Kids Can't Consent

Some maps talk about having the urge to offend. Others are troubled by their thoughts, although they know that they won't offend. A technique called "urge surfing" might help prevent offending and help maps to accept their thoughts. "Urge surfing" is a mindfulness practice that promotes "surfing" urges -- staying aware of the ebbs and flows of your urges -- instead of suppressing them. When you have urges or troubling thoughts, "surfing" the waves of them may help, rather than trying to suppress them. Suppressing urges often makes them worse. Instead, urge surfing encourages people to stay present with their urges non-judgmentally. How do I know this will help? My therapist at first encouraged me to try to suppress my map-related sexual thoughts, which just ended up making them more prevalent. Instead, what has helped me is my therapist's assurance that there is nothing wrong with my thoughts and that I should accept them. Urge surfing is...

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...

  What is a bait account?                 A bait account is a twitter account made by someone who opposes maps (an “anti-map,” or just an “anti”) who pretends to be a minor. The purpose of bait accounts is for antis to “bait” maps into flirting with them, into consenting to have nudes sent to them, or even into sharing CSAM/CSEM (child sexual abuse/exploitation material). The owners of bait accounts often target anti-contact maps (maps who are against sexual contact with minors), believing that no map could truly be anti-contact, and wanting to catch maps in hypocrisy. How can I recognize a bait account? Bait accounts are recognizable because they state that they are a young teen or child, and usually proclaim themselves to be pro-contact (supporting adults who have sexual or romantic contact with minors). They often say that they can consent, or worse, make the blanket statement that children can cons...

An Introduction               I was first introduced to the concept of maps, or “minor attracted people,” while browsing the dash of my now-defunct Tumblr account. This was probably about five years ago, back when Tumblr was still relevant, at least among millennials like me. I never interacted with any maps myself, but I started seeing warnings popping up from my social justice-oriented followers:     Maps, or so these posts informed me, were pedophiles using the Tumblr platform to prey on minors. The posts claimed that the cutesy name was a way for pedophiles to rebrand themselves and hide what they really supported. This was, supposedly, grooming minors into having sex with them, and child sexual abuse of all kinds. Another popular subject of these posts was the fact that maps were supposedly calling themselves “pedosexual,” and wanted to turn the LGBT community into the LGBTP community. I actually lost a fair...