like.
   2. That tip about emails? Use a separate one from your real life identity.
   3. Do not use a nickname that is in any way tied to your real identity.
   4. Get to know people for months before you even think about identifying yourself or your specific location. Stick to states, countries, or territories, not cities/towns/villages. Even then, know that once you share that information with someone, you cannot take it back and they can share that information. Make sure you know they really are who they say they are. Avoid pissing those people off.
   5. Never, ever click shortened links, otherwise use a link unshortening service to identify where the link leads first. Do not click on suspicious emails or download attachments from people you do not know.
   6. If you choose to be on social media as a MAP, then know that if your posting styles between your real accounts and your MAP account can be easily compared. Use a different writing style and watch what you share. Or better yet, delete your real-life social media accounts entirely.
3. With that being said, social media is not required. Stick to known and trusted communities, even if you disagree with their philosophies. Build bridges and love, not strife and animosity. Help your fellow MAPs. Virtuous Pedophiles and MAP Support Club run secure operations with knowledgeable people, there are many others. Avoid Discord. Surround yourself with support and positivity. Do not get baited into participating in community drama.
4. Control the narrative on our terms, not society’s. Play by what works to catch the kind of attention we want. Do not operate with the line that “any publicity is good publicity,” as in our case, this is not true. Do not argue from facts wherever possible – only answer questions from those curious about what the facts and research are, or when dealing with a so-called expert. For most, differ from experience, use anecdotal evidence. Appeal to emotion, not logic. We are your neighbors, sons, daughters, coworkers, friends, and family.
5. Stop fighting battles that are currently not feasible. Picture military strategy: You do not want to get caught into a long gun battle, you want to strategically control the battle on YOUR terms to end the engagement as quickly as possible. As such, we need to avoid the following:
   1. Arguing with trolls in long drawn-out threads. Please read Kamil Beylant’s guide to identifying them, and familiarize yourself with it. https://justpaste.it/darkartsdefensetrolls Be willing to block them or ignore them without responding. Mass replies to trolls only makes their comment more prominent because of how social media algorithms work. This can also be used in reverse by posting provocative stuff like “Minor attracted people deserve support.” on high-profile videos, tweets, posts, accounts, etc.
   2. Using text-only options of spreading the word. Talk to people in your real life with small conversations, feel out who you can come out to and who you cannot (more tips), use podcasts and put together videos and images. Make memes. Get creative!
   3. Publicly nitpicking the words pedophile/pedophilia, especially in news reports. There will be time for this later. If you really must correct, email the media organization before you complain on social media. Use minor attraction and minor attracted people when in public, no acronyms except in hashtags. Avoid using the technical jargon like pedophile/hebephile, etc. Keep it simple.
   4. Nitpicking facts. The facts are not what most people base their decisions on (check their feed and profile first). They base their decisions on emotion, so you need to use things they can emotionally relate to. Some concrete examples of how to respond with emotion:
      1. Anti: “You’re a sick motherfucker! I hope you kill yourself!” You: “If I was your child, would you still want me dead?” Then stop engaging.
      2. Anti: “Minor attraction? You mean pedophilia!” You: “Don’t tell me what I mean and what I don’t mean, that’s rude.”
      3. Anti: “Well, most pedophiles reoffend, so you need to be shot or locked up!” You: “So it’s okay for me to assume you’re a rapist too? Okay boomer.”
6. Use clear communication. Never use acronyms or jargon when you can spell out the meaning clearly and concisely. Minor attracted people, not MAPs. Non-offending, not NO. Etc.
7. Patience, and lots of it. Keep the end goal in mind, and no matter how frustrated you get, do not let anyone see it publicly in the heat of the moment. There are times and places for that anger. I am not suggesting to not be emotional – just pick the right moments for doing so, not when you are mid-discussion or during an interview with the media. Also, by contrast, avoid closing yourself off from support by never talking to people when something is bothering you.
8. Stop arguing. It does not work with most people. Check someone’s profile before you respond and know who the logical people are before you hit send and respond accordingly. With most people, tell stories. Talk about your story. Talk about how you came to realize you are minor attracted and what it means for you. Talk about your struggles, your moral quandaries, your difficult relationships. Encourage people you have told in your life to tell their stories. Be real. Be raw. Be genuine. We need storytellers. But above all, do not let anyone who is not close to you tell you how to tell your story. It should be real, raw, and humanizing. It should be yours.

Short-Term Strategy

When I say short-term, I mean that this process will take anywhere from months up to years, depending on how smoothly this goes. How smoothly this goes is up to you. Take responsibility for it! Own it! Be passionate about it!

The short-term strategy is to grow. That will happen naturally as word spreads and communities get more and more established and connected. We need to build a strong network for ourselves. Leave connecting with professionals to those familiar with it, and get connected to those people if you are interested to learn the ropes. Use what you are good at – do not try to be someone you are not. If you idolize particular advocates, talk to them honestly. “I idolize you because _____, I’d like to learn more about what you do. Help me learn.”

Those of you who are not familiar with marketing concepts and how social media algorithms work: Learn them. Watch commercials. Watch videos on marketing and sales. Share and talk about these resources in your communities. Know how Russia interfered with US elections in 2016 and tried again leading up to 2020. Yes, you read that right. Create a separate advocacy account or sanitize a current account: Eliminate any “creepy” or NSFW material like porn, YouTube videos, etc.

I realize this next part will be difficult for some and will run contrary to the personal convictions of many. My personal beliefs on this part have not changed. In order to address this, I will not direct my comments to any one ideology, side, etc. Picture me as neutral. I am Switzerland.

Enough with the “contact war” from ALL angles. Agree with the majority view that child sexual abuse is harmful when in public, stop the public bickering over policy nuance, and leave those nuances to private communities or direct messages whenever possible. I realize for some, even many, that is a sacrifice and may seem intellectually dishonest. I believe it is currently a necessary one. Flippantly toss aside the trolls that ask you, “Well, how do you define child sexual abuse?” with a simple “You need me to define sexual assault for you? I’m calling the police.”

People following this strategy will be forced to either condemn or ignore viewpoints that seem to promote sexual abuse in public, and this will have consequences for ALL of us. We have already seen some of these consequences, as it is easy for most to dismiss both sides when they see the bickering or to imply that all MAPs believe sex abuse is okay. The better state would be if those viewpoints were not shared publicly and we call on all sides a temporary cessation of bickering in public or the “contact war” about it at least until the long-term goals and vision of this strategy have been achieved if not slightly longer. Keep it to private communities wherever possible. The purpose of this is not to hide our warts, but to spin-proof the movement as much as possible.

In order to grow, we absolutely must stop bickering and starting drama with each other. That bickering is why the “antis” are so successful at trolling our communities. We need to stop bickering publicly among ourselves in terms of those moral discussions. Right now, pro/anti contact is a religious moral belief, with frequently used terms or labels regarding who is “Lutheran” or “Orthodox” or “Buddhist” or “Islamic” or “Jewish” etc. In November and December 2019, I ran a project to address these labels. This is not to say anyone following this strategy is required to interact with people they do not want to. This is to say that we are holding good progress back by being public with these disagreements. Divide and conquer IS a strategy that is CURRENTLY being used against us.

This means no more calling people out for perceived immoral behavior or their contact stance and starting drama and fights, no more publicly airing grievances on Twitter, no more outing people as pro/anti contact, no more accusations of viewing child pornography, etc. If you have an issue with someone, do your best to clearly communicate what it is with them privately. Realize that some of us, particularly those connected with professionals, may say things a certain way in public to send a strong message to the right people or otherwise make political moves. Some of us, like myself, are constrained by many things that may not be visible to you, or they may be constrained by confidentiality. Talk to them in private and hold your anger as much as you can. Realize that their response may not be about you at all.

My general rule of advice short-term is to not identify yourself directly as a minor attracted person in your profile, or if you do, phrase it positively in a way that is perfectly clear (for example, “I am a human being with an attraction to minors, an interest in death metal, and I love reading romance novels”). Put your humanity first wherever possible. Tell people about some of your interests while being careful to not be too specific (safety first, come out at your choosing, not theirs). Joke around. Laugh. Be yourself. Shitpost. We need to build a cooperative community, particularly in public, and we need to stabilize as a community that supports one another. In other words, minor attraction should not be your only topic. Talk about other things! Be human! It is very weird, even for a topical social media account, to focus so much on such a niche topic without talking about other things!

If you have a Twitter account, seek out sex workers to follow and observe how they interact with and support one another. Notice how they frame the issue as if they are fighting for their very existence and the right to participate meaningfully in society. We need to build a community like this, only aimed at getting support for us all with dire consequences – suicide, mental health issues, etc – if that support is not available. Our shared humanity and struggles are more important than political bickering in public.

This is NOT to say that there will not be drama or politics involved in our community (of course there will!), but the goal should be to keep drama and politics in private spaces and out of the public eye, or as much as possible resolved privately between two individuals, maybe even seek out a mediator if need be. If that means not interacting with each other because you simply cannot get along or acting like two people at an office who can work together but secretly hate each other’s guts, do it. But in public, be civil to each other under all circumstances wherever possible or simply block each other.

