The post Transfer appeared first on Pedophiles About Pedophilia.

So it’s been a while since I’ve been active at Virped or since I’ve even touched this blog. Sorry it’s been so long and sorry I’m so seldom around. Just so everyone knows, I do not forget about Virped or the anti-contact MAP community at large when I’m away. These places are always in my thoughts and I always feel a twinge of guilt when I’ve neglected to visit them for so long. Virped in particular is my home. My fellow anti-contact MAPs are my people. It is the one place on the planet I feel like I really and truly belong.

The problem is, my life has been so busy over the last couple of years that I have trouble finding the time to even slow down and breathe. When I finally do find that time, all I want to do is disconnect and decompress. I do not want to think about things that are important, which Virped and the anti-contact MAP community are. It’s like my life has become this whirlwind blizzard and my involvement with the anti-contact MAP community is one of the things that just winds up getting buried in the snow. Every once in a while I’ll decide to dig it out, and I’ll look at it and remember how important it is to me. I’ll tell myself I’m not going to let it get buried again but, before long, it does.

Anyway, so things with me are going, meh, ok I guess. Financially I’m doing as well as I ever have in my adult life. I still love my little condo in the city that I bought almost two years ago. I have two sources of income that are both considered “essential” and I’ve been working my balls off right through all this madness while everyone else is in quarantine. I’m not getting rich or anything by a long shot, but I’m on top of things. I keep my mortgage and my bills paid and I’m finally out of debt completely. I’m sticking to my fitness routine, staying in shape, staying on top of all my non work-related personal responsibilities, etc. All that. Still, at the end of the day, to be perfectly honest, I’m still not a happy person. Not at all. In fact, a lot of the time I’m barely keeping it together.

No matter what happens, no matter how I manage to improve my life, there’s always this emptiness. This feeling like everything is completely fucking pointless. At the risk of being cliche, I’m like that rat on the wheel that just keeps running and running and running for no fucking apparent reason. Sure, through all that “running” I’ve managed to make a little life for myself that I didn’t think would ever be possible just a few years ago but much of the time I still find myself filled with the same over-all sense of despair. That same sense of feeling spiritually lost and dead on the inside. Especially in the mornings. God, waking up in the fucking morning. Ugh. But then, I pour an energy drink down my throat, will myself into my car, and it’s back to running. If I just keep moving, maybe I can keep a little bit ahead of the despair. Maybe I can keep it from catching up with me. But then, it always does anyway.

Maybe I’m just not supposed to be a happy person. Not all of this has to do with being a MAP but a lot of it does, I think. I look at the world around me and I simply do not belong in it. I see all these fucking “normal” people who are married with kids and all that jazz and that world, that “normal” world in which most people exist, is just so completely alien to me. In that, my isolation feels pretty complete. Even an introvert like me can feel too much isolation, I think. Sure I have people I’m out to in real life but they don’t really understand. I dunno. Sometimes I think I could win the Powerball lottery and find myself with everything I’ve ever wanted and, when all was said and done, I’d still be a miserable fuck at the end of the day. Maybe it’s just how I’m wired. (sigh)

Thank god for booze at least. I’d definitely blow my fucking brains out if I didn’t have that to take the edge off.

Other than all that, things are great. LOL! Hope everyone else is doing well, or at least as well as can be expected. Sometimes as well as can be expected is the best we can hope for, isn’t it?

Brett

The post The Whirlwind appeared first on Pedophiles About Pedophilia.

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

Pride In Its Proper Context

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

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

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

About the origin of the flag, we have this:

My View On Pride

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

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

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

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

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

A Theory And Two Pictures

This story starts with a theory that D33 shared with me, and my initial reaction was roughly, “Oh God, D33 is telling me about a conspiracy theory suggesting these people are the same person.” The problem is, it turned out to be no wacky theory, it turned out to be true. Someone in a community that D33 shares found out directly from the person behind several aliases in the MAP community that they – most commonly known as Rainbow – were posing as several aliases, or sock puppets.

Naturally, the person who met Rainbow got suspicious about some things after that. So D33 asks me in DM if I could share some pictures with people who might know what Rainbow looks like. I shared one – and they were pretty certain that was Rainbow. So I shared another, and again they were pretty certain.

Except those were images that Khed shared with people.

At this point, the person – who I will refer to as Rainbow for simplicity – has admitted to operating these personas to a group of people who are staff in various communities.

