On Friday, September 18th, 2020, Twitter suspended MAP Support Club, a support network for minor attracted people:

If minor attracted people are supposed to get help, then why deplatform an account that provides support to minor attracted people and partners with child protection organizations? To understand this question, we must touch on a few things, most importantly…

What Is MAP Support Club?

MAP Support Club is a support chat run by several long-time members of the MAP community, aimed at anyone age 13 and up. In their own words, “MAP Support Club (MSC) is a community for minor attracted people (MAPs) who are fundamentally against child sexual abuse and committed to never harm children.”

What kind of content does MAP Support Club host, and what do people talk about? The occasional television clip, YouTube video, news article, or humor might pepper different sections of the chat, but mostly people write in text form about a wide variety of subjects. There are several private channels for people to discuss trans issues, people who were victimized by sexual violence or other childhood trauma. It is a support chat, and they limit discussions that can interfere with people giving or receiving support.

Their rules to that effect are comprehensive – many minor attracted people have even called them restrictive – and it is a community that uses Microsoft PhotoDNA, a software that scans images uploaded to the server against hash databases maintained by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC). Many members of MAP Support Club were not pleased with this change, but the administrators felt it was a necessary addition because of the potential for bad actors, trolls, and of course the protection of children.

MAP Support Club partners with Prostasia Foundation, who provides hosting and enabled them to use the PhotoDNA software on the Rocket.Chat platform they call home. Members of MAP Support Club talk about a wide range of issues – anything from how members can seek out competent, qualified therapists that they can feel safe with to news and politics. This support platform has helped many people come to terms with their attractions and find appropriate ways to manage the stigma, anxiety, and depression that minor attracted people often struggle with.

In short, MAP Support Club is a place for minor attracted people to be themselves in a world that hates them. If you want more information on how they run things, check out this webinar:

Conspiracy Theorists Attack

On July 22nd, Twitter announced that they would be specifically targeting Qanon accounts because of the potential to lead to offline harm:

Two weeks of intense harassment followed from these conspiracy theorists with claims that Twitter allowed accounts that supposedly promote the rape of children – when in fact these accounts (Pedophiles About Pedophilia and MAP Support Club) are very clear that they are against harm to children and merely want to raise awareness that there is not enough help available for minor attracted people.

These are not the only such accounts:

To the average person, it may seem wise to suspend the accounts of minor attracted people. Yet not only have experts and members of the media (even Psychology Today) said otherwise, Twitter themselves promise that simply being minor attracted or talking about minor attraction is not enough to violate their policies:

This is not the first time MAP Support Club has faced censorship. In 2018, despite the protestations of many experts, Discord shut down MAP Support Club, forcing them to find a new home on Rocket.Chat.

Twitter Must Cease Its Suspension Campaign

Over the course of the last year, Twitter has suspended the accounts of at least 77 minor attracted people – and those are just the suspensions the community is aware of. We know this because we have taken great efforts to log these suspensions, many of which are listed in a prior article and open letter about the efforts Twitter must take to remove hatred and harassment. These appeals have fallen upon deaf ears, it seems.

If Twitter cares about protecting children, then they must do what is right, not what is popular. It may have been popular to have slaves in the 1600’s, but that does not make it right. It may have been popular to confuse minor attraction with child sexual abuse, yet prominent child protection experts are clear that such confusion makes it harder to prevent sexual abuse.

Twitter must cease suspending minor attracted people and instead do more to combat hate and harassment. Twitter must reinstate accounts it has unfairly and inexplicably suspended.

The post Twitter Censors Support For Minor Attracted People appeared first on Pedophiles About Pedophilia.

Are there people online taking advantage of children sexually? Absolutely! But the thing is, this is not as common as some fear-mongering groups would have you think, and once an organization gets you scared enough, you tend to stop thinking critically about the topic. Some suggest that as many as one in five children are solicited for sex online. But several sources debunk that suggestion (here, and here).

While this will rise during the shelter-in-place orders across many states and the new normal of physical distancing to prevent the spread of the virus, the situation is not as dire as some might have you believe, and not only that, there are much better ways to stop the sexual abuse of children than just reporting it when you see it online or find out about it.

Approaches To Sexual Violence That Do Not Work

Right, you would never use a wrench to pound a nail or a hammer on a screw, so why would we use approaches to sexual violence that do not work? Because we have been systemically conditioned to think law enforcement = public safety, and that the police keep us safe. Any person belonging to an ethnic minority group can tell you that is not true. Take for example:

We know that police reaction to sexual violence does not work. Why do we know that? Several reasons:

1. It relies on people reporting abuse. Most do not report the abuse because they know the criminal justice system is often overly harsh and do not want to see their loved one harmed by that system, and most sexual violence – 80% of sexual assault and 93% of child sexual abuse – is perpetrated by a friend or family member, not a stranger.
2. It relies on the idea that most sexual violence is perpetrated by someone previously arrested for sexual crime. In fact, most sexual harm is not perpetrated by those with prior convictions, and most who do have convictions and reoffend do so with a technical violation of their supervision requirements. In other words, they watched porn, or they were late to a probation/parole meeting, or they missed a curfew by ten minutes.
3. Most sexual assault is not, in fact, investigated by the police. This ranges from rape kits not being tested to botched investigations to sexual assault that is perpetrated by police. In some jurisdictions, police can have sex with sex workers in order to secure an arrest/conviction, which many advocates would label sexual assault, not to mention the sexual assault that the criminal justice system turns a blind eye to in jails and prisons.
4. The issue of authority: We are conditioned to trust authority figures like the police and government officials, but these authority figures are not immune to perpetrating, ignoring, or mishandling sexual violence. It also teaches children from an early age that these authority figures get to do what they want with zero consequences, even if what they do is not right.

There are many more reasons why police reaction to sexual violence is inadequate as an approach to dealing with sexual violence. This is not to say perpetrators of sexual violence should not be held accountable and responsible for their actions – they absolutely should! However, most criminal justice systems are not equipped to handle the unique needs of survivors, perpetrators, or the surrounding community. There is some discussion around restorative justice circles being one possibility survivors can pursue.

The Details Of Genuine Prevention

Genuine prevention is not using a misrepresented statistic to scare parents into doing things to protect their kids. It is not painting all pedophiles as if they all harm children, and it is not dismissing the voices of minor attracted people who have said for years that we must do more to prevent abuse – without using us as scapegoats. We cannot simply react to sexual abuse and hope to stop the problem. That simply does not work.

Genuine prevention educates the entire community and provides resources for all – yes, all. Even the “drug addict” you hate because you think they are a blight on society. Even the “criminal” that you think is violent, but really just enjoys a nice cup of coffee in the morning. Even the people you hate. Withholding preventative education because “muh freedoms” or because “we can’t teach kids about THAT” is irresponsible and unethical. So what do education and resources look like?

Education means learning the facts: Why, how, and under what circumstances does child sexual abuse happen? Who perpetrates it? How much of sexual abuse is about sex, and how much of it is about meeting some unmet psychological need? Why do people turn to sexual harm instead of getting their needs met in other ways? These facts must be learned at the community-wide level, and yes, that includes children at age-appropriate levels.

For example, up until age five, children can be taught about genitals using their real names – penis, vagina, anus, breasts, etc – and taught that no one gets to touch any part of their body without their permission, and if someone does, they have a right to tell them to stop or tell someone they trust about it. They can and should be taught about sex at age-appropriate levels: What body parts do what, what healthy friendships, relationships, and boundaries look like, some of the warning signs of intimate partner violence and the signs of an abusive relationship, and beyond.

Every person in the community should know where they can go to find resources specific to a given issue. For example, if someone lives in St. Cloud, MN, they should know that they can go to Anna Marie’s Alliance for domestic violence issues, or to CentraCare for sexual health issues. These resources should be talked about openly.

The Why

Why? What does any of that have to do with preventing sexual abuse? Well, preventing sexual abuse before it happens means intervening before someone gets desperate or distressed enough to be sexual with a child, whether in person or online. It means people need to know what their resources are before they get to the point of distress, because when they reach that point, they will fall back on what they already know and it becomes harder to reach out to new sources for help. Even if all they have is knowing a crisis line exists, that can be a helpful step.

