Essay:The Push

The Push.

23/05/24 ◆ BLueRibbon

Legend: MAP = "Minor-Attracted Person", AMSC = "Adult-Minor Sexual Contact", PIM = "Prohibited Images of Minors".

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My first essay on MAP issues since 2010 is about the extremely dangerous concept I call "The Push". Unpolished and meandering, the essay's main purpose is to describe how everyone is ultimately harmed or endangered by the relentless and unnecessary hunt of MAPs, the attempts to criminalize every possible outlet available to us, and the poor availability of mental health support for our community.

The Case

There was a case in the news perhaps a month ago. A former marine in the US showed up to have sex with two little girls, armed with a gun, and was executed by the mob in blue. Some MAPs interpreted the gun as a tool of self-defense. Others thought it was suicide by cop. My interpretation was that the man knew it was probably a sting, but was willing to go down shooting for some chance of either having sex with a child or gaining retribution for the horrific persecution to which MAPs are shamelessly subjected.

Should the man have been willing to have sex with two little girls being sold by their parents? Probably not. I am very much in favor of reforming the laws that outright prohibit AMSC (Adult-Minor Sexual Contact) with no regard for the circumstances, but paying a parent to have sex with their children sounds like a very real kind of bad touch. There are healthy adult-minor relationships, including sexual ones, and there are acts of evil, and there are many shades of grey. But even that is an oversimplification of a man's actions, a misguided focus on the nature of the acts themselves and an ignorance of their origins.

The Contradiction

I believe that minors can give meaningful consent to sex with adults, with a caveat that may disappoint the extremists within our community: I also partially agree with wider society that minors are more vulnerable to exploitation than most adults. However, I firmly disagree with the absolute singling out of minors - up to ages as high as 21 - as helpless subjects of abuse, and with the nonsensical juxtaposition of the lack of protection afforded to vulnerable adults and the insane paranoia surrounding any perceived threat to minors.

I believe that minors are similarly vulnerable to women from poor countries, many of whom are horribly exploited in brothels in western countries, and at high risk of mistreatment in their home countries too. However, instead of prohibiting sex with poor women (which would be ridiculous!), we judge sex with adults on a case by case basis. Or at least we should. In reality, some adults don't even enjoy the most basic of protections, while all AMSC is deemed sexual violence. The abuse of adults is allowed to occur right out in the open in many cases, especially when the victims are of certain classes such as 'male', or 'immigrant', or whomever else the police decide they aren't willing to help.

Consider Amsterdam as an example. It is a beautiful city that used to be considered 'cool', but the red lights for which it's known haven't been cool for quite some time. The women sold like slabs of meat there are not perky Dutch girls making money to buy a designer handbag. They are victims of human trafficking, tricked away from their home countries by gangsters and put on display, subject to what is more or less rape in full view of the public, while the Netherlands' righteous government throws MAP activists in prison for advocating discussion over the age of consent.

Actual rape of immigrant women? "Fine."

Talking about whether a law is morally just? "Prison!"

The Backstory

Why is that discussion so controversial? We know that teenagers are not asexual; it's not even a matter of debate. The idea that sex with teenagers is inherently wrong is actually a construction of 19th century laws intended to combat the awful abuse of women and young girls in the sex trade. The very first law criminalizing sex wtih teenagers was enacted in response to the behavior of men likely not primarily attracted to minors, but by opportunists in the deepest depths of Dickensian London. Ethical AMSC with pubescents was never really supposed to be punished; the 'original' law to raise the age of consent above 12 years old was created to give the authorities a way to easily crack down on the rampant prostitution of teenage girls in what was an awful time to be anything but a rich, straight, white man.

That law, perhaps a necessary sledgehammer to eliminate some of the very real horrors of 19th century London, should have been nothing but a temporary measure. Instead, it was used as fuel for the campaigns of American puritans, who co-opted it for their campaign of righteousness. Much like religious leaders brainwash their congregations into believing the most absurd concoctions imaginable, the moral crusaders of depression-era America were somehow able to persuade enough people that sex with teenagers was morally wrong in itself, and so an imported law that was never meant to be interpreted very strictly was inexplicably adopted as a moral standard. While unpopular ideas such as the prohibition of alcohol failed to persist, thanks to the universal love of liquor, the equally unrealistic idea of abstinent teens was spread across the globe, bit by bit, for reasons that are not entirely clear to anyone.

The Reality

What is the reality of minor sexuality and how it relates to adults? As much as I would like to, it is impossible to provide personal anecdotes about female sexuality and man-girl interaction, so I will leave that to our GL friends. However, I can and will talk about my experience as a BL during my days of relative absence from our community.

