Prostasia Foundation
Prostasia Foundation was a (non-offending) MAP-sympathetic, San Francisco - based child protection charity that operated as a non-profit organization from August 15, 2018, to September 2025. Upon its closure, it was in part replaced by the COSL.[1]
The Foundation's activities included, but were not limited to the provision of public forums and funding/promotion of private chats for MAPs, the provision of child abuse prevention training and consultancy services to corporate and other clients, and grants for researchers. Prostasia Foundation was also seen to carry out awareness-raising activities in the form of numerous public media and social media engagement campaigns.
As of May 2023, Prostasia's Executive Director was Gilian Tenbergen, a Sexologist and CSA Preventionist.[2] Her predecessor was Jeremy Malcolm, a Trust and safety professional and intellectual property expert with prior experience at the EFF.[3]
Prostasia received funding through crowd finance, memberships and anonymous donations (Bitcoin and Monero are options according to their website). They had also supposedly received money from an institutional investor.[4]
Role in generating controversy
Prostasia has been involved in a string of social media controversies concerning the "normalization" trope. They have also been attacked by abuse industry figureheads such as Michael Salter and John Carr. In rough order of notoriety, cover examples that made the mainstream media, or became common social media talking points.
The Allyn Walker affair
In early to mid November, 2021, Assistant Professor of Sociology and Criminal Justice at Old Dominion University, Allyn Walker received widespread coverage after partaking in an interview with Prostasia, advocating the destigmatization of pedophilia. At that point, Walker had written a book, published in June 2021.[5] Walker has since been hired by Johns Hopkins, and started work as a postdoctoral fellow for the Baltimore school on May 24, 2022.[6]
Research and advocacy for youth-like sex dolls
Prostasia's defense of sex doll use among MAPs is seen as "unconventional" for a child protection charity, although use of dolls appears to be unrelated to offending, or otherwise underexplored.[7]
Personal controversy centering on Noah Berlatsky
Prostasia has often come under-fire for positions taken by former communications spokesman, Noah Berlatsky. One often-repeated example is his piece in the New Republic, Child Sex Workers’ Biggest Threat: The Police.[8] Later attempts to scandalize Berlatsky as the former spokesman of a "pedophile advocacy" group after he wrote a Bloomberg hit piece on a film depicting Operation Underground Railroad, fell on deaf ears after only going so far as the conspiracy media and a feminist blog.[9]
Minor MAPs "as young as 13" in chats
There has been some confusion in Prostasia's messaging - whether minors as young as 13 are separated from adults in MAP Support Club's online chats. In reality, this is almost impossible to police.
Alleged involvement of MAPs on staff
Early in 2023, Reduxx (an online radical feminist publication) published an article claiming to link various online profiles of Prostasia's general manager, alleging that he "admits to being a pedophile".[10]
Analysis of projects
MAP Support Club in further detail
- See also MAP Support Club on the anti-c MAP Wiki.
Prostasia was in public partnership with MAP Support Club[11], an online chat for MAPs who are committed to a non-offending lifestyle (NOMAPs). In October 2021, a member reported on Boychat.org, that chats were visited by 3-10 users at most times of day. A group administrator then clarified that MAP Support Club had over 100 active users.[12] MAP Support Club has posted a series of strict rules for participation. While most of these were said to act as a deterrent, the user did confirm there is a strict prohibition against advocacy for Age of Consent reform. Some of the rules from early on in the site's existence follow:
- 4. No talk about lowering Age of Consent (AoC), whatever it is where you live.
- 5. No talk about adult-child sex being fundamentally OK and only harmful due to societal attitudes and reactions to its discovery, nor discussions of the topic. There are other places on the internet to have these discussions. This is not one of them.
- 11. No images or videos of children if they would be arousing to an average pedophile (shirtless, swimsuit, underwear).
- 12. No images or videos of children for the sake of sharing “cute” or “hot” kids. If relevant to an ongoing discussion, an occasional image will be allowed as long as it doesn't violate rule #11.
Rule #5 appears to be a prohibition against pro-c viewpoints, and could even be used against some clearly stated consequentialist anti-contact positions. However, what seems more realistic, is that topics such as consent reform are just deemed irrelevant and not discussed.
Open MAP Community and Pediverse are less-strict alternatives to MSC.
Criticism from MAPs
Since its inception, Prostasia had attracted a lot of mainstream attention throughout social media due to its unconventional anti-CSA messaging, which incorporates kink, BDSM and Sex Worker Rights with child protection. MAPs have also expressed incredulity towards the idea that said messaging is not intended to be deliberately provocative. This includes the choice of Noah Berlastsky (who no longer works at Prostasia) as a communications spokesman, a "Social Justice Warrior" and "Anti-Gamergater" whose Jewish background further triggered the alternative-right.
The forum section of Prostasia's website is run by volunteers, some of whom appear to support censorship and anti-MAP extremism.[13]
Upon its closing, some MAPs remarked that the concept was theoretically or strategically flawed in various ways, and failed to build the alliance that was clearly part of its goals. It's success as a publicity, or baiting operation, and continued activity under alternative banners, was nevertheless acknowledged.[14]
Gallery
While the management of Prostasia has often faced controversies surrounding their "too soft" stance on MAPs, they have been known to rely on volunteers who have acted in threatening ways towards them. In this 2023 screencap, Alan ("Mya/Chie"), a moderator on Prostasia forum can be seen calling on hostile members of the public to report legally compliant pro-c accounts.
-
As per section lede -
An earnest view held by one moderator on Prostasia Forum -
Unusual angle and choice of marketing material
See also
External links
- Lotus Eaters - Prostasia discussed on an intellectual counterculture vid cast
- Prostasia have compiled a useful library of research on a range of topics relevant to MAPs
- Prostasia
- Anti-Prostasia
- ODU Student article, with pictures of the Allyn Walker protestors
References
- ↑ Official Launch and Final Announcement.
- ↑ New Exec Director
- ↑ Jeremy Malcolm Bio
- ↑ https://archive.fo/0kSVP
- ↑ Allyn Walker - Book and download link
- ↑ Johns Hopkins child sex abuse center hires trans professor, 34, who was forced to resign from Virginia school for DEFENDING pedophiles as 'minor attracted persons' (Daily Mail)
- ↑ Harper and Lievsley: Exploring the psychological characteristics and risk-related cognitions of individuals who own sex dolls
- ↑ Bertlatsky: Child Sex Workers’ Biggest Threat: The Police
- ↑ Daily Wire: Berlatsky's Bloomberg Hit Piece
- ↑ EXCLUSIVE: Prostasia General Manager Used Pedophile Forum, Joked of “Trapping” Kids
- ↑ http://mapsupport.club
- ↑ https://boychat.org/messages/1579713.htm
- ↑ See for example, the before and after of a discussion focusing on the MAP Flag origin (comments by Jim removed without explanation). There appears to be disagreement among moderators over this - the comments were initially removed, reinstated, and then removed again.
- ↑ Discussion on BoyChat