I think I was around 14 or 15 when I started discovering this side of my sexuality. I don’t remember exactly how it happened, so it was either one of two things:
I first started noticing that I was still attracted to kids a lot younger than me, which prompted me to look for loli/shota porn, and then I started to accept myself and identify as a MAP…
Or I first started getting into loli/shota, which made me realize I was also attracted to kids and then I started to accept myself and identify as a MAP.
At any rate, I was always good with computers so I quickly figured out the inner workings of the MAP world. At first I wasn’t even sure if I was a MAP or not and I had this idea that I would seek professional help to “not hurt any kids”.
A lot has changed since then and I’ve become much more comfortable with my sexuality. Thinking back to when I was younger, this pretty much echoed how I felt about being bi - going from denial and thinking that I should go through conversion therapy to being out and proud. (Well, I’m not out about being a MAP, though I am proud.)
Now the only thing I’m struggling with is trying to figure out if I’m also zoosexual or just a confused furry lol. Though because now I’m a lot more comfortable with expressing and exploring my sexuality I don’t feel guilty about this possibility, and I’m more willing to accept myself if I am indeed a zoo - though even if I’m not I think the struggles of MAPs and zoos are very similar so I’ll definitely still remain an ally.
I think I was 13 or 14. As I mentioned in my post, it was the same time i started to feel (romantic) attraction.
The “how” is that I fantasized about young girls, despite my age. That and I liked loli
I don’t even know if I’d label myself a MAP, since it’s sort of like, an exception almost. Not something I ever think about for the most part, but my one “partner” (not sure what else to call her) is intra age 14 (We are similar in terms of chrono). It doesn’t effect my attraction to her much, but considering I do see her as such, I suppose I could be a MAP. It’s not something I think about too much, but, it’s there in a way.
I was 12, I think, maybe 13. I don’t know if I should name it, but I discovered a naturism pictures newsgroup. Not porn, but close enough. I thought for a long time it was purely physical attraction — school really soured me on children, and I had little exposure to them besides TV for a long time. It’s just in the last year or so that people on fedi and my brother’s kids helped me get past that.
Can’t remember where I have and haven’t told this story yet, so here goes again I suppose.
The topic of attraction is quite vagued for me, because of trauma I have a mind-body disconnection. Which means my expression of sexual and aesthetic attraction is through fantasies and passive admiration only.
Anyway, I remember showing interest in sex quite young (10-ish). I started to write and draw porn, and I would also try to look for it online. That’s where the fantasizing started too. I’d come up with elaborate plots and abusive intimate scenarios. All of these metaphysical people would just pop in my head and they’d have whole lives. They were attracted to each other. These people were of all ages, kids, teens, adults, middle aged adults, elderly. They weren’t always fabricated, sometimes I’d use real people or fictional characters, but as my own ‘headcanons’.
Of course since I exist on this spinning orb and therefor parttake in the passage of time against my will, I started aging, and I started hearing hateful things towards pedophiles. I tried really hard to make my fantasies ‘age appropriate’, but I just realized that I was missing the inclusion of youth. Sexual thoughts of children arouse me, depictions of children are attractive to me, and the MAP community accepts me. So even though I don’t personally wanna date children, I am proud to call myself a MAP!
When I was 14, we had a 56k modem, so internet porn was no time to fun or convenient. I discovered text-based erotica and asstr.org
While reading many stories, I eventually stumbled into some that featured incest and children. These were the hottest ones, the most taboo. And I couldn’t believe how many there were.
This has always put me at ease, knowing that there was so much content made me sure that there are many many many people out there who are also turned on by these fantasies. (I think minor attraction is just normal sexual attraction. If someone is cute or sexy, their age won’t matter. Look at how many people counted down until the Olsen Twins’ 18th birthday. It was just because they wanted to openly ogle them)
Of course, back then, I thought it’s just fantasies. But once I went to a Japanese video store in Kagoshima and saw legally sold child porn–an entire floor dedicated to it! I was curious and wanted to stay and look through. It just reinforced my theory that this is popular and common.
as I got older and worked with children, I came to see that it’s easy to be attracted to some of them. They are often attracted to me, maybe because I’m a teacher.
Finally, I dove in and started actively seeking child porn. Mostly out of curiosity. I was shocked by how sexy a lot of it was. I was also ashamed by how badly made and abusive a lot of it seemed. (I wish it was legal, then I think we’d see some kind of improvement in quality and treatment of models, and not so much exploitation by horny family members)
Now I’m learning to embrace and accept that I can be attracted to young people. My wife knows about it and even shares some of my feelings.
