Originally published at: What I learned as a MAP's partner - Prostasia Foundation
There’s a lot about minor attraction that you don’t know. I (who wish to remain anonymous) feel pretty confident about that because, until recently, there was a lot about minor attraction I didn’t know, even though generally speaking, I know more than the average person about alternative or divergent sexualities. Some of what I’ve learned…
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How can we reduce stigma? It looks that no one wants to listen to facts and everyone prefer to write hateful comments and to harm people’s emotions… when i try to talk about reducing stigma, people start insulting me. When Prostasia say something, people say Prostasia supports child abuse… It seems that stigma wont be reduced anytime soon.
This is especially difficult because 1) People have an irrational instinct to protect children even when the danger is not real. And 2) Unfortunately people believe that the stigma itself is what prevents people from abusing children. And I suspect that, ironically, the people who defend this stigma with more fervour are exactly the ones who believe that deep inside they could end up abusing children themselves if pedophilia were “normalized”. So in a way these people “need” to believe that pedophilia is evil. Or at least that is what they believe they should do.
I could do a better job writing an article capable of reducing stigma than this one, and I would make it look less “pro-pedo” to boot, while being functionally the same.
For starters, stop using the word MAP. Just stop. It’s tainted. It crops up in comments. It crops up in replies. Even the mainstream media has been better about the words they use. I don’t know why you’re so married to it.
MAP has actually made things worse, because the only time the word is ever in used is for under 13s, and yet the word suggests higher age minors. This makes us all look like a bunch of cunning psychopaths looking to “trick people”, when really it was just a random name a committee chose.
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What word do you suggest? No, we can’t use the word “pedophile”, becase this word carries stigma. The word is also used as an insult. If we want to destigmatize people, we have to use new words that carry no stigma.
The word “MAP” was pointed by APA, as far as i know.
I would be happy to hear your opinion. 
You end up spending more time arguing over whether you’re normalizing pedophilia, than you do actually getting a point across, and it is functionally the same. It also reinforces the “stereotype” of pedophiles being crafty and sneaky, much like the stereotypes of jews being greedy, and black people being criminals.
What particularly bugs me is that there are 130 comments on that very article talking about how they’re “normalizing” pedophilia, and 90% of their points hinge upon that terminology. This isn’t just one or two cranks. People are turning up, seeing that phrase, and getting outraged at it. Even pedophiles have criticized this language for being euphemistic, and attracting negative attention.
It also creates an incentive for the Prostasia Foundation to mumble bullshit about harmful medical interventions in order to save face, whenever they fall into a random scandal. They know it’s bullshit, I know it’s bullshit, you know it’s bullshit. But, they have to save face, and lie.
This is far more harmful, than some petty bullshit stigma. This is as bad as the social justice groups when they obsess over changing whitelist to allowlist, because someone might find that “racist” or they get offended by Aunt Jemima, rather than focusing on more important structural problems. The term invites “Stigma”. Stigma, stigma, stigma. I’m seeing plenty of “stigma” as it is. Even your focus on this, rather than serious issues, shows to me that you yourself are perpetuating “stigma”.
If there is anything I hate, it is self-righteous social justice warrirors who think they know it all, and never help when you actually need it. And behave as if they’re doing you a big, big favor in the pursuit of appearing “woke”.
There is a big problem here. It needs to be solved. It is only getting worse.
Six months ago, you could laugh off the cranks, but “MAP” is only becoming more and more tainted with the manipulation narrative. You have no idea, no idea how far away I am seeing the normalization arguments, and how it’s predicated on that word.
If you have a better way of dealing with it, I’d like to hear it, but it’s only going to get worse. Much worse.
For what harmful medical interventions are you talking about? I don’t understand. What wrong did Prostasia do? Prostasia is not medical organization, but organizations that supports evidence-based laws.
Here you can see what Prostasia actually does: About - Prostasia Foundation
Prostasia actually does very much advocate medical interventions. If they were simply an organization who supported laws they wouldn’t be so bad. And I can see it with my own eyes in vodcasts, tweets, and so on. I hate it when someone tries to fucking gaslight me about something I can see right in front of me.
These sorts of interventions disproportionately impact autistic individuals, who even in other contexts, have had creative solutions like “estrogen” applied to them to try to cure them of their autism. This is insanity, and it has to be stopped.
If they were just saying to “get help”, “get therapy”, the sex positivity crap, or the other crap, it wouldn’t be so bad. But, they’re shilling it hard enough that we’re at that point where something is going to have to give. If Prostasia simply wanted people to quit CP with some CBT based therapy, then fine. What’s the worst CBT going to do to someone?
But, some vile medical intervention? That is disgusting, and antithetical to their pretension to “human rights”, which is only ever remembered when they talk down to MAPs about how they supposedly do a big favor about “reducing stigma”.
What are the medical interventions you talk about?
Why don’t you like sex-positivity?
Oh, that is a figure of speech. But, if I had to answer that question, the concept is nice. But, it provides too much of a shield for behaviors which are wrong.
For instance, the example of students wearing whatever they want. Is it appropriate? Is it distracting? Would it not be problematic to just start doing that one day? There are demands of reality, but no real way to get to it. And it seems to assume a culture, which in fact doesn’t seem to presently exist.
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I don’t think the term MAP is the problem, even though I don’t really care about using it or not. What I see here as the problem, (here and in several other places) is the conflict of interests among people attracted by the topic of pedophilia. And I’m not necessarily saying that participating in a discussion for trying to further your own interest is a bad thing, after all protecting children is a very noble interest. Nor am I talking (just) about obvious issues like using the topic with the intention of protecting pedophiles, or with the intention of protecting children. There is much more besides that in the midst of these extremes. But anyway, the problem here is that apparently many of these interests diverges a lot. And that’s why the discussions specifically about pedophilia usually leads nowhere.
If enough people lose their shit over it, it will create a serious chilling effect over the entire subject.
Are they leading nowhere?
In this specific thread? I don’t think so. Also because, as much as I sympathize with the OP, unfortunately it is at best just a anecdotal evidence
I mean, put up or shut up. If you can write a better article, write it.
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Preach, sister.
I’ve known non-offending MAPs to be no different than your average person. They’re not proud of who they are, but they all seem to express and conduct themselves in a manner that’s lawful, and harmless.
There’s a wealth of research that proves pedophilia is more of a sexual orientation, rather than a pathological defect. The DSM-5 was correct to de-pathologize pedophilia from pedophilic disorder, as the likelihood that a person may commit hands-on offenses against children (rape, molestation, grooming) seems to be dependent on a comorbidity of various other social and psychological issues, rather than a mere sexual preference for minors.
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