Motive?

After confirming the initial two pictures, we put together a group chat of 8 people from multiple servers to discuss it further, and we confirmed their identities as the following: Khed, bbyodakid, Slaughter’s Laughter/J, and Rainbow. The stated reason by Rainbow was that they simply wanted attention, and that getting that attention is partly how they coped with depression, not to be malicious and not to be cruel. This individual already has a therapist.

Drama Fallout

Essentially, at this point, one thing is especially clear: “Rainbow” did not attempt suicide. There may be more deceptions connected to these aliases that have led to people in the community being hurt and feeling ostracized.

Allegations were made against me for supposedly being pro-contact. My views on the contact issue have not changed in four years. It is unlikely that my views will change, though part of my mission is to ensure people have support. That cannot happen if groups of people are so stigmatized they feel they cannot access support. That includes shaming and ostracizing people for having pro-contact views. I believe the narrow path, the one where we ignore views we disagree with and support the person when they need support, is the correct one.

Moving Forward

This person has been banned from MAP Support Club, and from another community. I personally feel that they should be welcome – as themselves – to still talk to whoever is willing to support them, on an individual basis. I am willing to support their mental health, if they choose to seek it. I do not support the deception or the harm that they caused. I hope they realize the magnitude of the pain they have brought on so many people. However, I could not stand by my mission statement – or the mental health support of people I disagree with, or the mental health support I believe those who commit sexual offenses deserve – if I did not extend that same mental health support to “Rainbow.”

Rainbow has indicated a desire to delete all of their personas and leave the community. However, I personally hope that they continue to reach out to people to support their mental health and better themselves as a person.

As a natural result of this, some of you might have question of whether or not the MAP community is safe. I believe it is, when we follow best practices and each take responsibility for safeguarding our information and our privacy. One of those best practices is not sharing information with people until you have known them for at least several months, if not over a year. That best practice would not have helped in this particular case, but it is still a good practice to observe.

I will be staying. I have no reason to believe that Rainbow ever intended to use any information they had. I knew there would be difficult situations when I entered this community, and this situation was not the first and I am sure will not be the last. So again, take some time off, get support, talk to people, and come back refreshed.

The post A Community-Wide Deception 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.

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.

The premise of this article is that if you acted these ways as a white ally to a black person… um… well… you would get labeled as racist in a heartbeat and dismissed just as quickly as those people in white robes burning crosses. So, please, put your ego aside for a moment and listen. Many of these things are rants against real stuff real people who really claim to support us have actually said or done. So, please do not be the people I rant about in a blog post. Be better than that.

Stop That! Get Some Help!

Yeah, here is a rather long list of things NOT to do. Think of this as your “Don’t be that guy. That guy’s a jerk.”

Fictional Material

Fictional material, by which I mean drawings, fantasy, and computer-generated art that does not use photos or real children in the process of its creation. Stop taking a dump on it as if doing so protects children.

A lot of times, allies like to downplay this issue, but the blunt reality is, we need it. We need more of it. If our choice is that or child sexual abuse images, figure out which is more important to protect: A fictional kid or a real one. It does not lead most of us down dangerous paths. Most of us can tell the difference between fantasy and reality, and you, as an adult-attracted person (presuming you do not use the whole ally label to be taken more seriously by people and are actually minor attracted yourself), have access to thousands of safe and legal websites that serve as a masturbatory aid. The biggest issue minor attracted people deal with is sexually harmful imagery that depicts real children.

While understandably controversial, we need to study the effect fictional material has to further determine what use it could serve in keeping children safe, not ban it because ew or because people might use it to groom (adult porn can be used to groom too, should it be banned?). For most minor attracted people, fictional material is the only ethical outlet they have. Hearing an ally disagree with that assessment is almost as frustrating as hearing the “death to pedophiles” nonsense that gets directed at us all over the internet.

Boundaries, Boundaries, Boundaries

Yes, those lines we draw to protect ourselves and others. Respect them. When we draw them and you cross them, crossing them sends up lots of red flags for us and we will not be inclined to trust you. I do not care how idiotic you think they are, be a nice person and respect them. They are almost always in place for very good reason.

Time

Naming you our ally without talking to a lot of us and getting to know us is presumptuous and rude. Our first instinct is, “Who is this, exactly? What do they think about this issue? What about that one?” It is a recipe for you to be treated with a heavy amount of suspicion, and there are easier ways to impress us than just putting “MAP ally” in your Twitter profile.

