Interview questions for Mu article - please participate!

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1. When did you first realize you were a MAP, and how did you feel? What were some issues you faced?

Realizing I liked teenage boys when I was a teenager myself, I felt more worry about the fact that I liked males than their age. As I got older my attraction didn't age with me and stayed focused on boys in their younger teens. I never felt particularly bad about this as it had always been a part of me- the attraction that I'd come to accept about myself when I was 17. Knowing the legal and social sanctions I'd face acting on my attractions has always been hard, though. I feel that my situation is basically what gay people in Islamic countries face- except I don't even have anywhere to emigrate to.

2. Do any other people know you're a MAP? How did they react at the time, and how do they feel about it now?

I've told quite a few people that I'm gay and like "younger guys" but I haven't specified that I'm "minor-attracted" to as many people. I think having a hebephilic orientation makes it easier for people to accept than if I liked pre-pubescents, though, and I assume that some people think I'm mostly interested in 16-19 year olds. I have lost friends. But my family stick by me. They know what kind of person I am.

3. What do you think is the biggest misunderstanding about MAPs?

That our sexuality functions any differently to adult-adult attraction. A straight man isn't seen as inherently predatory. Even if he likes to sleep around it's considered "sleezy" but in no way "evil". But when MAP sexuality is discussed it is usually assumed that the MAP enjoys victimizing or dominating. It's assumed that any romantic attention we give to minors is just "grooming" with the final goal being using them for sex. It's assumed that we're attracted to "children" as a class, rather than feeling connected to individual children. Despite me having an exclusive attraction towards teenage boys I'm sure there are many people who wouldn't trust me with their elementary school aged daughter in they knew I was a MAP. They don't realize that'd be like saying "I don't trust you around my 50-year-old wife" to a 25-year-old gay man. Adult-attracted men aren't seen as a threat to their adult siblings, yet MAPs who are fathers are seen as a threat to their own children. As if the incest taboo uniquely doesn't apply to us. Looking at CSA data and thinking that it applies to all MAPs is like looking at rape data and thinking it applies to all straight men.

4. What part of being a MAP do you struggle with the most?

A lot of people will mention the stigma, but personally I'm not too worried about what other people think as long as they let me go about my own business. But it doesn't end with "I hate pedos"- people will actively try to stop us from having access to housing or employment, regardless of our sexual and criminal history. Non-offending MAPs can be treated as badly as registered sex offenders in many cases.

Yet even despite that being a problem, the biggest struggle for me is the loneliness. MAPs don't have any legal way to share intimacy with their desired partners and sexual intimacy is a core human need. Some people can be happy living a life of celibacy and finding fulfilment elsewhere. I'm not one of them. My desire for romantic connection- to give and receive love (including sexual intimacy)- is overwhelming and being denied it is heartbreaking. (Yet, as per the previous response, this would only be seen as "wanting to satiate sick desires". My heartbreak isn't acknowledged as heartbreaking.)

5. What has been your worst experience as a MAP?

Getting arrested. You lose everything- including your own identity.

6. How do you think social attitudes toward MAPs are harmful to us and our friends and families?

I think it varies depending on a bunch of variables. At one end the MAP stays silent and isn't able to have an open and honest relationship with their family, but there is no burden on friends and family beyond that. Such a MAP carries their secret and burden by themselves to their grave. In some cases this can mean a situation where a MAP commits suicide but because they never came out, their friends and family never know why and are denied full closure.

On the other extreme are MAPs who end up on the wrong side of the law and whose families become secondary victims of the legal process. Including being "outed" as the family of an offender, with the associated stigma (especially if they choose to support their family). It's even worse for family of people forced to register, who have to choose between losing that family member entirely, or being subject to many of the same restrictions as the registrant.

7. Do you think the stigmatization of MAPs presents any risks to children?

Most obvious is MAPs that are minors themselves. The risk of suicide amongst LGBT youth is still higher than that of straight youth. Yet being LGBT is largely accepted and there can be the hope that "it gets better". Minor MAPs have no such hop to hold on to. It is taboo to say that "fagg*ts should die", but "ped*s should die" is accepted discourse. Minor MAPs are aware of what they face going forward and many will opt for suicide- a suicide that will go unnoticed by society because even if their suicide note they'll be too ashamed to come out and explain their reason for choosing death.

