MAP

Thank you, @iwakan , for sharing this with me. https://www.uryourstory.org/index.php/social-criticism/188-positive-memories

(This is from my perspective as a YAP, but I imagine this applies to other "harmful" paraphilias as well.)

I'm on another Fediverse instance (which I will not name because I know the moderator goes out of their way to seek out and slander people badmouthing them and their instance) under a different username and the constant militantly anti contact rhetoric I see on there is exhausting. It's all "children can't consent" and "if you're pro contact you're a predator and we want nothing to do with you" and a whole lot of pathologization of pedophilia. I, of course, stay quiet about it on there, and I only put up with it because they also host a lot of kodo/kodocon (they say it's okay if it's purely fictional) and I haven't found a better instance to migrate to. (Also, the mod is extremely ageist in general; they are extremely adamant about keeping minors off of their instance, and they don't even try to say it's just for legal reasons, they legitimately think minors shouldn't be looking at porn.)

Yes, child sexual abuse is bad, but it's not predatory to acknowledge that "minors" (I hate that term, it feels very dehumanizing) have sexual desires – not just teenagers but prepubescent children as well – or to suggest that they should be able to explore their sexuality with other people if they so choose. I don't want to force myself on a child who isn't interested in sex or romance (either in general or with adults). Many youth won't be interested – as is their right. But that is not indicative of all youth, and I believe that if a child or teenager wants to enter a relationship with an adult, they should be able to do so.

When do these people think people should have sexual autonomy? When they turn 18? What's so magical about that age that turns people from pure, innocent, sexless babies who don't deserve autonomy "for their own protection" to fully fledged adults who are predators if they so much as eye a slightly younger friend wrong?

Also, someone tried to use a screenshot of the MAP wiki's page for "pro contact" (which I don't feel like looking up ATM but to paraphrase it said "pro contact people believe that sexual and romantic contact between minors and significantly older adults are not inherently harmful or predatory and should be permissible") as a gotcha to say "if you're defending pro contact MAPs this is what you're defending, don't lie about what 'contact' means!" Though I suppose maybe some people were saying that "contact" in that situation means "any kind of social contact, not necessarily romantic or sexual" and in that case that is an incorrect definition of "contact," but it still seems absurd to me on some level.

I remember playing Omega Ruby shortly after it came out and being vaguely aroused by the male Tubers (pictured here). It came out in 2014, so I would have been at least starting puberty by then, and I was definitely old enough that my attraction to him would have been seen as aberrant. My sex education was surprisingly comprehensive for a Mormon, as I was told about the mechanics of PIV sex, but I didn't fully made the connection that my arousal for the Tuber was sexual in nature. (My hydrophilia was also involved somehow, so that probably confused things.) To be fair, I wasn't having fantasies about sticking my dick in him or anything, it was, again, just vague feelings of arousal. I don't think I even started having overtly sexual fantasies until my later years of high school. (Which I chalk up to a combination of being autistic and acespec and classic Mormon sexual repression.)

I'm not sure how to elaborate on this lol

Watching Markiplier's new Pokéfusion Smash or Pass video. He passed this one, but I would totally smash.

[Image is a screen shot of the mentioned video, with Markiplier's facecam in the top left corner. His smash counter is at 1 and his pass counter at 25. The Pokéfusion currently on screen is Leaflia, a fusion of Kirlia and Leafeon.]

This was originally a comment on a different post, but I think this is worth fleshing out into its own post. And I apologize in advance for the length of this post, I hope I am making my position clear.

I think one reason many people are turned off from youth liberation is that they conflate it with MAP activism, and MAPs are, in popular opinion, abusive monsters that need to be ostracized from society, if not outright exterminated. The blatant falsehood of this statement and of this conflation aside, one thing that anti MAPs fail to recognize is that the sexual liberation of children is only one aspect of their liberation. Children deserve to be liberated from the shackles of the nuclear family paradigm, from the prison that is compulsory state (or state approved) schooling, from the bigotry directed towards them for no other reason than them being children.

That being said, in my opinion, sexual liberation of youth is an indispensable aspect of their total liberation, and this is something that, in my experience, many youth liberationists balk at.

Children deserve autonomy and respect in all aspects of their life. Yet when we say that this includes their ability to engage in sexual activity with whomever they wish, including adults, many people will revert right back to making patriarchal statements about how youth are too innocent and naive to consent to sex, or pull out the same pseudoscience about brain development that they otherwise condemn in order to suggest that children are too immature and stupid to consent to sexual activity with anyone other than perhaps their peers. This, to me, belies both an incomplete view of liberation and a worldview still tainted by puritanical Christian ideas about sex.

Now, I think it goes without saying that sexual abuse of children is reprehensible. But so is the sexual abuse of adults, and adults are not broadly desexualized because some of them suffer from sexual abuse. And other forms of abuse against children are also reprehensible, but I have not seen youth liberationists suggest that children should be segregated from adults in any other contexts besides sexual ones.

It is hypocrisy to say "youth should be liberated and treated as equals to adults in all respects" them turn around and say that they cannot truly consent to sex except in particular circumstances. This, to me, echos how radical feminists often suggest that women are incapable of consenting to sex with men.