Some of us like me have already built on a platform of critiquing organizations for ineffective policies and such – leave that to us and let us take the heat for that, it will take attention off the movement and momentum we are trying to build. Some of you will think those critiques do not go far enough – those of us already doing this know the territory and know what will be effective in acting as “bait” to draw the attention and outrage away from the main movement and the main goal. We know perfectly well what the ideal end-goal is, but you cannot force everyone to get there immediately.

Short-Term Coming Out Preparations

Some of the above is in preparation for a worldwide coming out day. This section is for preparations you will need to take ahead of time if you wish to participate in the first worldwide minor attracted people coming out day (first date to be determined, DO NOT COME OUT WITHOUT SERIOUS CONSIDERATION) and have it be safe and successful. If you are a minor, ignore this section. Tips (some may be location-specific beyond the United States, in which case you may need to do some digging for your own location):

• Visit people search engines (there are many) and remove yourself and your loved ones. Many times this can be done for free, though there are reputation services that will assist in this process for a fee. Further reading: https://www.reputationdefender.com/blog/privacy/how-to-remove-public-records-from-the-internet-in-five-steps
• Per the above guide, get a PO box and reroute any public records to your PO box rather than your home address.
• Along those same lines, do NOT build up online resumes or LinkedIn profiles to avoid people finding out where you work. Safeguarding your privacy ahead of time is the best way to protect it.
• Talk to anyone you could potentially come out to before you actually do it. I give some guidance on that here: https://aboutpedophilia.com/2018/09/01/the-complexities-of-a-pedophile-coming-out/ Be aware that who you tell can share that information if they choose, so get to know the person and share wisely. Talk to your friends, family members, and neighbors to feel out how they think about similar issues. Know who the bigots are and who the listeners are ahead of time, before you share your attractions.
• This was said at the very beginning, but it bears repeating: Have a good support system. People will attempt to harass you, people will try to discourage you, and they will resort to any trick they can try. The purpose of this section is to mitigate those tricks. These tricks WILL have an effect on your mental health. Some of these tricks include:
  • Bullying in school
  • Parents having concerns about MAPs being around kids (even if same age, and including your own parents)
  • Finding your workplace and harassing your boss
• Know that once you come out, there is no rewind button. Your name, face, and information WILL spread across the internet and WILL go before your friends, family, neighbors, bosses, etc. Talk to them ahead of time.
• Expect harassment and abusive comments, and be prepared to completely ignore them or report them to law enforcement in your jurisdiction. Expect people to accuse you of abusing kids, and plan your activities accordingly – stay away from children, so that your best defense is rock-solid.
• Contact law enforcement in your jurisdiction and tell them there is a possibility you could be harassed online.
• Build up a social media account under a pseudonym and make it clear with that account that you are against abuse. Follow abuse prevention organizations, do some virtue signaling if you have to. Maybe even share a mugshot story every now and then, as comfortable. Then, when you come out, change your name and profile picture to yourself.

Long-Term Strategy

The long-term strategy involves solidifying the idea that minor attracted people are against sexual abuse and are your friends, family, son, daughter, mom, dad, neighbor, loved one. That is all. No need for nuance, no need for complexity, just that. Like a job applicant or a politician, you are marketing yourself to give off a particular image: A human being who people can relate to.

Part of the long-term strategy is picking a good year to do a “worldwide coming out day” in which people come out as minor attracted publicly. The first year WILL be difficult, and deciding on which year will need to depend on how the short-term strategy evolves and how quickly. This section will be expanded on at a later date as the short-term strategy evolves.

The post Strategy and Activism appeared first on Pedophiles About Pedophilia.

If you are not a minor attracted person, this article is incredibly important, but will require you to slowly and carefully read what I am about to say. It comes from a framework that is very different from yours, and I strongly urge you to take the 20 minutes to listen.

Introduction

Are you familiar with the game Assassin’s Creed? The Assassin Order pushes freedom, and their creed is, “Nothing is true, everything is permitted.” The game further explains, “To say that nothing is true is to realize that the foundations of society are fragile and that we must be the shepherds of our own civilization. To say that everything is permitted is to understand that we are the architects of our actions and that we must live with their consequences, whether glorious or tragic.” 

In the series, their opposites are the Templar Order, which seek to use fear and manipulation to control what the public believes. My point in bringing it up is that as we near the end of a decade, we are seeing an ideological war along very similar lines play out across the entire world on a number of different politically and emotionally charged issues.

I think that ideological war extends to minor attracted people, and has been going on for over fifty years. How I came to that conclusion is not simple, but I believe it is connected to how we can be more effective in protecting children from child sexual abuse. This conclusion includes evidence and arguments from many sources, and I did not have time to include all of them here.

Premises Of My Argument

Before I go on, I must outline a few basic assumptions I am making that most people may not be familiar with. I could write more to provide research to support them, but they are not the main point here. My assumptions are these:

1. The current criminal justice system is fundamentally flawed and often perpetuates harm and increases harm instead of increasing public safety. 
2. The war on drugs is one illustration of this: People are penalized merely for possessing an item that, when used, has the potential to cause harm to the health of the user and the potential to cause harm to others. Drugs are a public health issue.
3. The war against sex workers is another illustration: People (primarily women and people of color) who engage in consensual sexual activity are criminalized and arrested. Police and organizations that seek to “end human trafficking” or address so-called “sex trafficking” are in effect arresting sex workers/prostitutes and often wind up charging so-called “victims” under this war on sex trafficking narrative.

With those assumptions in mind, let us continue.

Child Pornography And Labels

I have come to call “child pornography” by a more accurate label: Child sexual abuse material (CSAM) or sexually harmful imagery because a child was abused in the production of such material. Not all images labeled as “child pornography” are actually abusive or harmful (such as a teen that sends a nude to their significant other and gets charged with distributing child pornography, and yes, that actually happens), and some even use the term “child pornography” to mean images or even written texts that are 100% fictional and do not involve real children in any way. Some organizations have proposed “child sexual exploitation material” or CSEM and this is a term I have previously used as well. However, this term seems to be adopted by organizations that seek to outlaw fictional material, and that is why I have ceased using it.

It is no big secret that the majority of people convicted of having child sexual abuse material are people who have a sexual attraction to minors. That is another premise, and while there is no concise scientific study or article I can point at to, it is considered common knowledge among the literature and programs who work in this area.

Before I go any further, I want to be 100% clear on what my view is: I believe that people viewing child sexual abuse material are harming themselves because viewing such material can easily lead to enabling thoughts and ideas that can push people into riskier and riskier situations that can ultimately lead to the abuse of a child.  I also believe that people who view this material are struggling, and that their viewing, much like drug use, is a coping mechanism to deal with stress or a situation that has nothing to do with sex. None of what I am about to say changes that possession is harmful in any way, shape, or form.

Where Is The Harm?

In MAP Support Club, we recently had a member bring up a series of blog posts that Ethan Edwards (one of the founders of Virtuous Pedophiles) did on child pornography. Much of what he has to say forms some of the basis for the territory I am about to carefully wade into. In particular, look at an excerpt from this post:

“Man to therapist: “I feel kind of bad. There was this woman Mary who was on the team making the sales pitch to us last week. I was in the audience and she never saw me, but she was just one very hot woman. And three times since then, at night, I’ve, well, masturbated thinking about her. And I feel sure she can just tell I’m doing it, I feel like I’m degrading her — I mean really, she KNOWS I’m thinking about her sexually without permission.”

Therapist: “You can reflect on what sexual fantasies make YOU feel bad, but one thing we know is that she does NOT know you are thinking about her sexually. She’s 3,000 miles away.”

Man to therapist: “I have this video I shouldn’t have — it was stuck in with this big batch of ordinary porn I downloaded for free. It’s a girl — she’s like 12, and she’s naked, and she’s playing with herself between the legs. She looks like she’s enjoying it, but I know that’s a lie and someone made her do it. I just know she could tell I was looking at her and getting a little aroused. It was like I was abusing her all over again.”

Therapist: “I should say so! Of course she could tell! Every time a man looks at a picture of child abuse images, he IS abusing her all over again. It’s just as if you were right there beside her making her do it! You abused her — you personally did it!””

My background is primary/secondary prevention, and again, the idea that viewing child sexual abuse material is wrong. This post floored me. Even with all of my familiarity with prevention and addressing sexual harm, I have nothing with which I can counter his point beyond pointing to the harm that viewing does and can do to the person viewing it. That is not the same thing as saying an image is inherently harmful by existing on the internet, which is Ethan’s main point that you can read if you are interested.

To continue, Earl Yarington in October pointed out that someone who did extremely heinous things is about to be released from an 18-month prison sentence, and that the sentence is not at all fair. I tend to agree with Mr. Yarington, who proposed several suggestions, but one being that going after people simply for possessing an image makes no sense when there are bigger and more traumatic harms out there, such as the production of these harmful images (child sexual abuse) and the distribution and re-distribution of it.