That includes minor attracted people, and right now, for someone to come forward and say, “I have a sexual attraction to children and I want help with this,” risks a myriad of extremely negative consequences.

Some of these consequences are being beaten up by schoolmates, or even by school staff. Being outed to the entire community as a sexual predator, in the absence of any sexual harm done. Losing one’s job or housing. Being reported to the police by a therapist who is not familiar with minor attracted people or how to help us.

So, helping minor attracted people build our own law-abiding communities is an essential part of preventing sexual abuse. This is not because minor attracted people are doomed to offend or because there is any increased risk of perpetration, but because us having spaces to give and receive support is essential for every single human being on the planet. Every one of us does better with support, and shame does not help anyone seek help, it generally pushes people away from it.

MAP Support Club

MAP Support Club is a community of law-abiding minor attracted people dedicated to keeping ourselves positive and in good spirits. We have a robust set of rules, policies, and take care of our member’s privacy. Launching this summer, we will have our own full website with an automatic invitation form process. For now, we rely on Google forms and some of our resources are temporarily listed on our blog. If you are a minor attracted person, please use the following information to join:

1. Go the link.
2. Enter the password: iourKy
3. Fill out the rest of the required fields
4. Optionally participate in some extra questions (for science!)
5. Submit the form

You will want to keep these safety and privacy processes in mind if you join. We do not have an onboarding process for MAP allies and select for ourselves those we wish to add.

The post Covid19, Minor Attracted People… and Genuine Sex Abuse Prevention 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.

First and most importantly, keep yourself safe. This guide has a slew of tips and resources for you. Read all of it before you continue, preferably before you create your first account. Seriously – your security matters, and even if you find that guide dry and boring, I assume for the rest of this that you have read it and understood it and will not be repeating it here.

Secondly, if you have other social media accounts, know your posting style and the topics you cover. If you overlap between your MAP account and your real-life account, people can and will notice. In fact, one MAP was recently confronted by a good friend of theirs because of this, and they ended up having a conversation with all of their friends and family. So… do not overlap completely with your real-life interests. Keep some of them vague, use a different writing style, and try not to put too much personality into your postings.

Interface

Twitter’s interface is pretty straightforward. You write tweets organically, they are called, well, tweets. If you put someone else’s tweet on your feed, that is called a retweet. The heart button is the like button (no, there is no dislike or edit button, sorry). If you “retweet with comment” that is called a quote-tweet.

You will want to check your privacy settings to ensure people cannot find you by your phone number, that you have no phone number on the account, and whatever else is to your liking. It is generally good to turn off Twitter’s quality control.

It is here that we must get into good netiquette. This is the long version. I really, really suggest you read it. Twitter’s enforcement of its policies can seem arbitrary, and many MAPs wind up suspended with zero reason given, but can be tied back to rule violations of varying kinds, so let me get into the short version (you really should still read the long version though).

• Avoid harassing people or hating people or a group of people
  • This one is the biggest. Quote-tweeting someone and attacking them as a person can make you subject to this policy. Address their behavior or content, and try to avoid attacking them as a person. “You’re a stupid bitch” is an easy violation whereas “That was a silly take, did you think about that before you posted it” is no violation at all.
• Avoid using strong language
  • Shush, I know, piss off. I do it too. But the thing is, if you get in the habit of using strong language, you might slip up and use that strong language to hate or harass people, and all of the sudden ZAP there goes your account or you get locked out for awhile.

Harassment

Nothing really prepares you for being harassed, in real life or online. For any kind of severe harassment (particularly when you have a real name of the perpetrator), keep records and report anything threatening to the police. However, there are a few different scenarios I need to address because each have their own separate response:

1. Mass harassment from trolls
   1. Use your block button repeatedly. People can and will report anything you say, and being mass harassed or getting called out before a big-name troll account with lots of followers is a sure sign you need to start blocking people. Do not even bother responding. Responding will only add fuel to their harassment.
2. Someone attempting to hack your account
   1. Prevent this! Go to settings > account > security > password reset protection. Change your password every few months and use a password manager. If you get an email requesting a password reset and you did not request the reset, do not click the link.
   2. Know what phishing scams are and what real emails from real companies look like vs emails that are fake. Read your email headers. Do not just use a password manager for Twitter, use it for every single online account you have.
   3. Read all of this and follow their advice. Again, prevention – do this now.
3. Somebody finding out sensitive information about you
   1. They might use it to force you to do things, they might threaten to share it publicly, etc. In this case, you are best off calling their bluff – share the information anyways! Talk to the people you are closest with, tell them about it. Meanwhile, play along with the person, or better yet, do not reply at all. They get sadistic pleasure out of watching you squirm – so do not give them the satisfaction.
4. Separate from number 3, someone doxxing you
   1. Make your account private (settings > privacy and safety > protect your tweets).
   2. Report it.
   3. Get ahead of it. Talk to friends and family members, tell them you are a minor attracted person and you have no desire to harm kids, etc.
   4. Do not respond to any harassment.

In general, the goal of harassment is to get any kind of a response out of you that the perpetrator can use to further harass you. Their goal is to make you miserable, and they will not be rational. Anticipate some level of harassment and simply block/report anyone being rude or hostile towards you for any reason. Replying and reporting makes the report null and void, though, so try to avoid doing both.

Beyond TOS

Some general advice to keep your Twitter experience tolerable and using the algorithms to your advantage:

• Check the profile of the person you are responding to first
  • Bear in mind that, “Trolls exist. They steal your socks. But only the left ones, what’s with that?” In all seriousness, look over their content, usually 2-3 scrolls will do. Is it largely political and only directed at one person? Is it mostly hate? Then do not bother.
• Use your block button
  • The purpose of the block button is not hiding your tweets from people (anyone can use an alt or browse without being logged in), it is to use Twitter’s algorithms to your advantage. If @JoeyShmoe reports @FredFlintstone, the system will determine if it is or is not a likely violation. If Fred has Joey blocked, the system will not make a determination and respond with no violation. Blocking takes the power out of mass reporting campaigns. Personally, I block premptively whenever I see problematic/harassing accounts come across my feed.
• Remember that like a cop, “Anything you say on Twitter can and will be used against you for all eternity because the internet.”
• Limit your replies to people
  • This may seem counterintuitive. More is better, right? Not always. The further you go in a conversation on Twitter – really anything beyond 2-3 replies – the fewer impressions you get from it, so unless you are having a civil and respectful conversation where you and others are listening to each other, there is no real reason to go beyond 2-3 replies. That time and energy will be better spent elsewhere.
  • Avoid replying to obviously bad takes – advocating death/violence/genocide, clearly abusive insults, etc. Quote-tweeting is fine, but replying has more power to bump their tweet up in the rankings than retweets or likes.
• Cover more than just MAP issues and reply to big-name accounts
  • Especially politicians. Why? Because people interact with big accounts with lots of followers, particularly famous people and your account becomes more visible, particularly if it is popular or controversial.

Twitter’s Double-Standards

You should expect that Twitter will not play fairly with suspensions and rule violations. Twitter’s enforcement of their rules are already arbitrary at best, and the accounts that fling hate and harassment our way often take repeated waves of reporting to finally be suspended where with MAP accounts, all it seems to take is a single violation. Therefore, you must expect that your tweets will be under more scrutiny than other accounts on Twitter, and you must tweet responsibly.

Know Twitter’s terms of service and follow them. Do not bypass suspensions until it has been a month without any reply regarding your initial suspension. Have backup communities – like MAP Support Club, Riot communities, Discord groups, forums, etc – where you can connect with others if your access to Twitter is suddenly revoked.

Community Netiquette

It should perhaps go without saying, but there are some general rules that you should follow. If you are in a group chat or private MAP community of some kind, it is wise to keep the happenings of that community inside that community. Taking screenshots and sharing them outside the community without a very good reason for it – for example, someone is unrepentantly abusing children – is generally grounds for banning in most communities and is viewed with a high degree of scrutiny.

Attacking other MAPs, regardless of the reason, is viewed much the same way. Without a really, really good reason to it, all you do is earn the ire of many people and risk being cancelled yourself for it. Unfounded accusations? Expect people to start hating you. So, be civil. If you cannot be civil, do not engage. Block, ignore, whatever you need to do. Nobody wants to have to wade into your drama and tell you to stop acting like a jerk, myself especially. It gets old. Be mature and walk away if you cannot get along. If we spent half the energy setting a good tone for advocacy that we do bickering, we would get much further.