During my hiatus, I worked jobs where I interacted with thousands of boys in a country that totally ignores non-contact BLs, but doesn't let you fuck around quite the way that, say, 1980s Thailand apparently did. As a fairly normal-looking man, of healthy weight and neither beautiful nor grotesque, I had situations where I unfortunately had to decline offers, that I had not encouraged, from wild-natured boys who were interested in sexual experimentation. It is very frustrating to have to do this, and I cast zero judgment on those who take whatever opportunity comes. There's nothing worse than having to pull your hand away when a sex-crazed 12 year old boy, straight nonetheless, tries to put your hand on his crotch because he's curious. Most boys do not behave like this with adults, but some do.

These boys are the natural ally and playmate of BLs, amused and unharmed by the games they seek to incite. They are also our greatest danger. The problem with wild boys is that their madness isn't restricted to gender-indifferent precociousness. It permeates every essence of their being, and this includes their willingness to broadcast their not-so-private lives to their parents, teachers, counselors, gaming buddies, local beggars, jealous priests, and anyone else they may know. In a sane world, nobody would care and this wouldn't matter, but that is not the kind of world we inhabit. We live in a world where simply saying "OK" can be a death sentence, where you are painted as an actual rapist, beaten up by murderers in prison because you are 'worse' than them. Actions like giving a 15 year old boy a blowjob are enough to trigger this reaction.

This is a world in which the only acceptable targets of outright abuse are MAPs, and any intimate expressions between us and minors are instantly problematized, treated as rape regardless of circumstance. Defenders of this approach will insist that they are just trying to protect children. They will say that children cannot consent because children cannot consent. I've never seen a convincing explanation that is not entirely circular in nature. An immense library of poor quality research will support claims that AMSC is inherently harmful, but better quality research suggests that AMSC is not inherently harmful, or at least no more so than AASC or MMSC.

The Hunt

The reality behind our detractors' motivations is not as they state. We are subject to laws that criminalize what we view, even when the images are generated entirely by AI. We have to use complex security tools to avoid harassment from the authorities, and even this may not be enough. It was recently revealed that the German, American, British and Brazilian governments spent millions on a Tor de-anonymization project with the sole intent of identifying people simply visiting websites offering PIM (Prohibited Images of Minors). Merely accessing the websites, even if you only view the legal material they reportedly offer, is enough to justify a raid in some jurisdictions. Meanwhile, European police, desperate to prevent their jobs being made harder and willing to invade the privacy of the European public, recently argued for a prohibition on end-to-end encryption for everyone in the EU; not to prevent children being raped, but so that they could identify "individuals with a sexual interest in children."

You really don't have to do anything illegal to be hunted by the police, despite the endless barrage of laws their governments rain down on us. Realistically, the worst countries would criminalize simply being attracted to children if they had any hope of covering the costs of imprisoning the entirety of our community. It's also convenient, of course, that they are able to use us as pathetic pawns for their own ends whenever convenient. Other than 'dirty Muslims', we're the easiest group for them to exploit. This should be no comfort, however; it works because the reality is that the world hates MAPs for who we are, no matter what we do, and gullible people will sacrifice their privacy for the sake of sadistically ending the free life of anybody attracted to children.

The Push

Despite the ways in which we are relentlessly hunted and hounded, access to mental health support, for MAPs, is very challenging. In most countries, telling a psychologist that you're attracted to children feels like an absolute no-go. This necessitates a complex performative dance around the issues for any MAP needing therapy, leaving most unwilling to go a psychologist and seek treatment for any issue, including dangerous feelings of anger toward society or the inability to control their sexual urges. The work of B4U-Act is extremely helpful in this regard, and they maintain a list of recommended therapists. However, their work is confined to North America, doing nothing to help MAPs in other parts of the world, much of which is also incredibly hostile toward MAPs.

I know of two men who experienced mental health crises recently, visitors to a peer support chat, who went on to engage in dangerous and somewhat unethical activities because they felt they would never be happy otherwise. It was inevitable that they would be caught, and I think they knew it. It was more or less a slow suicide of indifference. One of those men is now dead; society might as well have pushed him off the ledge. The other man is now in the system, his family in extreme distress. With proper mental health support, might their outcomes have been different?

Additionally, we need to think about the rock that many people have to fall on when faced with severe distress. Friends and family. Many MAPs, due to the evil of The Hunt, don't even feel able to be open with those who would otherwise be close to them. There really is nowhere to go for MAPs who are understandably afraid of confiding in friends and family. These people often have no real connection with anyone. Being completely isolated from the world, with nobody to rely on and nothing to lose, society can quickly end up with very dangerous men made out of those who would be saints.

MAPs are at serious risk if we engage in sexual contact with sexually curious teenagers, despite the applicable laws being co-opted as something they were never supposed to be. We are at risk if we view any imagery of minors in a slightly sexual, naked, or posed situation, even if the imagery was created entirely by AI. We are not able to get access to mental health support safely, even if we are highly distressed and a danger to ourselves or others. Confiding in friends and family is also much harder than it would be for virtually any other group in the world. There is, for many of us, no alternative to living in a state of depression, committing suicide or self-harm, or resorting to potentially harmful behavior in which we would otherwise never engage.

