Essay:A Call for the Abolition of Apathy

A Call for the Abolition of Apathy

December 02, 2024 ◆ BLueRibbon

Legend: AMSC = "Adult-Minor Sexual Contact", PIM = "Prohibited Images of Minors", BL = "Boy Lover"

Author Foreword: This essay is posted in response to community apathy toward activism. It is written as an urgent call to action rather than an attempt at academia. It builds on my work with Mu, which has highlighted key trends in MAP oppression.

Intended to encourage non-violent aggression and self-defense only, no part of my essay should be interpreted as condoning the instigation of violence. In light of the tragic Nicholas Prosper murders, I especially discourage any kind of violence against family members, random strangers, and children.

Please spread this article far and wide. While I do not encourage readers to visit sites containing illicit material, I am very happy for this article to be shared anywhere, including on such sites.

MAP Apathy

The population of MAPs is huge, no matter how you define it. In studies relying on self-reports, around 15-20% of men admit to having some sexual attraction to children. When penile plethysmography is used to properly measure physical reactions to images of children, the number can go even higher.

The proportion of men who actively desire to have sexual contact with a minor (AMSC) is less well researched, and perhaps less honestly answered, but a recent survey from Australia revealed that 5.7% of men "would have sexual contact with a child between 12 to 14 years if no one would find out".

The number of people apparently seeking out illegal images of children (PIM) is huge, to the extent that countries such as the UK and Germany have practically given up on imprisoning people for possession due to practical concerns, despite these countries' insatiable thirst for hunting down MAPs. Darknet PIM boards, which require somewhat advanced tech skills to use and are not easy to find, reportedly have hundreds of thousands of members.

Part of NewgonWiki's essay series
on MAPs in the 2020s

♦ Jim Burton ♦
MAPs, Paraphiles and Fascists
MAPs, Zoophiles and Transids
The Virped Paradox
Hamstrung (a case for Anti-c)
Pedophile trolling for beginners [D]

♦ BLueRibbon ♦
Against Apathy
Pro-Reform
The Push
12+

♦ Talix ♦
On "The Trauma Myth"

♦ A.H.J. Dautzenberg ♦
Marthijn, Lesley Uittenbogaard

Category: Minor-attracted people

Template:MAE - This template

Our community is massive, and ceaselessly hunted and oppressed, but the number of activists is barely above zero. Why such apathy? I asked a radical MAP familiar with darknet boards to advertise MAP activism for us, and the response relayed back to me was alarming. Most people felt that getting angry would do nothing, that they were perfectly safe accessing PIM via the darknet (and could live like that forever), or assumed that MAP activist sites were a law enforcement honeypot. On some of the legal MAP boards that I accessed personally, most participants seemed completely disinterested in MAP-related social issues. On one BL board, the forum for 'serious discussions' focused more on US politics than the oppression of MAPs. In debates about matters like the Age of Consent, many BLs parroted the opinions of wider society without any critical thought.

This apathy is incredibly dangerous. A community without advocates, when hated as much as we are, will be hunted mercilessly and with ever greater ferocity until it is destroyed.

If you don't wish for yourself or people like you to end up being locked away forever, in prison or in 'hospital', read on. Learn about how people like you are being driven to loneliness, isolation, and suicide. Hear about MAPs who think they are 'legal' and 'safe' but still get incarcerated. Find out about how you can fight back against this, because we are all potentially 'next'. I would like to see a world in which MAPs can live openly, and at the very least have normal social lives as well as emotionally-affirming friendships with children. To merely reach goals as shamefully pitiful as this, we need your anger and support.

MAP Struggles

MAP advocacy organization Mu, of which I am a founding member, recently surveyed the community with a 10-part questionnaire. We asked participants about various issues, such as what they found hardest about being a MAP and the changes they wanted to see. Our analysis of the survey revealed a number of key trends.

