The term Friend

[Outis]

I'm opening an old would, what do we think of the term MAP or Pedophile?
I was talking to an MAP activist recently who mentioned a different term, I think it was Friend rather than MAP and it made me think.

Pedophile as a term is burned, it is as toxic as the term Nazi.
MAP is nicer but the term focused on Attraction, but I think being a MAP is more than just attraction.

Being a MAP to me is being someone who's more empathetic towards children, more connected to children, more emotionally aligned with children and yes sometimes, that turns into attracted to children.

I like most people encounter children all the time. In shops, out walking, through friends and family, through activities and hobbies. Out of all the children I meet, the majority I feel no attraction for, it just isn't something that occurs to me. But I still enjoy their company, still have fun clowning around, talking about some TV series or movie or book, talking about their school and life and hobbies. There's just an alignment there and I've had parents say I have a way with kids, they like being around me and it's visible that I am patient and enjoy being around them. Sometimes there will be someone who there's instant chemistry with and some attraction, other times I might get to know someone over months or years and it gradually turns into love and attraction. It's no different to non-maps really. I'm not exclusive but I encounter adults every day and I rarely feel attraction but sometimes there's instant chemistry and other times over time chemistry develops.

But the term MAP suggests it's just about attraction and I can see how that might trigger people.
I mean some men are Heterosexual but are "Asian inside" and are primarily attracted to Asian women. They can't help it. They're not attracted to every Asian woman and they're not a danger to Asian women but they love Asian culture, love the demeanor of Asian women, love Asian food, love the features of Asian women. They are wired to be drawn to Asian culture and women. The same is true the other way around, there are terms such as Banana (yellow on the outside and white on the inside) for Asian people who western inside and other terms for other mixes. They're still heterosexual or homosexual but inside they are drawn to a different demographic to themselves and that can't simply be programmed out of them. For maps it's so entrenched in their sexuality that it can't change but is far more than just attraction.

I see myself more like that Banana term, I'm wired to be aligned with kids and yes sometimes that means attraction, but not always.

So would a term such as Friend better describe us? Kids have friends, we always ask kids do they have friends at school or at their clubs. Kids talk freely about their friends. "Hey, I made a new friends today at church". Friends sometimes develop feelings and become "more than friends".

Friend is harder to attack, it's positive. It focuses less on attraction but by association with the demographic its representing the connection is clear. I know Gay people are attracted to the same gender but as a term it isn't focused on attraction, it describes a positive type of situation and feeling. But it isn't deceptive because if someone says that person is Gay I know it means they are attracted to the same gender. If Gays were called MAP (Male Attracted Person), as a term the focus is instantly about attraction which makes me think of sex but actually when I hear the term Gay I actually think of Clubs, people hanging out being colourful, the sex bit isn't really the thing that comes to mind.

So a long boring way of saying, is a term such as Friend a better starting point for a new period of advocacy and organisation?

[Fragment]

actually when I hear the term Gay I actually think of Clubs, people hanging out being colourful, the sex bit isn't really the thing that comes to mind.

I have been thinking about this, how MAPs need a kind of "culture" that can be referred to, common identifiers that go outside of "has sex with minors".

I'm not sure whether a new term would have any real benefits, though. Overly positive terms could potentially backfire, too. I think one other suggestion I heard was "kind" (a pun on Germanic "kinder" as well as the English word).

I don't think the word is really the problem, though. Whatever word we use we'll be accused of "trying to rebrand child molestation".

But emphasizing our Emotional Congruence with Children (ECWC) is something I see as an important part of branding. Many of us see things through the eyes of children. We see children on their level. Even children that we're not attracted to.

Sadly ECWC isn't really researched as a positive trait right now. It's only looked at in the context of reoffending without even much analysis of why they're connected. Why is it that someone who relates with children, sees them as equal, might want an intimate relationship with them? Why is it seen as a bad thing?

[PorcelainLark]

Initially I preferred the term pedophile to MAP because I dislike acronyms. However, I realized it was a way of refusing recognition; antis consciously use the word pedophile instead of MAP, even if a person would prefer the term MAP.
The term "friend" I'm not sure about, since I imagine it varies from person (for example, I'm more awkward around children).

As to culture, I had a thought experiment a while ago: if glam rock was the derived from closeted homosexuality, what is derived from pedophilia? If we look back to the 70s and 80s it feels blindingly obvious when a pop star was a homosexual; if we one day look back when MAPs live openly, what are we going to think was "obviously pedophilic"?

[Red Rodent]

It's not a new concept. I mean, we've talked about having "young friends" (YFs) and young people having "adult friends" (AFs) since I became part of the MAP community (which is well before it became known as the MAP community). And I like that. It infers a shared experience: you might "have" a friend or "be" someone's friend, but ultimately your are friends with others, not of others.

I could get all technical about the grammar of this, as I am wont to do. Someone is a friend of mine -- not a friend of "me." The possessive infers reciprocation. I might be a friend of the local arts centre, or a Friend of the Earth (because the arts centre and the earth are inanimate and are not a friend back to me) but I am a friend of John's, because it's a mutual and equal thing.

