Ageplay takes many forms and is distinct from pedophilia... But....Bly Rede is the co-director of Virtuous Pedophiles. Blog posts reflect his personal views, and are not statements from the organisation.
THREAD: I haven't tweeted before about the link between minor attraction and ageplay. This is mainly because ageplayers/ABDLs/auto folk are often offended to be bracketed with pedophiles. Ageplay, even in its sexual/fetish form, is a completely distinct thing from pedophilia. > > Difficult to generalise about, but ageplay, in its pure, nonsexual form, is about inhabiting the headspace of childhood or infancy, or about roleplaying or having lived experience as if you were a child or baby. It might or might not involve the presence of a caregiver. > > It might or might not involve "props" and "costumes" such as childlike clothing, toys, (and for adult babies, diapers and other paraphernalia). It might just be something that happens in your head. But always it is about "being" or being like a kid in some way. > > For some adults who do it, it might have a sexual element, or be a fetish about being treated younger than they are. Scientifically, this is called "autopedophilia" or "autonepiophilia" meaning "attraction to the idea of oneself as a child", which is NOT the same as > > being attracted sexually to children of any age. If you think about it, it's possible to imagine a gay man who likes to dress up as a woman or experience himself as a woman, and yet is not sexually attracted to women. Autopedophilia, despite its misleading name, is like that. > > So, that's all fine and dandy. Ageplayers/autos/ABDLs are not the same as people who are sexually attracted to kids. MAPs/pedophiles are attracted to kids more like straight men are attracted to women - i.e. as if they could be sexual partners. Not wanting to "be" them. > > Everyone clear on that? It's important we're clear on the distinction between ageplay on the one hand and pedophilia on the other before we can continue. If so, let's now mark the sequel. > > ...because of course life is not quite so simple as to have produced two entirely distinct groups of people, one only attracted to kids and the other only attracted to *being like* kids. Inevitably, there are some people who are both, just as you can get > > transvestites who *aren't* attracted to the opposite sex, of course there are some who are. So, in the community of ageplayers and ABDLs, itself mainly hidden away from public view, there is a subset of MAPs, who can't admit their minor attraction for fear of bringing > > public ignominy on their community, which is already badly misunderstood. All the same, they exist and I know because I am one of them. > > And with all that preamble and contextualisation done I can get to the point of this thread, which is to posit a new acronym that might be handy for MAPs who are also ageplayers or ABDLs. > > When as MAPs we try to describe our attractions, we might use the term "aoa" ("age of attraction") to refer to the range of ages of kids to whom we tend to be attracted. It's not something that needs to be shared in public (or makes any difference really, since > > anti-contact MAPs can't realise their attractions to anyone under the aoc (age of consent). As ageplayers, however, we might have, distinct from our aoa, an "age of identification" (aoi) that describes which ages we would like to be, or be like, in our fantasy lives. > So, your age of identification (aoi) might include one age or one set of ages, while your aoa includes another, which may or may not overlap. I've found this idea pretty useful when considering the differences between myself as a MAP and myself as an auto. > > What does it all go to show? (1) Ageplay/ABDL feelinngs are not the same as MAP attractions, even when both exist within the same person. (2) MAPs and ageplayers *do* overlap, even though it is complicated or taboo for either community to own that, and finally > > (3) Human sexuality and sensuality is kinda a mess. Not much we can do about that, other than > > listen to people's experiences, do our best to understand the many subtleties, and not assume that the label that applies to us means that everyone with the same label shares all the same stuff or needs condemning or ostracism if they don't. Thanks for reading. Addendum. This study, by @kevinjhsu Addendum 2: This description by an autogynephile (someone sexually turned on by the idea of themself as a woman) seems to offer a strong parallel to how "lifestyle" sexual ABDL folk (MAP or not) often describe their yearnings. Addendum 3: This study looked at Finkelhor's concept of "emotional congruence with children" which had been identiied as a risk factor in offending, and studied to what extent it might correlate.
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| thread: mutual coming out is hard |
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| thread: why are we anonymous? |
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| thread: autopedophilia and pedophilia |
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