Miscellaneous Notes On Effective Advocacy

I saved this for last because these are things you can honestly do whatever you like with. Think about it, do something about it, let it inform how you advocate, whatever. You do you!

1. Do not validate myths and bad takes
   1. In other words, do not reply to the trolls, and in particular, do not re-say what they said in different words. All you are doing is reinforcing what the audience thinks and bringing those ideas before a wider audience.
   2. Ignore these bad takes or better yet, come up with a rebuttal that does not mention the source or the myths at all. Simply state your truth and support it as best you can.
2. Try to avoid using the words “pedophile” and “pedophilia”
   1. I generally stick to minor attracted people/person and minor attraction, as it is clearer and harder for trolls to spin. I do not even use acronyms unless my target audience is other MAPs.
3. About overtly stating your DM’s are open in your profile…
   1. …you should probably not do that for a few reasons. If people want to message you they see a little envelope icon if you have that enabled, so stating it is redundant. But more importantly, people might take it as, “Wink wink, nudge nudge, hey, send me some good stuff, know what I mean?” Probably not your goal in doing that, so…
4. Arguing
   1. Look at someone’s profile first. Are they the intellectual type of person? Then argue! Debate! Discuss! But if not, trying to open a discussion with them is really pointless – try to make emotional appeals instead.

So, there you have it, some general ideas on how to stay on Twitter and be effective at spreading the message. If you liked these tips and want more, get a hold of me.

The post MAP OpSec on Twitter appeared first on Pedophiles About Pedophilia.

Twitter began taking this position privately around January, 2018 when a number of experts who now compose Prostasia Foundation wrote a letter to Twitter warning them of the dangers of censoring minor attracted people from their platform. Despite this, there have been several bad-faith attempts and entire social media troll movements designed to harass and even call for the registering and genocide of minor attracted people. These hate-fueled movements are explicitly against Twitter’s terms of service, yet days afterwards, tweets targeting people with harassment and dehumanization remain up after multiple reports. Many of the minor attracted people on Twitter are in the age range of 13-25 years old.

Let me correct the record on several vitally important points:

1. Nobody chooses who they are sexually attracted to, and nobody would desire to be sexually attracted to children. We do not choose this and we cannot change it. Chemical/physical castration does not eliminate these attractions either.
2. Minor attracted people are often severely affected by the effects of the stigma directed towards them, and most report not ever having harmed a child in studies (87.8% according to one study with a sample size of 1,189). Most of us are non-offending, so describing us and ourselves as non-offending may inadvertently give the impression that we harm children. This perception is not true.
3. Yes, we do promote the reduction/elimination of stigma towards minor attraction. Stigma interferes with us getting social and professional help and isolates us from the information we need to understand our attractions.
4. Most minor attracted people have zero desire to be involved in LGBTQ+ issues, even if people are trans, bisexual, etc. Why? Attraction is not behavior, and the wider public has trouble with this concept. We do not feel it is appropriate to confuse the two ideas further.
5. Pro-contact does not mean rapist nor the promotion of rape. It means people who believe there is complexity to whether or not and at what age people can consent and take a position regarding that complexity. Anti-contact means a variety of things, but generally means we do not believe the aforementioned complexity changes the fact that it would be wrong for us to be sexual with children. These are moral beliefs, not behaviors. There is nuance to them. Some of those views do violate Twitter’s policies if expressed, but most do not.

Despite these facts, Twitter has recently decided to repeatedly suspend or lock accounts. These suspensions never give a reason or cite a rule violation, and as a result, many appeal their suspensions only to never hear back from Twitter’s team. Many people get frustrated with Twitter and give up on appeals to create new accounts, and given that their accounts were wrongfully suspended in the first place, who could blame them? The suspensions and restrictions that occurred on January 10th, 2020, appear to be in response to at least two media smear pieces (see here and here). These smear pieces do nothing to spread objective fact and seem to go out of their way to avoid fact-checking, something any responsible media outlet should be doing.

If Twitter truly cares about children, Jack Dorsey and company need to do the right thing by the community of minor attracted people. While I myself agree with Twitter’s policy that people should not “promote or glorify the sexual exploitation of children in any way,” I also believe Twitter is not doing nearly enough to protect an already vulnerable group of people from the throngs of vigilante hate groups on its platform.

The post Correcting Propaganda About Minor Attracted People 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.

Last year, over a period of several months, Lucy Faithful Foundation (a UK-based charity that runs Stop It Now UK & Ireland and is affiliated with Stop It Now Scotland, which recently launched the Upstream Project with the Scottish Government) worked out a deal with Ender Wiggin (then administrator of MAP Support Club) to allow one of their therapists access to provide a trial run of group chat therapy sessions in MAP Support Club, which is a chat-based community for minor attracted people age 13 and up. During the course of those sessions, it became clear that they took a fundamentally flawed approach to fantasy. In short, “Well actually, you are harming yourself because you are reinforcing your attraction to things that are illegal and abusive.” They also recommend methods that most would describe as a form of conversion therapy, which is widely condemned as unethical and harmful.

I realize that for most people, LFF’s advice is not controversial. However, their approach is harmful for three big reasons:

• There is no scientific evidence that the sexual attraction to minors can change.
• There is no evidence that fantasy is directly harmful for most people.
• Shame typically pushes people away from help, not towards it.

While fantasy is certainly not a fit for everyone either, and some can and do pursue a healthy form of purism because it is a fit for them, it would be just as harmful to suggest that everyone should pursue fantasy as it is to suggest that everyone should pursue purism. Their self-help advice does not contain nuance, and that is a big part of the problem.

Not 100%Anonymous

This concern appears to have been addressed, though bear in mind that police form part of the background for LFF and if you use an email tied to your real identity, you are taking their claim at face value:

Lucy Faithful Foundation In A Nutshell

The second line on their main website reads, “We work closely with frontline workers and professionals such as police officers, social workers, and education staff to ensure children are as safe as they can be.” This pretty much encapsulates their approach, which utilizes fear-based campaigns to scare people into getting help. For example:

Their recent push for their new startup Upstream Project was no different, pulling on the fearstrings of emotional parents, homeowners, and families:

While I am happy that prevention is getting attention and I am happy their framing works well for them in terms of getting public support, there are a few different reasons why exploiting fear is the wrong approach to preventing sexual abuse. Firstly, when someone is afraid, they do not react rationally. There are basically three responses to fear: Fight, flight, and freeze. None of those are terribly helpful to preventing sexual abuse. Secondly, when the people you work closely with are the people responding to violence against children, that colors how you see the issue as a whole and this bias is reflected in their vision and the words they use. They like to label people. Second and third sentence: “We believe that changing offenders is one of the best ways of protecting children. Sex offenders must be held accountable for their actions.” Imagine how likely someone struggling with addiction would be to approach a helpline that refers to them as a druggie or a lowlife addict. Yeah, not likely.

While I absolutely believe in accountability for people who abuse or exploit children, labelling the very people you are trying to reach out to is no way to catch the attention of those looking for help. It is the best way to ensure they do not want to come to you to get it. To be sure, prevention needs to have the support of the general public to get off the ground. However, if getting off the ground quickly means ignoring the maintenance of the plane being flown, then many things can go wrong with the plane.

The approach LFF has decided to take is not inclusive and is very similar to how anti-sex trafficking organizations spread the myth that most women in sex work are actually being abused by pimps, when the reality is that most are in sex work through their own choice and do not want organizations dictating their lives. The approach these organizations have taken has resulted in wide criticism and will no doubt eventually lead to the financial ruin of these organizations due to lack of support. Adapt or disband are the eventual outcomes. This begs the question…

What Other Options Exist?

In my years as an advocate, I have touched base with many organizations for many reasons. I list most of these organizations on my website’s resource page for people who have an attraction to minors. On it, you will find several organizations in the UK, mainly Safer Lives, Safer Living Foundation and Stop SO UK. I hold Stop SO UK in especially high regard because they reached out to a number of people with a variety of backgrounds to better inform and train those within their organization to help people struggling with sexual issues. For UK-based resources, I highly recommend these three, though there is also ATSA. I know that all of these outfits take a more individualized approach than LFF.

