MAP Forum

CSA had a profound and traumatic affect on me and certainly drives my MA.

How about other users?

I don't have any CSA but some would say what I did when I was nine or ten could be CSA (I don't see what happened as abusive). My MA was always there I just took me a long time to admit that I had it.

CAMOPED wrote: ↑Wed Oct 09, 2024 9:48 pm CSA had a profound and traumatic affect on me and certainly drives my MA.

I don't know, reminds me of people trying to explain homosexuality by linking it to trauma. It's impossible to know for sure that a MAP who experienced CSA, wouldn't have turned out to be a MAP anyway if the SA hadn't happened.
If CSA contributes to the development of fetishes in non-MAPs, I think it would probably be in stuff like age play where it's about the behavior rather than the body type. I don't believe people who claim to have been "made into pedophiles".
More likely the absence of sexual boundaries is what sets apart people who were abused from a very young age, meaning they either become less sexually inhibited in general or completely sex-averse.

How about other users?

I was never abused sexually, though I had a bunch of other problems growing up. Again, I think it's the lack of boundaries (albeit from different causes) which lead me to recognize myself as attracted to children pretty early. I feel pretty sure I would have been the same regardless of if my upbringing was more stable, even if I was less willing to admit it.

PorcelainLark wrote: ↑Thu Oct 10, 2024 12:52 am It's impossible to know for sure that a MAP who experienced CSA, wouldn't have turned out to be a MAP anyway if the SA hadn't happened.

I can without a doubt link the two. My MA tendency is so tightly linked the the precise damage from CSA. MA evolved as a coping mechanism to enable me to be sexual without the PTSD/anxiety/shame/fear that I otherwise experienced.

I'm not comfortable going into detail of how it works or what happened to me, except to say I was brutalized into feeling I had no sexual power, but the fantasy of MA play restores that.

I cannot be the only one. I agree it's often innate, but for me and many I have corresponded with, it's an evolved or discovered coping mechanism.

CAMOPED wrote: ↑Thu Oct 10, 2024 3:58 am I can without a doubt link the two. My MA tendency is so tightly linked the the precise damage from CSA. MA evolved as a coping mechanism to enable me to be sexual without the PTSD/anxiety/shame/fear that I otherwise experienced.

I'm not comfortable going into detail of how it works or what happened to me, except to say I was brutalized into feeling I had no sexual power, but the fantasy of MA play restores that.

I cannot be the only one. I agree it's often innate, but for me and many I have corresponded with, it's an evolved or discovered coping mechanism.

It's hard to refute that kind of statement, nor would I really want to.

I have considered in the past that people who have experienced CSA might simply be better able to recognize their own minor attraction when they first start having those feelings. But your account seems to deny that that would apply to your situation.

Perhaps there are two possible routes to being a MAP- "born MAP" and "made MAP"- something that doesn't seem to exist in the gay community.

The next question that interests me is if there are any qualitative differences in the attraction experienced by those who are "born MAP" vs those that are "made MAP". If "made MAPs" are rebelling against their own sense of powerlessness are they are more likely to have fantasies of force or being in control?

As a "born MAP" my fantasies are almost polar opposite to that. "Pedophiles enjoy sex with children because they want to feel powerful" is a narrative that I find totally and utterly foreign.

I feel unable to answer.

I had a sexual childhood myself with a family friend, but that was a positive set of experiences for me that strengthened a good friendship I had with him. But looking back, I was attracted to older and younger people from I'd say around 9 or 10. I mean my sexual experiences started around 6 or 7 which were fun, but it was around 9 or 10 when I had a crush on the girl next door who was around 5 or 6 herself, but I also had a crush on girls my own age and some adults such as a school teacher and an adult family friend. Nothing happened, it was all fantasies for me at the time, but throughout my life I've been attracted to children and adults.

I can't say if those early experiences had an impact on my sexuality though. My early sexual experiences with an adult male I would have thought if it had an impact would have made me gay or attracted to adults but it didn't. It made me attracted to people my age and adults and children. Not out of control sexual urges, just I can develop romantic feelings for people of the opposite sex sometimes, mainly when I've known them for a long time and developed feelings. Maybe those early experiences taught me more about empathy, respect and care for others, and to be less closed minded.

CAMOPED wrote: ↑Wed Oct 09, 2024 9:48 pm CSA had a profound and traumatic affect on me and certainly drives my MA.

How about other users?

I never had any relationships with adults. No one raped me or molested me. All my feelings were already with me. I remember very well, starting at 4-5 years old, when I was in kindergarten, I was already attracted to boys. It was there that the only intimacy in my life took place, with a boy my age. Neither he forced me, nor I him. Our desires arose simultaneously and independently. We were simply petting until we were caught. This event could not have formed my attraction because my feelings were already there before. Later, these feelings forced me to think that I was gay, which I tried to resist. However, at 16 I realized that my preferences were limited to a certain age (7-21).

CAMOPED wrote: ↑Thu Oct 10, 2024 3:58 am I can without a doubt link the two. My MA tendency is so tightly linked the the precise damage from CSA. MA evolved as a coping mechanism to enable me to be sexual without the PTSD/anxiety/shame/fear that I otherwise experienced.

I'm not comfortable going into detail of how it works or what happened to me, except to say I was brutalized into feeling I had no sexual power, but the fantasy of MA play restores that.

This is not guaranteed.
If you described your experience in more detail.

I am skeptical that preference and attraction can be constructed. Because a mechanism would be found to reverse it again. However, all the unsuccessful and cruel experience of conversion therapy of homosexuals shows that it does not work. However, I have a hypothesis that there are many latent bisexuals exist and they may be able to suppress their homosexual side for long time, using the more pronounced heterosexual one. Perhaps the same thing can happen with a minor attraction.

Fragment wrote: ↑Thu Oct 10, 2024 4:05 am Perhaps there are two possible routes to being a MAP- "born MAP" and "made MAP"- something that doesn't seem to exist in the gay community.

I doubt that MAPs have different mechanisms of attraction formation than Homosexuals. If it is impossible to make a gay man heterosexual and vice versa, then it is most likely that this does not work for MAPs either. However, there is a lot of non-exclusivity among MAPs, which can be compared to latent bisexuality, in which part of the preference can be suppressed in favor of the other half of the preference.

I had a traumatic childhood, but I was never involved in AMSC.

I never experienced any form of sexual assault. I did have a sexual experience with a peer around age 6 or 7, but I consider this fully consensual and a typical "unstructured play" type of experience. Hard to say if this influenced my MA, but I think this is a common experience for MAPs and non-MAPs.

I didn't experience CSA. I knew I was attracted to little girls as soon as I had sexual desires, and I remember I had no interest whatsoever in little boys. I had a phase where I mostly liked young women with very child-like traits. But this sexuality evolved with time, where my attraction towards boys increased up to the point that now I can say I like boys more than girls. At least in my case, I can say that sexuality was not set in stone. So, I believe it's likely that other people's sexuality can also morph, both due to developmental and environmental causes.