Kids Can't Consent

Like many people on the internet, I enjoy writing fanfiction and participating in fandom. Besides writing fanfiction, I’m mainly a lurker. I like to follow people who create content for my fandoms, and quietly retweet their posts, gifsets, and other fandom content. There’s one problem: I’m also a paraphiliac, specifically a minor-attracted person (map).      I’m also anti-contact, meaning I am very opposed to the idea of adults having sex or romantic relationships with minors. What this all means is that while I find a few minors attractive, I’m never going to act on it. I’m non-exclusive and am mostly attracted to adults. In a perfect world, my paraphilia wouldn’t be a big deal.      Unfortunately, maps are incredibly stigmatized and stereotyped. The word “map” sends the average twitter user into a moral panic, invoking visions of pedophilic zealots who prey on and groom young children over the internet. Anyone who has had any interaction with the map comm...

I’ll always remember the morning that my ex-boyfriend knocked on my door, crying, telling me that he’d just come from the police station. He’d been held overnight at the station for exposing himself to a woman, and it was far from the first time he’d indulged his exhibitionism paraphilia. My first experience with paraphilia had happened long before this. I’ve been interested in exhibitionism since puberty, although unlike my ex, I don’t act on it in any non-consensual ways. The idea of exposing my body to willing strangers has always given me a thrill. When I was younger, I used to record myself stripping on my webcam, but I would delete the video afterwards instead of uploading it anywhere. It’s more the idea of exhibitionism that excites me than actually doing it, although I sometimes have fun with strangers on webcam now that I’m an adult. My ex, however, did act on his paraphilia. On that morning that I learned that he’d been exposing himself to women, my ex opened up to me compl...