I was 14 years old when my life changed forever. That was when I realized that the ages of people I was attracted to weren’t increasing as I got older. I found myself catching feelings for the younger siblings of the peers I had found attractive two or three years prior. Scarier still, the lower bound of these ages seemed to be decreasing. I began to experience attractions to kids as young as 8 years old.

Being a teenager with internet access, my initial reaction was to go online looking for answers. What was wrong with me? What should I do about it? This went well at first; I quickly ended up on the Virtuous Pedophiles website, which helped me realize that I wasn’t alone in being a pedophile with no interest in acting on my attractions. As I continued to search I ended up on Twitter, and things went downhill pretty quickly. I saw post after post calling minor-attracted people and pedophiles evil, portraying them as monsters, and even advocating for genocide. I came away convinced that my attractions were inherently bad and dangerous and that any attempt to look for help or support would only expose me to the same hatred I saw online.

Over the next three years, I spiraled as I desperately tried to convince myself that I wasn’t attracted to kids. I hoped that if I buried that part of myself deep enough it would just go away. As anyone with basic knowledge of thought suppression or sexuality could have predicted, that only made my attractions feel stronger and seem more overwhelming, and my mental health suffered as a result. I felt isolated, unable to confide in my closest friends or family members, and at one point began drafting suicide notes in my head, perhaps hoping that if I explained what I was going through in that context it would be enough to make someone care and understand, or at the very least, sympathize. I never reached the point of actually intending to harm myself, but if I hadn’t gotten help when I did, it’s very likely that I wouldn’t be here to write this today.

Things culminated when I was 17, after I came across a video about another teenage pedophile whose parents placed him in an abusive “treatment” program centered around conversion therapy and assumed guilt. Of course, the media heralded them as heroes, and I, not knowing any better at the time, believed that they were. This brought years of shame and self-hate rushing back to the surface, and I spent several more weeks frantically searching the internet looking for someone, anyone, who would understand and want to help. Unfortunately, I overlooked a number of resources that would likely have helped me because I wrongly believed there was something wrong with me that needed to be fixed. Despite this, I came across MAP Support Club in late 2020. After a couple of days of hesitation and second-guessing, I came up with the name Elliot Porter and filled out the application.

In the Community

It’s been over a year since I submitted that form, and since then my life has changed so drastically for the better that it’s sometimes hard for me to believe. I’ve accepted myself both as a pedophile and as gay. Ironically, the latter took longer for me to accept because the stress and attempts at thought suppression from being a pedophile made it difficult for me to recognize and come to terms with other aspects of my sexuality. I have a loving boyfriend who accepts me for who I am and I’m out as a pedophile to several friends from high school who are also supportive. I’ve also made dozens of friends in the MAP community through support groups and social media.

I first started doing activism aimed at reducing stigma and helping other minor-attracted people find support on Twitter in December 2020 and quickly found myself drawn to the work. Publicly speaking out in defense of other minor-attracted people and the community as a whole forced me to recognize and address my own internalized stigma and anti-MAP biases I had picked up from society and the media over the previous 17 years of my life. I also became more knowledgeable on minor attractions and support for minor-attracted people as I looked into the relevant research in order to strengthen my arguments. At the same time, I fell in love with my favorite part of activism: Helping others in the same position I was in at age 14 find a community to provide them with acceptance and support.

For any activist supporting marginalized groups, censorship comes with the territory. This is especially true for minor-attracted people, as social media companies and other platforms use widespread misinformation as an excuse to cut off a vital source of support for vulnerable teenagers and adults and see such an action as nothing more than an optics boost. As the banned accounts started to stack up I realized that I could do more good with a more permanent list of resources for minor-attracted people in need of support. Initially, I planned to make a separate Twitter account specifically for sharing resources, but after Twitter made it clear that their platform isn’t a safe space to support marginalized groups, I decided to make a website instead. As a result, on February 1st, 2021, MAP Resources was born.

