MAP Forum

I posted this in response to discussion about whether or not there is any point in supporting political candidates that are fundamentally opposed to reforming laws on AMSC. Or whether there is a point to supporting groups like MEDAL (or Mu) that don't have an explicit reform agenda. My comment:

Legal reform to me is pretty damn important. But that’s less “adults should be able to have sex with children whenever they want” (which is ridiculous) and far more about fixing the injustices that many people who have already offended face.

Whether we’re allowed to hold a camping trip openly without harassment or not is important. But it’s hardly as life defining as a 20 year sentence and life on a registry (or in civil commitment) over a mutually agreed on handjob (I won’t make assumptions about ability to consent).

Everything else is a drop in the ocean compared to legal reform. Other issues are like arguing about being to put a pride sticker on your gay bookstore's door when your friends are still in prison after being picked up for “lewd behavior” in police stings in the late 1950s. Or it’s like arguing for gay marriage to be legalized while homosexual intercourse is still illegal.

If living happy celibate lives was possible, maybe I’d think differently. But even 40% of VP users admit to having viewed CP. Most of us may not have a conviction, but I think most of us probably have broken relevant laws at some stage. At least once. Without even accounting for MAPs forced to register that don’t even realize they are MAPs themselves. Or the millions of PIM users that haven't been caught and don't realize they're MAPs.

[I made some comments about how this applies to specific political candidates but I'll leave that out this time.]

Other rights for MAPs are obviously important too. But it is possible to live a fairly good life if you're a non-offending MAP by staying in the closet. Legal reform can't be ignored just because "it's too hard". The cost to the MAPs caught up in the unjustice system is just too high.

For the most part, I like the concept of the legal reform to protect MAPs from being prosecuted for being in a consensual sexual interaction/relationship with a minor. As much as I do not find AoC laws necessary at all and instead arbitrary, I think the age twelve being the AoC is a good start to make progress. Other than that, I do not support AoC laws at all.

While legal reform is good, cultural reform should be just as valued. What I mean by the latter can be boiled down to things that aren't necessarily tied to legal systems but to cultural ones, although overlaps do exist. Take language for example: The terms "pedophile" and "pedophilia" used to be medical terms, but over time came to be known as derogatory terms meant to smear opponents, whether it's by using guilt-by-association or ad hominem.

Certainly the mainstream news reporting of child molestation cases doesn't help, as the perpetrators are often referred to as "pedophiles" regardless of their actual sexual orientation, and their crimes are erroneously lumped together with "pedophilia", such that pedophilia is thought of as a crime within the public consciousness. The end result is the dehumanisation of minor attracted people, which is proven by how callously antis can call for genocide and other extremely violent acts against minor attracted people with total impunity, on the top of being praised for being such a "good human being".

Despite how one may feel towards the words "pedophilia" and "pedophile", it can't be denied how those terms eventually turned into slurs within informal discussions, and recently this nature has also seeped into academic spaces.

So one of the most valuable forms of cultural reforms would be to have the media, academia, and legal bodies to adopt the term "minor-attracted people" rather than referring to them as "pedophiles" such that it gains wider currency eventually, or having it "trickling down" in simple terms. This effectively off-sets the dehumanisation carried by the term "pedophile".

Antis are, in a sense, right regarding the label "MAP" being about normalisation. But it's not about normalising minor attraction per se, as much as it has to do withbringin a sense of humanity to a marginalised groups who has been stripped of its humanity thanks to decades on end of a constant barrage of bigoted and bashful propaganda targeting them.

I think I’ve expressed it in these terms before, but I think legal reform is the most important goal, but it’s not a priority. MAPs need to be humanized (through cultural change) before legal reform becomes a possibility.

Florida is refusing to allow people convicted of sex offenses to use hurricane shelters. That’s both a legal and cultural problem.