🐾When I really got to thinking about it I guess we’re kinda mysterious? We just aren’t used to having a platform where we can just talk about these things. So here it goes. This is how we got here and came to accept ourselves.

CW ahead for past mentions of drama, antis, gaslighting, harassment, the whole shebang.

Mei and I are basically adjoined soul twins and have always been observing the world through this body, as far back as I can remember. This is important because of our feelings and attraction towards each other. From our external crushes, the things we took special interest in to our relationship over time the signs I guess we grew up as normal as we possibly could. We grew up in the 90s and 00s where most people that we knew just didn’t think of this stuff. There was always a “child molestor” scare every now and then, but we knew better then to throw people under the bus. For my sister and I and other kids we interacted with, no one ever saw child sexuality, attraction to other children or attraction to adults for that matter was wrong or taboo, they’re just love and feelings. We liked, and still like, both children and adults, something that’s never changed about either of us. I think it’s the culture we were raised in and the open mindedness we were shown outside of our family that really helped us along the line with opposing puritan and anti mentalities, but this came to a screeching halt when the body turned 17. Suddenly we became aware of hate groups, people from our former religion telling LGBT people they’re going to hell. When I spoke up at my local church I got us in trouble for “daring to speak of such sin”. I guess that’s when I was radicalized? We weren’t outspoken about MAP things yet and focused on gay rights at the time because that’s what the immediate issue was, but we always kept it in the back of our mind. How could we not? After all, when the body was 16 Mei fell in love with someone older than us, by a few years. He and Mei were mad for each other and their relationship was very sweet. People in our circles were supportive of them, no one ever called their relationship predatory or dangerous because it wasn’t. They did break up eventually, but it wasn’t for the reasons most would think. Life was getting incredibly hectic for both him and our system, and all of us having depression didn’t really help matters. We also discovered we were polyamorous around that time and he at the time was monotonous, which is something they sadly couldn’t come to an agreement on. They remained in love as friends, and to this day we are all on good terms. He never harmed us in any way and is very important to us. He even turned out to be a free love advocate in the end. Wowser.

Fast forward a few years, and the 2010s brought the great pedo moral panic. Mei and I have always been firm believers that love is free and no relationship is inherently abusive, so this brought out pretty heated debates and internal pain for us. I am an anarchist. I firmly believe abuse comes from power dynamics stim from a hierarchal and patriarchal social power structure, not from those who simply have paraphilias and desire things outside of the sexual norm. When we faced other radical leftists on this position, as well as other more “moderate” people in our circles at the time, the backlash was instantaneous. I never should have done that. It was like opening the lions cage. We got lectured about how wrong we were, and that we “didn’t understand children”. Which is incredibly insulting for us, because aside from the fact we never really stopped being kids, we chronologically WERE kids once and we know how our own body and mind was during those golden years, something they know nothing about at all. I do get their sentiment but being mobbed and maliciously called a pedo in front of everyone was demoralizing and all in all were pretty lucky no one went the extra step to harass us, something others haven’t been so lucky about sadly. We did have a civil discussion about the age of consent once though which was nice. I do miss the friend who agreed with us and hope he’s doing well. Unfortunately this is where the positive story ends though, as some time later, someone in our community who was a MAP got doxxed by someone who found out about it. We never stopped believing in what we know, but we did clam up, especially after a friend, an ex who claimed to have loved me deeply ended up giving me a “Reason why you suck” speech and blocking me over the discourse. For the longest time we never spoke up about our feelings and our convictions, convinced that we would never be accepted, that if we ever did we would lose everything. Silenced. By even other anarchists. The ones who should be the most free speech in my mind. Ironically, the anti-groomers groomed us into a mentality we never wanted.

Our system trauma holder, Nyar ended up harboring most of that, along with everything else in himself. He remained that voice in our ear saying “Fuck those people”, and we wish we would have listened sooner. It was never worth it saving face for people. To put on a mask, say “Oh we’re just lolicons/agere” as a way to hide from hate and persecution. I wanna go back and kick myself a little, but we had no support, no knowledge of accepting spaces like this, so what could we do except keep our head down? It was dark times.

Fast forward a few more years later and the stars would slowly finally fall into place. We met a friend who changed our life. He told us he was a MAP. He prodded us until our true feelings came out. He gave us an open space to belong even if it was a small friend circle. We all bonded on basically being chased out of everywhere else we’ve ever been. It’s through this circle of friends that we discovered a Mastadon instance that was pro-fic (we’ve always been on the run from antis), open and for the first time in ages we felt like we belonged somewhere. Life was good, but we still were more focused on the prospect of bringing socialism first before worrying about MAP activism because we just didn’t know anyone outside of our very close friends who would actually listen, and the lack of hope we had at the time. That’s when something happened, something that was terrible at the time but turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Said instance we joined basically engaged in a mini civil war because the admin found out that a popular user also had an account on NNIA. Paraphiles came directly under fire and people were fighting and leaving every which way. The lead harasser, who I will refer to unaffectionately as Salty Watermelon (not their real name) purposely manipulated information and made him out to be this evil demon out to destroy all that is good, when all he did was just… Exist. Like how dare him seek out acceptance from people who don’t believe in how you view the world /s. We couldn’t take the discourse or drama given our PTSD with that kind of thing, so we left. And this ended up being the best thing to happen to us. Because it’s through leaving and scouring through Baraag for cute cub art for me to fap my depression away to that we discovered the NNIA instance itself, and along with it, FU. I was blown away that such spaces existed, AND were kind to radical leftists too. This is as what I we needed all along. What we deserved all those years ago. Which we joined and the rest is history.

The whole situation with that admin, the destruction of our group lit a fire under me. Now I’m in a place where we can speak up. Where we can speak our true thoughts. Where we can say that we’re MAP, that we’re plural, that we are siblings in love, and that’s all okay. That we for the freedom of all. Mei has even come to terms with her zoophilia, something we haven’t faced or seriously questioned ever even in the face of the obvious (“why are horses so hot”) thanks to these incredible communities. Even places for those like us exist. We’ve met people who are hilarious, inspirational, unashamed and determined, and some of those incredible people use this board. So in a twisted way, we thank that admin, for making a scene in public and showing everyone their true colors. It’s because of this we now know actual acceptance and know what we must stand for to ensure a future without stigma and suffering.

Meeting @shiroispure@rqd2.net is probably the best thing to happen to us in this community, too. It’s through this community we have met a system of partners who we could see spending our lives with. We have never come to mesh with another system quite so quickly, quite so well, quite so perfectly as theirs. Just them existing, listening to us, sharing our systems workings, our thoughts and feelings, everything, does wondrous for the mental health of my sister and I, and we are so grateful to know them, and everyone else we’ve crossed paths with. And being able to spill all of this, share all of us, just feels so goddamn good.

So thank you, pedi, thank you RQD2. Thank you so much for existing and giving people a place to belong. It probably goes without saying but it means everything and more. Let’s all keep fighting the good fight against bigotry wherever it stands and continue to lift people out of that darkness that we and I’m sure many others have been.

A better world is possible. All you need is the will to keep going and hands/paws/claws etc to help you stand when you fall. And if you’ve read this all to the end, thank you too for being a part of our ongoing story.

🤎💗