Yes, as a minority, you read that correctly. Since minor-attracted people compose less than 10% of the population, that makes us a minority. I believe minor-attracted people are in a worse position than the LGBTQ+ community was in the 1980’s because for our cause, there is no shortage of factual information. There is this blog, B4U-ACT, Virtuous Pedophiles, MAP Support Club, and many other resources available to learn about us directly from us. Even still, there are many myths that pervade the internet and many attitudes that are reluctant to change.
On Saturday, August 27th, 2022, Twitter chose to suspend @Virpeds on Twitter. Their account has existed for many years and their mission is simply to get minor-attracted people and pedophiles the caring support we deserve. This mission also intersects with sex abuse prevention, because a supported pedophile or MAP is someone who is less likely to engage in harmful behaviors, of which child sexual abuse is just one.
This suspension comes amidst many other suspensions of many like-minded advocates on a variety of social media platforms. I guess the idea is that pedophiles can’t be trusted on social media, which is ridiculous. Look at the social media platforms. Look at Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and more. They have a well-known and years-long problem with people posting child pornography on their platform, and in ways that would be easy to shut down. But these social media companies don’t do it. Instead, they cower to fear of the masses and suspend anyone daring to say, “Hey, I’m attracted to kids and I think we need more support than what you’re giving us as a society.” Why else would we risk all the hate on social media but for a good cause? If we wanted to hurt kids, the last thing we’d do is announce our attractions and mission to help minor-attracted people.
The media is complicit in this too. Anytime you see the word pedophile in the news, it almost always is referring to someone who harms children. This is propaganda, not civilized reporting. Imagine if adult rapists were referred to as homosexual or heterosexual. That would be disgusting, but to refer to child sex offenders by their sexual orientation is somehow okay? That’s stupid and illogical, and the end result is that people will believe whatever negative things they like about minor-attracted people and pedophiles. Besides which, most child sexual abuse isn’t perpetrated by pedophiles, making it a lie – one that impacts the prevention of child sexual abuse.
This is a black stain on humankind. Our collective priorities as a society seem to be to try to make the icky stuff go away, not to effectively prevent social harms, and this is disturbingly antiquated. Pushing a group of people into dark corners of the internet where they can be radicalized into hating society is a surefire way to make people feel more comfortable, but at the cost of not protecting children and causing untold social harm to a minority that doesn’t deserve it.
In 2020, Twitter chose to side with child “protection” programs that are excellent at this kind of security theater. They do not care about what is effective at keeping children safe, and they do not care about the research into minor-attracted people. They don’t care that the average age of discovery for minor attraction is just age 14, and they don’t care about effective methods of helping us choose ethical behaviors or finding proper support at such a young age. They don’t fund research into minor-attracted people, they do not consider anything but the performative functions of child protection. That’s not good enough and they should be held accountable for this gross negligence.
If they did care, they would do what is effective, not what is popular, and the two are very different things. In 2022, we have reached the point of technology where we can reasonably replicate the human body in digital art. To fund an industry of fictional children in sexual situations to replace the black market for child pornography would be a no-brainer. No children are harmed in the creation of such digital art, yet instead of funding research into whether giving minor-attracted people ethical outlets for our attractions, an insane amount of money goes to law enforcement which cannot keep up with the availability of child pornography and as a result, law enforcement cannot shut down hosts of this material fast enough. In fact, several law enforcement agencies have been caught distributing and hosting this material.
I have no doubt that the overall goal is not to remove child pornography from the internet, but to catch offenders. For a social media company to restrict the use of hashtags showing up in their algorithm would be simple from a technical standpoint, especially with the talent and genius that these companies have in their personnel. If the goal was to remove it, we would go further than trying to take down the material from the internet, and reduce people’s need to seek it out in the first place by giving people ethical outlets. The fact is, we did not choose our attractions and as with any other sexual attraction, we cannot be rid of the attraction. The only ethical course of action is to give us ethical outlets and stop criminalizing our very existence.
Oh, but that couldn’t work, you say. It would be harder for law enforcement, you say. It wouldn’t. It would likewise be simple to certify organizations that produce digital art and create a database for hashes of art materials to put on an allowlist. It would be simple because the mechanisms for comparing known child pornography against image hashes already exist. Canada has a mechanism, the United States has a mechanism, and I’m sure there are others. To certify organizations or individuals producing this erotic art would be a breeze for law enforcement and governments.
At the very least we could push lawmakers to fund research into this area, but that funding instead goes towards things like the sex offender registry and law enforcement – responses after harm has already happened, not methods that prevent further harm from happening. But recidivism is high and we have to stop them from hurting even more people, you say. If you search “studies on sex offender recidivism” you see even at the most basic level, it’s low, not high. The rough recidivism rate for property crimes, that is high, often above 60% depending on the study. Below 30-40% is not high, that is quite low. The disproportionate amount of government funding goes to sex offender registries, not prevention through education and proper resources.
My point is that minor-attracted people are people. We’re human, just like you. We have feelings and morality, just like you. We know it’s wrong to harm kids, whether that’s by viewing or producing child pornography or by sexually abusing a child. The mechanisms we have in place in modern society does not acknowledge these facts. Instead, we are treated as monsters, constantly equated with offenders while many of us have no interest in harming and many have never harmed a child sexually. To treat all of us as if we cannot be trusted is to give into media bias and stereotyped thinking. To treat us worse is not for the betterment of anyone, it is to assuage your feelings and
We can be allies in protecting children, rather than your enemies. We could cooperate and make progress in ensuring children aren’t harmed by sexual violence. You, as a society, could help provide us with proper support and resources and remove barriers to professional support. But the prevailing attitude towards us is that we’re trash to be squashed down.
We won’t go down. We’ll work as long and hard as we have to in order to see changes to how we’re treated. To target a group of people as if that group as a whole is dangerous is the same manner of targeting that fascists and neo-nazis use. Yet it’s justified and those justifications are just as wrong as when they’re aimed at other minorities. It isn’t okay, and the day we recognize that is the day we can truly ensure the safety of children worldwide. We’re human beings, and we deserve to live peaceful lies free of hatred. To believe otherwise is to be a fuckwitted moron. Are you a fuckwitted moron, or a decent human being?