I should note here that the Stop It Now! US and the Stop It Now! NL program (this is a completely different program than LFF) is very well-regarded in their locations, and are separate from the the Stop It Now! UK & Ireland. In the US, there is also Prostasia Foundation, which does advocacy work, and the Global Prevention Project, which provides direct support.

Currently, the field of supporting minor attracted people, whether for its own merits or for preventing sexual abuse, is not terribly populated, though this has changed over the last ten years and continues to change. I am determined to continue to be a part of that change, both in my connection with MAP Support Club, and in my advocacy activities. I think the organizations that share the framework of wanting to help people for their own sake and for the sake of protecting children in a way that is harm-free should band together, share resources, and tackle the challenges to helping minor attracted people.

I also think part of forwarding those goals absolutely involves holding programs that are not inclusive and attempt to shame people for their sexual attractions accountable for the harm they are causing.

Replies and Updates

Lucy Faithful Foundation finally addressed exactly one of the concerns this blog post raised while the most pertinent one about sex-negative conversion therapy remains. In fact, the head of a sister organization replied with a defense of their approach (PDF):

There are many concerns I have about their reply. In short, they attempt to make cognitive behavioral therapy seem like something it is not (it is not, has not, and was never intended to change fantasy or sexual attraction, it is aimed at negative and unrealistic thoughts). They attempt to claim that there is empirical support for arousal reconditioning and that this is somehow harmful for youth but not for sex offenders – stereotyping the very population they serve.

They also conflate populations in an attempt to support their approach. Bear in mind, their service is mainly aimed at image offenders, the majority of whom DO have a sexual attraction to children (contrary to their claim), so while I certainly do not refute their claim that most who commit a hands-on child sexual abuse offense are not sexually attracted to children (I put this on my website), I absolutely do refute the idea that their services are mainly aimed at this population. Indeed, their advice around fantasy is mainly aimed at reconditioning arousal, not treating each situation differently (there is no separate module for those with a sexual attraction to children and those with no such attraction, for example).

I have personally spoken to several people who have utilized their self-help resources and also have an attraction to children. They largely found the advice inapplicable to them and that their service did little to address their specific situations. I know from talking to many people that deterrence generally does not work well at all and just inspires more shame, which for many is part of the cognitive-emotional cycle they go through when viewing illegal images.

As of February, 2020, I must continue to advise that people seek help elsewhere. I personally have self-deluded myself at one point into thinking I was no longer attracted to children. I even attempted to view age-appropriate adult pornography to essentially utilize the very same advice this organization gives. I found that it was like trying to fight a rubber band, constantly snapping back to only occasionally finding adults attractive. I have been through the evidence. I find their claims lacking and their lack of nuance to be too much of a barrier to recommend their services to any minor attracted person.

The post Alternatives To Lucy Faithful Foundation’s Sex-Negative Approach appeared first on Pedophiles About Pedophilia.

Original audio.

Candice:

Welcome to the prevention podcast, I’m your host, Candice Christiansen. Our goal, at the prevention podcast, is to talk about dicey, controversial issues related to preventing sexual abuse. Why? Because it needs to be said. Topics include the biology of pedophilia, risk, need and responsivity principles related to non-contact and contact sex offenders, researchers in the field of sex offender treatment, and more.

Join us bi-weekly, and let’s talk about it.

Candice: Welcome to the prevention podcast, I’m your host, Candice Christiansen. As many of you know that listen to our podcast, we have been interviewing all kinds of people. I think we’re globally known at the moment for our discussion of MAPs (minor attracted people) and it’s quite controversial, although we have also interviewed researchers, we’ve interviewed other prevention projects and other organizations who advocate for primary prevention of child sexual abuse.

Today, I am absolutely honored and excited, we have Janavi who is a therapist for the primary prevention program in India. So, I want to welcome you, Janavi, to our podcast.

Janavi:

Thank you, Candice, so much for having me here today.

Candice:

We absolutely love this because there is this global effort of primary prevention of child sexual abuse, so I am so happy that we can interview you, Janavi, and my thought is, we really want the world to know about your program, especially individuals in India. Let’s go ahead and get started. Tell us about your program, your primary prevention program.

Janavi: Thank you so much, Candice. Before I go into our work, though, I would like to spend some time to shed light on the culture and context in India. I think it plays a huge role, even for people in India to reach out to us for help.

So, as you might be aware, child sexual abuse within India is a really grim reality. From official statistics, we have one in two children and they’re going through some form of abuse before they turn 18. That means that India probably has the world’s largest number of sexually abused children just on sheer quantity.

In spite of that, a public conversation about CSE (child sexual exploitation) only started 15 years ago. It’s not something that’s discussed openly in any forum. It started 15 years ago through a TV program. An important factor of this is that sexuality overall is viewed as a big taboo in this society. Any conversation about sex and sexuality cannot happen in open spaces, to the effect that within many states within the country, providing sex education in school to children is banned.

So, within this context, even for people who experience something different, it’s so difficult to come out and talk about it. The few organizations that do work on child sexual abuse of course focus completely on prevention, through awareness amongst children, but only focusing on personal safety education, or rehabilitation after victimization.

So that’s where there’s this big gap within the prevention approach where the other end of the spectrum, actually working with people who might be at risk to commit offenses, that does not happen at all. That’s where the genesis of the Don’t Offend network, as we call ourselves, is born. We thought there was a need to look at primary prevention from the angle of people who might be at-risk to act out against children. We don’t want to wait for victimization to occur at all. We want to put the onus of responsibility on adults, to prevent their behavior from happening.

Candice:

If I could just say something, Janavi, I’m so happy that you’re out there as well. That’s something that we have been advocating for here in the United States, and while we have support by other therapists, sex offender therapists, researchers, it’s so fascinating to us here in the US how many people don’t understand that it makes more sense to provide preventative treatment to  those individuals who are at-risk before they cause harm to a child than wait until after, so I love that you guys are out there, I just love it.

Janavi:

Thank you so much, and it’s great to know. I think we are the only program in India, really, who have taken this approach and of course, I’m sure you do as well, have a lot of trolling happening, tell us that this does not work, Indian culture does not allow this, and you’re promoting and protecting people with pedophilia. That’s not really the case. People with pedophilia are not all offenders, it’s a sexual preference. We don’t want to push them into the dark, we don’t want to push them inside a tunnel so that their stress levels are so high that they cannot then reach out for help or end up offending as a result of that.

Candice:

Yes, we are absolutely on the same page, absolutely on the same page with you on that.

Janavi:

So, let me tell you a little about the program itself. The Don’t Offend India network was started in 2016, and they are a group of experts from India and Germany who come together to provide psychotherapeutic treatment to individuals with pedophilia and hebephilia in India.

To start with, our work is based on the expertise of the Prevention Project Dunkelfield in Germany, which is the Don’t Offend program, the original Don’t Offend program that was started in Berlin, but now across 11 centers. It hinges, in India, it hinges on self-identified and self-motivated people with attraction to children, both with pedophilia or hebephilia, and encouraging them to reach out to us for help through two means: We have an online website, which is troubled-desire.com/en/.

They can come in, do a self-assessment there, and if they have never offended, then they are given our contact details for therapists in Mumbai and Pune, which are two cities within India. We also have a toll-free number where people can reach out to us with any questions, or if they want to know more about our program, mental health professionals or individuals with pedophilia, they can call us. We’re operational between the hours of 10AM-4PM five days a week. We accept calls from all over India.

We are actually very, very new. Like I said, we just started in 2016 and the groundwork we are doing is a lot of work around creating awareness within India. We are largely focused in the cities of Pune and Bombay where our team currently is. We do awareness through workshops with mental health professionals, medical professionals, civil society organizations, parents, schools, making spaces to explain to them the difference between pedo/hebephilia and child sexual abuse.

The challenge for us is to be available to have sensible, open discussions within the community to help them see this differently. Because sexuality is such a big problem, child sexual abuse of course is something that is viewed as extremely grim, it is very difficult for people to see that they’re not trying to help monsters as they view them, right, it’s just individuals and people who need help and cannot be shunned just because they have a certain sexual preference.

