So I was willing to be patient, maybe give her the benefit of the doubt (to be honest, I know very little about Prostasia outside of the forums that I briefly skim every now and then. No idea how the people overseeing it carry themselves and I rarely view the blogs.)… And then after watching, and re-watching a certain section because something didn’t sit right with me, it hit me that she’s a liar who puts words in people’s mouths.
I was quoted saying I would be ok with living in Japan or the USA because I’m against censorship. In her mind, that SOMEHOW translated to me wanting to move to Japan because the Age of Consent is (apparently) 13… I wasn’t even thinking along those lines when I typed that out, I was just thinking about not having to deal with censorship and how writing a light novel seemed fun. So me being an otaku was somehow twisted in the worst way possible to make me appear predatory, when I just liked how artistically liberated Japan seems. Even then, that’s her blatantly ignoring the part where I said the USA was my other top pick. Not because of some weird Age of Consent thing but because I love freedom and artistic expression not being trampled upon by the government… Even the ugly artistic expressions should be allowed, as long as nobody IRL is being harmed in its production. I literally pointed out the reasons why I would want to live in those places too, but she left those parts out because I’m apparently evil incarnate or something.
Hating censorship =/= Menace to Society.
I was actually willing to see her side of the story up until I realized, if she can twist whatever I say into something that bad (“I like a certain country” being translated into “menace to society”), then pretty much anything she says could be a gross misrepresentation of the truth.
When was she ever “based?” (I detest that term by the way. It’s a term that is largely used by the alt-right to describe anyone who shares the same stupid opinions as them.) Wasn’t she a former gamergate darling? It was pretty clear from the beginning what type of person she was. I remember when they would make video after video attacking Anita Sarkeesian. It mounted to a huge cyberbullying campaign that went well beyond “criticism.” None of this surprises me about ShoeonHead, it’s exactly what I would expect.
Here’s our official response in the form of a FAQ. Please link to this rather than to this forum page. Thanks to @Chie for the original research on this page which we drew on in writing the FAQ.
The first response is, rough… It comes across as if you’re saying MAPs can never be accepted since they’ll always have a minor attraction. Also by saying pedophilia isn’t ok aren’t you going against the DSM-5?
Yeah, I know that’s a rough paragraph, especially the first one. But I also want to make it clear that when it says, “You can still believe that it is innately evil to think about children sexually,” I personally don’t believe that at all. But it probably is true that pedophiles can’t be fully accepted by society at large, due to the prevalence of people who do think that way.
I’ve definitely heard the idea that you brought up though that the use of the term minor attracted person suggests that it’s okay to be attracted to children. But using a term that communicates who someone is attracted to doesn’t indicate anything about the morality of that attraction.
Actual evil consists of self-distraction, in which a person loses most or all sympathy for the wellbeing of others because of pure focus on his/her/their own interests. Any engagement with the interests of others is merely to win their opportunistic support for something gratifying the evil person. It is incorrect to impute this logical loop characteristic to any sexual attraction, no matter how inopportune it would be if enacted in real life, since the sympathetic component of sexual attractions can consist of a pathway that isn’t compatible with reality. For example, one can be attracted to the fantasia of being Dracula and biting someone else to make them a vampire, and feel intense sympathy for the imaginary other person as they go through the process of conversion, and yet know perfectly well, based on sympathy with REAL human beings, that none of this could be enacted in real life. Or, at least, if one deliberately attempted to infect anyone with any pathological condition, that would indeed, on the plane of real life, be evil.
This site has a consistent theme of distinguishing fantasy from real-world harm, and I believe that this analysis is correct, as you may have seen in my other posts. To call a type of fantasy ‘evil’ in order to placate those who are aggressively confused on this topic is understandable as a sop to the powerful and insensate, but is ultimately self-defeating. Either humans are capable of ascending to rationality on sexual issues or we are condemned to keep cooperating with witch-burners who will appear inevitably. Surely this institution is predicated on hope for the former.
Some people who have attractions that would be evil if enacted are well aware of this and, in all benevolence, make sure that no such enactment ever happens. To tell this consummately anti-evil person that their mind has an engrained strain always working within it that is evil in itself is not only discouraging but also eplacebating (it removes a beneficial placebo effect, or bootstrap affirmation of being a good person, and maintaining one’s ‘good name,’ as it were). Only the best philosophers confronted with this dilemma would be able to avoid discouragement at best, life-altering consternation at worst.