I will once again state: this is still only one aspect of youth liberation, and matters like deconstructing the power of the nuclear family and the current "education" system, and generally taking steps to ensure that youth have greater legal, social, and political autonomy are also critical. But their sexual liberation cannot be neglected or dismissed.

(Edits were just for formatting to make the post easier to read.)

Back when I was 15 I was friends with this 11 year old kid. He was only 4 years younger than me but I had been taught so 11 was too young to find attractive. Whenever I was with him I got really awkward and nervous with what I now know were romantic feelings but I couldn't face that possibility so I convinced myself he had a crush on me.

I thought it was so obvious, I feel so awkward when I talk to him bc I can tell he has a crush on me! That must be it! I went home and told my dad and all my siblings about this 11 year old boy who had this super obvious kid crush on me. I had been taught that having crushes on kids was wrong but kids having crushes was cute and innocent(as long as they didn't act on them) so I decided it was that instead.

I spent literal hours daydreaming about dating him. About meeting him again when we were older and marrying with kids, rationilising it as "wanting to imagine what it was like if he got what he wanted (bc I defo don't want it that would be creepy)".

Looking back that was very, very obvious and I don't know how I managed to trick myself like that. I don't know that kid anymore but I hope he's doing well. Who knows, maybe someday I'll meet him agin and my daydreams will come true!

I remember when I was watching Stranger Things, and Eleven got the bitchin' alt make-over I felt.. things. I was talking to my friend about it and expressing that I was scared to look up what age she was. Then I told myself I would just wait until she's legal to find her attractive, but now I don't really find her attractive anymore.

The silly brain gymnastics one comes up with to avoid accepting being a pedo, lol.

Something I've talked about in the past that I wanted an excuse to bring up again is my discomfort in locker rooms. And what better excuse than to have a whole new website to post it on?

Trans people are familiar with how locker rooms with your AGAB can be uncomfortable. That's not what I'm talking about, but locker rooms to me, an MtF GL MAP, are very much a double edged sword.

It's either be with a ton of people of your AGAB (which is awful when you're like me and pass as female and are going into a locker room to get into a bikini), or be with a ton of people that you find attractive. And none are preferable especially when you're bi.

Women's locker rooms make me extremely uncomfortable. Of course being a trans woman I'm scared someone will clock me and harass me for being a creep (which I'm not), but it makes it even more uncomfortable when you have an attraction to women. I'd never in my life sneak into a locker room to get a glimpse of people naked; that's vile, but there are some circumstances where it's harder to keep my head down, especially when keeping my head up is just plain natural. But I know what I'd do if I didn't.

When I went swimming with my gf and bff at the time, sometime last year, I went to the women's locker room myself because my gf used the men's ones. I kept my head down to try and not be noticed as I changed out of my street clothes and into my two piece as fast as I could. But the whole time I could hear people in the locker room. I kept my head down so I couldn't see what they looked like or where they were, but they were families.

It's easy to not look at other women in the locker room. If I wanna see naked women I can just open Google.

But the girls?

It's not quite as accessible, legal, or (depending on circumstances) morally good to do the same with girls.

So when I'm in a locker room and I hear the chatter, the intrusive thoughts going through my mind are unbearable: "just sneak a peak, no one will see", "you've never seen a naked girl before, might as well start now", "other women are seeing them naked, no reason why you can't".

I don't consider myself a pedo with "urges". But the desire to look up and sneak a glance in these scenarios is so unbelievably tempting.

Thanks for coming to my Ted talk.

I ended up talking with my bff and gf about it, but I just told them I didn't wanna be perceived as a pedo because I'm visibly trans and there's a lot of stigma and conspiracies against trans women. But what I didn't tell them was that I was also uncomfortable because I am a pedo.

When I was around 13 or 14 years old I had my first real crush. She was a girl in my class, same age as me. I crushed on her for years before saying anything, but she wasn't into me, so we just stayed friends. And I continued to be her friend for years because she's a great person.

She ghosted me when I came out as a MAP.

Around the same time, 13 or 14 or so, I started to realize I was attracted to younger people too. When I was around 11 I started to look at porn and become interested in sex, and around the time I started to gain crushes was when I started to fantasize about girls as young as 6.

As I got older I started looking at lolicon and shotacon art, wondering if it made me a pedophile to enjoy it. Temptation crossed my mind for years about searching other material, but I never gave in.

I was a teacher for a private company at 17. I taught kids aged 6-14. A couple of my students I had occasional intrusive sexual thoughts about. I didn't think they were wrong, but I thought they were innapropriate given our teacher-student relationship. I think I thought about a 12 year old and an 11 year old or something.

The 12 year old was my favorite student. To this day I don't know if I had feelings for her or not, but she was special. I loved her. She made me a house in Minecraft, I always helped her with her work. I like to think we had a special relationship. Not to mention she was gorgeous, just immensely cute, and had a great loveable personality. Eventually I stopped working there for unrelated reasons.

