Should people meet in person more?

[FairBlueLove]

As a side note, this will become even more difficult here on Mu, given the last update of the rules.

If people with a track record of constructive participation want to exchange non-identifying e-mail addresses, we are unlikely to intervene. For example, if you and the author of this topic wished to initiate such contact, there would be no problem at all.

People with very few posts using the board as a way to set up messenger chats for questionable purposes, including possible entrapment, is the concern.

Thank you for the clarification BlueRibbon!

[Strato]

People often say that being a map was easier in the 70s and 80s but I wonder how much of that is due to people meeting and working on projects offline more than today?

But we still have the option to live offline, that hasn't been taken away from us and has a lot of advantages.

- Meeting in person is social and I still believe the best ideas and advocacy efforts happen face to face. Look at businesses, they have home working these days but it's generally recognised that white boarding or brain storming in person is much more effective that a Zoon call.

- It's safer frankly. Sure there's risks meeting in person but there are risks meeting online. Take sensible safety precautions, don't meet up for anything illegal but for harmless social activities to get to know each other and build local networks.

'People often say ...'
Internet became available to the public from 1991, so to actually network with others in the 70s and 80s, you had to physically leave your house and travel to an agreed location at a pre-arranged time. Knowing the location and time meant being a member of a club or interest group, with some semblance of a committee responsible for administering and running the group, using phone, snail mail, ads in on-topic magazines or public notice boards.

I understand that in Europe during the 1990s and 2000s it was possible to attend meetings of paedophiles, for example ipce members met up in various European countries on an annual basis. I was told by one of the organisers many moons ago, that some members brought their young friends along on occasion.

'But we still have ...'
Agreed. More progress was made historically when face to face interaction was the only means of communicating (for example: gay movement formation and gays protesting in the 1960s).

The ability to discuss issues in this way is a great safety valve for those who consider themselves to be the lowest life form on the planet due to the way they have been treated by society. Meeting in real life is therapeutic, and is something I went out of my way to do in the past because I had a zillion questions I was bursting to ask of fellow MAPS. Yes, it was risky, but I had reached the stage where taking a risk was preferable to continued isolation. It turned out beneficial both for me and for the soul mates I met.

In my experience, virtual anonymous communication is a pale shadow of the in-real-life scenario.

[Outis]

People often say that being a map was easier in the 70s and 80s but I wonder how much of that is due to people meeting and working on projects offline more than today?

But we still have the option to live offline, that hasn't been taken away from us and has a lot of advantages.

- Meeting in person is social and I still believe the best ideas and advocacy efforts happen face to face. Look at businesses, they have home working these days but it's generally recognised that white boarding or brain storming in person is much more effective that a Zoon call.

- It's safer frankly. Sure there's risks meeting in person but there are risks meeting online. Take sensible safety precautions, don't meet up for anything illegal but for harmless social activities to get to know each other and build local networks.

'People often say ...'
Internet became available to the public from 1991, so to actually network with others in the 70s and 80s, you had to physically leave your house and travel to an agreed location at a pre-arranged time. Knowing the location and time meant being a member of a club or interest group, with some semblance of a committee responsible for administering and running the group, using phone, snail mail, ads in on-topic magazines or public notice boards.

I understand that in Europe during the 1990s and 2000s it was possible to attend meetings of paedophiles, for example ipce members met up in various European countries on an annual basis. I was told by one of the organisers many moons ago, that some members brought their young friends along on occasion.

'But we still have ...'
Agreed. More progress was made historically when face to face interaction was the only means of communicating (for example: gay movement formation and gays protesting in the 1960s).

The ability to discuss issues in this way is a great safety valve for those who consider themselves to be the lowest life form on the planet due to the way they have been treated by society. Meeting in real life is therapeutic, and is something I went out of my way to do in the past because I had a zillion questions I was bursting to ask of fellow MAPS. Yes, it was risky, but I had reached the stage where taking a risk was preferable to continued isolation. It turned out beneficial both for me and for the soul mates I met.

In my experience, virtual anonymous communication is a pale shadow of the in-real-life scenario.

I agree.

Things were generally different back then. I remember in the 90s working in a place where one guy had been in trouble for flashing to school girls which fetched a few laughs in the work place and another guy openly bought CP from drivers coming into the warehouse from Europe, drivers would always smuggle in smokes, booze and porn of all sorts to supplement their earnings, I expect drivers still do that today. I was a very early BBS and Internet user and he asked me if I could get him CP which I couldn't and had no interest in trying to find. But the fact was that there were two people in the workplace who openly had a thing for young girls and the only reaction that got from the rest of the workforce was a few jokes but everyone was still mates with them, it just wasn't a problem for anyone.

Today if I went back to that same place and someone was openly into little girls I doubt they would be so accepted. Or maybe I'm wrong, maybe the impression I'm forming is heavily influeced by the media and they would be fine, I don't know.

I think one part of normalising who we are though is doing normal things and not just hiding in shadows and complaining online.