Fear-Based Propaganda

I have commented on how Stop It Now! UK & Ireland runs advertisements that are fear based. The police narrative on illegal images seems to be, “It does not matter what technology you use, we will find out that you were looking and we will track you down and arrest you.” Mostly, nobody questions this narrative, and the news about people who are caught in these big code-named investigations run the gamut of backgrounds: Other cops, doctors, lawyers, teachers, teenagers… anyone. Often, the word pedophile is thrown around. Most arrested are men. Yet if you cross-reference some of this with what is being reported about how illegal images are so prevalent on the internet, you realize that what this means is that there are millions and millions of people around the world who are viewing these images.

I think the propaganda is not really intended to keep children safe. That is probably one of the most controversial points I can make, calling it propaganda and suggesting it is ineffective. Arresting someone for looking at a picture or video is exactly like arresting someone for drug possession. You just did a double-take. Allow me to explain.

We can all agree that snorting heroin or shooting up meth is an incredibly harmful choice and needs intervention and support to stop, but with possession of harmful images, they are turning to those things because of some struggle in their life, or do not know that the content is illegal, or there are some teens caught up in an abusive criminal justice system superseding the intent of child pornography laws. In any case, they would be better helped by a diversion program and competent therapy, not a financial penalty, losing their job, losing their living arrangement, and spending years in prison or on probation. Those things simply do not reform most people and send many right back to prison on a technical violation.

It is propaganda for one simple reason: If there are so many people viewing these images, then it is completely impractical to expect that jailing all of these people is even possible from a law enforcement/corrections resource standpoint, let alone the fact that there are far worse things like murder, child abuse, rape, etc that the police need to be spending their time combating.

Using the above story from Mr. Yarington, someone who not only distributed harmful sexual images, but was involved in encouraging people to produce over 110,000 new images. Those are the people that rightfully warrant police attention, and focusing on those who merely view or possess these images by comparison – along with the fact that both the US FBI and law enforcement in Australia have been known to distribute these images themselves shows that punishing people for possession makes little to no sense when it comes to protecting children.

Again, it is not my desire to question the immorality of viewing harmful sexual images of children, as I do believe that viewing those images is still at the very least harmful to the person viewing them. I still believe such viewing is wrong. I believe that people who abuse drugs and alcohol are also making the wrong choices. But I no longer believe that caging people is a real solution to these harms, and I think the people who are abusing or exploiting children by producing and distributing these images are doing something far, far worse than anyone who views or downloads them. I believe a better solution is giving people the social and mental health support they need to make better choices when they are ready to make those better choices.

Flawed Framework

I must pause here briefly to point out that this is operating from a flawed framework, namely:

1. The assumption that most who sexually abuse children directly are minor attracted people (this is untrue)
2. The assumption that most who view sexual images of children – real or fictional – go on to become at-risk for sexually abusing a child.
   1. Though research is not completely clear yet, there is ample evidence to suggest that typologies of those who commit contact offenses and those who commit image offenses are usually different with little overlap, see here, here, and here for research starting points.

In other words, the facts that has formed the basis for the narrative condemning child pornography possession (again, I believe production and distribution are far more serious matters) are not facts at all, but assumptions not supported by objective research.

Carrying Those Ideas Forward

It is here that I can reintroduce the conclusion of this post: An ideological war on minor attracted people. You hear of the war on drugs really being a war on people of color and the poor, and there are a great many examples of rich and famous people having known problems with drugs and alcohol. R. Kelly was recently exposed for sexually abusing and raping young girls, Elvis died of a drug overdose along with many other celebrities (Heath Ledger to name just one more).

Yet with people of color, especially native and black people, or people who are relatively poorer… they do not have those resources. They do not get fancy programs that help them throughout the process of becoming sober, they get handcuffs, cages, and “drug court.” Of course, the state of healthcare in America is more broadly a huge problem as well, as this short video shows.

In short, there is a disturbing human-wide trend of marginalizing and shunning people merely for being different, poor, etc. That is where I want to go with the rest of this, and that is what drives my conclusion.

What A Minor Attracted Person Faces

When a minor attracted person realizes their attractions, they will come to realize that they are somewhere on a spectrum. At one end, those totally exclusive with zero attraction to adults, and at the other, non-exclusive and their minor attraction is secondary and only comes up every now and then. No matter where someone falls on the spectrum, that will basically be their reality for the rest of their life. There is no way to change sexual attraction that we know of. It is unethical to kill or imprison people for having feelings they never chose. Some marry, some do not, some find love, many do not. The existence that a minor attracted person faces is not one that most people would choose for themselves, and indeed nobody chooses who they are attracted to.

This leads me to sexual outlets, which is a controversial topic that many minor attracted people would rather avoid so as to not anger people or gross them out. This is valid, but it does not really address an important issue that does need attention if we are going to keep children safe.

As I pointed out in my post at Prostasia Foundation’s forum, coming by fictional materials depicting children – whether through text-based erotica or cartoons – is not easy. I am well-connected and know of only about 4-5 places where I could go to get such materials. I am lucky enough to be married, many minor attracted people are not that lucky. Many child protection organizations likewise think that fictional materials should be illegal, and many countries do make it illegal, such as France, the UK, Canada, and Australia.

On top of that, real images depicting any sort of child nudity immediately causes a moral panic. Even some bathtub picture shared on Facebook, can we really argue that the harm of posting it was so egregious that we need to confiscate someone’s computer or feel that we should be outraged that someone shared it? Of course images and videos of child sexual abuse are bad, and we should go after the people who are making and distributing these images so that the children involved can get support.

Unsettling New Intelligence

When I posted my thoughts in Prostasia Foundation’s forum, I thought I was onto something from a child protection standpoint: If we can increase the number of fictional materials available for people, abusing real kids and looking for real images becomes less attractive as an outlet for most people. Why? Because the so-called “children” are fictional! Fewer ethical connundrums to face!

Well, I had a few people reach out to me anonymously. They said that if you have ever gone looking for sexually harmful images, you come to find out that those are much easier to come by than fictional materials.  When I combine that tidbit of intelligence – which I am not at all inclined to verify and do not want to know the details of – with some of what Ethan said about child pornography, the research he presents, and the questions he asks, other critiques of the subject, and the political nature of child sexual abuse prevention, I am left with one very disturbing and depressing theory. I could have written several more pages to build up the basis for my theory and give evidence, but I wanted to keep this at least vaguely readable to most people.

One Utterly Depressing Theory

That theory is that most of society has waged a war against the existence of minor attracted people through a variety of means, including the war on any sort of imagery, real or fictional, that depicts children in sexual situations. My theory is that society has done its very best, at a coordinated level, based on a flawed framework they believe to be factual, to attempt to drive minor attracted people into silence and the fringes of society so that our existence becomes painful enough that we end it on our own terms or so they can justify doing it to us.

My theory is that minor attracted people are not just a misunderstood population of people, but that we are presently at war against an enemy that seeks to stamp us out of existence in the same way that sex workers are presently at war with a system that criminalizes their own bodily autonomy (I am not speaking of the bodily autonomy of children, just to be clear), in the same way that drug users are at war with a system that takes advantage of their struggle with drugs to cause more harm to our society.

When you view the common struggles of minor attracted people through this theory, those common struggles start to make sense. It makes sense why anti-contact communities like MAP Support Club need to have a rule banning conversations about sexual activity with children being fundamentally okay, because that is a very heated topic that most people do not want to discuss. It makes sense why minor attracted people would give anything to no longer be attracted to children, because they are surrounded by a society who hates their very existence and does everything in its vast power to make sure that we know we are hated. It makes sense why people want to avoid fighting for change, because being in that fight takes energy and it already takes energy to exist in a society where your very existence is being threatened from all sides.

I get it. Minor attraction is something that most people do not want to understand and for good reason. But not understanding us and not allowing us to exist by taking away every single outlet we have for our attractions, even if it is completely fictional, and putting us in cages is no longer an option. You cannot change our sexual attractions by caging us, by beating us, or by trying to isolate us from society. If there is one thing the New York Times article got right, it is that technology and law enforcement are not able to address the problem of sexually harmful images being available online. That simply is a losing battle.

Why? Because we cannot delete the internet. That is simply not going to happen at this point. Because we cannot just stop using technology that encrypts communication. From a security standpoint, that would be a complete fiasco. Trying to prevent humanity from going to places that are harmful is simply a losing battle too, and it is becoming increasingly clear at a broad level that educating people about the harmful effects of various actions and giving them the tools to make good, healthy decisions is far more effective than trying to ban things or make them so illegal that people end up in a cage for years. When you make something illegal, you make it hidden, and child sexual abuse is already a very hidden problem that few people are willing to try and tackle.

I am not, of course, suggesting that these images should be legal, though apparently the ACLU does on privacy grounds, according to Ethan. I am not suggesting that there should be nothing in place for people who view these images – quite the opposite, I applaud programs that seek to help people who struggle with viewing harmful images and wish that those programs were the solution for people today.

We need to bring these problems into the light where people can see the harm, see the damage to themselves and others, and make better choices – before they decide to go looking for harmful material in the first place. I used to be one of the people arguing the “rule of law” line, that if we do not have rules by which society lives by and uphold these rules, chaos results. However, now I wonder if the rules need to be more focused on solving the human element in harm and trauma than they are in bringing more harm and trauma to an already traumatic and harmful situation.

