MAP Forum

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.

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.

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.