Suicide, Isolation, and Loneliness

Mu's survey revealed that MAPs suffer massively from stigma, isolation and hatred. The inability to maintain a normal social life and experience platonic relationships with children were the most serious problems. Many of the respondents wanted to experience normal social connections, as well as platonic or romantic relationships with children, but felt unable to do this for a variety of reasons. Many survey participants reported their "most traumatic experience" to be the never-ending nightmare of simply living among a barrage of hateful messaging.

In a separate article published by Mu - an analysis of MAP mental health reliant more on academic research - we revealed remarkable suffering among MAPs and off-the-scale rates of suicide and suicidal ideation. Alarmingly, for many of us, mental health crises start when we are minors ourselves, as a significant number of us realize our sexual orientation during our formative teenage years and are unable to access proper support or information about what it means to be a MAP. Even those who desperately seek help to stop engaging in behavior they consider wrong are unable to safely do so.

We are tortured to the brink, more so than any other group in western nations, by the constant barrage of hate. We are then expected to hold ourselves to the highest of standards by vowing never to engage in AMSC, look at real or AI PIM, or even talk about our sexual orientation with anything but the deepest of shame and self-loathing. This is a powder keg for serious mental health issues, and society just laughs about it. They love to watch us suffer.

Criminalization and Incarceration

Those responding to Mu's survey were less focused on the effects of criminalization and incarceration than we expected. This is perhaps in part because the imprisoned are unable to respond to surveys, and also because many MAPs facing years behind bars choose to end their lives instead, essentially murdered by the weight of MAP hysteria and oppression. It's surprising that so few of these men, who had little left to lose, decided to get back at the world while they still could, but it may be better for the MAP community that they didn't. Aggression is much warranted and frankly needed, yet lines need to be drawn firmly behind wanton terrorism to avoid worsening our already terrible reputation.

For those who did report being arrested as their 'worst experience', we are generally not talking about rapists, but people who merely possessed PIM. Sadly, the kind of asshole that spikes an adult woman's drink to rape her would be more respected both in prison and upon release than a PIM offender. External research indicates that in many cases, the most serious images possessed by such 'criminals' depict no sexual activity whatsoever. Organizations like the IWF and Australian Federal Police claim that terms like 'CSAM' must be used to prevent the 'mistaken' interpretation that PIM typically shows erotic posing. The reality is that these self-serving organizations are lying, destroying MAP lives in the process, for the simple purpose of pretending there is a need for their existence. They are destroying thousands upon thousands of MAP lives in the process, as well as tearing families apart. These evil agencies are our abject enemies.

Online Censorship, Bullying, and Violence

In the age of an internet based almost entirely around social media, dominated by just a few major platforms that are insanely hostile toward MAPs, our community is put at a massive disadvantage. It is impossible for us to grow organically when referring to oneself as a MAP leads to a banned account. We cannot correct misunderstandings when doing to so is labeled 'normalization of pedophilia' and therefore a violation of platform rules. While entirely lawful MAP accounts on social media networks are suspended on sight due to such rules, accounts advocating violence against MAPs are supported and glorified.

Glorification of MAP Hatred

Please take a look at some examples of suspended MAP accounts, juxtaposed with accounts that are supported by the same providers.

Messages permitted by Bluesky:

A user states that anyone attracted to children is not human, and killing MAPs should be allowed
A user jokes about wanting to meet up with a MAP in order to kill him
A user jokes that MAPs deserve to be drowned
A user encourages the bullying of MAPs, believing that MAPs aren't bullied enough
A user states that all MAPs should be killed or lobotomized

Accounts suspended by Bluesky:

In contrast, here is some removed content that is explicitly anti-offending.

An account claiming to be operated by VirPed explains their anti-abuse prevention stance
A Mu article posted by a user named 'Blossom' is reposted by VirPed. It explains how misunderstanding and isolation are serious problems for MAPs
A screenshot of Mu's profile, which explains that Mu aims to improve the mental health of MAPs and discourage offending
A post talking about anti-offending and the need for supporting anti-contact MAPs
A VirPed post that opposes AMSC

Vigilante Violence

A 70 year old man, alleged to be a 'predator', is violently assaulted by a much younger and stronger vigilante. This kind of content is very popular among the public

In addition to deplatforming MAPs and glorifying hatred of our people, social media platforms actively support real-life violent assaults of men alleged to be 'predators'. Examples include punching senior citizens in the face, torturing people for fun, and even the assault of men wrongly accused.