To add to that, I feel I must point out something. This is the same systemic coordination of dehumanizing propaganda that Nazis began with towards Jews (if you are not familiar with their process, please read more about it). The Nazis did not stop with Jews. They executed the disabled, the homosexuals, Poles, Romanians, Jehovah’s Witnesses, religious minorities, dissenters, prisoners of war… anyone society did not like or they did not like. This is historical fact. If adult-attracted people do not stand up for minor attracted people, if minor attracted people do not stand up for themselves, we will see a second Holocaust, then a third, then a fourth, and so on. Hating any group of people gives rise to genocide eventually. Notice all of the steps that come prior to actually exterminating a group of people:

My Proclamation

I for one believe that this theory is sound and is demonstrated by evidence many people do not care to see. I do not know how much this will resonate with other minor attracted people, or what the views on this will be from programs that seek to take a saner approach to issues of preventing sexual abuse.

What I do know is that if my theory is true, I will spend every single ounce of energy that I have fighting for a future in which that war comes to an end and minor attracted people are afforded the same respect as anyone else who struggles with something. I am not a demon for being attracted to minors. Society is wrong for trying to cancel me out of existence for something I never chose for myself, and I refuse to fault myself for existing, and I will not apologize for any discomfort people feel about my existence.

Of course, hypothetically, you cannot fight a war against stigma if you are too busy warring among yourselves. You can try, and learn the hard way that you make yourself look ridiculous in the process like I did, or you can do something more productive with your time and build alliances instead of conflict. One of the oldest military strategies in the book is “Divide and conquer.”

The post An Ideological War On Minor Attracted People appeared first on Pedophiles About Pedophilia.

Social Justice Culture

There is a current trend among people on social media who cover social justice topics to pick on people for essentially not being woke enough, comprehensive enough, or virtuous enough if someone says something they think is lacking. I think every human has the capacity to do this on social media. I certainly have. These people are generally called social justice warriors or SJW’s because on the one hand, they espouse social justice and equality, but on the other, they pick on people who are not perfect in exemplifying these values. This can create a toxic anxiety whereby people fear backlash so much that they cannot be honest with their struggles – an obvious problem for any community.

Cancel Culture

There is another trend that is happening worldwide, and hides under the guise of doing the right thing. This trend is far more insidious than woke culture, and has destroyed reputations, employment, and our ability to see nuance. This trend is known as cancel culture, where people who seemingly did horrible things – or did do horrible things – are “cancelled.” In other words, they have very public articles, videos, and movements against individuals or a group of people in an effort to shut down their capability of ever moving on from whatever horrible thing the person is perceived to have done.

The fact of the matter is, we have all done something we regret. I am no different. I do not think anyone can go through this life without doing something that haunts them, something they wish they could take back if they could. For some, it is relationships and how they have treated others. Some were former bullies in their childhood and regret the pain they caused. Some harmed themselves through poor choices and harmed friends and family in the process. Regardless of what it was, most of us move on from it and make different choices. Cancel culture should generally be reserved in very extreme situations where someone is making harmful choices and has no willingness to change.

Exclusionary Culture

Think of SWERF’s and TERF’s (sex worker exclusionary radical feminists and trans exclusionary radical feminists, respectively), but more broadly. Exclusionary culture basically seeks to exclude people based on life choices that they make. In MAP communities, there are three primary categories of exclusion: Offense history, ideology, and kink.

As Deku demonstrated, the first one is people who have committed some kind of sexual offense. This can range from simply possessing child sexual abuse material (commonly called child pornography) to a hands-on contact offense.

The second are ideological differences in MAPs, typically “procontact” and “anticontact” which describe whether someone believes it should or should not be morally/legally acceptable to be sexual with children, though these labels are outdated and I am currently running an initiative to update them (if you are in the MAP community and lean more towards “procontact” or you just prefer not to use terms, please contact me at tnf13 (at) protonmail dot com to participate in this initiative).

The final category is how many and what kinks someone has, such as attraction to animals, the dead, or BDSM. These understandably make some very uncomfortable, but excluding these people also has the effect of isolating an already isolated group of people. I do not believe exclusionary culture that relies on past harmful behavior, ideological framework, or kinks to be helpful. Excluding people for not following rules or being disruptive to communities is one thing, but I lean towards inclusion personally.

Racist Culture

This is basically an active hatred of others for belonging to a particular group. People participate in this hatred for a variety of reasons, and it is not the purpose of this to go into those reasons, but I believe that a healthy community is one that does not actively hate people simply because they are different. To me, it does not matter what the group is, I believe individuals should be judged on an individual basis, not as entire groups of people. I believe it is wrong to judge someone just for belonging to a particular group rather than their personality or character.

Towards A Better Way

The purpose of this post is not really to outline any concrete steps. If you want some kind of “moral of the story” I guess you could watch Zootopia and listen to some of the conclusions at the end of the movie:

Another idea that comes to mind is the sex worker movement on Twitter. I believe the MAP community could learn quite a bit from them, as they have developed a very working “brand” that catches the attention and sympathies of the average person and spurs people to action. There are many inclusion-based movements, and I do think that inclusion is part of the solution.

As for me, I am tired of the drama. Yes, I am a leader in the MAP community, even though we say we do not have leaders. Yes, I have ideas about how community and how situations should be handled. But the thing is… if we keep tearing into each other like we increasingly have been over the last few years, we will never see the day where we can casually tell our best friend about our attractions and have them accept us, and we will continue to be viewed with suspicion, disdain, and stigma.

I work towards a better future – for all of us. All I ask is that you do the same.

The post MAP Community Culture And Choices appeared first on Pedophiles About Pedophilia.

First off, let me clarify something about what being anti-contact and being an advocate of sex abuse prevention means:

It means being morally against the sexual abuse and exploitation of real children. That is all.

It does not mean they do not struggle with being a minor attracted person.

It does not mean they are perfect.

It does not mean they will never make a mistake.

I have had many people come to me because they were struggling. Some ask for help to find a professional in their area. Some are struggling with viewing sexually harmful images of children, and want to stop. Helping those people and standing with them and standing up for them while they are struggling is not weakness and does not compromise that moral conviction of being against sexual abuse and exploitation.

A big part of prevention – sexual assault advocacy organizations worldwide talk about this – is primary/secondary prevention. Primary prevention is helping people avoid a harmful outcome before it happens, and secondary prevention is helping people who are at-risk for that harmful outcome before it happens. Another part of prevention is tertiary prevention, or helping people who have harmed stop that harm and make better decisions. I believe – and the research backs up this belief – that people can and do change. That change is what victim/survivors want. They want accountability, regardless of what that looks like.

I do not believe for one second that harassing people who are asking for help and support is an answer to people who are struggling. Unfortunately, there are some in the MAP community who do:

That the original harassment from Deku, AKA Adam (his old name in the MAP community), is completely unacceptable. The lies about the individual being harassed are completely unacceptable. The individual has never left the MAP community, they have been less visible so they can work on their struggles. They struggled with viewing images months ago, and struggles with a number of different mental health issues besides. They are currently getting professional support. I was one of the people they came to for help, so I know full well that they are trying to make progress on managing their mental health in a harm-free way.

So the idea that anyone rushed to excuse anyone’s actions is a lie. The idea that anyone told them they did nothing wrong is a lie, save for the person who sexually abused the individual who then struggled with images later on. Last year, I was involved in a situation in MAP Support Chat where we removed a member because we found out they were actively abusing children, and we reported them to law enforcement because they were not willing to change their behavior. I am absolutely willing to report people in the rare and unlikely instance of someone shamelessly causing direct harm to children and doing nothing to change their behavior. I am not going to sit by and let anyone excuse harmful behavior towards children, and there are certain situations that call for a law enforcement intervention.

At the same time, I am also not going to shame someone for decisions they regret and want to change. Shaming people who are struggling only makes them feel worse, and they will hate you for saying things that shame. I think just about anyone can relate to having done something wrong and being needlessly shamed for it, and the feelings around that shaming. That shame is simply not helpful.

I also had someone – when I asked that individual if it would be okay to do this blog post – come to me with screenshots of their conversations with Deku/Adam, showing that Deku is not as innocent as he likes to pretend:

Using someone’s struggles against them, to me, as someone who has helped many people with their struggles, is a despicable act that is not acceptable. I can count on one hand the number of times I have ever used someone’s failings against them, and that is because those people were trying to pretend those failings never happened while hypocritically (like Deku here) trying to use other’s failings against them. Hurting people hurt people. That does not make hurting people okay.

People make choices for a great many reasons. They own those choices to be sure, but at the end of the day, broadcasting someone’s worst choices just because you hold a grudge against them and for no other reason is the same kind of thinking that “antis” use when they dox minor attracted people and other minorities they hate. That, at its core, is dehumanizing other people and holding yourself above others, and that absolutely has no place in the MAP community. If we pretend to care about the stigma and hate that is leveled at us for having an attraction we never chose and believe it is morally wrong to act on, then we must also care when a member of our community takes it upon themselves to levy that stigma towards another member of the community.