I don't mean taking silly risks but if I wanted to have a beer with a fellow map or play gold with a map friend then why is that news worthy or something to fear? Friendships and normality is important and if we live in such fear of living normal lives then the anti's have already won.

[CLover36]

Absolutely, yes. The internet is fine, but it can never replace the benefit you get from actually meeting in person. Meeting in person also has the added benefit of encouraging networking in real life, which is essential if we want to ever have a real world community where we can support each other. If people ever get in trouble, it will be that real world community that they can fall back on, after all. The internet is a shadow of the real thing; we shouldn't forget that.

I have to agree, it is like having 500 FaceBook followers and no one to call when your car breaks down on the side of the road. Face to face conversations can serve to soften attitudes and to build camaraderie.

[CLover36]

Things were generally different back then. I remember in the 90s working in a place where one guy had been in trouble for flashing to school girls which fetched a few laughs in the work place and another guy openly bought CP from drivers coming into the warehouse from Europe, drivers would always smuggle in smokes, booze and porn of all sorts to supplement their earnings, I expect drivers still do that today. I was a very early BBS and Internet user and he asked me if I could get him CP which I couldn't and had no interest in trying to find. But the fact was that there were two people in the workplace who openly had a thing for young girls and the only reaction that got from the rest of the workforce was a few jokes but everyone was still mates with them, it just wasn't a problem for anyone.

Today if I went back to that same place and someone was openly into little girls I doubt they would be so accepted. Or maybe I'm wrong, maybe the impression I'm forming is heavily influeced by the media and they would be fine, I don't know.

I have to really agree with you about the real life aspect of things being more open and forgiving in the 90s for folks with our attractions. I believe you are right about the reaction of people today for similar activity to be greatly different. I once told a joke with a bit of a pedo angle, nothing overtly pro MAP, and several guys snickered but I knew one of my 3% "friends" had added me to a list of people to beat up. The well has been poisoned by the media, but nonetheless face to face meetings is something that can build us up and heal us.

[Strato]

People often say that being a map was easier in the 70s and 80s but I wonder how much of that is due to people meeting and working on projects offline more than today?

But we still have the option to live offline, that hasn't been taken away from us and has a lot of advantages.

- Meeting in person is social and I still believe the best ideas and advocacy efforts happen face to face. Look at businesses, they have home working these days but it's generally recognised that white boarding or brain storming in person is much more effective that a Zoon call.

- It's safer frankly. Sure there's risks meeting in person but there are risks meeting online. Take sensible safety precautions, don't meet up for anything illegal but for harmless social activities to get to know each other and build local networks.

'People often say ...'
Internet became available to the public from 1991, so to actually network with others in the 70s and 80s, you had to physically leave your house and travel to an agreed location at a pre-arranged time. Knowing the location and time meant being a member of a club or interest group, with some semblance of a committee responsible for administering and running the group, using phone, snail mail, ads in on-topic magazines or public notice boards.

I understand that in Europe during the 1990s and 2000s it was possible to attend meetings of paedophiles, for example ipce members met up in various European countries on an annual basis. I was told by one of the organisers many moons ago, that some members brought their young friends along on occasion.

'But we still have ...'
Agreed. More progress was made historically when face to face interaction was the only means of communicating (for example: gay movement formation and gays protesting in the 1960s).

The ability to discuss issues in this way is a great safety valve for those who consider themselves to be the lowest life form on the planet due to the way they have been treated by society. Meeting in real life is therapeutic, and is something I went out of my way to do in the past because I had a zillion questions I was bursting to ask of fellow MAPS. Yes, it was risky, but I had reached the stage where taking a risk was preferable to continued isolation. It turned out beneficial both for me and for the soul mates I met.

In my experience, virtual anonymous communication is a pale shadow of the in-real-life scenario.

I agree.

Things were generally different back then. I remember in the 90s working in a place where one guy had been in trouble for flashing to school girls which fetched a few laughs in the work place and another guy openly bought CP from drivers coming into the warehouse from Europe, drivers would always smuggle in smokes, booze and porn of all sorts to supplement their earnings, I expect drivers still do that today. I was a very early BBS and Internet user and he asked me if I could get him CP which I couldn't and had no interest in trying to find. But the fact was that there were two people in the workplace who openly had a thing for young girls and the only reaction that got from the rest of the workforce was a few jokes but everyone was still mates with them, it just wasn't a problem for anyone.

Today if I went back to that same place and someone was openly into little girls I doubt they would be so accepted. Or maybe I'm wrong, maybe the impression I'm forming is heavily influeced by the media and they would be fine, I don't know.

I think one part of normalising who we are though is doing normal things and not just hiding in shadows and complaining online.

I don't mean taking silly risks but if I wanted to have a beer with a fellow map or play gold with a map friend then why is that news worthy or something to fear? Friendships and normality is important and if we live in such fear of living normal lives then the anti's have already won.

