Today’s guest blog is by “Dissident”, a familiar name here as a contributor to the Comments space. A longtime friend of Heretic TOC, “Dissy” has also been several times a guest blogger. He is a freelance editor and professional writer of fiction with a substantial body of published work to his name in several genres, including sci-fi. He is a veteran hebephile activist who has been prominent in GL circles for some 25 years. He has contributed essays on MAP-relevant topics to Newgon wiki and was a longtime poster to GirlChat, where he served a lengthy stint as a moderator. He has also participated periodically at Visions of Alice, Lifeline and, as noted above, here at Heretic TOC, including this guest blog from 2015: At last, the paedophile as hero!

No hiding place for MAPs in AI future

I recently had an interesting—and disquieting—experience on Instagram thanks to its new-ish AI system designed to detect alleged instances of “child exploitation” across its multitude of channels. This is something that should concern all MAPs, as well as everyone who uses social forums like Instagram and TikTok to advance certain business models. In fact, it may constitute an eventual game-changer for MAPs in society, but not without a lot of chaos and challenges for us prior to that.

THE PERILS OF ADMIRING YOUTHFUL BEAUTY

As all who have known me in the MAP community (and real life) are aware, I have always been a fully law-abiding MAP. I try hard to be a good and generous person to everyone I know, but fall short at times due to the natural human imperfections we all possess. My apologies to all who have had to deal with my more difficult side.

I have chosen to be open to varying degrees about my attractions (which are largely hebephilic) to others, but I do not trumpet the info, especially not with those I have been acquainted with for too short a time to get to know and trust me as a person. I generally steer clear of all interactions with underaged youths (I am attracted to girls only), particularly in one-on-one situations, to avoid finger-pointing or unwarranted accusations or assumptions. I am well aware of how deeply the hatred and fear of MAPs remains in our society, and I never underestimate that fact and the potential dangers it places me in.

So, like most law-abiding MAPs, I am forced to admire girls from afar only, and in entirely legal fashion. That means eschewing even the consideration of seeking illegal CP and instead consigning myself to entirely audio-visual admiration of girls that appear in a plethora of modelling and dance videos, and sometimes personal channels, on commonly viewed social media forums. Parents and professional companies moderate and control these channels in almost all cases, and there is a lucrative market for girls modelling dance and other outfits for companies in pictorial sets or vids commonly referred to by the girls as “try-on hauls”. But some girls commonly upload such vids to YouTube themselves.

As an admirer of girls’ beauty and personalities alike, I have looked at such legal pics and vids that you often come across on these channels even when you are not searching for them specifically. Like all viewers, I have at times “liked” some of them and added some to a “favourites” folder included on your account. I never send DMs or leave comments, salacious or otherwise (the majority of the former often being left by trolls rather than actual MAPs). I make sure to choose a screen name and avatar that is nondescript and does not make my age or appearance clear so that I do not in any way disturb the moderation team or girls promoted within, and so as to remain a respectful, non-troublesome “face in the crowd”.

One would think that means I am not an issue. But the AI system installed to replace the human “paedo hunters” on Instagram has apparently decided otherwise. My account was recently suspended for simply looking at various common and entirely legal modelling, dance, and personal channels there featuring girls, and doing nothing more than “liking” some of the pics and vids or adding them to my “favourites”.

Yes, you read that right. The automatic notice I received explained that “our technology has determined that you violated our community standards against child exploitation”. Huh? And another automated notice said, “Our technology has determined that you may have come across and seen child pornography,” and left me a confidential number to call some counsellor to talk about it. Huh?! WTF?!

How broadly, exactly, are they defining “child pornography” and “child exploitation” these days? Are they implying this is based not on the images themselves but what I may have been thinking while viewing entirely legal and very common pics and vids you find all over these social forums?

Since the great majority of MAPs are law-abiding and confine the expression of their attractions to private admiration of the beauty and attractiveness of youth from afar, this was all I had and all I ever actually did. And… there is now technology designed to detect and thwart that? The hatred has gone so far that surveillance and “prevention” has increased to this extent?

WHAT IT ALL MEANS – SO BE PREPARED

Here is something my recent experience with the AI-driven “paedo hunting” of Instagram has made clear for the future of MAPs. I think an interesting crossroads is coming up for the MAP community.

With the current moral panic against the ever-broadening conception of “child exploitation” and adults who find under-agers attractive still at an all-time high, combined with the rapid advancement of AI “detection” algorithms, we’re soon going to reach a point where it becomes virtually impossible for any MAP to hide our attraction status from public detection. And also to steer clear of technology-driven censure simply for the crime of looking and having forbidden thoughts regarding legal and commonly available imagery. Unless one stays completely off the grid, so to speak.