Candice:

I’m really curious, I want to ask you this, because we have come under a lot of fire recently with some fake news about our project, and again, with trolls so on and so forth, claiming that we’re making up the term hebephile and even ephebophile, and so will you educate, because I know what the term is, but for those listeners, I want people to know that Janavi and I are not making that term up, so for those listeners, Janavi, would you mind educating our global community on the difference between a pedophile and a hebephile?

Janavi:

So, sexual preference for children is viewed in terms of body type. When somebody is attracted to or has a preference for a child who has a prepubescent body, then we say that that person has pedophilia. Similarly, somebody who is attracted to just pubescent, just after puberty when they’re not completely an adult, that person is called someone who has hebephilia. Just for the listeners, please know that we do not stress on ages of children as much as body size, simply because people at different ages can be at different body types. A 12-year-old can still sometimes have the body scheme of an 8-year-old, for instance, which is then a pre-pubescent body scheme.

Candice:

Will you say that one more time Janavi, because I think that’s a really big distinction that I have not heard of, so I really want people to hear that again.

Janavi:

When we look at sexual preference for children, we talk about body types and not about the ages of children, because sometimes a 12-year-old can still sometimes have the body type of an 8-year-old. If someone is attracted to a body type of someone before puberty, without no growth of pubic hair for instance, or hair in the chest region, flat women, those people will have a sexual attraction for people with prepubescent bodies, which is pedophilia, or sometimes people can have a sexual attraction or preference for children whose bodies have just hit puberty. So, slight breast growth in women, some pubic hair, and that would be hebephilia. Please note that the focus is on the body type, and not the ages of children.

Candice:

Thank you for explaining that again, I think that’s really important for our global community to hear. By us talking about that, for those of you who are wondering, we’re not promoting attraction to children by any means, we’re giving these descriptions and examples so our global community can understand the difference between pedophilia and hebephilia for treatment purposes, so thank you.

Janavi:

No problem at all. Coming back to a little bit about what we are doing, awareness of course is one, and it’s really important even for the listeners that pedo/hebephilia is only one of the risk factors for CSE. It is not the only thing, it is not that everyone with pedo/hebephilia are actually going to commit offenses against children. What we are doing is providing a safe space in which people can actually come out and talk about it and the distress that comes from having a sexual preference like that can be resolved in a more safer environment.

Candice:

What do you say to those individuals, and we call them trolls, who would say that, “Pedophiles are sick, they are destined to offend,” these are things we get all the time, “They should be murdered, there’s no way they can change, it’s good that they’re in distress…” what would you say to a person who says that?

Janavi:

I think in a space like that is where your empathy and expertise and knowledge all comes in, to say that just because someone has a preference does not make them a monster. People are not guilty of their desires, but they are responsible for their behavior. That’s what we are trying to teach people, to be more responsible for their behavior so they do not commit offenses based on their impulses.

Candice:

Well, that’s excellent and I love how you just said that, that people are not guilty for their desires. I get, again, that we’ll have people listening to this who will argue and say, yes they are, I think the educated global community of treatment providers who know how to treat this population and researchers, as researchers we can all say that what we’re doing is a really good thing.

I bet in India like you said, it’s very controversial because sexuality and sex is taboo, so here you are, the only organization, you’ve got Troubled Desire, which is a fantastic website, I want people to hear, it’s troubled-desire.com/en/, if you have an attraction you can go on and take an online anonymous survey, there’s lots of support on there, please check it out. That’s one of the websites.

So, lots and lots of help out there. How many people, and I don’t know if you’ve tracked this quite yet, since 2016, how many people have you served so far?

Janavi:

So we actually, the troubled desire website was officially launched only last year (2017) in October, before that we were only doing some groundwork to understand where India is, and how ready it is to let us work in this space. Also, considering the legal system because we do have some trouble in terms of the sexual offense law not agreeing with some of the work we do. So, since we launched, online on Troubled Desire we have 143 people who have reached out for help.

Candice:

That’s great.

Janavi:

Although, only 27 of them have completed the assessment tool, so until you complete the whole assessment tool on the website, we don’t give them further information to reach out to us, since we are only focused on non-offending pedophiles.

Candice:

That’s great to know too, since The Prevention Project that we have here in the U.S, we’re with you on that. We do not support the pro-contact pedophiles who believe that it’s okay to have sex with a child at all. We do an assessment to make sure that this person is non-offending, that they don’t want to harm a child, but are in distress and want to make sure they’re safe. So I appreciate that too. Because I think, again, that some folks in the global community have this misunderstanding that when we say non-offending pedophile, that doesn’t even exist. But it does exist, there are people who don’t want to harm anybody, that do want space to talk about it, versus the pro-contact pedophiles who are saying that it’s the laws that are screwed up, and that they should be able to have sex with kids, and kids want that. Which we disagree with.

Janavi:

Yeah, absolutely. We do not support offending behavior in any way, and in fact, based on the law in India, we also mandatorily report anyone who comes to us and says that they have offended against a child.

Candice:

That’s good to know as well, we’re a clinical team here as well, and we in the U.S. have the same mandatory reporting laws. Now, for those of you who are non-offending pedophiles listening to Janavi in India, or even in the surrounding areas, or if you’re in the U.S., I want you to hear my say this: an attraction does not automatically equal molesting a child, and so please know if you need help, you can still reach out to us. If there is an identifiable victim and you admit to having contacted a child and sexually abused that child, of course we do need to report that, we’re mandatory reporters. However, if you reach out in distress because you have an attraction to a child, we are going to help you. Anything you want to add to that Janavi?

Janavi:

No, absolutely. We are not guilty of desires, you are responsible for behaviors. So, please do reach out if you have attractions that you’re not sure of sometimes, as well.

Candice:

Yes. So with these individuals, 143 people who have reached out to you, the 27 who have done the assessments, do you know if they are all in India, or surrounding areas? Do you have that demographic?

Janavi:

So, actually, those 27 are in India. Because Troubled Desire is a global tool, we are tracking it only based on the countries they are coming from. Otherwise, it’s completely anonymous and confidential, we do not get any other identifying information, except for the parts of the world they are arriving from. These 143 people who have sought help online are from India.

Candice:

Wonderful. I just want to stress that again, we have so many individuals who listen to us from all over the world, all 7 continents, numerous countries, you can go to https://troubled-desire.com/en/ and take an anonymous assessment if you feel like you need support. And my guess, Janavi, is that if they’re not in India so they can’t come to you for help, you can refer them to the places, to the “Stop It Now” organizations which are in several countries, the Prevention Project Dunkelfeld if they’re in Germany, our program in the United States, B4U-ACT has resources in Maryland. Is that correct that you can refer?

Janavi:

Absolutely.

Candice:

Okay, I want people to hear that, because I think sometimes what happens is people think, “what’s the point in going on Troubled Desire and taking this assessment if I’m not in India?” Right?

Janavi:

Right. Also, to add, the website besides the self-assessment tool also has self-management tools for those who might not have available resources in the areas they live in. So we also have some programs which you do offline with people, also available online.

Candice:

That’s wonderful. And I’m looking at it right now, so for those of you listening, it’s below the home page, and it has a session overview, and there’s several sections for online self-management. I cannot stress that enough, and I’ll post this on twitter where we have a big following of individuals who pass our information along. I’m going to share this because I think you’re right, the cost sometimes gets in the way for a lot of people with pedophilia, hebephilia, even ephebophilia who want support. I think because we have limited projects globally, that can get in the way. So, what a wonderful resource you have here online.

Janavi:

Thank you so much.

Candice:

What else would you like to share in terms of your prevention programs, your education on sexuality and sexual abuse prevention… what else would you like our global community to know?

Janavi:

So, just a couple more things with what you said also. You’re right, cost can sometimes be a limiting factor, and the service that we provide in India is completely free of cost. So, people can just reach out to us and we will provide them services at no cost as all.

Also, one of the other limitations and challenges in India is the number of languages that people speak. Unless you are an English speaking, urban, literate population, it might be limiting for people to reach out to us. That’s something I’d like to stress, and tell people that we do have services in Hindi and Marathi, which are two of the local languages in the state here, and the website, https://troubled-desire.com/en/ is going to soon be released in a Marathi version so more people can access it.