Let's start with a compilation video from a third party. It shows two streamers engaging in the following activities:

Taking a man's glasses, throwing them on the ground, and forcing him to crawl like a dog to retrieve them.
Slapping a man repeatedly to force a confession.
Ramming a shopping cart violently into a man.
Chasing a man across a store and slamming him into a table.

Some alleged 'predators' did bravely defend themselves against these bullies. One man had brought a firearm to defend himself, which he used to fend off his attacker. Another responded to a slap with a punch, leading to a comical attempt at a fistfight between two out-of-shape men.

News reports suggest a pattern of assaults against people alleged to be 'predators'. Popular streamer Vitaly Zdorovetskiy is well-known for his sting operations turning cruel and violent. His incidents include:

Throwing confetti and other party objects at an old man, before shaving his head and dressing him up like a clown in exchange for not calling the police.
An acquaintance punching a man in the face for allegedly attempting to meet a 15 year old.
A bystander in one of his stings punching a 70 year old man in the face, leading to him cracking his skull on the ground. The 70 year old man was later arrested.

There are many so-called 'predator' or 'pedophile' hunters essentially hunting down people like animals, and bullying the poor men on video for laughs and likes. Livestreams are popular, as viewers can laugh along and post comments on the violent abuse. In most cases, nothing happens to these bullies, even when they physically assault people on video. Leaders of one such group were finally arrested, but only because they wrongly accused a man.

It is a shame that so few MAPs exercise their right to self-defense. While I strongly advise not trying to meet minors online for any reason, I also encourage MAPs who are afraid for their safety to arm themselves in full accordance with their local laws, and be willing to defend themselves against anti-MAP vigilantes to the fullest extent legally permitted. Some of the people who defended themselves physically in 'predator' videos were actually able to get away from their attacker. Cowering and groveling when attacked is not a good solution to harassment.

Denial of MAP Movement

Not only do social media platforms and their users bully MAPs for our very existence, but many also attempt to make a mockery of our movement by claiming that we are a hoax created by 4chan trolls, or working on behalf of MAGA or pro-Russia agents. When I made an account on Bluesky, posting as Brian Ribbon and identifying as a responsible MAP, I was subject not only to violent messaging by posters whom Bluesky support, but also accused of not even being a real MAP. I've never had to try so hard to prove that I am a 'pedophile'. Mu had to release a statement verifying that there had been a lot of legitimate MAP activity on Bluesky, including an official Mu account.

Such ridiculous claims obviously go back much further than the recent drama on Bluesky. The same nonsense was endorsed even by Snopes, before they backtracked after eventually getting around to doing some proper research. This is no thanks in part to the LGBT movement waving their flags in the name of MAP hate, denying the historical connection to a younger generation unaware of the documented historical facts.

MAP Killings

Stories of anti-MAP violence and arrests come even from Thailand these days

There are many reports in the news of hate crimes against MAPs. These occur all over the world, and include attacks as extreme as outright murder. The modern day lynching of MAPs is almost a global phenomenon.

The three cases of anti-MAP killings listed here are all from the past month, highlighting that these are not isolated cases.

Thailand, November 2024

Most recently, it was reported that a man from the UK - the origin of MAP hate and one of our worst oppressors - killed a Russian man who allegedly propositioned his 15 year old daughter. While that would be a crime in the UK and Russia, it is not so in Thailand, where the Age of Consent is 15 years old.

We don't know the full details of the case, and it's possible that the Russian man acted in a manner that was creepy regardless of the girl's age. However, no such lechery has been reported; the father seemed to be angry simply because he wrongly thought his daughter was underage. He punched the Russian man so hard that he fell and died.