There is no doubt that Deku/Adam will try to spin this another way. In fact, he already did. “If he didn’t want people to know then he shouldn’t have done it.” That kind of thinking has no place in a community where we support others who are struggling. That same thinking could be applied to the person struggling with drug use, or manipulative behavior towards others (looking right at you, Adam). “If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime!” Well, guess what, Deku? Plenty of people around the world could be locked up for things they have done. None of us are perfect, and using those imperfections as weapons is possibly the lowest form of dehumanizing nonsense that any community could participate in aside from maligning a group of people for their skin color, heritage, mental health condition, sexuality, etc. It is simply not acceptable behavior. That should not be controversial. Supporting people who want help should not be controversial.

If any minor attracted person has a problem with that, then they do not belong in this community. If any minor attracted person thinks that supporting people who are struggling makes the supporting person somehow not anti-contact or supportive of abuse, then their thinking is messed up. If you cannot learn to get along with others, and choose to pick on others, the only thing that makes you is a bully. I do not like bullies. I have seen enough bullying in my lifetime without sitting back and watching members of the community I am a part of tear into people because they were struggling at one point.

I sincerely hope that between now and the new year, regardless of what holiday/s people decide to celebrate, the MAP community can take it upon themselves to stand against bullying of this kind and I do not have to write something like this for a long time.

The post No Bullies Allowed! appeared first on Pedophiles About Pedophilia.

They masquerade as something that sounds true, but on closer scrutiny falls apart completely, either through cold hard facts, or through logic.

But of course, you came to see if you believe one of these lies, not have a lie defined for you.

Please keep in mind that you have probably heard these lies many, many times, and as a result, you will find the facts difficult to believe. You will have to choose whether to believe the facts or the lies.

Five: It’s Pedophilia!

The classic example is someone in their twenties dating someone who is in their teens, and someone exclaims, “That’s pedophilia!” The meaning being, of course, that the relationship is wrong, exploitative, illegal, etc.

This is by far the most frustrating, because to most people – probably you too – this is like, “Meh, whatever, quit nitpicking,” but the reality is, the difference does matter.

Fact:

Pedophilia is a sexual attraction to a particular body type: Prepubescent. Typically, this means below age 13, but any body type that does not display the typical markers of puberty, really. A boy could be 16, but not have any pubic or underarm hair nor any significant change in height or looks and that would be prepubescent.

Why does this matter?

Simply because it impedes people’s ability to find accurate information, and if someone just discovering their attractions searches the internet or gets told that pedophilia is dating a 17-year-old, that causes some problems for that person both by way of impeding searches for help and in understanding what child sexual abuse is. Neither of these help the prevention of child sexual abuse. Imagine searching for birth control and finding out how animals give birth.

Not helpful.

Four: Pedophiles Are Dangerous!

Usually, this idea stems from a number of different false ideas:

1. People who abuse kids are doomed to reoffend. Fact: The research thoroughly debunks this idea. This is supported by two facts: Recidivism of people who have previous sexual crime history is low, and most who commit sexual crimes have no criminal history. People who serially sexually abuse children are very rare.
2. People with an attraction to kids all watch child pornography. Fact: A statistically significant portion of child pornography is viewed by non-pedophiles, and we have only guesses as to how many pedophiles there really are in the world.
3. Children are innocent! Fact: Go talk to people who have kids. Please. Ask them what kind of mischief they get up to.

But in reality, no, pedophiles are just a group of people. Human beings. Some are dangerous, most are not, and trying to demonize a group of people with the same brush is called stereotyping, and we generally frown on painting an entire group of people with a wide brush if we are being rational.

Three: Pedophiles Are Dirty Old Men

By now you must be wondering what number one is.

You have probably heard this one, usually in conjunction with a trench coat, mustache, or white van.

There was recently a very large sample size study that looked at this (abstract above). The findings? A total of 1,551 people responded, of which 362 did not meet the criteria of the study (1,189 did). 66 of those excluded were female. 53 were under the age of 18. However, the significant findings of the study were this: 87.8% of the sample did NOT have sexual offense convictions, and the average age at which participants reported discovering their sexual attraction to children was 14.24 years. The average age at which they suspected this was unusual was 16.11 years.

In other words, most pedophiles realize they have pedophilia around age 14 and its significance around age 16, and pedophiles are age 14 and up, a minority are women, and most do not harm children.

Two: Pedophiles Are Mentally Ill

So, before I get into the specifics of why this is a lie and why it matters, let me just point something out about mental illness diagnosis: It is a label, mainly created by a rather political process of professionals arguing about what does and does not belong as a diagnosis. So, even if sexual attraction were a mental illness (and at this point I might remind you that homosexuality was once in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health Disorders (DSM), or the US psychiatry bible), that is because a bunch of people felt they needed a label for a specific set of symptoms and criteria.

Let us look closely at the first page of the DSM for the entry on pedophilic disorder:

Note the second half of the first paragraph under “Diagnostic Features.” In short, pedophilic disorder is a diagnosis when someone has distress around their attractions or acts on them to harm a child. In other words, the official diagnosis of pedophilic disorder is primarily a diagnosis of whether or not someone is upset over having an attraction to children, not the attraction itself. Put simply, the criteria A-C are ALL required to make a diagnosis, and I should also point out that because of C, someone can molest a child, have an attraction to children, and not have pedophilic disorder if they are younger than 16 or less than five years older than the victim. But only adults sexually abuse children? Nope, 35.6% of child sexual abuse is perpetrated by juveniles, and as noted just now, most who have an attraction to children do not abuse children or look at harmful sexual imagery.

One: Convicted Pedophile

You hear this one in the news a lot along with “pedophile ring.” For evidence of that, we will look at another study:

This same study also found that the British press lied about the frequency of sexual crime and violent crime to be much more frequent than it actually happened according to police (2% vs 18% and 27% vs 66%, respectively), but I digress.

This is a lie because someone who is a pedophile is defined as having an attraction to prepubescent children (pedophilia, see number 5 at the beginning). Sexual attractions do not automatically mean that people view pornography or that people have sex with the people they are attracted to.

Think about it. Do you have sex with everyone you are attracted to? No, of course not, and you probably do not even think of raping those people. Well, pedophilia is not a crime. Attraction is not a crime. Only behavior in this context, viewing sexually harmful images of children or sexually abusing a child, is a crime.

The blunt reality is that most people who sexually abuse a child are not attracted to children:

Why does that matter? It matters to the millions of people around the world who have an attraction to children, and it matters to child protection professionals, like the Moore Center for the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse.

While our best current evidence indicates that we cannot change sexual attraction, we can form interventions that help people with a sexual attraction to children manage their attraction in harmless ways. This can reduce child sexual abuse by up to 30%, and that would mean that children are not abused in the first place.

Conclusion

So, there you have it. Those are the five lies that society and the media tells about pedophiles, and why it matters that they are lies instead of facts. Do you know someone who might believe the lies? Pass this on. Did you see a media article that spreads these lies? Write the author and suggest a correction.

These facts matter because without them, we cannot support people to remain law-abiding, and people have a harder time finding help when the public believes lies about them, similar to the stigma and judgment levied at people with autism, depression, anxiety, and diverse sexual orientations.

The post 5 Lies About Pedophiles appeared first on Pedophiles About Pedophilia.

Best Practices For MAPs On Social Media

After a certain point, you observe yourself becoming a repetitive, broken record and it becomes time to stop the tape. It was at that point that I wrote a forum post on Virtuous Pedophiles and MAP Support Club, titled, “Best Practices for MAPs on Social Media,” which detailed a number of things advocates must keep in mind. Since that does not seem to have caught much attention in either place, allow me to repeat it here:

This is to introduce methods that do – and do not – work at spreading awareness around the plight of minor-attracted persons (MAPs). For starters, I will talk about the research.

The research says that narrative humanization (storytelling in a way that humanizes the subjects of the stories – that would be us) is the best route to go when reaching people. In other words, it is not arguing or facts that will convince people. Yes, I know, I am terrible at practicing that. I am a great example of how not to interact with people we are trying to convince. I tend to talk to the few in the crowd that favor critical thinking, which in this day and age, is not the majority of people. We need people willing to tell their story (without sharing details which will out your real identity).

For more about narrative humanization, see

Challenging societal negativity towards paedophiles

For more on stigma, see:

Stigma and non-offending pedophiles

Now, let us talk about how this works practically.