Building a Website

In the year since I first shared the link to MAP Resources publicly, it has grown from a single page with a few links into a collection of resources designed to help as many MAPs as possible. With the help of dozens of minor-attracted people and our allies along the way, I’ve created a summary of research on minor-attracted people and minor attractions, a dictionary of common MAP-related terms, and even dedicated pages with advice and support for minor-attracted minors and friends and family members of MAPs. Throughout all of these projects, however, my primary goal has remained the same: Ensuring any MAP can find safe and effective support when they need it. The most important element of working on the website has always been finding and evaluating new resources to share.

Due to my activism and role in the MAP community, I’m constantly on the lookout for new support resources for minor-attracted people. Whenever I become aware of one, I review it before I consider listing it on MAP Resources. When I review, I look for stigmatizing language or misinformation about MAPs, efforts to promote harmful “treatments” such as conversion therapy, and any use of fearmongering to convince people that they need support. Resources that contain any of these are not ones I’m willing to promote, as the stigma does more harm than good. During this review process, however, I also learn a lot about the resources themselves, giving me a unique perspective into the underlying trends in the availability of support for minor-attracted people who are struggling with their attractions.

The State of Support for Minor-Attracted People

First, the good news: Support opportunities for minor-attracted people are more abundant than ever before and the body of research on effective support for MAPs is continuing to grow. Over the past two years, numerous new resources have become available, including Help Wanted and Talking for Change, both of which are support resources intended for minor-attracted people and created by sexual abuse prevention experts. There also appears to be a growing focus on supporting minor MAPs, a particularly vulnerable and undersupported population, as demonstrated by both Help Wanted and What’s OK?, a website from StopItNow! where teenagers and young adults can learn and ask questions about sexual thoughts and behaviors.

There is still room for improvement in a number of areas when it comes to support available to MAPs. The biggest area for improvement is the pushback against any efforts to support minor-attracted people from misinformed and blatantly bigoted individuals. Despite overwhelming evidence that access to support can reduce the likelihood of offending, some groups would rather use children as pawns in order to silence minorities rather than actually protect the children they claim to care about. This uses fearmongering to stifle research into and expert discussion on support for MAPs. These stigma-based attacks have already caused demonstrable harm by forcing a researcher focused on preventing child sexual abuse to step down from their position earlier this year.

Additionally, efforts to support minor-attracted people continue to consist mainly of programs with an end goal of preventing child abuse. A reduced risk of abuse is a side effect of minor-attracted people receiving support, but these programs often present that support as a “necessary evil” in their efforts to prevent abuse. This can cause minor-attracted people to feel taken advantage of or viewed as a risk. Research suggests that minor-attracted people are less likely to pursue support from programs that seem to designate them as a risk, so by supporting MAPs for the sole purpose of preventing abuse, the individuals behind these programs undermine their own work.

The overall trends in support for MAPs are positive, as mental health, sexuality, and even sexual abuse prevention experts are increasingly focusing on supporting the mental health of minor-attracted people and reducing the stigma that causes many to need support in the first place. The MAP community itself is growing and attracting the attention of more MAPs, allies, experts, and even journalists, increasing the number of people who are aware of the support available to them. As public knowledge of minor-attracted people continues to grow, so too will the availability of resources and support. As always, MAP Resources, myself, and others in the community will continue working to ensure all MAPs can find and benefit from these new resources, as well as existing ones.

The post A Year of Supporting Minor-Attracted People appeared first on Pedophiles About Pedophilia.

However, that does not mean that this is our time to rise up and demand changes to how we are treated. The focus on divesting from police and investing in each of our communities is enough for now. Why? Because we cannot attempt to join or drown out the voices of other minorities by stealing their spotlight. These are issues that have been affecting black and brown humans for years, and this is their time and moment to be heard, not ours.

The most effective thing we can do right now is write our representatives, join protests – whether via social media or by marching with other movements – and join the numerous voices calling for an end to police-based communities and a start to investing in the integrity of our communities. That change has needed to happen for some time, and we need to put the focus on making that change, not using this moment to our own benefit.

What you do ultimately is up to you, but bear in mind that what you do WILL reflect on the entire MAP community and act responsibly.

