I was in denial about being a MAP until rather recently, maybe a month ago or so. Before then I would consume lolicon content but I told myself that I wasn’t attracted to irl kids. This was not true at all, but I managed to stay in denial about it for years.
For most of my life I always made a conscious effort to avert my eyes whenever I saw a young girl. I was afraid to look at them I think, because I would have had to confront the fact that I am attracted to prepubescent girls. I had gotten used to doing this, but one day a MAP friend I had been talking to online recommended I try looking at a girl. He reassured me that simply looking and even having sexual thoughts wasn’t immoral, which really helped encourage me to actually look at a young girl in real life. At this point I more or less knew I was a map, but making an effort to actually look at a girl was what I needed to confirm it in a way that I couldn’t deny.
I’d love to hear about others’ experiences with accepting that they’re a MAP!
Yes. I remember a couple summers ago, walking down a street and thinking to myself ‘I would rather fuck everyone’s grandpa than one kid, I can’t possibly be a pedophile’. While, the former is still true, I’ve come to understand that 1. Pedophilia isn’t shameful, and 2. Attraction can be a funky thing.
What I realized is that I don’t like using ‘myself’ in sexual fantasies, so in the place of ‘myself’ I like to use young teens. My aesthetic attraction to others automatically turns sexual and I am equally attracted to either ‘side’ of the fantasy. Even though the ‘substitute me’ is mostly me, there is also a little part of me that enjoys being the other perspective. Plurality + attraction be funky I guess.
When I was a teen, my sexual fantasies were more similar to how they are now, but for a large chunk in between I thought that because I was getting older, the people in my fantasies had to age up to, the older I got, the more I felt like something was missing from my fantasies, but I was too scared to think sexually of young teens again. Being in paraphilia positive spaces helped me understand that I am allowed to fantasize about whatever the fuck I want, and I am free again.
So even though my MAPness isn’t very ‘direct’, that doesn’t mean I won’t think sexual thoughts when I see an attractive kid. I still try to not look at kids when I’m outside. Kids don’t not make me horny, etc. It’s just that it’s not appealing for me to be the one that fucks them. I’ve never understood why attraction has to involve yourself. All the signs lead to what I’m experiencing as being some type of attraction, I think.
So that’s why I decided to call myself a MAP. Maybe it’s not 100% logical, but I’m more MAP than not MAP. Also for context, I am aro and aplatonic.
I also had the idea that as I aged the people in my fantasies were “supposed” to age up as well. I remember specifically thinking “it’s not pedophilic if I’m close in age”. I used that line of reasoning to stay in denial about my minor attraction when I was young. The fact that I’m also attracted to adults only made it harder for me to recognize that I really am attracted to minors.