Choose Your Words Wisely

No, we do not have urges, compulsions, or impulses around children, so you can stop using those terms right now. And to be frank, throwing around “pedophilic disorder” in public is just… confusing and stigmatizing. Calling us pedophiles and trying to lecture people about what pedophile, hebephile, and ephebophile mean? Just stop. No one cares about the labels, minor attraction is easy for people to process and making it too complex for people is just… not helpful. If you really want to be helpful with your words, keep it simple and do not give your words and easy target for trolls: Minor attraction, minor attracted people, and they function just like your attraction to adults, so yes, calling them urges, obsessions, compulsions, impulses… just no, stop that. They are attractions, nothing more. We watch the words you use. So use good ones.

Non Offending!

Do you go around calling bicycles “two-wheeled bicycles?” What about “four-wheeled cars?” How about “cold snow?” When we describe things like that in the English language, it usually denotes an unusual feature not a usual feature, and there is no evidence to suggest that all or even most minor attracted people harm children. So, slapping “non-offending” in front of that or even “anticontact” is just a subtle way of saying you think most of us are offending or think it is okay for kids to be sexual with adults, and seriously? Get the hell out with that assumption. That, again, is just as stigmatizing. Trying to fight stigma with stigma is stupid.

Redirecting Stigma Away From You

This brings me to another important point. As an ally – particularly if you put it in your profile or say it out loud – you will be accused of being minor attracted or a pedophile. Let me illustrate some wrong responses: “I’m not a pedo, I don’t need to stay away from kids.” “I’m an ally, not a MAP, don’t tell me to kill myself that’s rude.” “Of course they should stay away from kids, I agree with you!” If you are so concerned about stigma that you are willing to throw it right back at us, you just showed that you are not, in fact, an ally and many of us will treat you accordingly.

Confidentiality

The one universal thing about minor attracted people is that we take our privacy and confidentiality very, very seriously. So, if we share something with you in private, you are expected to not screenshot it and post it anywhere, ever, you are expected to be a mature human being and respect that what someone shares with you privately is meant to be private. Some information in the wrong hands can dox someone or out them to the entire internet or their community.

Infiltrating

Go ahead and do that. No, really! By all means, come on in and try to pretend to be a minor attracted person. Chances are very good that we know exactly who you are from day one and will be watching you, and yes, I am sure you are curious to know that we actually do know how to genuinely help people without “converting people” to be minor attracted (no, that does not actually work like that). So sure, get to know us that way too if you do not want to just take our word for things. Again, we know who you are, you stick out like a sore thumb, and you could just talk to us and get the same information, but of course your infiltrators are just free entertainment too.

Get Help!

Yeah, go to hell. Most of us (I got lucky) do not live in a location where there are people qualified to properly treat minor attracted people, so requiring anyone to “get therapy” in order for you to support us is just rude and cruel. No one really chooses where they are born or where they live. So, spouting that crap just makes you a jerk. Be the kind of jerk that at least filters it between your brain and your mouth/keyboard. If you really want us to get help, then go donate and put your money where your mouth is or know where to send minor attracted people for support.

Stay Away From Kids!

Again, go to hell. Why should we stigmatize ourselves because you want to spout your uneducated opinion at us? Should you stay away from the people you are attracted to or otherwise be considered a risk to rape them? If it does not apply to you, do not apply it to us. Most who sexually harm kids are not minor attracted people in the first place, so all you really do with that opinion is spread myths that dump on a group of people because you think we are boogeymen/women.

Why Be So Loud?

Because of people like you, Karen. People who say they support us but then tell us to shut up, sit down, and be quiet, which really tells us you do not support us at all, are people who are not real allies, so just stop already.

Minor Attracted People Getting Help Protects Kids!

Yes, of course it does, but saying it like that sort of implies that all minor attracted people are a risk to kids, and… no. Just stop. Framing it that way on the surface is just as stigmatizing because of that implication, and furthering stigma to combat stigma is just plain dumb. Stop that already. And arguing with them about it in public when you could just message them just makes for public drama. On that same topic…

Exclusion

Excluding some minor attracted people because they do not fit your views from getting support or being just as human as anyone else is bad. Stop doing that. Boundaries for you and you only are one thing, excluding people from support or thinking “well those people aren’t in the MAP community because they believe…” is just bad form. Again, knock it off. Nobody likes a divisive asshole. You do not speak for our entire community, and trying to in this regard is just… no.

