The MAPs Community- a Facade

 

The LGBT+ community has grown to such a large group within the past decade or so, as demonstrated by annual statistics and a rise in the percentage of the US population identifying as LGBT+, 4.5%- or 11 million people (Newport). There were always bound to be discrepancies that separated individuals within said community. One main issue was identifying which groups could claim themselves a part of the LGBT+ acronym- and the acronym itself has fully extended to LGBTQQIP2SAA, because of the arguments being made to include more. Unfortunately, this means that groups such as MAPs (Minor Attracted Persons), otherwise known as pedophiles, would also argue for the validity of their supposed sexuality in relation to the LGBT+ community. MAPs have become a prevalent online presence in recent years on social media sites such as Tumblr, Twitter, and Youtube. The obscurity of what is and isn’t prohibited on these sites is what allows absurd groups such as MAPs to continue existing online with no repercussions. Of course it isn’t possible to monitor every bit of content that exists on these sites, but a better policy surrounding their terms of service should be implemented; as MAPs claiming pedophilia to be a valid part of the LGBT+ community are what justify prejudices against said community to close-minded people.

 In more detail, this tumblr blog post describes the MAPs acronym as: 

“…an acronym for “Minor Attracted Person/People”. It’s the name of a pedophilic community who has risen on tumblr. It was created in order to assemble Pedophiles, Hebephiles and Ephebophiles. On top of it, the creation of the word is a strategy for them to avoid being identified as predators right away. The community was made to spread positivity about pedophiles and their attraction toward children.” (social-justice-bard, Tumblr)

This so-called ‘MAPS’ community found a place in Tumblr, a social media site known for its ‘radical’ leaning and ‘sjw’ content. These Tumblr blogs became safe spaces for people who truly felt as though pedophilia should be recognized as a legitimate sexuality, or even just normalized. People as young as 15 were putting MAPs in their Tumblr bios, including their ‘age of attraction’ (varying from 0-12 year old children) and trying to normalize the idea that it was perfectly okay to be open and even proud of what they identified as. A flag for the pedophile-identifying people in Tumblr was even created and distributed throughout the site. A whole system of labels was created that all meant the same thing in order for people to disguise their content for what it was, which was essentially a promotion of pedophilia. 

Fortunately, Tumblr enacted some big changes within their guidelines and cleared out the pornography(child and otherwise included), problematic content, and etc; thanks to petitions created by tumblr users who called for better moderation of this content.

“We want Tumblr to take responsibility for the types of people they allow to use their website. We want all hashtags that are related to the MAP community blacklisted. We want users who post pedophilia content to immediately have their IP addressed traced and reported to the police. We want the pedophile community to realise that we will not tolerate them endangering minors…. Normalizing the sexual attraction to minors is both unhealthy and dangerous. The people who suffer from these attractions should go seek professional help, not join a website which has many young and underage users.” (Cara Rivers, Change.org)

When Tumblr enacted this big sweep, a big dismantling of the largest gatherings of these MAPs occurred. Complaints to revert the change in Tumblr’s guidelines were made, as the site now limited most mature content that had previously been allowed- but this change effectively expelled a majority of MAP users. However, most of these users moved onto other social media platforms, such as Twitter. There, the continued parade of MAPS identifying people and advocates continue to demand recognition and further justify the biases formed against the LGBT+ community. And unlike Tumblr, Twitter has not taken any steps to try and remove the MAP content that has now infiltrated the site; save for an attempt shut down potentially due to the fact that a letter was sent to them by trusted sources such as clinical and forensic psychologists, sexologists, and etc:

“In our professional opinions, terminating the accounts of non-offending, anti-contact MAPs is likely to result in the opposite effect of that which Twitter may expect or intend. Rather than reducing the incidence of child sexual abuse, if anything, it increases the risk that some pedophiles will be unable to obtain the peer or professional support that they may need in order to avoid offending behavior. It is also likely to increase the stigma and isolation associated with pedophilia and thereby increase the likelihood of some MAPs acting on their sexual feelings.”

(Letter to Twitter, 2018)

And while the sentiment of the letter is understandable, the reality is that an increase in MAP identifying people occurred on Tumblr, when Tumblr hadn’t yet dealt with the group’s content. Teenagers began using this term as a sexual identity because it became a sort of trend, or something that was special and different from everything else. Allowing pedophilic content on big social media platforms such as Tumblr and Twitter not only allows for similar content to increase in regularity, but most importantly begins to normalize pedophilia in the minds of impressionable minors and others. And normalizing pedophilia could never be the solution, because that would suggest that some are just naturally inclined to be attracted to children- comparing pedophilia dangerously closely to identities within the LGBT+ community.