If you look at certain perfectly legal and commonly uploaded pics and vids on any social media forum – Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter/X, you name it – the system’s AI algorithms will sniff you out and collect data on you based on your viewing habits, your “likes” and “favourites” of certain pics or vids, your level of re-watch, etc.

The system will know, and then the human administration will know. And in short order, the government will know, since they’re now fully in bed with tech corporations. You’ll be further tracked from there, and you’ll be integrated into an official database where most MAPs across the world (or, at least living in the WEIRD part of the world) will be listed.

And since all data is now being collected on all citizens by big tech companies like Palantir, you’ll be cross-referenced between all these forums and every other place online that you frequent. Soon your entire social circle, your job, your main places of product purchase, etc., will be easily available to government agencies, NGOs, merchants whom you do business with, and employers. You will also possibly be reported to law enforcement agents for monitoring and “pre-crime” deterrence procedures. You can easily be blackmailed due to the extreme dangers of being “outed” as someone attracted to underaged youths in the current climate, including public shaming. And ample “character evidence” will be available for everyone to toss at you, from political opponents to employment agencies to law enforcement looking for targets.

It will now become almost impossible to “hide in plain sight” any longer, because our digital shadow will enable the corporate and government tech alliance to find us all out.

So, the days of no one save for perhaps a few trusted people with whom you share this ultra-sensitive info about yourself will be over. This will constitute a revolution of sorts for both our community and for society as a whole to reckon with.

WHAT MAY BE THE END RESULT?

Let’s look on the plus side to the coming full disclosure of MAPs in WEIRD society via advances in AI technology.  Yes, there may actually be one.

At first, this mass technological detection will be promoted as a way of identifying “child predators” – or those who are “potentially” so – and lauded as a safety screen for underaged youths (who are still without anything resembling a voice in society). The public will, of course, eat it up… at least initially. “Now we’re gonna know who all the predators are!” some politician or MAP-hating vigilante will proclaim.

But here is what they are not considering: This revelation will also make clear how many MAPs in society there actually are, how many of them hold important positions, and how many are known as good people.

And how many of them have no criminal records and are law-abiding despite looking at pics and having thoughts that society is conditioned to find “creepy” and potentially “dangerous”.

It will also bring to attention the fact that those seeking to promote the personal brands of (largely) girl models, dancers, and influencers – including many of the parents and companies who help promote them – are quite aware of how attractive youths, particularly young girls, happen to be and how much this helps sell fashion and self-care products, not to mention one’s personal brand.

They promote this in an “open but hidden” fashion, which garners them a lot of much-needed views. This in turn is something which the algorithms pick up on and add for further promotion to more eyes of interest. However, they will now soon be seeing a large segment of their viewing audience paying a huge price for helping this business model along with their mass number of views and “likes”.

Will there be a public outcry to eliminate such channels entirely, or place them fully under the regulation of some law-enforcing government agency? What will that do for the business model, or the type of control that parents usually want above and beyond the government? Will parents and companies who promote these channels for profit via popular clothing and self-care lines be vilified for using imagery that effectively sells and promotes?

It will also make clear to the general public how many people they love, trust, and respect are MAPs that are attracted to underaged youths. People who have saved the lives of many, who have always been there for them through thick and thin, who have earned their trust in many ways; and most importantly, whom they know for a fact are not sociopathic monsters that have ever harmed a kid or lack the self-control to remain law-abiding.

How much can you continue hating MAPs and seeing their natural (and unasked for) attractions as constituting an evil character flaw or depraved sickness when they are your beloved and respected parent, or sibling, or lover, or best friend; or doctor or firefighter who saved the life of you or a loved one?

Or that good-natured neighbour you’ve known and respected your entire life? Or that teacher who provided you with words of wisdom that got you through life’s travails without ever having tried to use or exploit you in any way?

What happens then? Will this algorithm-driven revelation technology backfire in the end? Will it inadvertently serve to compel MAPs forced into public view and scrutiny to develop a loud voice for themselves? How will youths who happen to be mesophiles (attracted to the middle-aged)* react to this?

And will those outside the MAP community who love, respect, and trust us be forced to drop their silence or their own (often performance-driven) indulgence in MAP-bashing?

What will the now devastated youth liberation movement do in reaction to this, especially since the fear of MAPs caused the moderates among their ranks to all but torpedo the movement?

Let us see how this all plays out once almost everyone who happens to be a MAP becomes as well known in the near future as vanilla LGBTQs are today.

Scary – but doubtless interesting – times lay ahead.