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As many of you who already know my story are aware, when I was about 13 and a half, I started developing an attraction to younger boys that came seemingly out of nowhere. Before that, I was only turned on by women and same-aged girls. Not only turned on by, but sexually obsessed with. Most of the molestation and sexual bullying I endured at the hands of older kids as a boy had been done by females, and it led to a hypersexuality that I’m certain isn’t healthy for a preteenage boy. However, up to that point, not once had my premature obsession with sex and pornography been directed towards males at all. As the 13.5 year old me rapidly discovered his attraction to younger boys, he found his attraction to females disappear completely and almost immediately.

I remember sitting on the floor of my bedroom in the late summer of 1988, looking at pictures of boys in the Sears catalog. (Yes, kids, this is before the internet.) Why did my mind and my heart suddenly race at the thought of what those boys might look like if you took off all those clothes they were advertising? Then, the more overtly sexual thoughts crept in. I tried to repel those thoughts and wish them away but they just kept coming back stronger. It was as if the attraction had started out as a babbling brook but very rapidly turned into a raging river that I could no longer swim upstream against, no matter how hard I tried. It was futile to resist, and before to long I surrendered and let that torrent of raging water take me where it would.

As I rifled through the boys section of that big, thick catalog, I remember asking myself in my head, “Am I gay? Why am I turning gay?” However, it didn’t take me very long to realize that I was not turning gay in any normal sense. I was well into puberty at that point, and the boys who I began finding attractive were all younger and prepubescent. I had no idea what it all meant though. I had no frame of reference. I was totally lost and confused. I hoped that maybe it was a phase and that it would go away, but the more the weeks and months wore on, the more this new found attraction hard-wired itself into my being.

Keep in mind now, that in the late 80’s, the word “pedophile” was not nearly as much a part of the public vernacular as it is today. At 13, I had never even heard the word. Sure, I knew there were people out there who molested children but I didn’t have any concept of the fact that there existed adults who were primarily sexually interested in children. I had been warned all throughout my childhood of molesters, but didn’t really have much of a handle on who they were exactly either. To me, child molesters were dark, shadowy, creepy strangers who wore trench coats and sat in windowless vans outside of schoolyards, with a bag of candy and a perpetual erection. They were people who abducted children, chained them up in their basements, did unspeakable things to them, and finally left them in shallow graves somewhere. Surely I wasn’t becoming one of those, right? I couldn’t be. I knew I was a nice person and I didn’t want to hurt anyone.

Then, in the early months of 1989, there came the day when I found out. The day I found out what I was, or, at least was given a label to apply to myself and my new sexual identity. They say labels aren’t important, but they can be, especially when you’re trying to categorize something for the sake of making sense of it.

It was right around my fourteenth birthday, give or take a month or two. I was sitting in my living room, watching MTV, when the Madonna video for the the song “Open Your Heart” came on. Now, I’m not much of a Madonna fan and wasn’t even back then, but I was a bored teenage kid who would watch whatever crappy video came on MTV. At the time, I was probably waiting patiently for the next Guns n Roses or Motley Crue video. This was long before on-demand, mind you, and to see a rock video, you often had to wade through half a dozen or more teeny-bop videos and just enjoy the rock ones when MTV decided to air them. Though not a fan of Madonna, this video grabbed my attention and held it, because this video featured a stunningly gorgeous boy who appeared to be about 10 or 11.

So, I watched this video and was absolutely transfixed by the beauty of this boy. My heart skipped a beat every time he was shown on camera. Then, at the end of the video, Madonna bends down and kisses this little boy on the lips. It was all I could do not to excuse myself to the restroom for a fap right then and there. How badly I wished I could have kissed those lips like she did.

Towards the end of the video, my mother had come into room and witnessed the on-screen kiss. When Madonna’s lips pulled away from the boy’s, my mother became visibly perturbed and exclaimed, “Oh my god! What the hell is wrong with Madonna? Is she a pedophile or something?”

What had my mom just said? “A pedophile?” Having never heard this peculiar P word before, I hesitantly asked her, “What is a pedophile?” It was immediately clear she was made uncomfortable by my question and didn’t want to answer me, but I persisted. I wouldn’t let her off the hook, even though I could see that my steadfast inquiry was making her squirm. After a minute or two of pestering, she relented and reluctantly explained to me that a pedophile was an adult who was sexually attracted to children.