For non-MAP minors I think there are risks too. Particularly surrounding the entire narrative- the myths surrounding adult-child sexual contact take away the voices of minors, including those who are abused. The harsh legal penalties also mean there is a chilling effect where some minors choose to avoid talking about their experiences because of worry for an offender that they care about. The victim narrative means that adolescents are robbed of their potential sexuality- even with other minors- because sex is assumed to be traumatic. "Stranger danger" myths and a lack of adequate sexual education also mean that minors aren't aware of how to avoid the kinds of relationships that can be exploitative (remember a lot of abuse takes place in the family home). Hysteria creates imaginary problems at the expense of calmly dealing with actual problems.

8. What changes are needed?

It's hard to see a clear path forward for MAPs to normalization that keeps the current legal sanctions in place. So long as sex is seen as "a fate worse than death" for a minor (regardless of how much they agreed to it or enjoyed it) then the attitudes towards MAPs will remain. Burning 1,000 non-offending MAPs (who have a 1 in 1000 risk of offending in the future) alive will be seen as acceptable because it saves one child. All the while ignoring the fact that sexual abuse is continuing, no matter how harsh the penalties get. All the while ignoring that targeting MAPs will not prevent the majority of CSA cases that are made up of situational offending (including by family). The lives of MAPs, even offending MAPs, need to be seen as having innate value. So long as we're othered as monsters nothing will change.

9. Are there any positives of being a MAP?

This may not be true of all MAPs, but in my case connections I was able to build with minors (including those I'm not attracted to!). I tend to want to give minors more autonomy than most adults do when I interact with them. I don't see them as "kids" but as "people". I think because I see teens as potential sexual partners it pushes down the age at which I think minors are capable of various things. Obviously I don't believe toddlers should be driving or anything, and believing in the ability of minors isn't unique to MAPs. But I think being a MAP makes the capacity of kids easier to see.

[Lennon72]

1. When did you first realize you were a MAP, and how did you feel? What were some issues you faced?

That is not an easy one for me to answer. Ut is just something that I gradually came to realize back in 2011.

2. Do any other people know you're a MAP? How did they react at the time, and how do they feel about it now?

Very few other than my MAP friends. There is a friend if mine who I have told that I thought might have been a MAP as well. But when I told him, he had nothing to say. But he still treats me like he always has and it has never been brung up again. Another friend didn't think it was a big deal though he later said that he didn't like that part of me.

3. What do you think is the biggest misunderstanding about MAPs?

That we are all child molesters.

4. What part of being a MAP do you struggle with the most?

The fact that I can't just come out and say it to just anybody .

5. What has been your worst experience as a MAP?

Being arrested for CP

6. How do you think social attitudes toward MAPs are harmful to us and our friends and families?

It is harmful because of all the minformation and lies.

7. Do you think the stigmatization of MAPs presents any risks to children?

I don't know. It might. If the stigma means teaching them to be wary of strangers then I think it could prvent them form having healthy relations with adults in general.

8. What changes are needed?

People need to know the true facts.

9. Are there any positives of being a MAP?

I think the positives is that MAPS are often great adult friends for kids.

10. Please add any additional thoughts or comments.

I feel as if people need to be educated and that MAPS should have the same rights as everybody if discriminated against or treated unfairly. Activism may be necessary.

[FairBlueLove]

I'm answering the more personal questions, as the other ones have been already egregiously answered, and I tend to agree with most of their views

1. When did you first realize you were a MAP, and how did you feel? What were some issues you faced?

It was there since inception of sexual desires (around 11-12) and there was no sudden realization, I just grew with it thinking it was normal. And I still think it is.

2. Do any other people know you're a MAP? How did they react at the time, and how do they feel about it now?

Not presently. When, during adolescence, I made appreciations about young kids, my friends would laugh and tell me " but it's too young!". Or they would tease me, jokingly, saying I was a pedophile. But those were different times.

4. What part of being a MAP do you struggle with the most?

Not being able to express and be my-full-self in some situations without compromising my safety/well being and that of my loved ones. Also, empathy towards other MAPs: Knowing how many MAPs are presently mistreated in real life, and the suffering many of them are going through is causing me a big distress

5. What has been your worst experience as a MAP?

Recently, hearing a young close relative saying that s/he would have no mercy for pedophiles. Some years back s/he said pedophiles was the thing s/he feared most. When I think about it, it brings me close to tears.

