Minor Attracted Person

Part of NewgonWiki's series on minor-attracted identities
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Category: Minor-attracted people
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A Minor-Attracted Person (MAP) is someone who experiences sexual or romantic attractions towards people under the local age of majority. Unlike the term Minor-Attracted Adult, minors themselves, may be classified as such. Whilst attraction to minors is probably very common (see Research), explicit identification as an MAP can been seen as a political act. As a result, MAP self-identification is sometimes incorrectly assumed to be a disclosure of pedophilia.

Origin

The term originates from the late 00s era, was popularized in 2007 by Newgon.com (our predecessor), B4U-Act and other blogs such as ATC/ANU. There is one example of the term being suggested on BoyChat as early as 2001, but no further examples have been found in the intervening period, suggesting it did not catch on.

Timeline of events

As noted by B4U-Act in their Twitter thread, by 2007, they and some authors had been using the similar term "Minor Attracted Adult" for some time (Peterson's mention was in 1998, B4U-Act were founded in 2003). As the burgeoning MAP blogging movement got underway (primarily on blogger.com), there were frequent uses of the term "minor attraction" dating back even to 2006. The first examples of "Minor Attracted Person" we can find were on ATC/ANU in Feb 2007, although it is possible that full archives of the same blog will reveal a date of late 2006. This slow pivot thru "Minor Attracted Adult", the generic "minor attraction", to "Minor Attracted Person" in 2007 was thought to be due to these bloggers' relatively young age - often experiencing attraction to minors before adulthood. Through 2007, various mentions of this term can be found on connected MAP blogger site archives. On Jun 8, 2007, Newgon.com was founded (at that time a small website started by two censored bloggers), and the new term was visible in its ethos (belatedly captured on its blog arm, dated Jul 17). After months of circulation, B4U-Act eventually responded to their MAP user-base on June 22, 2007 by incorporating the revised term into their own lexicon. One presumes this was the point at which the professionals within B4U-Act agreed its use was "value neutral" and pivoting was therefore a pragmatic move, given its wide adoption. Newgon.com created the first known dedicated article (this very article) to define Minor Attracted People in September 2008 (see history).

2001 as ground zero, but no takeoff

The Internet Archive reveals mentions of the term "Minor Attracted Person/MAP" and "Minor Attracted Homosexual" as early as 2001, although the sparsity of evidence between that date and 2007 would appear to suggest that neither of those terms caught on in an environment where youth MAP online activism (i.e. early second-wave MAP activism) was virtually nonexistent. It has been claimed that the suggestion of "MAP" might have been put forward at an even earlier date by BoyChat user GhostWriter.

2009 Proposal

MAP Flag

In order to identify themselves, MAPs have created a MAP Flag, which garnered widespread social media attention in Jul-Aug 2018, along with the term "Minor Attracted Person". The origins of the final flag (we will upload one as soon as possible) are unknown, with Tumblr users suggested by various "fact checkers". However, the concept appears to go back to a 2009 competition, again on Newgon.com (our predecessor) - in which various proposals were solicited for a symbol. As can be seen, the MAP gradient flag predecessor has a file date of 8 Jul, 2009, and had most probably been submitted through the website's forum (by who, might become clearer when we re-enable it).

Erroneous claims of novelty and trolling by "fact checkers"

Mainstream "Fact Checkers" at Snopes.com and AFP Fact Check have erroneously claimed that the MAP Flag concept "originated with a troll experiment on Tumblr". They cite an incidence of a modern MAP Flag as evidence of said experiment, but it appears from the use of MAP terms such as "anti", that its anonymous creator is sympathetic to the MAP/NOMAP cause. The reason behind these fact checker's dismissive bias is clearly the (again, erroneous) fear that MAPs are attempting to rejoin the LGBTQ+ community after years of ostracism. The fact checkers are trying to disprove this already ludicrous thesis, to protect the LGBTQ+ movement. They also attempt to deny that Minor Attracted People coined their own term of identification, which as this article demonstrates, is patently false. This is most likely to be an attempt to turn a genuine 2nd wave MAP activism movement into yet another pathological classification under the thumb of CSA prevention professionals and therapists.