The second that explanation finished leaving her mouth, I knew it. I knew that’s what I was and what I was becoming. Now I had word for it though. A “pedophile”. I was a fucking pedophile! Sure, I had only just turned 14 myself, but that didn’t matter. That is what I was and that was suddenly my new reality.

As an aside, I know that the clinical definition of pedophile states that, to be a pedophile, one must be at least 16 years old and at least 5 years older than the children they are attracted to but I don’t completely agree with those criteria. Sure, I understand the need to apply those specifications to the definition from a clinical standpoint but, in reality, that clinical, textbook definition of pedophilia is far from infallible. I was every bit as much a pedophile the day I sat watching that Madonna video with my mother as I am today. Not from a clinical standpoint, but from a reality standpoint.

It’s hard for me to believe that day, that epiphany, that moment of clarity I had at 14 happened over 25 years ago. Christ, a quarter of a fucking century! How I’ve survived this long with all this is anybody’s guess, but how I survived the first few years of it is nothing short of a bloody fucking miracle.

From that day forward, I had a word to give some frame of reference to what I was, but it didn’t make me feel any less alone. Alone, confused, bewildered and lost. I only wonder what my life might have been like had 14 year old kids like me, in 1989, known they had places to turn for help and support for such things.

That’s why I do what I do, by the way. That’s why this discussion and this issue is so important. That’s why the topic of pedophilia needs to be wrestled out of the shadows and brought into the light, in a realistic sense. This is why we need to break through all the hysteria and dispel the myths. This, above all else, is why my fellow Virpeds and I will not be silenced and will not go away, no matter how uncomfortable the message we have may make some people.

If kids who came of age dealing with what I had to deal with did so in an environment where they did not have to feel ashamed and afraid to open up and reach out for help, how much better would things be for them and possibly lots of people around them? Sadly, I still don’t think we foster such an environment in our society, but I think we’re getting closer to a time and a place where we will, and I’m proud to be one of the people leading the charge to make that happen.

Brett

The post And On That Day, I Knew What I Was appeared first on Pedophiles About Pedophilia.

Coming Out to a World that Hates Pedophiles

I have been sexually attracted to little girls for 60 years but choose to not act on it. I am not exclusive and am happily married with three children and ten grand-children. I spent a lot of time with children over the years without any problems, including teaching school and having foster children. My pedophilia simmered in the background during the 25 years of my first marriage, but when I did ask a counselor for help, she promptly abandoned me without a referral.

Three years after living in our home, our foster daughter falsely accused me of molesting her. That never happened, but I told my wife that I am indeed sexually attracted to young girls. She encouraged me to become a counselor so I could help other people with pedophilia. When I had almost completed a masters degree in mental health counseling, Walden University dismissed me based solely on my sexual orientation. I experienced severe anxiety but at the time the only hospital in our county had banned me from their premises because of the false allegations, even though no charges have ever been filed.

 

I came out to many of my family and friends, who were all very supportive because they understood the difference between attraction and action. In 2014, I came out on a live Oregon Public Broadcasting talk show without any serious repercussions. Earlier this year I did an interview for an article in The Sun, not realizing the impact it would have on our lives. About the same time, someone posted a YouTube of my coming out at an Association for Sexual Abuse Prevention workshop that my wife and I conducted in Portland, Oregon. It ended up on Facebook and created quite a stir in our local community. It also got the attention of the media and within a week my wife and I participated in two television and two radio live talk shows. The next week we appeared on the Dr. Phil show. We were immediately banished by our church and received a number of credible death threats. Now this isn’t about “poor me,” as I understand that many of these people assume I am a child molester, but I don’t understand why they hate my wife so much.

 

What can we learn from this experience? Not all pedophiles are child molesters. Many people who work with children experience some level of sexual attraction to them. The majority of people with pedophilia will never molest a child, but will also never come out. Hating and ostracizing pedophiles does nothing to protect children. When someone does come out, we should support them in not acting on the attraction.

If you or someone you love is sexually attracted to children, you may call me at +1 541–891–6168. Check out our website at ASAPinternational.org.

The post Coming Out to a World that Hates Pedophiles appeared first on Pedophiles About Pedophilia.