Candice:

Wonderful, I am so excited to hear that because like you said, there are so many barriers, not just the fear of coming forward and acknowledging an attraction to a child, and that is a huge fear, but then also the cost, like you said, and the language barrier. For those listening, please know that this is not just for English speaking individuals who live in India. There’s definitely support out there for the different languages. Please, if you need help, come forward and get that support.

And I want to add, Janavi, because I am a survivor of child sexual abuse, I make that very known in our community, especially when the trolls come at me and claim that I’m supporting child rape, which is completely absurd. But I can only imagine an individual who has an attraction to a child, who is terrified because they don’t want to hurt anybody, and therefore they need someone to talk to about that. Getting those tools in India, because there is so much taboo around the topic of sex and sexuality, what are you doing in India to say, hey, we are are here and we are available to offer you support?

Janavi:

So, right now, our focus has largely been through an awareness campaign, also because we were worried as well about the trolling that might happen if we put the word out there without an explanation of what hebephilia and pedophilia actually mean. We’ve been spreading awareness through our circles, among mental health professionals, medical professionals, sexologists, psychologists, all of those groups, to tell them about their existence within India, especially within the cities we are in. Now, we have also created a video advertisement, which we are going to put out there for promoting through marketing campaigns that will reach out and tell them that the attraction is all right, but if you have this, please do reach out, seek help, and help is available. It’s not released yet, but it’s going to be out in the next month or so.

Candice:

Wonderful, and I can’t stress enough how important the prevention efforts that all of us are doing are, because I want our global community to hear this. We believe, and I know this is the case for you, and the other prevention projects out there, that you can absolutely prevent a child from being harmed if you intervene beforehand…

Janavi:

Absolutely.

Candice:

…instead of waiting until there’s a victim, and waiting until a crime has been committed and a child has been hurt. This is such a wonderful resource, not just in India, but for the global community. I am so excited that we were able to connect. I hope that those listening in India, and the entire world, know especially about https://troubled-desire.com/en/. Please go to that website, there’s so many great resources for you, and there’s also support if you need therapy and you’re in India, with people that speak different languages. So, please don’t let these things be a barrier, and if you’re unsure, please reach out and get some support.

Janavi:

And you can call us on our toll-free number in India; it’s [Note from TNF: It is best to visit their website. There were some inconsistencies in the original audio, and I do not want to give wrong information.]

Canidce:

Thank you. I just love that you guys are a resource. So, Janavi, is there anything else that you feel like the global community deserves to know about  your prevention program, and your Don’t Offend India online network of resources?

Janavi:

Just everything that I’ve said, and that we are looking to expand and collaborate within India as well, so if more of you Indians who are listening to this, mental health professionals maybe, do reach out to us, on our website, our email, or our social media pages. We’d love to connect with you. We are trying to build a community within India who can provide these services.

Candice:

Well, thank you so much, Janavi, for taking the time to be on our podcast today. We will definitely promote the work you are doing, I know there are people out there, we have a following in India, so I know that there are people out there listening today that need you as a resource, both in India, and in our global community. So I just want to thank you again, it’s been an honor to interview you for our podcast.

Janavi:

Thank you so much, Candice, for having us, and letting us talk about our work, and our program, and we do hope that together we can make a difference in at least a few people’s lives.

Candice:

Absolutely.

All right listeners, thank you so much. Today was such a wonderful conversation with Janavi from Don’t Offend, the Indian network. We are slowly coming to the end of our Season One, so stay tuned, we’ve got some really great interviews coming up along with this one that you’ll be listening to, and let’s continue to have this global conversation. Until next time, listeners, thank you.

Thank you for listening to this week’s podcast. Please visit http://theglobalpreventionproject.org/  to learn more about our project and programs. Please remember to subscribe to our podcast at https://thepreventionpodcast.com or iTunes. See you next time!

The post TGPP Transcript: Janavi, Don’t Offend: India appeared first on Pedophiles About Pedophilia.

I hurt a child I cared about. Yeah, I know, if I cared so much, why’d I hurt the kid? Lemme get there. I wanna tell you why that happened, cuz I think you can learn from it. I wanna share it, because I hate what I did, and I don’t wanna see it no more.

A normal childhood

…whatever the hell normal means, I’ve got no idea. But I went through special education and was eventually “mainstreamed” to be included in normal classrooms both with and without an aid present. I saw therapists throughout the entire time, and psychiatrists who prescribed lost of medication to try to help me. They all said I had ADHD, then it was ADD. All I know is, it’s hard for me to sit down and write something like this, and writing it took over a month.

No, I don’t remember no abuse in my childhood. I always wondered if I did, what with having pedophilia and all, but no. No memories, nothing shady running in the family, none of that. Not sure why I have pedophilia. That’d be the sexual attraction to kids, not th abuse of one.

I had loving parents who had their flaws just like y’all do, I enjoyed many of the interests a typical boy likes — frog-catching, space, science, sea critters, climbing trees — and I went to the same schools you did.

My parents divorced and moved when I was 9, but there’re lotsa kid from divorced families. I was bullied for not liking sports and for being in special classes for my ADD, but I had some support with that. I had issues with my mother and the people she dated, but many people have issues with their parents for one reason or another. My parents eventually remarried, and I didn’t really like both step-parents. They both got on my nerves in different ways, and drove me nuts with trying to win my trust and shit. But everyone has problems when their parents are divorced. Ain’t nothin’ special about divorce.

Recognizing I had pedophilia

About the only thing that was weird was I noticed a sexual attraction to little boys, which I didn’t realize as such until I was 16 years old or so. While ya’ll were going through puberty and you were liking what you like, my brain was developing attraction to boys. The signs were there as early as 12–13 years old, but I didn’t have words to describe what was happening, even if I had understood it. The first few years, it was not a big deal. I did not see it as a problem, because I never thought I could or would act on it. I mean, to me, being sexual with a person was marriage, and no way could anyone marry a child. So… okay, who cares? Nothin I did to choose it, nothin I can do to change it. These days, I accept it, cuz’ there ain’t much else I can do.

“Help” from clueless folk

So, when I was in high school (senior, I think it was), I was discovering that people didn’t like people that liked kids, and it was dawning on me what that really meant. To me, liking kids was a good thing. Who wouldn’t want to like kids? Kids are great, and working with them is a blast. But there were them other words in the news reports about the church thing, like “pedophile” that had me thinking, cuz’ people use that word to describe abusers, not just people with an attraction. Now, like a good Christian, I went to a Christian high school and a Christian college, and I tried to sort this shit out.

It was dawning on me with the Boston churches that was covering up abuse that when people talk about liking kids… that ain’t really what they mean, they mean sexual-like, you know, being a pedophile. I started thinking… maybe my sexual thoughts are something I should get help with, some guidance from a mentor. Well, long story short, that guy I asked for help from had no idea what he was doing, didn’t pause to figure out where I was at in how I thought, and basically, he saw me as a risk to children. That was final year of high school, and it didn’t help one bit.

The mentor I ended up with, and his friend who were self-described experts in helping men of faith with sexual shit, decided that I would blow up and hurt the people around me. He labeled me a ticking time bomb. A lot of other things happened, but I stuffed everything I was talking to them about, primarily because of their reaction. I stopped talking to people about it. I kept it a secret, and it festered for years until I was in college, trying to manage school, a job, staying fit, and working with kids all at the same time.

Where’s that lead, you think?

It leads to a long series of shitty thoughts and decisions, duh. I had no support, I tried to hide what I was struggling with, and it became an issue that started taking over my thoughts. Why? Because I let it take over my thoughts. Before, I thought that was beyond my control, but looking back, it was a choice, even if I saw no other choice than to figure it out on my own.

I started looking at child porn, to have an outlet that was “not really harming a child.” to my mind. But I was convinced that I was doing the right thing for the right reasons. To me at the time, it didn’t hurt nobody, but it was hurting me an’ kids too. I only realized that years later. Cops here knew about all that, but never charged me, thank God. I guess they thought convicting me of sexual assault of a minor was good enough.

The real reason for the porn were for meeting needs I was neglecting (I will get to those needs in a moment), and I was spendin lotsa time on it, more and more as college went on. As a result, they was slowly changing how I saw being sexual with a child. My thoughts and beliefs on being sexual with a child went from it being an utter impossibility, to possible and even permissible with the right child who was okay with it. I became a pro-contact pedophile, cuz’ I thought it was okay in the right situation and the right kid.