So it’s important to realize that helping pedophiles avoid offending doesn’t mean accepting that pedophilia is OK
Oof! I can see what you’re going for, it’s consistent with your perspective but this comes across as “paedophilia isn’t okay” rather than what your intention was.
This one though:
there is nothing good to come of pedophilia, and if it could be eliminated with a pill, it should be.
Holy fuck! You shouldn’t need me to tell you what’s wrong with this statement!
I of course would disagree that there is “nothing good to come of pedophilia.” I think many pedophiles could be good caregivers but it will take a lot of self discipline and harnessing their sexual attractions in a way that does not bring harm to anyone. I mentioned in a separate forum about compersion which is when you find gratification in other people’s well-being and happiness. It is something I have developed and believe may be an important component for non-offending pedophiles. I have been a MAP for over 30 years and in that time I’ve always been in contact with children to some extent and have thus far avoided offending.
Of course there are lots of MAPs who should probably not be around kids at all because they have not developed the proper discipline and thinking that would make it safe. And perhaps they should take a pill if there was one. But no such pill exists and so they either have to quarantine themselves away from their attractions or find ways to harness their attractions to serve a socially beneficial purpose which, I believe, there is one.
That’s not true.
Prostasia cares about you and your rights.
I dunno. I give @terminus credit for thoughtfully and thoroughly addressing the Guy Hamilton-Smith and MSC concerns, as those are the two most prominent ones i see getting swirled at Prostasia and their community, but that bit almost felt like unnecessary pandering. I think it would be better to re-write it so it doesn’t threaten or undermine @prostasia s work.
After giving some more consideration to your feedback I will be rewriting the first section of the response FAQ so that it doesn’t include those quotes. It was meant to be leaving room for people to make their own moral judgements about pedophilia (which Prostasia doesn’t consider to be a moral issue), but I’ve decided it’s unnecessary. It would be better if we just left that out.
With the first and third I can see you were going for that I think it was just poorly written, I would have avoided stuff like “we don’t support pedophilia” or “pedophilia is not okay” that is needlessly stigmatising, “we support pedophiles remaining non-offending” would have been a better line imo. The second one seems like a genuine mistake, I know the way it read was not what was intended nor what you believe, but it also seems like something that wasn’t proof read and thus ended up saying something awful.
Obviously you have every right to hold your own beliefs, but to me this feels like not much more than a weakened version of the “doomed to offend” mindset. While there are certainly MAPs who struggle with urges and poor self control, the majority of MAPs do not have to “avoid offending,” the same way that I, as a gay man, do not have to “avoid raping other men.” There are also some MAPs who are able to refocus their attractions as compersion, however that doesn’t mean people like me, whose attractions are purely sexual and often sadistic in nature, pose a threat just because our attractions cannot be refocused.
Of course, if someone is not comfortable being around children for any reason, then that should be entirely their decision, however I don’t believe it’s accurate to imply that anyone is at risk of offending purely because of their attractions. There has never been a study of whether or not MAPs would offend at higher rates in the absence of stigma (such a study would currently be impossible due to the widespread nature of the stigma), however, there have been studies that show a reduction in stigma can reduce known risk factors for offending among MAPs. To pretend that eliminating the attractions is the right response to the minority of MAPs who are at risk of offending is to ignore the role of stigma in causing those risk factors and preventing those at risk from seeking support.
I believe this source backs up most of the points I’ve made here, but if there’s anything I’ve said that you feel isn’t adequately addressed by it let me know and I’ll find one more specific to that topic: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-019-01569-x
Furthermore, the arguments heavily resemble those supporting forced institutionalization of the “dangerous” mentally ill, or preemptive incarceration. Offering support that doesn’t restrict our rights based on arbitrary distinctions is a much better option.
(@elliot I’ll address the rest of the thread later; I’m rather busy at the moment.)
“We’re not ‘pro-pedo’, we’re anti CSA and pro civil liberties.
Humanizing minor-attraction and MAPs is the first step in reducing their likelihood of committing a crime against a child, in pursuit of prevention strategies that actually work.”