Now All The Positive Stuff You Should Do

Stigma

If you have gotten to this point and are mostly nodding, agreeing, and thinking to yourself, “This all makes sense, duh, of course,” then you should also know that standing up for us is still very much a brave thing to do and something you will get hate for if you attract the wrong kind of attention. So, jumping right in and being a good ally by trying to be brave without asking us for some advice on how to handle the stigma and hate and how to stay safe doing it is also bad. Mostly for you, but then you start to get frustrated with us for “not telling me ahead of time” that it might happen and such, so… please use some caution and sense here.

Stay Safe Online

Use a pseudonym that is not tied to your real identity. This includes creating an email not tied to your real identity. Compartmentalize these identities from one another. If you feel you must use your real name, lock down any personal information you have floating around. I mean phone numbers, addresses, emails, connections to friends and family. Search your name online and make sure those things are not easy to find. If you think those suggestions are overly paranoid, you should be warned that putting “map ally” in your profile WILL bring you before hateful groups of people who troll the internet looking for people to harass, and they will not distinguish between a “map ally” and a minor attracted person, you will be lumped in with us and become a target for these groups of people.

Keep your passwords safe (and random): Use a password manager, and use a different password for each account you have. Many free programs to manage passwords exist. I recommend: https://keepass.info/download.html Keepass has free open-source software for most operating systems, and has integration for Android and Apple devices as well as the capability of running entirely from a flash drive. Also, know what hacking is and how you can prevent it.

Ignoring them only goes so far. Some of them are very persistent, and the louder you are, the more of a target you are for them. Believe it or not, you can be a “map ally” without virtue-signaling it in your profile and making yourself more of a target – follow prominent accounts, look for high-profile content, and stand up to the hate that way.

Get To Know The Issues

I mean lots of them, and again, this takes time. Investigate the idea of primary prevention. Take a look at the sex offender registry. Learn what proper support for minor attracted people looks like. Look at some of the arguments that get slung our way. Learn some of the science around minor attraction and why learning to live with our attractions is basically the only option.

Conclusion

In the end, there are many reasons to be very careful when becoming an ally, and many ways to do it. Are you financially well off? Donate to child protection programs that prioritize evidence over “war on sex” or censorship narratives. Do you have lots of time? Jump into the fray online (after using these tips, of course). But calling yourself a MAP ally while not listening to our needs, our perspectives, and our issues is a surefire way to find your way onto the blocklist of some or most of our community. We take protecting ourselves very seriously, and we will not hesitate to use any means necessary to protect our communities from people who wish us harm, such as public callouts, private warnings, blog posts, etc.

The post Being A Good Ally To Minor Attracted People appeared first on Pedophiles About Pedophilia.

Over time, the MAP community, particularly on Twitter, has reduced their 5-tier list to simply “procontact” and “anticontact” with zero nuance whatsoever, and a lot of stigma directed at anyone thought to hold “procontact” views. So, the goals of this relabeling project are to correct the misunderstandings that this false dichotomy has cause, to reduce the amount of conflict in and among the MAP community due to inaccurate and overly simplified labels, and to foster healthier discourse in the MAP community.

Before I introduce the results of this project, let me say a few words so that I am clear. First off, no, I have not “changed sides” or changed what I believe. That has not and is unlikely to change anytime in the near or distant future. Child sexual abuse is a crime, and rightfully so. At the same time, I have long pointed out that there are nuances to who is and is not harmed by what the law calls child sexual abuse, and there are nuances to what the law does and does not allow. If you are curious, you are free to explore what I have said on the subject in full. However, pay close attention to that third paragraph:

In that same vein, throughout this project, I sought to maintain neutral terminology to represent the differing viewpoints because I do not believe that being needlessly inflammatory, even towards people I vehemently disagree with, contributes to meaningful solutions. That is why I chose to use “sexual contact” instead of child sexual abuse and “recordings” instead of “child sexual abuse material.” This neutrality is intended both to capture some of the aforementioned nuances, and the idea that sexual images of children are not, in fact, all abusive and exploitative in nature. Sometimes, teenagers send nudes to one another or share them on the internet and are never harmed by doing so. Sometimes, a child has an experience that the law would call abuse, but was likewise not harmful.