USA, November 2024

According to a report from the US, a man was murdered on account of being a registered sex offender. As a 21 year old, he had engaged in a sexual act with a 14 year old. According to the news article, the man was not ruled a 'sexually violent predator'. However, that did not stop a local resident hunting him down and slaughtering him.

It is reported that on the day of the killing, the victim "woke up to a man screaming outside on the front porch." The victim's roommate stated that the attacker "was yelling words similar to “Jesse Grover, you’re a pedophile, get off Logan Avenue.”" The attacker shot the victim in the chest as soon as he opened his front door.

Canada, November 2024

The final story comes from Canada, where a man was brutally beaten to death by two young people, accused of being a 'pedophile'. According to the news article, "Paul Enns, 43, was lured to the park by a girl, then 15, in February 2022, before she stabbed him three times with a sharpened screwdriver. Her boyfriend, who was 17, then fatally beat the man."

Trapping him inside his car, the boyfriend beat the victim repeatedly with a baseball bat, fracturing his skull, his jaw, and the bones around his eye sockets. The killers stole his phone, car keys and wallet, and used his money to buy popcorn and a pair of shoes.

They joked with their friends about killing a 'pedophile', laughing at how they watched him "beg for his life" and "there was nothing left" of the man. The male assailant went on to add, "You'd be glad you didn't come, if you're scared of open brains."

Institutionalized Threats and Violence

It is not just vigilantes that express hate and commit violence against MAPs. In many countries, this behavior is supported by public institutions such as the police and prison officers.

Threatening Non-Offending MAPs

Senior police officer Simon Bailey threatened police action against non-offending MAPs

The first such threat that came to mind may seem mild, but is in fact extreme. Former Lead Child Protection Officer, Simon Bailey, told the BBC:

Anyone who is having inappropriate thoughts about children, or anyone who believes a family member may be, should seek help from Stop It Now!, otherwise they should expect a visit from police officers.

Although not a threat of bodily violence, the implications of even a simple visit from police officers for anything MAP-related are horrific, given how horribly MAPs are treated in countries like the UK. It's important to note that the threat is made not just against those who have committed crimes, but anyone who is merely attracted to children.

Most MAPs know that contacting an organization like Stop It Now! would itself lead to a police report, and probably an investigation as a result, meaning that Simon Bailey was essentially threatening to tear apart the life of anyone with a mere attraction to children, with no way of avoiding a knock at the door. This threat was endorsed by the BBC, a de-facto representative of the British state.

Prison Violence

Respected community member Nitro is an extremely responsible MAP who helps other MAPs to lead fulfilling lives without harming children. He was jailed for possessing videos sold on Amazon and widely believed to be legal, and treated worse than a murderer as a result. Here are some accounts of his imprisonment that he has shared on various MAP forums.

He was in for attempted murder and was proud as hell of it. I guess his status would have improved if he didn’t have the attempted part. I brushed him off about my charges. To make a longer story short, later in the week, he assaulted me. I was simply not in the physical condition where I could defend myself. I’d had multiple heart attacks, stroke, etc. I was told later by another inmate that this guy had asked a guard what my charges were and was told by the guard that he didn’t want to know. There was one punch and I fell badly against a stool. As I couldn’t get up, he resorted to kicking. Eventually, I dragged myself up and I spoke to several people. I assured everyone that I’d never touched a child, but refused to discuss my charges. People’s concerns were universal that I needed to make sure no guard ever found out what happened, as the whole unit would get locked down. As I got taken out for insulin several times a day, it’s a little hard to hide not being able to walk.

Attacking MAPs in prison is a time-honored tradition to which western governments turn a blind eye

He continues...

The next morning when I had to go for insulin, I really couldn’t walk at all. They had to get a wheel chair. They told me that they were taking me to emergency at the hospital to get an x-ray. A guard also mentioned that they knew what happened. They looked at their video coverage. They took a bunch of pictures and asked if I wanted to press charges. I didn’t. At the hospital they determined I had a leg fracture and a few in the ankle. One in the ankle was particularly severe that I’d need surgery as soon as they could schedule it. They needed to put it a metal plate in it. I got a temporary cast put on, and from that point, got used to being in a wheelchair. Since I was sentenced, I would have been moved from that jail, but they told me they wouldn’t move me with a broken leg and a relatively short sentence.