What was once a pebble was now becoming a mountain.

OVERWHELMED an’ alone with a boy

By this point, I would spend hours every week on downloading new child porn to view, because I thought it was helping me (thank God they never charged me with that shit). I was in a situation where I was constantly neglecting my needs and trying to ignore what I needed in regards to my ADD: Quiet, less time around people and distractions, all that shit. No, my highly social job, weekly exercise classes, and going to church were the opposite of what I needed. They didn’t help me focus. Too much distraction, too much going on.

Spending time with an 8-year-old boy, whom I knew through his older brother at my exercise group, ain’t what I needed. I was piling social activity after social activity on myself when I needed more alone time and quiet, less distraction.

I couldn’t even feel how overwhelmed I was, and my belief was that I needed to help people, which led to ignoring my feelings more. My needs didn’t matter, cuz’ I needed to help people like a good Christian. These issues were building and building, and putting me in a place where I was totally overwhelmed, and I had no idea that I even was overwhelmed. That frog analogy, where the frog jumps out if the water’s boiling, but stays in if the heat gets turned up slowly? I’m that frog. No one suddenly decides to just abuse a kid. It’s a process. Least, it was with me.

Eventually, I began sexually abusing that 8-year-old boy, because I convinced myself that it would help him learn more about himself and about hygiene. I asked him, that first time, if I could put lotion on a rash he had on his groin. I deceived both him and me into believing my touching and looking at his penis was about him being healthy. Even if he was willing at first, it was still undeniably child sexual abuse. He had no way of properly consenting, which makes it child rape. Now, some folk don’t think I should be calling it rape, cuz’ there was never penetration, but what else do you call it? Mo-lestation? Bullshit. Where I’m from, if it ain’t with permission, it’s rape. So yeah, I raped a child I cared very much about, because my decisions had put me in a really dark place.

I was trying to meet some needs by shit that wouldn’t ever meet them: Needing to be alone more, needing less noise so I could focus, needing to feel comfortable in my own skin, needing to pay attention to how I was feeling, self-care, looking only at the shit I can control, all that stuff. One of the constant phrases we repeated while in treatment was, “Our best thinking got us here.” That was very true: My attempts to solve my own problems, without support, led to five years of bad decision-making starting when I was 16 asking that stupid mentor for help that led up to the sexual abuse of a child I cared deeply about.

Whoa… a child molester who doesn’t minimize?

Yeah, a child molester who fully understands the gravity of his actions and regrets them. My actions were confusing to the boy I hurt, and were not helpful, as I deluded myself into thinking. I don’t care for my stupid behavior, and my pledge is that it ain’t never gonna happen again, because where I used to think that I was out-of-control, no, my behavior’s a choice. I have become an anti-contact pedophile because of my choice to sexually abuse a child and the aftermath that choice caused.

So then what?

So, I realize I’m jumping around here, but I actually manipulated the boy into telling. He was the kinda kid that would do the opposite of what you told him if you told him to do somethin he shouldn’t. So I told him not to tell anyone what I was doin. He told a teacher, the teacher told the cops, and I got a call from the family wanting to know what was what. ‘Bout a week went by, very depressing week mind you, and I had a dream where I was hurting another kid, and I just lost it. I tried to off myself with a bag over my head, and it didn’t work, so I called the cops. Yeah, real fucking smart, but I had noone else I could ask for help. That’s how shit hit the fan.

Over a few months, after spending a month in jail, I went through psych evals, a few court dates, and finally, I was sentenced to ten years on probation with a stay of imposition. They said if I kept all my requirements, I’d end up with a misdemeanor instead of a felony. So I worked my ass off to understand all the things I needed to do. Got off probation in October.

My requirements were somethin like this:

No contact with anyone under 18 for the purposes of gettin’ to know ’em

No porn of any kind

No social media or shit that could lead to contact with minors

Keep all my probation meetings, an’ first they were monthly, then every other month, then at the end I had to check in once a year

Complete sex offender therapy

Get gainful employment or make good efforts

Had to have internet use monitored to make sure I did my shit right

My conditions also notified me of my duty to register as a sex offender, and what happens if I don’t

If I just knew then what I know now…

Many sex offenders I knew in treatment constantly said they wish they knew what they learned in treatment before they hurt someone. It ain’t just some shit about how they wish they hadn’t been caught, the people I knew really valued what therapy was teaching and wish they learned that shit before they fucked up. I know this from from goin’ to sex offender treatment for near two and a half years and seeing about twenty guys who now live their lives in a healthier way, at peace with what happened, but still wishing they knew then what they know now.

That was the origin for my finding people on the internet: Wanting to make that help more available before someone fucks up like I did. I wanted to see if there were other pedophiles who spoke out about this, and I found a shit-ton. Ender, Robert, Jack, Daywalker, and Nigel over in France… lotsa people talk about it. Hopefully my story can help people too.

Yeah, there were a few guys who didn’t make it. One had a relapse with drugs and thought he needed to focus on that, not the sexual acting out he did on them drugs. Another got kicked out for pot, a probation violation. Another, because he couldn’t follow the requirements, but I hear he went back after he did what he need to. But that’s three people out of twenty, an’ from my understanding, the norm for sex offenders is staying compliant and keepin our toes in line. All that shit you see on the news? They only report the bad shit, never the good.

What is the point here?

The point is this: It wasn’t a single, sudden decision that led to abusing the boy. It wasn’t as if I woke up one day and decided to be sexual with a child. It weren’t out of a desire to cause pain to someone and get pleasure from that. It was a process that, for me, took five years. That time between the start of poor decisions and neglecting mental health and the sexual abuse of a child means that my actions were preventable. If someone had the right response and help, I woulda leapt at it. We need to know help is out there. My therapy program was connected to AASECT, the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists, and they can help people with sexual issues. I seen a good website, www.virped.org that’s got all sortsa good shit. So, if you’re dealing with pedophilia, they can help, and they don’t judge you.

But my point is, I’m a human being, I ain’t no monster, and people liked me and cared about me an’ they still do. I wasn’t no freak in no trench coat waiting to nab a kid off the street, I was the guy everyone loved. I volunteered, I worked, I did all the shit a normal person does. If you’re looking for the monster, you ain’t gonna see me, the guy that goes to a Christian church and a Christian high school and a Christian college and helps with the kids.

Wait… human?

The idea that someone who sexually abused a child is human? Most people call bullshit. The idea that sexual abuse is not a result of what the media has caricatured sexual abuse into, but the result of complex mental health needs that could be addressed before the abuse happens? Again, bullshit to most folk.

These’re mind-blowing ideas that most people are not prepared to accept. Sorry to disturb you, but I think those ideas can help children avoid the sorta pain I caused. I think we need to be real in how we talk about these issues, even if it’s uncomfortable and messy. Why?

What I did to my victim was evil and wrong, and that is why I want people to learn what I have learned, without the pain I caused, the lessons I learned the hard way… before a child is raped, abused, or molested. No one should have to go through what I put that boy through. No one should have to go through what I went through trying to get help and being called a time bomb, and being turned away from that help. It don’t help no one, and it played a hand in me hurting the kid. I own the shit I did, but it didn’t happen in no vacuum.

Abuse is shit that needs to stop, an’ the laws we make ain’t doin that.

The post Why someone sexually abuses a child appeared first on Pedophiles About Pedophilia.

Right now, there are places in the world where a certain type of children are being bought and sold like common commodities. They are shipped from place to place, in secret, often internationally. They are exploited and used without any regard to their feelings or well being. They are provided for the sole purpose of servicing adults sexually. Their little bodies subject to any and all manner of unspeakable acts, used as if they are nothing more than toys.

Okay, full disclosure, these particular children are toys, but what right does that give anyone to sexualize and defile them? Sure, they may be made entirely out of plastic, or latex, or silicone, or whatever the hell they make sex dolls out of these days, but they are still children. Children who are being provided to satisfy the sick desires of the most evil, subhuman, filthy creatures on the face of the planet, pedophiles.