For years I had thoughts about whether or not I was a pedophile, and what did or didn't make me a map. When I was young I had my own thoughts about those with attractions to kids. I didn't see anything wrong with it. Didn't see anything wrong with pride. But as I got older the world told me to hate these people, these people that I thought I belonged to, but I feared being ostracized by my peers for not agreeing with them, so I started to follow their opinions blindly.

When Turning Red by Pixar came out I noticed that I was erotically attracted to the main character Mei-Lin. The way society conditioned me I thought this was wrong, so I finally, after years of keeping my pedophilic thoughts to myself, looked online for pedo resources.

Last year I found my way to VirPed, otherwise known as Virtuous Pedophiles. An online community for anti-contact individuals. I met other peds here and quickly learned that my attraction wasn't something to be ashamed of. It didn't make me a monster, and it was normal. I learned that there was nothing wrong with attraction--my original opinion about pedophilia, that society changed my mind on. I learned that MAP wasn't some evil word, it was an umbrella term meant to encompass different chronophilias. I didn't even know before that there was more than just pedophilia. I started to identify as a hebephile because I thought I was only attracted to girls who'd started puberty.

I quickly undid the damage that society did to me, and then I found Visions of Alice through the mention of someone on VirPed. It was here that I was exposed to the pro-contact contact stance. I didn't agree with it, but I didn't want to discriminate against it. I talked to lots of pro-cs and head their opinions and views, and eventually the thought crossed my mind "why is love wrong if both people want it?" So I started to identify as contact-neutral.

Eventually I found my way to MAP Merch Shop. I was experienced in graphic design, so I hit up the owner Katie Cruz because I was interested in joining.

We did an interview over voice chat, and that was the first time I ever heard someone talk to me about being a pedophile, and that was a the first time I could actually talk about being a hebephile.

I joined and she introduced me to Matrix/Element. She joined me to her MMS Group Chat and I met other members of the community. It was there that they introduced me to the pediverse and Freak University.

I signed up and got rejected, so I reapplied and Katie put in a good word for me to get me let in.

I was surprised to see so many open pedophiles. People talking about their attractions to children--people like me.

Somehow I quickly gained a reputation, within a month I went from 0 followers and being unknown to having 450 people watching when I posted. I posted jokes, anecdotes, opinions, and, most importantly, my current experiences with girllove.

In mid June I met a girl at my apartment complex. I posted about her a lot because I had a crush on her. But the weird thing? She was 8, which was way below my AoA of 12+, and she certainly hadn't started puberty. But she was attractive. She made me nervous, I thought about her everyday, I envisioned what we'd do together--she was just like any crush to me, only instead of an adult, she was a kid. But does that really make a difference? She was a person. What should age have to do with love?

Eventually shit happened. I sound like a broken record at this point with the amount of times I incessantly talk about the chain of events that led me to where I am today.

It's crazy what all happened, and how fast it happened, but what's even crazier is that these loves that I had, something that felt so normal to me, is discriminated against by our society. And this society doesn't just hurt us childlovers, but the ones we love too. Pedos don't want to hurt kids, but forcing kids away from them and filling their heads with lies about how close they come to being raped and abused by us causes way more trauma than true love ever could.

I've been in this community for less than a year, and I'm excited to see what the next one brings.

So apparently "meet/find likeminded people" is a covert phrase people use to find others to trade and distribute CSAM/CSEM to, as in stuff that fails the DOST test. Undercover feds may use it as well.

This is kind of embarassing to admit, but I have used that phrase before, unbeknowst of its connotation. I feel torn about it, because I liked using it. For me it was a way to say "I'm looking for fellow accepting freaks with similar humour, values, etc." I guess being more specific is more beneficial anyway.

So yea, be careful!

How does it look? :3c

Posting this because some of y'all have had problems uploading images and i'm seeing if this works

Hi, I'm Yuki I work with Arisu on a transid wiki (transid.org). I made some anti MAP comments when I was new to the community. I bought all the antiMAP propaganda I had heard growing up. I have now heard mumbling that in the 70's MAPs were there, maybe one of them threw the first brick at Stonewall. Who the hell knows for sure. Just like how that brick throwing has been retold so many times I think the MAP story has been erased. Why did homosexual used to also mean MAP?

I don't want there to be a fucking radradqueer movement and transid2 (transid3 if you count transx) for everyone to be accepted. Just as the gays threw away the transgender people at some point. Well now the acronym commonly is at minimum lgbT unless someone is very bigoted. I think it is time MAPS got some rights. It feels like a witch hunt. You all should be able to talk about your orientation. I'm not going to get into contact stuff other than to say I'm not going to force a contact stance on anyone. The only thing I will say is I don't want to risk that wiki going down so stuff needs to be legal under US law. I'm not a lawyer I have no idea what Arisu was talking about Nevada law and some test. The rules on the wiki might be the same there I need to learn what the hell that means.

Also spending a lot of time with a chrono teenager and both being affectionate has been really nice lately :). We keep making maps in a game to explore, they were the one eager to show me the date spots they made in game. Talking to my friends and that teen, I admire, made me no longer afraid of the map community and less afraid of myself.

Again I'm sorry. No one should be denied rights something that is a part of them, their identity.

Love them so much.