I do not believe it is correct or moral to attempt to tell these children that what they experienced was harmful, and I believe that attempting to convince them that they were harmed can be more harmful to those people. Where there is harm, there must be an intervention so that the harm stops, though there are currently no clear legal processes to my knowledge beyond prosecutorial discretion that try to make that distinction.

A Note On “Pro-Contact” Stigma

Before I get to the meat of this, I need to point something out. There is the stereotype of “pro-contact” to mean “people who think kids can consent.” However, this is inaccurate. Most who fall on the “pro-contact” end of the spectrum still believe it is harmful under current circumstances to be sexual with a child. In other words, no, they do not “promote child rape” or “think maps can be sexual with kids.”

What they do believe is that society and law should change in a variety of ways (often specific to their jurisdiction) around things like age of consent and other topics, and there is a high degree of nuance to that. In other words, some might think the age of consent should be changed to 14 when in their jurisdiction, 14 year old teenagers have other rights at 14, or they simply believe society should be consistent in how it treats people with regard to age restrictions. Yet in the United States, 18 is our “magic number,” which goes back to why I do not wade into age of consent conversations. From one point of view, it could simply be said that “pro-contact” means people that do wade into those conversations.

Some views are understandably considered to be harmful, and many minor attracted people tend to hate anyone associated with them due to past experience with individuals (blaming a whole group is a bit rude there, I think, and reeks of logical fallacies around generalization), because they blame them for adding to the stigma against minor attracted people, or because they simply find their views too repulsive or triggering. By the same token, what do you think happens when you let minor attracted people, who largely struggle with mental health issues, discuss a heated topic that many people feel very strongly about?

There are reasons the stigma is there, but I question how rational all of it is. What I would say, having now reached out to people holding these views for the purposes of doing this project, is that these people are people who have ample reason to hate me and never speak to me again. I have rudely blocked many of them, slandered them, and both intentionally and unintentionally contributed to the stigma and hate that gets thrown their direction. I have been an asshole to them. They deserve to hate me and ignore what I say. Yet when I began reaching out to these very people to do this project, many of them apologized to me. Go figure that one out.

I personally think it is possible to accept someone as a person, warts and all, and disagree vehemently with what they believe. We see examples of this in many places. We see religious groups collaborating and acting for religious tolerance, we see political groups reaching across the aisle to sponsor and push bipartisan legislation, people tolerating each other in the workplace… the list of examples is rather long and I think you get the picture.

As individual people in the MAP community, you can of course do whatever you like. However, after being treated with kindness by multiple people whose views I disagree with, and believing that interacting with them would be a mistake that would go nowhere when I most certainly did not deserve their kindness… I cannot in good conscience do what many on Twitter have done and shut them out. I can, of course, ask that they respect my views and respect that my views will not change, but to treat them with the same stigma and hatred that I have in the past to me seems unproductive and unnecessarily cruel.

The Spectrums

Contributors

This continuum/spectrum has the following official contributors: Timothy N. Fury, Ethan Edwards, Frankie, Bly Rede, Schloss, Pride. There were others who contributed ideas as well, but were indifferent or against being named.

Terms Separate From Both Spectrums

Special note: These are terms that DO NOT fall into either spectrum, but rather are separate ideas reached for different reasons than the “traditional” pro/anti binary that the MAP community has largely used. These terms should not be confused with any particular position on the contact or imagery spectrums, but should be considered as falling outside of both.

No Labels/Labeless:

These are people who refuse to use contact/imagery labels at all. Some refuse to use labels because they believe there should be more unity in MAP communities and feel that labels are inherently divisive. Some refuse because they do not want to be pre-judged or stereotyped. Some do not want people labeling them based on conversations. Some refuse for other reasons.

Youth Rights Movement

These are to be seen as separate from the contact labels. Youth rights are issues relating to the civil rights of those currently legally classified as “minors”. The problems that youth rights tackle are related to laws that unfairly discriminate against the age of young people and it believes that the protectionist/paternalist attitude of these well-intending legislations can actually become more detrimental than beneficial for our youth. For a more broad explanation of what youth rights are, this article might prove to be helpful.

Young Friends

Beliefs around friendships with kids and how much that applies to the non-sexual contact a minor attracted person has with children. There are varying views which largely have nothing to do with the contact or imagery spectrums, save that some do believe that friendships with children can be/are risky and that they themselves wish to avoid it (most of this view do not go around sharing it or imposing it on others).