8. What changes are needed?

If you mean what changes are needed in the world, then others have already answered copiously.
Regarding us, we should have more coming out in real life, to expose more ourselves to the world, and have real contact with other MAPs. I feel this is needed to get us more accepted. Online activity, as it happens in social media in general, tends to exacerbate more the divide, even among MAPs themselves.... But, yes, I hear you saying "go you first"... It is a damn Catch-22 situation.

[Strato]

1A: When did you first realize you were a MAP. 1B: How did you feel? !C: What were some issues you faced?
1A: 12 years old onward, but realisation was a very gradual process through puberty. Also, this was at a time when as a boy myself, being discovered to be attracted to young boys gave me a “queer” label courtesy of my peers, the self-same label assigned to “deviant” homosexual men.
1B: Guilty as fuck, plus the feeling of being the only unicorn on the planet.
1C: ISSUE1: From this age onward, becoming readily smitten by this or that pre-pubescent boy, a love not reciprocated because guilt blocked attempts to establish friendship. ISSUE2: Throughout my formative years, not having access to any answers to the many questions I had about my situation. ISSUE3: No-one I could trust to share my dirty little secret with. All these issues persisted into adulthood.

2A: Do any other people know you're a MAP? 2B: How did they react at the time. 2C: How do they feel about it now?
2A: Yes, many. My honesty is my downfall.
2B: Whole gamut of reactions: physical retribution, verbal discrimination, notifying the police, blackmail, loyal friendship, intimate friendship, cessation of friendship, avoidance.
2C: Most reactions have been bad, and continue to be so. My social circle globally has diminished significantly over time.

3. What do you think is the biggest misunderstanding about MAPs?
Like the homosexual community before us, the public fears minorities they are told to fear. The heteronormative collective west establishment has for decades promoted the distribution of damning propaganda whilst simultaneously suppressing scientific research and research data. Society remains both ignorant of the facts and vindictive towards our community as a result.

4. What part of being a MAP do you struggle with the most?
Being denied my rightful place within society ... in other words, being forced to stand alone outside in the cold and dark, like some errant child, looking in through a window at everyone else enjoying themselves to the full in a warm and friendly place. I say stand alone, because there is no easy or safe way to meet similar others in real life to share thoughts, experiences, concerns, remedies, friendship etc. That denial also means I am prevented from exercising and enjoying my primary sexual orientation.

5. What has been your worst experience as a MAP?
I have discussed this topic here: https://forum.map-union.org/viewtopic.php?t=23 dated 30 July.

6. How do you think social attitudes toward MAPs are harmful to us and our friends and families?
Our world is an unequal playing field. So long as discrimination is allowed to be directed at an individual’s primary sexuality and continues to go unpunished in the law courts, social attitudes will not change. So long as the media, government agencies, and health agencies are allowed to discriminate against a whole sexual minority group, social attitudes will not change. So long as children’s human rights and freedoms are suppressed, social attitudes will not change. The anti-paedophile narrative promoted by society was embraced by a family member, and led to the outcome mentioned in my response to Q5 above.

7. Do you think the stigmatization of MAPs presents any risks to children?
Yes. For governments and media to have created, for example, the notion of “male stranger danger”, a chasm widens that separates the generations. Children and the parents of those children begin to see every single adult in a public setting, as a danger to their sacrosanct family unit. Conversely, single men avoid jobs that require contact with children, and avoid public spaces where children frequent. Children lose out not only from being prevented from taking risks in the world and learning from their experiences, but they will lack the social skills needed to relate to others as they grow older. The absence of male role models in their lives also likely impacts them negatively.

8. What changes are needed?
Our sexual minority group should have the same rights and freedoms as every other sexual minority group, and existing laws should be strengthened, mightily, to bring this about. It should be possible for any individual MAP or group of MAPs, to take any other individual, company, government agency or health agency (especially the APA) to court where evidence clearly demonstrates the defendant has discriminated on the basis of the claimant’s sexual orientation. Laws also need to be strengthened with regard to the right of the child to bodily autonomy; chief among these, age of consent diktats, need to be overhauled. We should be able to gather socially as a group publicly, without having to fear retribution.

9. Are there any positives of being a MAP?
Yes. The ability to appreciate the intrinsic beauty of a child, both mental and physical. Also, speaking personally, the ability to be on the same wavelength as a child, and thus act as a kind of magnet for child-initiated interaction.

10. Please add any additional thoughts or comments.
Love is never wrong.

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Thank you for your contributions. It will take a long time to sort through the responses but we have more than enough for an article (or two or three). We'll let you know when we post it.