Fortunately this tragic and atrocious phenomenon has not gone unnoticed by the governments of some of the more compassionate and enlightened nations of the world. The artificial child sex trade is a scourge that people are waking up to everywhere, and people are demanding action. It is because of this awareness that countless artificial children will not be made to suffer the artificial trauma that might have been their lot in life. Because of this, they will no doubt be saved years of artificial therapy with artificial therapists to recover from their artificial pain, and the world will be a kinder place.

If you haven’t picked up on my sarcasm by now, stop reading immediately. This is not the blog for you.

I’m pretty sure anyone with half a functioning brain will agree that child sexual abuse is bad. Even many pedophiles understand and believe that children should never be interfered with sexually by adults and that age consent laws serve a legitimate purpose in protecting children from people who would take advantage of them. (Shout out to my fellow Virpeds.) However, the degree to which modern society has taken it’s zealousness to protect children from sexual harm has begun to lead us far beyond common sense solutions and off into the real of the hysterical and the insane. This hysteria includes but is not limited to arresting and prosecuting people for sex with inanimate objects, as well as possession of drawn and computed generated images.

There have been a number of cases recently of people around the world being arrested for such “crimes” when the items (child-like sex dolls) they purchased were discovered entering the country. Normally these people have resided in either Europe, Australia or North America. The country the dolls seem to all be coming from is Japan, where apparently they have slightly more tolerant, dare I say sane, attitudes towards behaviors such as sex with inanimate objects that may or may not look like children.

Sadly, whenever I’ve seen an article about what I’ll call the child doll sex trade, the comments at the bottom of those articles have typically been overwhelmingly in favor of prosecuting the purchasers of said dolls. Not to mention in favor of doing cruel and unusual things to to said purchasers. Who would have thought that making love to a lifeless piece of latex would be an act deserving of a slow and painful death?

As one might expect, a lot of the comments I saw associated with these articles didn’t even make any sense at all, and made comparisons between pedophilia and other phenomena that not only missed the mark, but sounded silly doing it. One such comparison I heard more than once was that of pedophiles to serial killers. The thought more or less being, “What’s next? Providing serial killers with dolls they can act out their fantasies on?”

Now, anyone who knows what they’re talking about, including experts who study pedophilia, will tell you that pedophilia and the things that motivate homicidal manics are not even in the same psychological ballpark. Not even close. It’s like comparing apples to giraffes. (Apples to oranges isn’t different enough.) Still, let’s work with the example anyway, shall we?

If someone were inclined to stalk and murder other human beings, and that person wanted to act out the fantasy with a non-human surrogate victim, what would prevent them from obtaining an ordinary department store mannequin, taking that mannequin home, and stabbing the shit out of it? To be honest, if someone were inclined towards such things, I’d prefer that they resorted to using the mannequin as an outlet as opposed to say, my sister or my mom, but that’s just me, I guess.

Continuing with this example of the homicidal person and his unfortunate department store mannequin, if this scenario were to play out in real life, and someone were to catch the “offender”, can anyone imagine anything being done about it from a legal standpoint? Can you imagine a 911 call?

“911, what’s your emergency?”

“Yes, you have to help! I can’t believe what I’ve just seen! My neighbor….. my neighbor came home today with what appears to be a female mannequin.”

“Ummmm…… what? What’s your emergency?”

“No, no… you don’t understand! That’s not all! Just now, I was looking over there and, well, I didn’t mean to, I mean… I wasn’t trying to be nosy or anything, but for a moment, I could see through his living room window, and well, he had the mannequin and he was….. STABBING IT WITH A KNIFE!!!!!”

“My god! Ma’am, stay calm and lock your doors! I’m sending the SWAT team immediately!”

Does anyone really think that’s how such a call would play out? I’m going to say no. I’m going to say that the operator would probably laugh you off the phone. If they did send anyone, the cops at most would ask the mannequin slasher a couple of questions. Then, they’d roll their eyes and walk away thinking, “what a weirdo”, and that would be it. That’s even in a case where the mannequin being stabbed was a childlike one. Stab that same childlike mannequin with your dick though, and you could be in some serious legal hot water.

Is the absurdity of the criminalization of child sex dolls coming through any clearer now?

The criminalization of victimless acts which simulate child sex haven’t been limited to life-like dolls either. In many places around the world, people have been arrested and prosecuted for drawn and computer-generated images which portray children in a sexual light or engaging in sexual activity. No children have been harmed, and there is no evidence that the people viewing such media have or will harm children, but they have been made criminals anyway, for what amounts to essentially nothing at all.

Some may say the the people who are found to be in passion of such material are deserving of punishment simply because “it’s sick”. Ok, fair enough. Let’s accept that it’s “sick”. The fact of the matter is, lots of people do things in private that, while harmless to anyone else, most others would consider icky, or creepy, or sick, and they do not have to worry about the police knocking on their door, arresting them, putting them in jail, then adding them to a registry that marks them as social pariahs for the rest of their lives.

Also, much like the example with the mannequin, there are artificial things that could be worse and that would be unquestioningly protected by free speech and/or privacy rights. If someone drew or created computer generated images of a bunch of murdered and mutilated children, would they also be going to jail? I certainly don’t think so. Especially not if the creator were to claim the that images were supposed to represent something about the cruelty of a bleak and uncaring society or some such thing. Then, it’s just art. Controversial art perhaps, but art. However, put the illustrations of the mutilated children side by side with computer generated CP, and which would portray the greater atrocity? Why then, could someone be imprisoned for the latter images and not the former?

At the end of the day, the most compelling argument people in the camp who support the criminalization of all forms of artificial child sex have is that it encourages actual child abuse and that people who resort to any form of artificial child sex will eventually decide that’s not enough and go on to abuse real children. The problem is that there is not so much as a single shred of even anecdotal evidence to support that assumption. That’s all it is, an assumption. A baseless, knee-jerk supposition made mostly by people who have little to no understanding of the issue and certainly not of pedophilia itself.

Speaking as someone who is a pedophile himself and therefore has a pretty deep understanding of the issue, if anything, it’s the opposite. To me, common sense would dictate that it would be better for pedophiles to have as many harmless and victimless outlets as possible to discharge sexual energy. People who are sexually attracted to children are going be sexually attracted to children one way or the other, until the day they die. Providing or denying them sexual outlets is not going to change that, one way or the other.

If I were a teleiophile and a parent, I’d think I’d want pedophiles to have child sex dolls and artificial CP. The more the better. Hell, not only do I think I’d want to to be legal, but mandatory. I can see the government program now…. “If you’re a pedophile or are in any way sexually inclined towards children, come to you local department of health and pick up your free child sex doll! We can provide child sex dolls of all shapes and sizes! Take it home! Fuck it all you want! Just stay away from real children!”

To be honest though, the availability of such sexual outlets probably makes little difference either way. Pedophiles who have a mindset that inclines them towards actually abusing children are a already a danger to children. I really don’t think that fucking a doll is going to magically make them any more or less dangerous. Pedophiles who already have or already do abuse children probably aren’t going to be satisfied with a doll. Pedophiles who are committed to not acting out and not abusing children aren’t going to make love to a child doll, then snap and decide to betray everything they believe in and willfully harm a child they care about.

With all of that having been taken into account, this is really just another issue of personal freedoms and individual liberties. In a truly free society, any person who is inclined to should be able to purchase any sexual aids they chose, including lifelike dolls, of any shape and size, made to the likeness of any age group, for any reason. Would the availability of a childlike love doll keep me from abusing a child real life? No, because I wouldn’t and won’t abuse a child in real life anyway, with or without a doll to live out my fantasies with. The reason I should be allowed to purchase such a doll, without fear, is that it’s a victimless act, and it’s none of anyone else’s goddamn business what I do when I’m completely alone, in the privacy of my own bedroom.

Not that I’d buy one if I thought I could. I mean, how good could a lifeless piece of silicone or latex or whatever really be? Also, storage and cleaning would probably be a pain in the ass. Although I suppose I could probably find somewhere to keep it, but I’m not sure it would be worth the hassle. Not to mention they are pretty expensive, from what I’ve heard. Although everyone takes MasterCard these days, don’t they? What is my credit limit again? I’m not close to maxed out……

Ok, I’d totally buy one.

The post The Tragedy of Child Sex Dolls and Artificial CP appeared first on Pedophiles About Pedophilia.