Of course, it can have more sinister connotations: someone who was a lover of Elvis Presley is inferred only to have been a fan of his music. A lover of Elvis Presley's was something else again

[Red Rodent]

If we look back to the 70s and 80s it feels blindingly obvious when a pop star was a homosexual

Not necessarily. Marc Bolan sure as hell wasn't gay, which, as a retrospective fan of the glam scene as a milennial kid, truly shocked me

[Strato]

Main problem as I see it is the relative absence of any historical precedent of acceptance of minor-attraction in western cultures plus a rigid adherence to heteronormative values policed by both church and state. There was a productive time when gays comprised both lovers of men and lovers of boys fighting for a single cause, but that marriage ended in a messy divorce once the former gradually became more tolerated by collective west societies, while the latter simultaneously began to be hunted down and exterminated like vermin. I cannot recall such a high-profile parallel for girl lovers. If age of consent law is considered to be a measure of acceptance, Holland and Spain appear to have been the most accepting for a time, only to have reverted back to a uniform illiberal stance subsequently.

It would be cheering to live in a culture like the one they have in Thailand, although the infinitely long tentacles of western "influence" seem to have reached Far Eastern shores too. Thai Buddhist philosophy seems to be more accepting of individuals with atypical traits, believing that such people are born that way as a result of karma from past lives, and not from a personal choice in this life. This philosophy has helped to create an environment where, for example, ladyboys tend to be respected and valued as unique individuals rather than members of a despised group.

In response to the topic, I honestly cannot see a name-change making any difference to our situation here in the West. Any move made by us in any direction invariably gets castigated. In an atmosphere of unwavering disrespect from society, what would really matter to me is being thought of as a friend by my young friend ... to which I would most assuredly reciprocate.

[Outis]

It's interesting to me that Gay was used in the 18th century alongside other terms including sodomite and homophile, but it was Gay that stuck despite being a common term in the English language at that time. Sodomite and homophile were accurate and good terms but I suspect sodomite was too focused on the sexual act while homophile was too academic and in our case is MAP our equivalent of sodomite and pedophile our equivalent of homophile?

And pedophile as a term meand child friend rather than sexual partner.

But there are other good terms, I think focusing more on the emotional and connection side rather than just the sexual side is one way to improve image.

[Red Rodent]

Gay was used in the 18th century alongside other terms including sodomite and homophile, but it was Gay that stuck despite being a common term in the English language at that time.

Good Lord! Was that in the US or UK or both? I'd always believed that "gay" didn't come to mean homosexual until the mid 20th century. It's certainy used liberally in mainstream literature before then, even children's stuff; it's quite Blytonesque, indeed.

"I say, we're going to have such a gay time over the hols, Enid. And that dress of yours is most awfully gay!"

So the two meanings co-existed happily for a long time. Yet when kids started using it to mean "not very good" at the end of the 20th century ("Don't have the peas, they're really gay") the LGB community got in a right knicker-twist over it.

[Outis]

Gay was used in the 18th century alongside other terms including sodomite and homophile, but it was Gay that stuck despite being a common term in the English language at that time.

Good Lord! Was that in the US or UK or both? I'd always believed that "gay" didn't come to mean homosexual until the mid 20th century. It's certainy used liberally in mainstream literature before then, even children's stuff; it's quite Blytonesque, indeed.

"I say, we're going to have such a gay time over the hols, Enid. And that dress of yours is most awfully gay!"

So the two meanings co-existed happily for a long time. Yet when kids started using it to mean "not very good" at the end of the 20th century ("Don't have the peas, they're really gay") the LGB community got in a right knicker-twist over it.

From what I've read, the word gay was first used in the 12th century but in the 17th century it started to be used when referencing immorality. The Oxford dictionary says in the 17th century it started to be used to mean “addicted to pleasures and dissipations. Often euphemistically: Of loose and immoral life”.

By the 19th century it was used to describe prostitutes and a gay man was someone who slept with a lot of women.

It was in the 1920s when it started to morpth more from a man who had carefree sex with many women to a man who had sex with other men. A gey cat was a homosexual boy. It was 1955 when it was officially adopted to mean homosexual and it was homosexuals who drove the adoption of the term gay since homosexual was considered quite a clinical sounding term that made it sound like a disorder which it isn't, just like being a map isn't a disorder.

Male homosexuality was illegal in Britain until the Sexual Offenses Act of 1967. Because even mentioning someone was a homosexual was so offensive at the time in England, people who were thought to be gay were referred to as “sporty” with girls and “artistic” for boys.

[Red Rodent]

Male homosexuality was illegal in Britain until the Sexual Offenses Act of 1967. Because even mentioning someone was a homosexual was so offensive at the time in England, people who were thought to be gay were referred to as “sporty” with girls and “artistic” for boys.

Thanks for the info; it's interesting that "gay" seems to have become synonymous with homosexuality in the 1950s through a conflation with promiscuity. And, perhaps, immorality in general.

The legal position in Britain was more restrictive than you make out. Homosexual acts between men were, indeed, made legal in England in 1967, but only in private residences between males over 21. Public displays of affection between men were still classed as "acts of gross indecency" and men continued to be prosecuted for kissing in public. In Scotland it remained an offence, even in private (theoretically punishable by life imprisonment), until 1980 and in Northern Ireland until 1982. It wasn't until Y2K that the age of concent for gay boys was brought into line with straight kids at 16.

Fun anecdote: I have an uncle who, in the late '80s at the age of 14, told a boy he fancied at school that he wanted to kiss him. The boy reported the incident to a teacher, who called the police. My uncle was arrested and given a Police Caution for "Incitement to commit an act of gross indecency." No doubt today, had this offence still existed, he would have been placed on the Sex Offenders Register for five years as well.

Were bisexual boys said to be "on the artistic spectrum," I wonder ...