1. You will get trolls and haters. Be as nice and polite as you possibly can. Answer their hate with kindness, not in kind. Why? For one, it will irritate them to no end – an added bonus. For another, it will discredit where they are coming from. Other than that, ignore or block them. Most of them are really not worth your time, particularly the people who target you with harassment.
2. Do not talk about anything that would be considered creepy, gross, tactless, or otherwise weird to people when it comes to children. We want to break the stereotype of pedophiles being after kids sexually, and paint a different picture. We cannot do that when people in our community make us look bad. MAPs on social media is a public relations game. If you want to have a place to shoot the breeze and have fun, keep it in private communities. There are people who LOOK for things we say to take out of context and use against us. Do not provide them with this.
3. DO talk about your mental health. Be real with people. Talk about your bad days, your feelings of isolation and depression. Talk about the good days, too. Just be careful not to share possibly identifying information doing it.
4. If you are not comfortable with outing yourself, be wary of what you share in private/public messages with people, and do not consider anything you say with anyone you have not known for a long time as private information that will be kept that way. Anyone can be anything on the internet, and that includes people who appear to be allies. Watch what you share, see point two.
5. Search the word “pedophilia” on your platform of choice, and join in conversations on larger posts with a wide audience (on Twitter, look for a large number of retweets). Be polite, tell your story, and try not to argue while doing it. People do not like to be corrected, so do it as gently as possible. People’s worldviews are fragile, and they do not like them being challenged. Look up the backfire effect.
6. Take breaks when you need to for real life stuff, or when you are too upset to engage with people. You are human, and you are of more value as an advocate when you are taking care of yourself than you are burning yourself out by ignoring your needs.
7. Twitter and Reddit are considered prime platforms, while Tumblr and Facebook tend to have terrible policies in place that get MAPs kicked off. If you like writing, message me and we can talk about you contributing to Pedophiles About Pedophilia, a blog about pedophilia.
8. As frustrating as it may be, part of playing a good public relations game is not talking about any work you might do with kids, young friends, or rights you want as a MAP. These will not be perceived in an innocent way, and could possibly land you in real life trouble. Save it for private communities, not the public, where your words will be received as you intend them.
9. People will always understand more in private, and most who understand will not say so publicly, if they say it at all. What you receive in your notifications is NOT an accurate reflection of how well people are internalizing what you are saying.

Having a presence on social media is entirely your choice. You should first be in a place where hearing hatred and trolling will not be triggering or upsetting to you, or be willing to block, ignore, or tune it out. Take care of yourself, and remember: The goal is to make sure MAPs can come forward to receive peer/professional support, and the public relations spin is that this is to protect children. We are not in a place where we can go beyond that to talk about caring for MAPs for the sake of them being human beings – yet. We will get there, in time, but we need to do that one step at a time.

An article worth considering.

And Another Blog Post

That internally circulated piece did not seem to catch much attention or cause much in the way of change. So, last week, I finally put the finishing touches on another blog post. This one was also about how we, as pedophiles, could be more effective in how we reach people, based in part on three different documents around sexual violence prevention advocacy work. I did my best to synthesize the information from those three reports into one blog post.

Despite this, it did not seem to carry any weight at all, either in the responses or in anyone’s behavior. That precipitated the frustration I pointedly expressed in a private group chat, which then became public one night (the 15th) when I reached the utter end of my patience, both because I partially do not know how to communicate all of this except in a lengthy blog post, and because it feels like people are throwing me under the bus for actually caring about the impact we are having on achieving our goals. Gasp. The horror.

We All Of Us Own This

Ender Wiggin, bless his soul, set much of the ground work for social media advocacy. Some of us have followed his method of arguing with people (like me). Some of us have tried a more individual approach. Some of us try our best not to argue, but find common ground. Overall, we have done the former: Arguing as he used to. I have done the same, and I own that right along with everyone else in our community. But the simple reality is this: Most people are not good with critical thinking, and their skill at argumentation sucks so badly that Todd Nickerson created a Bingo game out of them:

The simple reality is, how we are doing things is the very definition of insanity: Trying the same approach and expecting different results. Arguing does not work well, neither does nitpicking definitions. We take one step forward, get swarmed by the internet, and then take a few steps back. What we are all doing is not working well to see the kind of progress we would like. We all own that, and we all need to address it. While there are things we are doing well, how we argue and how we communicate needs to improve.

My Criticisms

I have repeatedly heard criticisms about our approach. I might publicly respond (or not) by indicating skepticism about how valid the criticism is (at least a few I am about to list are not valid, but do think they need to be heard). I still listen to the criticisms I hear from others and I ask myself each and every time if people have a point that requires consideration. The resounding answer is yes, they do.

Here is a small sample of what has stuck with me over time, regardless of how valid I think it is:

1. Long, drawn out conversations/arguments – make one point, give people information, move on.
2. No one cares about having sympathy or empathy for pedophiles for the sake of caring about pedophiles, it is socially unacceptable to express that kind of opinion, particularly while we use the labels “pedophilia” and “pedophile.”
3. “Pedophilic grammar nazis” correcting every single thing someone says that is incorrect, regardless of how nuanced or who the audience is.
4. Arguing endlessly with known trolls rather than blocking the bad actors and moving on to those who might listen.
5. Making conversations about us, not meeting the person where they are emotionally.
6. Being on social media rather than going after media interviews.
7. Actively refusing to get help, or acknowledge that MAPs might need help. The first reaction to “You should get help,” should not be, in effect, “Lulz, make me, I’m not diseased.”

Those are just seven criticisms I can recite offhand. I have heard many others: Abrasiveness, rudeness, failure to respect boundaries (remember Survivor Culture?), being too flippant, being creepy, etc. I am sure each of us has received a criticism and wondered if the person has a point.

We also have two types of communication that are ruining our ability to effectively change anyone’s minds as long as we use social media as our primary platform of getting our points across. This is not because they are flawed, but because we constantly mix the two both in public and in private, and the end result is that we communicate ineffectively. Those two types of communication are private, internal dialogue (such as the type we express around other MAPs and allies), and public dialogue (when we are talking to others who engage us in conversation).

These two should not overlap to the degree they currently do, because it is to confusing people who might otherwise understand or even publicly agree with what we would like to see once they do fully understand it. Not only does it confuse others, it can also confuse allies, and shut people off to listening. You mention the word pedophilia, and people are already reacting emotionally, then you add the words “not a disorder” and “sexuality” and it is no wonder no one takes us seriously. Someone else’s worldview is a fragile thing and cannot be challenged lightly.

Not The Picture, The Frame

Sexual violence preventionists often talk about reframing sexual violence. Why is this? Because through time, Western culture has gradually made the bulk of society see the issue of sexual violence through a certain lens or perspective (called a frame). The issue is not the picture of what is happening – that never changes – the issue is how people see the picture through their perspective. Most see sexual violence as an issue of individuals who are sexual deviants (perverts, pedophiles, freaks, monsters, you get the idea) who are predisposed to harming people sexually (and can never change). They have an uncontrollable urge, and they will inevitably give in to that urge.

The reason prevention advocates – the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, the Coalitions Against Sexual Assault in most US states, the Association for the Treatment of Child Sexual Abusers and so on – talk about reframing sexual violence is because we cannot simply spout facts at people and expect them to listen. It simply does not work well. We cannot walk back a society-wide lens of viewing an issue a certain way by spouting facts. Nobody cares about the facts. We can use facts strategically to address a particular perspective and tweak it slightly, but we cannot be comprehensive (all the facts/nuances) and strategic at the same time. This means we need a strategy for shifting the lens through which we are viewed.

Our goal, if we want to be effective at humanizing pedophiles, is to shift the lens through which people see pedophiles and pedophilia. That includes using language they will listen to and understand. They currently see those issues through the lens of people who sexually abuse children, and likely always will. We cannot change that with all of the facts regurgitated every time someone is wrong on the internet (yes, again, I am guilty of this). That is simply not going to work. We need to be strategic in how we share our facts, and gently direct conversations towards shifting the lens through which people see pedophiles. This document has many specific examples of how we can accomplish that.

I am afraid I do not, sitting here, writing this blog post, have many specific examples of a conversation redirect that is helpful vs. inflammatory. One came up the other day when someone tweeted that pedophiles need help to not offend – I agreed with it, publicly, and asked people not to argue much:

I then slightly corrected and redirected part of what followed from others nitpicking it:

Where much of society believes pedophiles are ill and need help, they may not be aware that help is difficult to come by or why it is difficult to come by. A next step in reframing that specific lens would be to agree that pedophiles need help, state why that help is difficult to get, and then tackle the issue of not every single pedophile needing that help once that lens has been shifted enough. Obviously, in this approach, we need to have some sort of series of goals mapped out so we know where we are at.

Another example is when we talk about – now wait please and take this in context – rights for MAPs and pedophiles. The average person (particularly “antis”) now thinks I am talking about the right to view exploitative imagery and be sexual with kids. You all think I am talking about human rights, the right to decency and respect. So, let me form two lists, and show you which is more palatable to people. I think you can figure out which is which.

MAPs and pedophiles should:

• Have the right to not get fired for their sexual orientation
• Have the right to fictional materials to help manage their attraction
• Have the right to purchase child sex dolls
• Have the right to be around children without people freaking out

Anyone who is attracted to minors should:

• Be able to work and go to school with those around them knowing about their sexual attractions without harassment or negativity
• Have the ability to manage their attractions using materials that do not exploit or harm children in any way
• Have the freedom to manage their attractions using harm-free methods and toys of any kind
• Be able to simply give a child a hug without someone thinking something inappropriate is happening

Obviously, I said the same exact thing in two different ways.

Moving Forward

It irks me to offer criticisms without offering some kind of possible solution, so I offer you several options for the pedophile community going forward, which may overlap depending on what we collectively choose to do. I expect some of these possibilities to not work at all for most people, and I expect some to be more realistic. These are in no particular order.

