Mu Analysis: Are MAPs queer?

[Jim Burton]

https://www.map-union.org/blog/are-maps-queer

The political right tends to think of MAPs (Minor-Attracted People) as the next part of a culture war involving LGBTQ+ rights. The political left often see MAPs as a 4chan hoax, meant to smear LGBTQ+ people. Both sides are mistaken, and in this article, we explain why.

[Harlan]

Brilliant article. It should be sent to all media and LGBTQ+ organizations. All they do is deny their history, self-hypnosis , maintain myths and lies, accusing and setting some against others.

[Jim Burton]

We've done a few updates, and yes, we sent it to the Percy Foundation, plus we are about to forward it to various gay media.

[Pharmakon]

This is a very good and useful piece, but the perspective seems to be almost exclusively that of male MAPs whose primary attraction is to boys. How about female MAPs who are attracted to boys and male MAPs who are attracted to girls? These members of our community will not find much in this article to help them decide if they should consider themselves "queer."

Perhaps some language could be added at least acknowledging this limitation.

In another post I suggested the Matt Gaetz nomination for attorney general might provide an opportunity for Mu to provide commentary that would garner attention, at least if the nomination gets as far as a Senate confirmation hearing. Such commentary would need to address the kinds of issues unique to primarily heterosexual MAPs that this article does not. If Gaetz has sex with a 17 yo female, or finds 17 yo females to be very sexy, does that make him a MAP? Many of us would think not -- that heterosexual males in general experience this type of attraction and do not think of it as making them part of a sexual minority.

But one political blog already has felt free to suggest that if Gaetz has regularly had sex with females barely less than 18 years old, that is enough to characterize him as a "serial pedophile":

If he indulged in cocaine and prostitutes, that's not great for America's top cop, but it might not be career-ending. After all, Marion Barry did the same, and he even got reelected afterward. On the other hand, if Gaetz is a serial pedophile, or something like that, then anyone who votes for him, only to have that come out AFTER he is confirmed, could have their own careers destroyed. https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2024/ ... v19-3.html

So whether Gaetz is or is not a MAP, pedophobic tropes are already being deployed against him. (The Mu article, in discussing Gayle Rubin's definition of queerness, also points out that one element is "non-monogamy.")

[Harlan]

... If Gaetz has sex with a 17 yo female, or finds 17 yo females to be very sexy, does that make him a MAP? Many of us would think not -- that heterosexual males in general experience this type of attraction and do not think of it as making them part of a sexual minority
...
So whether Gaetz is or is not a MAP, pedophobic tropes are already being deployed against him...

In an ideal world where there really was equality and tolerance there would be broad heterosexuality and broad homosexuality, without the additional division by age, because some people prefer an older partner, some a younger one, some prefer slimmer, some prefer thicker, there are many options for preference, but for some reason age was singled out as a separate group.

In this non-ideal world, based mainly on prejudices, a person and especially a politician will try to justify himself and support the established status quo as Peter Tetchell is doing now, and addition the politician might go on the attack against those to whom he was classified in order to whiten himself and prove his "normativity", as has already happened with gay politicians in the past

[Jim Burton]

We have added a definition of queerness from David Halperin.

This makes it clear that the queer identity is ultimately unrestricted, and our conclusion is that all MAPs can identify as queer, as each identity covered by the term "MAP" fulfills those criteria.