Active Offender

The rarest of the rare for minor attracted people. People who are actively having sexual contact with a child/children and believe they are consenting to the contact, and believe this to be acceptable morally/ethically even if it is illegal. Disregards legal authority for some reason or another.

Passive Seeker

Very rare for minor attracted people: People who want to have sexual contact with a child/children, looking for opportunity they may not have yet for any number of reasons. Examples: Because the context is not right, because they think the children they know would not appreciate it, because they think they would be caught, etc.

Contact Spectrum

This section describes how minor attracted people generally view the morality of sexual contact with children, from “procontact” at the beginning to “anticontact” at the end.

1. Conditional-Contact: People who think that the morality of sexual contact with children depends on the circumstances of each situation and do not believe that the nuances/complexities of the discussion over morality or ideology can be concisely captured using labels, but that generally each situation’s morality depends on the outcome and whether or not the child feels harm was done.
   
2. Pro-Legalization: People who do not believe the current circumstances are appropriate to be sexual with children unless laws towards children change and would not act on it even if given the opportunity because of those circumstances, and want to change the associated laws in their jurisdiction or beyond.
   
3. Pro-Social Reform: This is the most common “pro-contact” stance. People who do not believe the current circumstances are appropriate to be sexual with children unless social attitudes towards children change and would not act on it even if given the opportunity because of those circumstances, and want to change the associated social attitudes in their area or beyond.
   
4. Undecided: This is essentially middle of the spectrum. People who see the merits of arguments on both sides, but opt not to take a particular stance for any number of reasons. Not the same as using no labels at all. 
   
5. General Reformist: People who believe that current legislation around age of consent or other laws on sex crime in their jurisdiction should be changed, but do not believe that it should allow for sexual activity with young children (ie, Romeo/Juliet situations okay, teen sexting okay, sex offender registration laws are ridiculous, etc). Believes more should be done to protect children.
   
6. Anti-Contact: People who believe that sexual contact with minors is generally harmful and that changing laws/attitudes about it will not make contact less harmful, or the belief that such contact should not be sought because it is or has the high potential to be harmful to the child.
   
7. Risk-Averse: People who are against “acting on” attraction and think that friendship, employment around kids, sexual activity, fantasy, and sexual imagery are risks that can lead to a slippery slope. They may go even further to eschew any and all sexual thoughts/fantasies around children.

Imagery Spectrum

Generally speaking, this section refers to the viewing of imagery and beliefs around viewing, not the production of real images of children (not fiction, as you cannot argue that “producing” fictional material harms anyone), which is beyond the scope of this section and more accurately falls into the contact spectrum.

1. Pro-Recordings: People who are actively seeking out real sexual imagery of children, and believe it to be morally acceptable to do so. They may or may not be in favor of the production of this imagery.
   
2. Legally Safe: People who believe that fictional or non-fictional imagery is moral, but abstain because it is illegal and know the risk involved in getting caught.
   
3. Imagery Pro-Context: People who think that the morality of any sexual imagery of children (real or fictional) is dependent on a variety of factors that cannot be simplified into fictional = good, real = bad, and instead depend on the situation.
   
4. Pro Fiction, Anti-Recordings: People who think that fictional imagery or materials are okay and believe the laws should be changed, where applicable, to allow it. Anti-recordings, as in they do not believe that photographic/video imagery of real children is moral/ethical and that it should remain illegal.
   
5. Anti-Imagery/Fantasy: People who think that any kind of imagery or fantasy involving children is immoral and should be avoided.
   

Nuance

As you can see, there is nuance to these. For example, like Ethan Edwards, some take the “legally safe” view but are anti-contact. And of course, it is possible for someone to hold “pro-contact” views while believing that viewing real imagery of children is wrong, or even struggle with viewing said material. For that very reason, the imagery spectrum and the contact spectrum are separate. It is likewise possible for people to act in particular ways that may be incongruent with their beliefs. Views can and do change over time, with or without outside interference.