This is what I call The Push. It describes the way that society is pushing MAPs to engage in harmful behavior that they would not engage in given ethical treatment from legislators, law enforcement agencies, mental health professionals, prison officials, and society in general. It leads, or will ultimately lead, toward an inevitable conclusion of rape, incarceration, death, and destruction.

With nowhere to go, most BLs, despite the fleeting depravity of curious young boys, accept loneliness, despair, and sexual frustration. Some BLs are understandably unwilling to accept this, and some of these people go on to seek relationships with quieter boys, acknowledging that they are a 'safer option' more willing to keep secrets. This is not because these BLs are sociopaths who hate children; they genuinely love these boys, and ultimately engage in consensual AMSC when the boys reciprocate their love, which is a frequent occurrence. Unfortunately, these boys don't wear their heart on their sleeve quite like the crazy, 'dirty', 'perverted', outgoing boys that would seek AMSC with their adult friends. They have a richer inner life than most people give them credit for, and they have a tendency to ponder that can quickly lead to negative thinking and self-hate. Emotionally vulnerable and easily influenced by wider society, these boys may later feel harmed by their encounter due to society's archaic conservative messaging about AMSC, even if the sexual contact itself was not innately harmful. The end result is a highly distressed child and imprisonment for the BL. Beyond the obvious moral issues, which I do not deny, seeking out AMSC with the quieter boys is a tempting but poor alternative for both the adult and the minor. Are the BLs who seek these relationships evil people who don't care about boys? I say no. With a logical AoC of 12 or so, plus additional protections to prevent outright exploitation, most active BLs would not seek out sexual contact with those boys. So why do some do it? They are subjected to The Push.

Another thing that I consider harmful is 'capping'. According to reports from darkweb enthusiasts, and media reports that I would be less inclined to trust, there has been a massive explosion in men pretending to be girls, tricking boys into sexual activity on camera, and then sharing these videos online. Even though I am in favor of the legalization of PIM possession, it has to be said that manipulating boys like this, sometimes even threatening them with exposure if they don't send more videos and images, is utterly deplorable behavior that could cause massive distress to the boys. Are BLs inherently evil for engaging in and supporting these evil actions? I say no. If PIM were legal to possess, and an authorized, moderated website like Pornhub were allowed to distribute old PIM, the vast majority of MAPs would never end up on the darkweb, the 'cappers' would not receive the adulation that drives them, and these boys would not be victimized. Why does it happen the way it does? BLs are pushed to the darkweb and its highly questionable interactions.

Finally, without the confidence to trust regular friends and family, many MAPs are pushed to rely on peers for support, instead of engaging with a wider group of people and developing a balanced range of views. Although the MAP community has a much wider range of views than people give us credit for, the push to rely on a single community for one's entire social life is a fairly serious incitement to the development of extreme views. Online communities of any kind, no matter their target audience, have a tendency to push members toward a more singular and extreme form of behavior.

The Future

I predict a very dark future if there are no significant changes in how MAPs are treated.

The state of affairs for MAPs and minors is horrific, and I find it absolutely remarkable that there are so few cases of attempted MAP-led violence like the one reported in the news last month. In its treatment of MAPs, society breaks every rule in the book when it comes to not pushing people toward extremism, most notably in how it does its level best to leave so many of us with nowhere to go, nobody to rely on, and nothing to lose. The Push does so much damage to MAPs, to their friends and families who deal with their incarceration, despair, and suicide, and to the minors who are victimized when they otherwise would not have been harmed. Many publicly registered sex offenders, in particular, have few reasons to live; their lives are made intentionally difficult, torturous in fact, and I can't fathom how we are not seeing more cases of them violently exploding.

Eventually, I believe that as The Push continues and becomes more extreme, we will see many cases of violence from MAPs; shootings, stabbings, and even bombs. I suspect we are also likely to see violence from minor (or former minor) victims who have been harmed by The Push. As a returning MAP activist, I really hope things don't go that way, for the sake of boys and the many random members of the public who may be harmed as collateral damage. There are some excellent activists within our community who are making progress peacefully; we now have allies in the academic and mental health community, even if some people do call them 'cunts' and tell them to fuck off when they post on our boards. A new activist project will be starting soon, and we will mix academic engagement with tactful ragebait and media manipulation. Nonetheless, the activists like myself who engage in peaceful activism are but a tiny portion of the MAP community, and we have no control over what others do. I really hope that society will start to choose engagement instead of persecution, to prevent the worsening of what is already a terrible situation heading for absolute disaster. The Push is a very dangerous thing.