Minor attracted community
 | |||||||
| Part of NewgonWiki's series on minor-attracted identities | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
| |||||||
| Starting Guide | Community | Pediverse MAP | NOMAP | AAM | Neologisms "MAP" Origins | Flag | Movement Political history: MAP & LGBT Alliances Philias: Ephebo - Hebe - Pedo - Nepio Gender and attraction: BL - EL - GL Pederasty/Gay BL | Korephilia/Lesbian GL Pro-c | Neutral-c | Anti-c BLogo | GLogo | |||||||
|
| |||||||
| Category: Minor-attracted people | |||||||
| Template:MAI - This template |
The minor attracted community is a term that can be applied to a loose affiliation of individuals - mainly MAPs and supporters/allies. Presently, the community exists almost exclusively online, however, real-life friendships are known to exist, as do some membership organizations and support groups. Some organizations (mainly homosexual pedophiles and pederasts) had limited success in the period spanning from the mid-70s to the early 90s - maintaining contact by way of mailing lists and taking part in Gay Pride events/larger LGBT organizations.
The websites the community currently uses are generally small webforums and social networks, plus a few peer groups on larger platforms. The last few years has seen considerable diversification, for example - the use of decentralized social networking. The more established of these online communities tend to go under banners such as boylove and girllove, with others remaining generic. In some cases, relationships forged through these websites have led to real-life contacts, and even larger scale meetings and events (see IBLD or Ipce, attracting 100+ and around 10 attendees respectively), although such contact has arguably declined over the last two decades. Because of the intense persecution of MAPs and the greater anonymity offered by the Internet, many of them feel more comfortable finding friends and confidants online than in real life. As such, the online community has grown slowly since around 1997, with sites such as BoyChat establishing themselves as important meeting places.
Internet
Message boards
- e.g. BoyLinks.
One of the most popular ways to participate in this online community is through message boards (also known as Bulletin Board System-style, or BBS-style, forums). These are websites (for example, BoyChat, GirlChat, Pedofilie (CZ)[1] and Visions of Alice) in which posters write messages to one another. The messages remain available for long periods of time while other posters read and respond to them. These old-fashioned communities tend to have older users, more freedom of speech, less attention to rules of engagement and the users are often pro-c in some way. Virped is one exception to that rule.[2], and B4U-Act is largely not engaged on the subject of contact.[3]
Imageboards
Some communities are based around imageboards such as AllTheFallen (content may vary in legality according to jurisdiction).
Fediverse
Decentralized social platforms such as Mastodon and Pleroma have seen very impressive uptake among MAPs, who communicate on shared servers.[4] Participants in decentralized networking may themselves offer up server space. These are noncommercial spaces for shared interests, and often deviate from the mainstream, so while uptake is high, visibility for activists might be poorer in this instance. Activism can still take place, although this would be more in the mold of peer support or community organizing.
Should our efforts expand within the Fediverse, the best analog for this might be the MAP infiltration of Secular-Rationalist bulletin boards that took place in the mid-late 00s - in that we would be targeting a group that is already predisposed to realigning their way of thinking.
Modern Mainstream
Small communities, including some activism have been seen on Twitter, Tumblr, Reddit, Quora and Discord. Members find and follow those who share their interests. On some occasions, activists have supported one another in visibility and awareness raising efforts, although some censorship is carried out. Gab is said to have carried out more pervasive censorship of MAPs/allies, despite its supposed reputation for freedom of speech.
Twitter has had self-identifying MAP accounts for some time, and a NOMAP contingent ever since said movement was founded. Long-time self-identifying boylover, Steve Diamond wrote the following in 2021:
- "I am a MAP, and a human rights advocate. I've had a Twitter account for over ten years, in good standing. I observed and followed Twitter's TOS, rules and policies with great care. This account was very active for at least six years, where I was interacting with a wide range of people on a wide range of subjects. I actually had over 1,500 followers. As to MAP activities, I simply left myself open to discussing them with those who willingly approached me. I helped share and exchange studies/research and news articles relevant to MAP issues. And I did a lot of good nature participation in a hashtag called "#mappositivity", posting things so mild, humorous and uplifting, nobody in their right mind would actually be able to take issue with it.