For example, someone who has previously held pro-contact beliefs, abused a child, and/or viewed real sexual imagery may then decide to become anti-contact and hold more moderate views towards imagery that allow fiction but not recordings. Likewise, someone who once held anti-contact beliefs may decide to change their views without any external interference at all. The varying beliefs are not as simple as two extremes, there is a spectrum and most people do not fall at one extreme end of it or the other. Think of it like a bell curve:

The lines here are blurred and not simple, and part of my overall goal in this project has been to demonstrate that trying to label and categorize people, particularly in a hateful, spiteful, or dehumanizing way is simply not productive to civilized conversation. It is here where the real work begins. This project is not complete simply by writing a blog post.

The work requires your participation to be complete, to use these terms and speak up when people attempt to oversimplify them. The completion of this project requires intentionality, and a willingness to internalize these new labels as the new standard. I fully expect that one day, another minor attracted person will come along behind me and do this again with more terms and more nuance, and perhaps one day we can stop bickering over who believes what and simply get to work on the real issue: The hatred that gets flung at us for having an attraction we had no choice in. I think working on that issue starts with the hate we fling at one another.

The post Ideological Spectrum For 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.

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Although I haven’t been around here much of late, I do still keep in touch with a few other MAPs and also a MAP advocate who lives relatively near by. There is one particular MAP that lives here in Atlanta who is a fairly prominent MAP figure but I can’t say who he is because I don’t think he wants the world to know where he lives. The MAP advocate I’m speaking of is Rusty, who some of you may be familiar with from Twitter.

So earlier this year I heard that the 2019 ATSA (The Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers) conference was going to be here in November. When I got wind of that, I was immediately excited about who it might give me the opportunity to meet. I let my MAP friend and also Rusty know about it and we all agreed that we should make plans to try to attend in some capacity if we could.

Over the last few weeks, this other MAP and I arranged to meet up with Dr Elizabeth Letourneau and also Candice Christiansen from the Global Prevention Project on Friday 11/8. I got approved to take the day off work and everything was set. We were to meet with Dr Letourneau in the morning at 10:00 AM and then Candice later in the afternoon. I figured we’d have several hours of downtime in between and would just have to find things to do in Downtown Atlanta or maybe wind up coming back to my apartment for a while. That’s not how it worked out.

We did meet up with Dr Letourneau at 10:00 and talked with her for about an hour. She is an amazing lady and she’s done and is still doing some very important work that can and I think will both prevent sexual abuse and also improve the lives of MAPs in general. The sad and frustrating thing is that she told us they have trouble securing funding for a lot of the work they’re trying to do, but it was exciting to hear about none the less. Dr Letourneau had to leave town that afternoon, so we had to end our conversation after about an hour so that she could go check out of the hotel.

A short while after we said goodbye to Dr. Letourneau, I got a message from Candice saying she wanted to go ahead and meet up with us. So, we met her in the hotel lobby and she led us downstairs to where the conference was being held. I didn’t think we’d be allowed in not having paid for passes but be we were. There were areas of the conference we couldn’t go into and workshops we could not attend but the main conference floor was open to just anyone. We wound up spending most of the day with Candice and got to be introduced to a number of very important people in the field. Dr Craig Harper, Dr Gilian Tenbergen, Dr Theresa Robertson, Mike from NARSOL/The Registry Report, Jeremy from Prostasia (who we went to lunch with), and a few more I’m probably forgetting or who’s name’s I may not have gotten.

I can’t tell you guys how liberating it was to just walk around in a public place and introduce myself as an open MAP. The whole day was like an overwhelming whirl-wind, but in a very good way. We didn’t wind up having to find things to do to kill time at all, because we pretty much spent the whole day at the conference meeting people, shaking hands, etc, usually with Candice at our side. I had already been excited about meeting Dr. Letourneau and Candice but if I’d know how the day was going to turn out, I would have been way more excited about it. I mean, I thought we were going to meet a couple of people for maybe an hour at a time and spend the interim hours at the Aquarium or something. I had no idea I was going to wind up spending the whole day at the conference, more or less repping the MAP community to so many important folks. It was fucking amazing. Oh, and Candice is also an awesome human being in case I haven’t made that clear enough. I hope more of you get the chance to meet her some day and I hope I will get to see her at some point in the future as well.

Anyway, I’d have been remiss if I didn’t come here and at least tell everyone about it. I only wish more of you could have experienced it. It wouldn’t be exaggerating to call it one of the most memorable days of my life. I wish I could attend more of these but they move around every year, and if it isn’t close enough to catch an Uber to, it probably isn’t happening. So, that was probably my one chance. I’m glad I made the most of it.

Brett

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