Debate Guide: MAPs are invalid

"No attraction to minors is a valid sexuality, whatever label you put on it. Your age is not your sex! Child and Teenager are not genders, invalid!"

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Identitarians like to ignore their former friend, Alfred Kinsey

Trolling meme response

This "identitarian" argument is often made (but not exclusively so) by LGBT people who like to claim that MAPs can not be gay, homosexual or queer under any circumstances, and should voluntarily distance themselves from the LGBT Movement. They argue this, seemingly ignorant of how common the attractions are, and how they must by necessity coexist with the gender-based attractions unaccounted for. Sexuality experts, and the bible of Psychiatry, the DSM appear to endorse the idea of attractions to particular groups of minors as a sexual orientation.

The first thing that should be pointed out, is that nobody actually uses the term "MAP" to denote a sexuality. It is in fact an identity; an umbrella term used to unify people with differing attractions, who have been put in the same boat as a result of political/cultural circumstances. Pedophilia and Hebephilia are examples of sexual "orientations" that fall under this umbrella term. The historical reasons for the MAP identity are in fact the ostracism and distancing of MAPs from a formerly accepting LGBT Movement.

Contradictions of the identitarian argument

The second point here, is that if boylovers are not homosexual because sexuality is exclusive to gender (as anti-MAPs like to claim), heterosexual pedophiles and hebephiles can not be deemed "straight", either. We would then have to ask, what exactly is this well-documented tendency of pedophiles and hebephiles to gravitate towards one or the other gender, if it is not a gender preference? It appears that the insistence upon a complete divorce here, is entirely political. Not only that, but it covertly legitimizes the concept of chronophilia as a secondary spectrum of desires and identities, since age-structured relations have been present throughout the entirety of human history, and have now (they would maintain) been excluded from the category "sexualities", despite being of great operative importance to what is considered a sexuality.

Taking the above argument in another direction, it is held that if pedophiles or hebephiles of any gender preference aren't also into adults, they can't be considered gay (or indeed straight). So what if they have a non-preferential attraction to adults? Can they now ascend to the status of fully fledged queer, homosexual, or indeed heterosexual? What about a 13 year old boy who is attracted to other 13 year old boys? We'd have to maintain that because his psychological target is not an adult, he can not be considered "gay", does not "know himself", and should remain open-minded to the idea that he may in fact be pederastically inclined. After all, there is no solid evidence that these attractions will change as he ages, unless they are based on mere social norms. If essentialist gay identitarians were to stay true to these principles, they would have to give up their pursuit of LGBT youth organizations and policies, for example. Also note, that many of the same liberals will assume the flawed hypothesis of an age-appropriate or corresponding age-attraction in youth, in trying to defend youth-on-youth sexual activity and attractions as "normative" vis-a-vis minor-adult relations. So, if by their own admission, normative age preference fluidity exists, non-normative variation in such preferences must also exist. Once again, their narrative covertly legitimizes chronophilia.

Identitarians must also be asked if they believe that gender is socially constructed (most of them do). If they agree, ask them what this spells for the "validity" of sexualities based solely around gender, as opposed to say, "biological" features such as physical maturity or species.

The invalidity of "validity" as an argument

The concept of valid and invalid sexuality is clearly chauvinistic and a questionable idea in and of itself. This strategy of "othering" and erasure appears to be a rather shameful leftist-liberal SJW rehash of 1980s respectability politics deployed by the conservative moral majority. Decades before that, the German Nazi party also invalidated pederasts; the only difference being that those boy-lovers were joined by teleiophilic homosexuals - the sort of people who now invalidate pederasts. Nevertheless, some modern day homosexuals might tentatively agree with the Germans and claim that pedophilia is a mental illness and therefore invalid. But on doing this, "liberal" gays should be congratulated on confirming that pedophiles are entitled to care, respect, protection, social interaction and "safe spaces". After all, a good LGBT person, with a firm understanding of their own history must surely not submit to the ableism and carceral psychiatry that was once used against their own people.

Ultimately, what we must ask, is what constitutes a valid determinant of "sexuality"? Any intellectually honest LGBT campaigner or liberal should be able to explain this in a way that does not rely on normativity.

Lessons from History

Homosexuality has, of course, been age-structured throughout history (see also, resources such as Greek Love: Pederasty throughout the ages). Normative, modern-day teleio-homosexuals would be invalid by most classical standards, as they date exclusively within their own adult age group. However, reality tells us that modern-day homosexuals take differing roles indicative of the age gap in classical pederasty, often explicitly power structuring their sexual lives.

Historical examples of LGBT-MAP unity

The modern LGBT Movement has a rich history of embracing pederasts/pedophiles, providing shelter to "loved boys" and agitating for the removal of Age of Consent laws - for example, at the 1985 ILGA conference. In 2021, Newgon compiled a large article documenting numerous examples of LGBT-MAP unity, running from the 19th Century, all the way to the 1990s:

• Historical examples of LGBT-MAP unity

Queerness

Sometimes, gay people who are ignorant of history, try to deny that MAPs can be "queer". In fact, the term is probably more befitting of MAPs than modern LGBT folk, with the latter's reaction to the former proving that very point:

• Validity Policing - See for quotations and rebuttals to the charge that MAPs aren't "queer".

See also

• Debate Guide: Corresponding age attraction
• Research: Pedophilia as a sexual/erotic orientation
• Research: Prevalence