“… it just wasn’t a problem for anyone.” Interesting observation, but I would imagine the workforce response to a colleague having an attraction for young girls would be less hostile than that to a colleague whose attraction centred on young boys. For example, UK society has traditionally been homophobic, more so back in the mid-1970s when the elites resisted the notion of normalising male on male intimacy across society. As far as I recall, prior to the 1980s, someone who was outed as being into young boys would be termed queer or faggot, and thus discriminated independent of age preference. Hysteria over stranger danger and paedophiles came later, when the establishment made it possible for citizens to profit from denouncing ‘historic abusers’.

“Today if I went back to that same place and someone was openly into little girls, I doubt they would be so accepted.” Absolutely! We live in an utterly hypocritical world, where an innocent picture of a naked child is outlawed, the image is classified as obscene, any viewing of it like voodoo immediately results in the abuse of the child, and possession or distribution of it can result in a prison sentence and lifelong pariah status. I recall sitting in a busy restaurant in northern Thailand with three straight male friends. We had hiked in the mountains all morning and were having a welcome beer. In walked a Thai mother, father and their gorgeous 12 year-old daughter. My friends immediate instinctive reaction was to look in unison directly at the girl, but then as if synchronised, stopped staring and instead guiltily looked down into their beers. It is something I will never forget. And yet, I would never have been able to discuss their reaction openly with them, because they would never admit to being attracted to that child in the first place.

“Friendships and normality is important and if we live in such fear of living normal lives then the anti's have already won.” Precisely. And that is why I made an effort to reach out in the way I did. One resource that proved successful, was Experience Project which I believe dissolved in 2015. EP led to several in-real-life meet-ups.

“I think one part of normalising who we are though is doing normal things and not just hiding in shadows and complaining online.” I have mentioned my sexuality on occasion to ‘friends’, but their negative reaction caused me problems subsequently, to the point where I could no longer consider them to be friends, unfortunately. So, ‘leaving the shadows’ has been something of a patchwork quilt in my case.

[Outis]

Yes, I think you are right that British society has had a problem with homophobia. If someone had come out as being into young boys they might have had a different reaction, I don't know.

And coming out to non-maps is likely to have some implications. I think being a map can make us more broadminded and empathetic in general. I'm not gay but I've helped several gay friends to deal with problems in their lives stemming from coming out as being gay. I also met someone who came out about having a fetish for necrophilia although never practiced it and my immediate reaction was to feel empathy for how they must deal with that rather than horror. That's why I'm so surprised by the LGBTQ community and their reaction to maps, I'd have thought they'd have learned some empathy but most don't seem to have done.

[Concerned Coffee Mug]

That's why I'm so surprised by the LGBTQ community and their reaction to maps, I'd have thought they'd have learned some empathy but most don't seem to have done.

Their reaction is as much about politics as it is about their disgust surrounding pedophilia. If LGBT people openly showed empathy, never mind solidarity, with pedophiles, it would jeopardize all of the hard-won gains they've earned. No one is going to risk everything they've ever worked for for a group of deviants who they don't even like. We're on our own.

[Strato]

That's why I'm so surprised by the LGBTQ community and their reaction to maps, I'd have thought they'd have learned some empathy but most don't seem to have done.

Their reaction is as much about politics as it is about their disgust surrounding pedophilia. If LGBT people openly showed empathy, never mind solidarity, with pedophiles, it would jeopardize all of the hard-won gains they've earned. No one is going to risk everything they've ever worked for for a group of deviants who they don't even like. We're on our own.

Absolutely agree with you CCM. We are very much on our own. Unfortunately, as human beings, we have the ability to deploy our selfish gene to out-compete others when it suits us. For decades now, it has suited the gay community to throw us under the wheels of the proverbial LGBT bus as it rumbled down the road paved with societal acceptance and respectability.

When the boot was on the other foot during the 1950s and 1960s, gays themselves were in the same position we now find ourselves in. The Lavender scare moral panic at that time, resulted in the dismissal of many US government employees due to their ‘scandalous, immoral and dangerous’ lifestyles. That was just one example of governmental paranoia aided and abetted by gutter mainstream media propaganda. The treatment of Alan Turing by the UK government, was another glaring example of discrimination and prosecution of a human being’s innate sexuality. Unfortunately for us, the LGBT community conveniently forget the sacrifices made by their forebears to provide them with the quality of life they now take for granted.

[Concerned Coffee Mug]

Unfortunately for us, the LGBT community conveniently forget the sacrifices made by their forebears to provide them with the quality of life they now take for granted.

This may be may an uncomfortable opinion, but I think it needs to be said that no one owes us anything, Strato. The LGBT community is not obligated to take us in, risk anything for us, or make any sacrifices for us. The fact that we relied on another community to liberate or in someway improve our lives is our own fault. It was a risk we took, and a deeply miscalculated one at that.

In MAP spaces, there appears to be this belief that they should've helped us or done something for us when in reality every community will only ever act in its own interests. When queer folks began gaining acceptance, they threw us away and formally rejected us. That's true. But if we want a better quality of life for ourselves, we have to fight for it on our own.