You read news articles where they use the word “pedophile” to refer to child rapists, or to child sexual abuse as “pedophilia,” you see internet comments on these articles that pedophiles should die, be castrated, outcast on an island, hanged, shot… you get the picture. That serves as the backdrop for what you will face as someone with an attraction to minors: An automatic assumption that you have, or will, molest children.

So, I am sure you can imagine why this might spawn thoughts of self-hate, depression, suicide, and negativity. This begs the question: What can a MAP do to counter some of that negativity?

First Technique: Awareness And Interruption

One of the first things that can be done about negativity is to be aware of our thoughts throughout the day. This can be achieved a variety of ways: Journaling, setting alarms (actual ones or internal ones) for an internal check-in about what you have been thinking about, talking to people.

Another thing that can be done, building off that awareness, is simply interrupting those negative thoughts. Sometimes, that can be done with reaching out to a friend for support. Sometimes, we can journal out what we are thinking about.

Other times, interrupting our negative thoughts can be a challenge because the thought is so believable we do not even recognize we are being overly negative, which is why building up an awareness is such an essential step.

Second Technique: Recognizing Unrealistic/Irrational Thoughts

This may sound like the first technique, but it is not the same. Beyond being aware of the content of our thoughts, we need to when that content is not accurate to whatever it is we are thinking about, particularly if we are thinking about ourselves, our situation, and our options for solving a problem. If we think our options are limited, but they really are not, then we can work ourselves into a situation where we perceive things as being hopeless, when in reality they are not.

Sometimes, that can be reaching out to people and asking a support person what they think about us or our situation. This could be as simple as asking, “Hey, what do you think of me? How do you see me?” It could be writing out your thoughts, and asking your support people what they think of it. The key is that you need an outside perspective looking at your thoughts, so you can measure whether they are realistic or rational.

Another method of measuring whether your thoughts are accurate is to be aware of ways we can deceive ourselves: One area of awareness is cognitive distortions, or thinking patterns that can complicate existing mental health issues or mental ruts. Another is knowing about logical fallacies, even if you do not remember the specific names for the fallacies, being familiar with how they operate can be helpful in self-reflection.

Third Technique: Challenging Negative/Irrational Thoughts

The third and final strategy for dealing with negative or irrational thoughts is directly challenging them. That is, once you have built up an awareness of what the negative/irrational thought is, you have the capacity to think about what you just thought about. This is where things get tricky.

For many of us, we can recognize the futility of a particular negative/irrational thought easily enough. But then afterwards, we beat ourselves up for having the thought… which defeats the entire point of building up that awareness. So the trick is not to shame ourselves for having the thought. Instead, we need to understand the content of the thought, and in our next thought, challenge that content.

For example:

The specific thought, and what we can do to challenge the thought, can vary widely. The key is to figure out a thought that will not be triggering, unrealistic, or negative that can be phrased in a positive way. Sometimes we might need the support of someone else to come up with positive ideas, sometimes it helps to write the thoughts down. Sometimes it can help to look up what are called “positive affirmations” and use the ideas that fit your thoughts and your situation.

Wrapping Up: Get Out Of Stinking Thinking!

One of the most important things we can do as a community of minor-attracted people is to acknowledge, recognize, and do our best to break free from negative mental patterns that can lead us to — or keep us in — depression, anxiety, and hopelessness. We cannot do this alone. We need the support of other people who can help us and speak to positive things in our lives to help us make positive changes. And yes, these people are going to challenge us. There will be days where we ask for someone’s support, and they will make us look at a truth about ourselves that is hard to take in.

Realizing things about yourself, and not having a guidebook on how to fix it, is a difficult and painful process. It takes work and dedication. At the same time, the results are well worth it: Not only can we come out the other end as improved people that think positively about ourselves, we can use our experiences to help others in the future.

After all, that is what being a family is about. For those who have not picked up on this yet, I view the MAP community as my extended family. Sure, I might argue with some of you. I might not understand everyone’s issues. I might offend people, intentionally or not. But at the end of the day, week, month… I care about you and your mental health. Do what you can to improve yourself, one day at a time, and give yourself the space to fall into negativity, and get back up again. You are worth it.

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