* In the study of micro-organisms such as bacteria , a mesophile is an organism that grows best in moderate temperatures. This term is not new. As applied to humans, though, mesophilia is a very recent addition to the lexicon, having first appeared in “The Puzzle of Male Chronophilias“, a paper by psychologist Michael C. Seto published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior in 2016. Seto uses the term to describe people of any age, including youth, whose sexual attraction is focused on middle-aged persons. The word is derived from the Greek root mesos, meaning intermediate. Seto says in the paper that the existence and relative prevalence of mesophilia are hinted at by the popularity of the MILF (for “Moms I’d Like to Fuck”) genre in pornography, and by the existence also of DILF porn. Many would be horrified by the idea that some minors are especially attracted to middle-aged people, which probably accounts for the paucity of research into mesophilia: it may be seen as just too hot to handle. The term is new but there is no reason to believe the phenomenon is: some youngsters have probably always been turned on by older people.

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BACK TO YOUR REGULAR HOST…

THEY ALL LOVE ‘GROOMING GANGS’

So “grooming gangs” are back in the headlines. We may loathe the sexual negativity baked into the construct, to say nothing of the racism typically entailed; but as a cliché much beloved by the hacks, the pols, and the rioting classes, it ain’t going away anytime soon.

Not even with the world exploding into lethal nightly firework displays over cities from Kiev to Tehran (obscuring the dozens of Palestinians still being killed almost daily in Gaza) was the topic forgotten onboard British prime minister Keir Starmer’s flight to the G7 summit in Alberta, Canada, when he was asked by the media whether he would be reversing his decision earlier this year not to order a new national inquiry.

Well, of course he would. Ever willing to be led by populist sentiment, rather than to show real leadership, he obligingly gave them the U-turn they wanted. There would be an inquiry after all, he said, which he anticipated would be recommended in a report (now published) by Baroness Louise Casey.

A down-page item such as this is not the place to set out Heretic TOC’s view in any detail. What I will point to, though, is a blog from way back in 2013 which went quite deeply into the matter in ways which are still relevant and factually applicable today. See Street grooming: a nut to be cracked? See also the evidence I gave in 2018 to IICSA’s major inquiry , paragraphs 64-71, under the subheading “Localised grooming”.

For now, I will just emphasise that violently imposed or coerced sex are obviously criminal no matter what the age of the victim, whatever the race or religion of the perpetrator, and whether the context is individual or gang related, whether it is street crime or within the family, or whether churches, schools, sports clubs, etc. are involved or not. Whatever. It is right that all such cases are subject to prosecution.

What should not be tolerated (but there are strong suspicions it has been) are scenarios in which a particular race or religion is  given a free pass to offend by police, local councils, social workers and others, for fear that firm action would risk stirring up “community tensions”. All that turning a blind eye to such offences achieves is to stoke up justified resentment and potentially riotous unrest in those identifying with other communities, while leaving victims without justice.

I will just add that I see from a news item “hot off the press”, as I write, that one of Casey’s main recommendations looks particularly significant, and not in a good way. This concerns younger teenagers aged 13-15.

According to Casey, too many cases relating to this age range are being dropped or downgraded from rape to lesser charges. This has occurred, she says, where a 13 to 15-year-old had been perceived to be “in love with” or “had consented to” sex with the perpetrator. Even in these cases, she says, adults who intentionally have penetrative sex with a child under 16 should receive mandatory rape charges.

But why? Presumably, the evidence in such cases would be that they had not been raped. This is an excessively authoritarian move that does teenagers no service at all, being one of numerous ways in which they are being increasingly infantilised, denied all opportunity for autonomy and experiences they can truly call their own.

WILL THE MADNESS REGISTER WITH THEIR LORDSHIPS?

Meanwhile, in a quieter but potentially far more oppressive development for MAPs, the Crime and Policing Bill has been grinding  its way through the parliamentary process.

As Brian Ribbon pointed out in the Comments space here back in March, the Bill as drafted at that time included a new imposition on registered sex offenders (RSOs). They will be required to notify at least 12 hours in advance if they propose to enter premises at which children are present.

On the face of it, this could be an extremely onerous measure if it meant, for instance, having to give advance notice before going shopping at a supermarket, where children are often present, usually with their parents. Likewise, kids are to be found in almost  any public premises, from libraries to leisure centres, pubs, cafes, doctors’ and dentists’ surgeries, hospitals, hairdressers, and all sorts of shops. Is it seriously proposed that RSOs must give 12 hours’ notice before going into any of them?

Unfortunately, it is still hard to say. Nothing in the Bill, which has now passed through the House of Commons committee stage, appears to limit the requirement to certain types of premises, such as schools, or children’s homes. All that is said in the Bill as amended up to this point is that the “qualifying premises” in question will be those of a kind specified in regulations made by “the appropriate authority”, a term that refers basically to the government.

Brian told us he was seeking clarification as to what these regulations are going to be, but I am not aware of any elucidation so far. Maybe their lordships will inquire further, when the Bill reaches them after the report stage in the Commons this week. Or maybe not. In that eventuality, it will be interesting to see the police struggling with all the paperwork as they quickly become deluged with thousands upon thousands of notifications to assess on a daily – nay, hourly – basis.