The most unfortunate consequence of the influx of this community onto social media platforms is that some people are allowing this group to define their definition or perceiving of the LGBT+ community, when there should in reality be no correlation between the two. A concept that has been put into the minds of many more conservative leaning or older people (that there is an association between homosexuality and pedophilia) is something that has been justified by years of normalized homophobia and discrimination against said community. This idea is justified in their minds because of the numerous scandals that are associated with the Catholic church and more specifically, predatory relationships between priests and altar boys- cases that have grown in number as more victims come forward every year. In 2019 alone, 5,000 new lawsuits involving sexual abuse emerged; as described in a MarketWatch article. And even recently, people in positions of political power such as Sam Clovis still try and preach this to be true. This article refutes that “there is no relationship at all between pedophilia and gender identity or sexual orientation. Pedophilia is not a sexual orientation, despite how anti-LGBT activists will push this misleading narrative until it fits their agenda…” (‘Do You Know What A Map Is?’) And it’s brought to light within the same article that online troll groups from 4chan and otherwise even pretend to be MAPs, in order to reinforce the false narrative that gay men and women are pedophiles. 

“Flyers put up this week in and around Bend falsely attempt to tie local gay pride activities to pedophilia. A colorful poster appearing to be an official announcement of [that] weekend’s Central Oregon Pride event contain[ed] misleading information…. It [bore] a logo of the North American Man/Boy Love Association, an organization that advocates to legitimize “consensual” relationships between adults and minors, along with an image of 10-year-old New York City-based drag performer Desmond Napoles.” (The Bulletin)

Groups such as MAPs only do more harm to the presented image of the community to these close minded individuals; and give fuel to those who use groups like MAPs to make completely false generalizations about the community and in turn disregard the community as something legitimate, or to be taken seriously.

The best Twitter can do about this situation is review its guidelines, but unfortunately groups like these tend to move from one platform to another pretty quickly. However, the most important thing that will come from this better regulation of MAP content on Twitter is to prevent this attempt at normalization of pedophilia on a social media platform used by 24% of minors within the ages 13-14 and 38% 15-17(Statista, ‘Percentage of Teenagers’). And the prioritization of both the mental and physical safety of these minors should be the primary goal of these social media platforms that rely so much on a younger demographic to keep their platforms relevant in the mainstream internet.

 

Works cited

Andrew, Garrett. “False Posters Try to Smear Bend Gay Pride Event.” The Bulletin, 31 Jan. 2020,bendbulletin.com/localstate/false-posters-try-to-smear-bend-gay-pride-event/article_4a33b74c-de0f-5b44-8e8c-2b6c925ba18a.html.

Clement, J. “U.S. Teen Twitter Users Age 2018.” Statista, 5 June 2018, statista.com/statistics/184307/usage-of-twitter-among-us-teenagers-by-age-group/.

Fairchild, Phaylen. “Do You Know What A MAP Is? I Just Found Out And Now I’m Warning Friends.” Medium, Medium, 3 July 2018, medium.com/@Phaylen/do-you-know-what-a-map-is-i-just-found-out-and-now-im-warning-friends-dfd48f0ffded.

“Hall Of Shades.” Hall Of Shades, social-justice-bard.tumblr.com/.

“Letter to Twitter Re MAPs.” DocDroid, 2018, www.docdroid.net/f2HaDtR/letter-to-twitter-re-maps-redacted-1-pdf.

Moreau, Julie. “Trump Nominee Compares ‘LGBT Behavior’ to Pedophilia.” NBCNews.com, NBCUniversal News Group, 26 Aug. 2017, nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/trump-nominee-compares-lgbt-behavior-pedophilia-n796261.

Newport, Frank. “In U.S., Estimate of LGBT Population Rises to 4.5%.” Gallup.com, Gallup, 27 Mar. 2020, news.gallup.com/poll/234863/estimate-lgbt-population-rises.aspx.

“Sign the Petition.” Change.org, change.org/p/tumblr-make-tumblr-a-safer-place-for-minors.

Associated Press. “New Wave of Sexual-Abuse Lawsuits Could Cost Catholic Church More than $4 Billion.” MarketWatch, MarketWatch, 2 Dec. 2019, marketwatch.com/story/new-wave-of-sexual-abuse-lawsuits-could-cost-catholic-church-over-4-billion-2019-12-02.