Our MAP brother, who had done nothing but look at Azov images, felt virtually abandoned.

When they brought me back they put me in what they called a medical unit. I was alone in the cell and actually had a sort of bed to sleep on. It wasn’t much of a medical unit. A guard came by periodically to check whether people were still alive or something. It was a mixed unit with GP. We were allowed showers and phone calls now and then and had 20 minutes in a small fenced in yard with other PC inmates. There were 4 or 5 of them. The pain from my leg and ankle was excruciating. The doctor prescribed percocets. I needed to get the swelling down before they could operate, but there was no way, I could keep my foot up in that place so after less than a week there, they moved me to the infirmary.

Eventually, this warm and caring member of our community, who had been brutalized in prison for the mere possession of naturist imagery, was treated, his limbs filled with shards of metal in a vain attempt to fix his shattered bones. Stories like this should fill every MAP with sheer rage.

No Safe Place to Hide

Tor is under attack

It's possible to correlate the identity of some Tor users, and what they're viewing, if you control enough nodes. Western governments are actively exploiting this weakness, specifically targeting MAPs

Many MAPs believe they're safe using Tor, but this is not entirely true. An alliance of police from Germany, the UK, the USA, the Netherlands and Brazil has been working to deanonymize Tor users with some success. At present, their attacks seem to focus on darknet PIM sites. However, the same methods could be used to target people accessing any site via Tor, including those that are perfectly legal but 'unpalatable', and located on the clearnet as well as the darknet. Notably, it was not only the PIM website operators who were targeted, but also the users.

It was revealed earlier this year that the USA arrested many hidden service visitors under an operation titled Operation Liberty Lane. Documents shared on Reddit indicate that at least one of these individuals was a user of alleged former PIM website Baby Heart. Visiting such a website even once was enough to justify a raid.

Later this year, information emerged on how an administrator of an alleged former PIM site named Boys Town was arrested. The stories focused on how he'd been using an outdated version of Ricochet, a chat application that operates as a hidden service on each user's computer. This, however, feels like a distraction from what occurred in the USA, where visitors to websites relying on use of the TorBrowser were identified.

Without getting too technical, the Tor attacks are a giant fishing expedition. From 2017 until at least 2022, an international operation has operated thousands of Tor nodes in an attempt to correlate traffic entering and exiting the network, thus revealing the source and origin of the traffic. The user has to be unlucky enough to use a combination of nodes controlled by the attacker, and even then the evidence is not absolute. Alarmingly, in the US at least, this very flimsy evidence has been sufficient to get court orders for searches.

Authorities are investing massive resources into catching people simply viewing PIM, or rather accessing sites containing PIM. In a fit of bloodlust for 'perverts', the fairly weak evidence produced by the attacks on Tor is being accepted as sufficient to perform raids, destroying MAP lives. Efforts like these are only going to be expanded in the future, unless MAPs fight back.

The Call to Action

MAPs face massive oppression and abuse. We need to fight back aggressively before things get even worse

If you're a MAP who has read this far, you should be seething with rage by now. People like us are systemically denied the right to love, the right to feel safe, and the right to feel part of any community. The communities we build ourselves are dismantled, attacked, and even raided by the police. We are tortured mercilessly, our mental health utterly destroyed in many cases, and after all that, we're screamed at about how we need to 'get help' that we can't even safely get because of the unrepentant hate.

Many of us are told to kill ourselves, and instead of punishing the suicide baiters, the authorities do nothing while the masses laugh and jeer. Simply for existing, we are hunted and subject to mass persecution and arrest. With no safe place to exist, under regimes that support police chiefs openly threatening non-offenders with raids, we need to fight back with extreme aggression even if doing do is incredibly scary.