- Enter the "Pride and Joy Only Belongs to Us" LGBTQ Twitter Mafia, and waves of nasty abusive, threatening Holier That Thous, who maliciously flooded MAP hashtags like #mappositivity with graphic gore (pictures and videos of people being murdered), violent threats, dehumanization of MAPs, and endless calls for banning MAPs from Twitter (even in the face of the fact, that we were in violation of no Twitter rules or policies). This went on for about a year, at the hands of these lunatics. An endless onslaught of abusive provocation and threats. I took up reporting them, and even had a thread on Twitter where I was posting screen captures of the responses from Twitter...They used to thank me, over and over, for "helping to keep Twitter safe"...and I helped take down several hundred accounts of these nasty people.
- In addition, despite what some of these people may tell you today, there were a number of us MAPs (including myself), who were also reporting and trying to get out of our hashtags anyone who was seemingly offering anything illegal (MAP hashtags were never for this purpose). Again, Twitter used to thank me for being this sort of guardian on it's platform."[5]
Various NOMAPS were banned in the 10s, but overall MAP membership saw a boom in the time leading up to the MAP Flag publicity of '18 and '19. Many were banned, and in early 2020, "promoting or normalizing sexual attraction to minors as a form of identity or sexual orientation" was defined as counter to the ToC. Small groups of determined sock puppeteers persist, and tend to be banned after a number of reports mount up. In 2021, provocative MAP tweets by well-known MAPs and allies were known to have attracted over 20 likes and have been retweeted over 1/2000 times (mainly by hostile actors). It is important to mention, that Twitter operates a double standard, not only in relation to those who habitually harass MAPs, Zoophiles, etc, but by favoring "other" sexual minorities such as Lolicons. One poplular Lolicon account @CunnyDatabase has, as of 2021, repeatedly posted obscure memes attempting to distance itself from MAPs, while baselessly accusing other members of trading in pornography in a prolonged campaign of libel.
Twitter had also seen fake MAP publicity efforts in the 10s, such as the ludicrous Clovergender and Heart Progress, which display all the hallmarks of right-wing attempts to smear liberals and the LGBT community.
Video Sharing
YouTube carries out a lot of censorship, but appears to have large numbers of receptive commenters for most alternative points of view. Occasional videos from "normies" have crossed the line and led to controversies and comment thread blow-ups. One YT alternative is FreeSpeechTube, run by Norbert de Jonge, a well known Dutch MAP and civil liberties activist.
Real-time chat
Another common way of interacting with the online community is via real-time chat services such as that offered by websites such as LifeLine, linked to from BoyChat, and MSC - which is supported financially by Prostasia Foundation. Open MAP is another alternative.[6] These communities have the advantage of permitting instant response and reaction to one's communications, with the disadvantage of being fleetingly ephemeral with regards to their content. IRC, along with Usenet, was the core of the online boylove community before the rise in popularity of BL message boards.
Blogs
Blogging used to be a considerable part of the minor attracted community, but a purge took place in the summer of 2007 after blogging on free platforms was widely adopted. A few individuals then banded together to form larger groups (such as ours), buying their own bandwidth and starting afresh. Others retreated to Bulletin boards. Some high-profile MAPs such as Thomas O'Carroll continue the blogging tradition.
Phone Messenger apps
Private messenger apps are also used. These messaging apps may have varying levels of decentralization and encryption, meaning that adoption has not been focused on any one platform known at the time of writing.
Email services
Again, these have varying levels of security and may or may not be used with Tor or VPNs.
Usenet
Usenet, often simply referred to as "newsgroups" arguably spawned the predecessors of the Online MAP community. IRC was also a spawning ground of the movement as we know it today, but Usenet came first and probably had a much larger user base. Newsgroups are essentially threaded collections of messages similar to email. The messages are formatted according the NNTP protocol. Usenet is typically accessed with a specialized "newsreader" although some HTTP sites allow web access to some groups. alt.support.boy-lovers was a somewhat popular newsgroup in the mid 1990s.
Organizations
- See also MAP Movement.
Various organizations such as the largely dormant NAMBLA have existed or still do, as explained in the activism section of our article on MAPs. B4U-Act sometimes holds conferences for MAPs and Mental Heath Professionals to meet and discuss topics. "Workgroups" for peer-support have been particularly successful in Northern Europe, with many such examples having existed in the Netherlands and Germany. Frans Gieles of Ipce has a personal history of having assisted with these groups, and an excellent knowledge of their history.
See also
External links
- OMC's List - similar to ours, somewhat more woke/anti-c type communities and some more reference to Fediverse. Offers blogging services.
- Prostasia - on the history of Twitter and NOMAP/Virped pioneers such as Ethan Edwards and Enderphile.