1. Form best practices, guidelines, and roles for advocating, and stick to them: In other words, come together, all of us, and form a comprehensive document that addresses how we behave in public (like the earlier best practices suggestions, but formed by everyone and not just me), as well as roles each of us feel we are best at (ie, memes, critical thinking, storytelling, new person orientation, whatever the case may be), such as direct messages vs. being more public, arguing vs. emotion-based stories, etc. This would be a long and involved process that takes time to achieve, and the specifics would need to be worked out.
2. Use the recommendations of other violence prevention programs in regards to advocacy: Obviously this would overlap with point two, but each person could find one document and bring out the best points from it to form best practices.
3. New community member orientation: Actually taking the time to explain to newer advocates what works well, what does not work well, and bringing everyone onto the same page regarding strategy so we do not have rogue or inexperienced people interfering with the overall goals without realizing it.
4. Getting off social media: Yes, you heard me. Get your butt to your local news station or write a reporter, and ask them if they might want to do a story about a non-offending pedophile. Go talk to people. Out yourself, use your real name. None of this can be done without careful consideration and not everyone can do this, but we need to recognize that social media is ripe for allowing bad actors to interfere with our message coming across to people.
5. Block the abusive twats: One of our biggest flaws is that we are constantly undermining the credibility of our message by answering the abusive people and discussing things with them. This is like trying to talk calculus or rocket science with a two-year-old, and we look ridiculous trying. It is okay for someone to be wrong on the internet, particularly when they look cruel in the way they do it.
6. Communicating better and less publicly about strategy: Twitter has group chats. We should use them, since most of us are now on Twitter, and keep the drama to those instead of spreading it all over the internet, undermining our credibility. Also, when we see someone saying something that is either unclear or seems incorrect, we could clarify privately rather than in public. We also need to have those who are serious about advocating and changing things in these group chats. This is why this blog post is being shared publicly, because those who advocate are scattered and this is the easiest place to reach everyone. This very suggestion is about changing that. Yes, lovely “antis,” you heard that correctly: We currently have no centralized place where we talk about strategy as a group of advocates.
7. Stop focusing on differences: We should be meeting people where they are at, and looking for common ground. Right now, the best common ground we can get is wanting to protect children. We are not going to establish that common ground by communicating to people that we are different from them. We do this by defining ourselves by our sexual attractions, among other things. We also do it by making conversations about us.
8. Be aware of trigger words and do not use them: We need to know what words are going to trigger a purely emotional response in most people. These are words like: Pedophile, pedophilia, rape, sexuality, sexual orientation, rights, and I am sure there are more.
9. Learn marketing strategies and use them: Educating people is a fine and wonderful goal, but most people do not feel they need to be educated on this subject. Yes, this is playing politics. Yes, it means rephrasing a lot of things to be more palatable to the average person.

One final suggestion, for those MAPs out there who are still deciding what to do with your life and want to do something for the MAP community, or for allies even: Get a degree in journalism, communications, marketing, public relations, advertising, etc and use that information to clue in those of us who are horrid or lacking in these areas.

What These Suggestions Do Not Mean

Obviously I have been misheard and misunderstood a lot by friends and allies, and frankly, I need to clarify some of what I have said. Do I believe pedophiles should get help for the sake of being human? Absolutely, but that is not something most can swallow yet. Do I think that requires therapy? Not always, but that is not something most people can hear. Should pedophiles be treated with respect? Absolutely, but we need to be seen as human and not monsters before that happens. Should MAPs have the ability to be out and open with who they are without receiving hate or discrimination? Absolutely, but that is years away at best. Do I think I am always right? Hell no, especially not with social stuff.

These suggestions do not mean we spread myths, it does not mean we ignore nuance, it does not mean we want people to see pedophiles as a risk to kids as our end goal. However, if the first step to shifting people’s perspectives is for people to see pedophiles as risks who need help, but do not have help available and need certain things to change to make that help available… and the second step is to work towards a perspective where pedophiles are people who now have more help available and are just people… and so on… then how does that hurt our end goal? So it does mean that we need to meet people where they are at.

It may have some negative consequences on pedophiles in the meantime in terms of their faith in therapy, but that is a consequence that is already happening according to stigma research: Half of pedophiles in stigma research believe talking to a therapist is not safe, and many believe therapists will try to address their minor attraction where that may not be the real issue they need help with, while we also know that therapists do not feel prepared to handle MAP issues.

I am not suggesting that everything we are doing is wrong. I am suggesting we need to take some serious time and work on identifying how each and every one of us can improve how we communicate with the public not just each other, and that includes myself.

Conclusion

What we are doing is not working, and at the rate we are going, progress will be extremely slow and plagued by troll wars – wars that we are willingly participating in rather than blocking people in the vague hope we might convince a silent majority that refuses to risk social scorn to speak up. We simply do not know if that silent majority even exists. We are also fighting each other every time someone does something unexpected or different, rather than peacefully coming to the table and asking the other person about it.

I have done my best to be the most effective person I can be in Ender’s absence: I have done my best to ensure that MAP Support Club (MAP Support Chat’s migration off of Discord and onto Discourse and Rocketchat) and Pedophiles About Pedophilia continue despite his absence (I support the existence of Pedophiles About Pedophilia and my website financially, and both are ad-free), and I try to continue to be a voice on Twitter besides. Each of those three things is, in effect, a job, and I already have employment full-time, and I am married. I work my butt off to make sure this community is at its best, and I do my best to keep us together as a cohesive family that cares about one another. Lately, it has felt like this community takes me for granted.

I was originally going to conclude this by begging for your help in coming together to make these changes. However, I have changed my mind on that. I have already wasted a ton of energy trying to bring people on board with making advocacy more effective (including this post), and caused myself a lot of frustration doing it. If you want to join me in that effort, great! Happy to have you on board. Let us form a Twitter group chat and get to work. I probably cannot do it without you.

If you are going to come at me with doubts about this or to start an argument, then I will not waste my energy on convincing you, and I will block/mute you if need be. I refuse to burn out because I am attacked by allies. You can believe what you want. I need to do what I think is best for all of us, comprehensively, not just making fellow MAPs and pedophiles happy with an echo chamber that convinces no one.

What I am suggesting, and implementing it, might make me the most hated pedophile among our community.

So be it if that means the general public starts to listen and treat us as human beings.

The post MAP Advocacy Needs Work appeared first on Pedophiles About Pedophilia.

Background: Can Sexual Attraction Change?

The science almost unanimously says no, it cannot. While sexual attraction has some fluidity, there is no way to make, for example, a gay man straight. While the gay man might have some attraction to women that fluctuates from time to time, he will always remain attracted to other men. I recently wrote a thread on Twitter describing this, and wrote another article about why acceptance is the only solution available to someone with an attraction to children. I also wrote an article examining the claims of Paul Federoff, who believes (without reliable evidence) that pedophilia can be changed. Suffice to say (and you can read through all that if you like), pedophiles are stuck with their pedophilia. Obviously, it is immoral to act on these attractions in a way that would harm a real-live child. That means, in part, no having sexual contact with children, no viewing images that involve real children in sexual situations (child sexual exploitation material, herein referred to as CSEM), and no situations that can enable these choices. That is the background for this article. 

Fantasy: A Harmless Outlet

Anything can happen in a sexual fantasy, hence the name. Some pedophiles believe that all fantasy is harmless, where some prefer to avoid fantasies that involve children they know personally. Some prefer to attempt to suppress all fantasy (which, as you can read about here, often makes matters worse instead of better).

In a fantasy, you can fly, there can be aliens, there can be whips but no real pain, there can be whatever you can imagine. Provided you understand that fantasy and reality are separate (and most of us have no difficulty understanding that), there are no limits to what someone can imagine. Fiction novels are a very, very vast and broad range of fantasy that many people have enjoyed for centuries. There has often been talk in psychology about the effects of violent fantasy, as seen on television/movies, and to a lesser extent, in books. Psychology has shown that young children are particularly susceptible to violence in media, but for adults, it is mostly a harmless form of entertainment. 

Why Pedophiles Do Not Want To Rape Children (no matter how rudely you put that)

When you take those ideas and you apply them to a sexual attraction to children, that is where you begin to understand that someone with a sexual attraction to children might have the attractions, but no desire to rape/harm a child through any means, including CSEM. They realize their attractions can never be harmlessly acted on with a real child, and so do not want that outcome.

What pedophiles desire in a fantasy is not the same thing as what they desire from reality, because reality can never fulfill their fantasies. While it might be attractive in a fantasy for a child to have full knowledge of sex and talk dirty, that is not the reality of what children are like. While a fictional child in a fantasy could consent to sexual activity (because they are fictional), a real child cannot. What pedophiles want in a fantasy is simply not possible in reality. Why desire something we can never have? 

Fantasy Is Ethical

Put simply, a fantasy is just that: Fictional. Provided someone understands that and does not blur the line between fantasy and reality, fantasy is a perfectly healthy and legal outlet for pedophiles to have. While some countries can restrict fictional content depicting children (not CSEM, but computer-generated art and drawings, essentially), they cannot restrict what happens in a pedophile’s mind. 