We should never let our enemies win by killing ourselves, nor should we make our community look worse by instigating violence. It is true that we are horrifically mistreated, and the world is extremely lucky that MAPs are so inherently non-violent. While an urge for retaliatory violence would be very much understandable, such violence is unlikely to be helpful.

If you feel like no hope is left, please get involved with MAP activism and fight back aggressively against those who are torturing us. Read on to find out how you can help.

How You Can Help

MAPs can respond to attacks both online and offline.

Online Promotion

Pro-MAP writers like myself need help spreading our content and arguments on social media

As one of the most prolific writers of pro-MAP content this year, mostly on Mu, I have been disappointed by the reach of my articles. Our community's writers need help spreading our content both within the community and outside of it.

Inside of our community, we need help reaching MAPs on forums, the pediverse, darknet sites*, and chat rooms. MAP community leaders cannot connect with everyone, and are not necessarily aware of all the sub-communities or darknet resources. If you're in a group that is not aware of our content, please introduce it.

Writers for Mu and other resources are always looking for tips and assistance to help them produce high quality articles. There are even options for guest blogs on some of these sites. Even if you're not a great writer, established writers within the community will be happy to work with you if you have an idea to contribute or a fledgling article that needs a bit of assistance.

*We do not advocate seeking out sites that contain illicit material.

Outside of our community, we need help with both aggressive and subtle promotion of pro-MAP messages, especially on social media. There are frequent discussions about MAPs on websites such as Reddit, X, and Bluesky, and not enough people advocating for us. We especially need people who don't identify as MAPs, but express support for those who behave responsibly. Cautiously correcting MAP misunderstandings is crucial. Many platforms will quickly censor users talking about 'MAP rights', but we need people doing this anyway. Persistence is essential.

An example of a good comment in a discussion about MAPs would be:

This may be a controversial opinion, but I feel really sorry for people who are attracted to children. They don't have many options, and even outlets like AI are being made illegal. For those who want to seek psychiatric support, it must be terrifying to actually go to a doctor and tell them they're attracted to kids. We need to make it easier for things like this to be discussed openly.

The more comments we have like this in discussions on social media, the better.

Offline Promotion

Meeting with fellow MAPs, and taking part in other offline activities, can be dangerous. However, they are safer than you may think, and represent a firm stand against the silencing of our people

Offline promotion is the scariest. It is not without risk. Then again, simply existing as a MAP is unsafe in many countries, and that won't change without aggressive activism. For those who have already been outed following MAP-related arrests, offline activism is strongly encouraged. Being outed forcefully comes with many horrible consequences; perhaps the one 'gift' such people have is the freedom to no longer be forced to hide. This 'gift' can be used to fight back without the same fears that closeted MAPs understandably have.

Coming out to two or three trusted people is something that, done on masse, will help to advance our cause. Mu's survey of MAPs revealed that most people experienced positive or neutral reactions upon coming to out to family and friends. As the principal researcher, I was very surprised, but the message was clear: coming out to people you trust is less dangerous than it seems. Given the significant number of MAPs, more of us letting family and friends see that we're not monsters lurking in the shadows could have a major impact on how MAPs are perceived.

Posters, leaflets and placards are also ways of spreading pro-MAP messaging. Attaching posters to lampposts and other fixtures in the middle of the night, while wearing a baseball cap and face mask, would be the safest option. For those who look presentable and have already been outed, handing out leaflets or holding placards at major events is a riskier but possibly more effective option. Good material would have a QR code that linked to important information about our community, such as the Mu FAQ.

MAP meetups are a great way of building community and also an excellent source of ragebait, but there is an obvious risk of infiltration. Such meetups have been attended by undercover journalists and police, and have led to outcries in local and national media. People attending these meetings should follow basic rules, such as using a pseudonym and not discussing illegal activity of any kind. To protect themselves against violence from vigilantes, attendees should arm themselves as far as is allowed under their local laws. It is not a good idea to meet anyone you've been communicating with on sites featuring illicit content, or to whom you've admitted to any kind of illegal activity.

Essay:A Call for the Abolition of Apathy

Contents

MAP Apathy