Almost no one, thinking Christians included, believe that fantasy involving adults is unethical, provided it does not lead to the desire to act on the fantasy (see prior paragraph). While some evangelical Christians believe that lust is any sexual thought, an actual analysis of the applicable verses show otherwise. Most non-Christians believe that fantasies of adults are perfectly acceptable, sometimes even rape fantasies. Why? Again, because they are fictional, and as long as the person does not have an inclination to act on their fantasies, they are harmless. 

Fictional Materials Depicting Children

If you want the full effect of my discussion around fictional materials that depict children – computer-generated art, manga, etc that do not involve actual images of children – you can read my article about it. Suffice it to say that if the art is not harming a real-live child, it is ethical, even while it remains illegal in some countries (such as Canada and parts of the UK).

As I explain in my article, removing the only harmless form of pornographic material could actually put children in danger rather than keeping them safe, because making such material illegal can lead to a pedophile thinking that the entire world is out to get them, and from there, “What’s the point of keeping kids safe if it’s all illegal anyway?” That mindset is dangerous for obvious reasons. While obviously, fictional materials depicting children should not be made or distributed in a way that could identify real children as their basis, and should certainly not be made of CSEM or CSA, if fictional material is the only pornographic outlet available to pedophiles, and it harms no one, then we should not be restricting it. 

This argument is not restricted to computer-generated art, either, it also includes child-focused erotica, manga, books, and short stories that depict children in sexual situations. If they are fictional, and do not harm a real child, then they should not be restricted so as to give pedophiles a harmless and legal outlet for their attractions. 

The post Pedophiles, Fantasy, Desire, And Rape appeared first on Pedophiles About Pedophilia.

Any of us who’ve been putting ourselves out there as pedophiles for any amount of time have probably heard these types of these things hurled at us more times than we can likely count. I know I have for certain. I’ve been called every degrading name in the book, been told that I’m worse than a murderer, had death curses wished upon me, you name it.

At least a time or two over the years, I’ve had persons more sympathetic to my plight ask me how hearing those types of things makes me feel. The god’s honest truth of the matter is, hearing those types of things makes me feel nothing. Absolutely nothing at all.

The reason the types of insults and curses mentioned above fail to stir so much as a shred of anger, hurt or frustration from within me, is that they have only ever come from nameless, faceless attackers who do not know me and who are speaking from a position of complete and total ignorance. Their words are like a blank shell in a gun. They may make a lot of noise but there is no bullet inside. Much like a gun firing blanks, their empty, noisy words have no ability to harm.

While I am not completely out of the closet as a pedophile, (some like to say out of the toybox), I am out to a good number of people in my real life. Because all of them liked me and knew I was a good guy before I came out to them, they all still feel the same way now. None of them think I’m a monster or any of those other things. That’s good, because their opinions actually matter to me.

Perhaps even more important to me would be the opinions of the people who I knew as children and the opinions of any children I know currently. I am 42 years old, and I have a number of very close friends who are in their early to late 20’s who I also knew and spent time with when they were children and I was a younger man. Some of them I babysat for, others I met through other means. A couple of these people have told me that I was like a second father to them. Some of them now have children of their own who they now trust me with implicitly and their children love me. (GASP!) No, I haven’t told any of these people I’m a pedophile because I’m not sure how that would impact them, but they definitely don’t think I’m a monster, a piece of shit, or what have you, and I’m confident they would defend me adamantly if someone suggested that I was.

So, none of the people in my real life who know I’m a pedo, none of the people I was involved with when they were children, and none of the children I currently know think any of the aforementioned negative things about me, and none of them ever will. Their opinions on the matter are the only ones I value, because theirs are the only ones that are even remotely important or relevant to me. If one of them ever decided, for any reason, that I am a monster, a piece of shit, etc, it would cut me to the bone, but they all love me, so it’s cool.

In summation, if you are someone I love and care about and you have some kind of negative value judgement regarding the type of human being I am, yes, I would take that deeply to heart. If you’re some anonymous troll or pedo hunter/hater, feel free to sling all the hate, insults and curses my way you like. Just know that if your intention is to wound me, you’re wasting your time, because you don’t know me, you don’t understand or really know anything about pedophilia, and your opinion is therefore about as valuable to me as a pile of dry, moldy dog shit.

To be honest, if anything, I feed off that type of hate and negativity. I absorb it and use the nourishing energy from it to get bigger and stronger, like the blob.

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I’ve spent years arguing the anti-contact position, and if I were able to compile all of the things I’ve written over the years on the matter in one place, I might have myself a fairly lengthy little book. However, today, I don’t want to bring up the reasons I’m anti-contact. I’ve done that enough and such an entry would get far too long. No, in this entry, instead of talking about what my reasons for being anti-contact are, I want to go into what my reasons for being anti contact aren’t. One, because that’s a much shorter list, and two, because it’s something there seems to be a lot of confusion about out there.

One thing for certain, is that if you’re speaking as an anti-contact pedophile, the things you’re saying are nearly certain to piss someone off. If it’s not some pedophile-hating, moral-outrage-shouting, myrmidon from the general public, it’s a pro-contact pedophile. Or, sometimes, both at the same time. (Thanks to Twitter, mostly.)

We all know that a lot of non-pedophiles view all pedophiles with absolute contempt, and it often doesn’t matter how anti-contact or how “virtuous” we may be. A lot people out there are just as apt to tell me that they’d like to “cure” me with a bullet through my skull as they are to say the same thing to a pro-contact pedophile. They don’t care. A pedophile is a pedophile and nonce is a nonce. Being sexually attracted to children alone is enough to qualify you as a monster. Also, when you insist to such people that you are anti-contact, the tendency is for them not to believe you. They think you must be hiding your true motives and that you’re just trying to manipulate and deceive them. That’s what pedophiles do, right?

On the other side of this coin, we’ve got the pro-contact crowd. Before Virped, whenever I was speaking in any forum with other pedophiles, that’s who I always found myself sparring with, and I never could seem to get around it. I tried at times to just stay silent on the contact issue, but I always found the things the more vocal pro-contacters said to be so grotesquely wrong that I never could keep my mouth shut for long. I don’t suppose I need to tell anyone that this did not make me very popular in some of those old pedophile groups. Eventually, I always wound up vastly outnumbered, would be shouted down, and would wind up leaving out of pure frustration. Thank god for Virped.

So, I hear the pedo-haters on one side, suspecting that my anti-contact stance is simply a front. It’s an act to soften people up in hopes of one day achieving a more pro-contact agenda. They always seem to find one way or another of making this accusation in so many words as they hurl their righteous indignation my way.

On the other side, I hear the pro-contact folks, assuming that I and pedophiles like me have “turned our backs on the childlove movement” and that we’ve “given up” in hopes that people will finally just like and accept us. We’re traitors, sell-outs, and our treachery knows no limits.

While I can’t ultimately speak for anyone but myself, I want to once and for all state that all of the aforementioned assumptions about my motives for being anti-contact are absolutely, thoroughly, 100% incorrect.

So, I say the following to both the pedo-haters suspicious of my anti-contact activism, and to the pro-contact crowd at the same time. I’m talking to both groups simultaneously here, and I’m going to address all of your misconceptions in a very condensed manner, so pay attention. Take this to heart and know this…..

I have held a solid core belief that adult-child sex is wrong from the beginning. I pretty much became an anti-contact pedophile the very moment I realized children were sexually attractive to me. I’ve never held NAMBLA-like beliefs and gave up on them because they were too difficult to achieve. I do not hope for a future where adults and children can legally have sex and think we can only get there if we “play our hand right” and “play by the rules” for now. I’m not anti-contact because I want anyone’s sympathy and I don’t aim to “normalize” pedophilia. (Whatever that means.) I do not expect a congratulatory pat on the back for not molesting children or for being anti-contact and I’m not just hoping I can get people to like me a little more. My anti-contactism HAS NO ULTERIOR MOTIVE! I am anti-contact because I truly and steadfastly believe it’s what is right, not because I think expressing those beliefs will benefit me in some way, either in the foreseeable or distant future.

(Damn, I just coined a phrase. “Anti-contactism”. In fact, I think we can even just go ahead and take the hyphen out of that. “Anticontactism”. I like it!)

To illustrate my point even further, I’ll ask you all to use your imaginations a little. Imagine, if you will, that there really were such a thing as a crystal ball which could tell the future. Now, imagine I found myself one of those crystal balls and figured out how to use it. If I were to look into that imaginary crystal ball and see that nothing will change in terms of how society views and treats pedophiles/MAPs fifty or more years from now, or ever, I still would not change my beliefs, my involvement with Virped, or the manner in which I conduct myself as a pedophile. I’d be disappointed, but I wouldn’t change a damn thing.

The mere possibility that my efforts, my words, and now my involvement with Virped could keep even one pedophile from acting out with one child at any point ever is enough for me. That’s who I am, that’s what I am, and that’s what I’m about. People on one side or the other can keep on not liking it all they want, just as long as they understand what it is they aren’t liking.

Glad I had the opportunity to clear all this up.

The post The (not) Reasons I’m Anti-Contact. appeared first on Pedophiles About Pedophilia.