thread: why are we anonymous?

bly rede 

26 June 2018    
from twitter and bluesky threads


 

Surely if we want to campaign, we should come out and deanonymise? It's not so easy.

Bly Rede is the co-director of Virtuous Pedophiles. Blog posts reflect his personal views, and are not statements from the organisation.

 

Thread: Why do anti-contact, never-offended MAPs use anonymous identities online? We've done nothing wrong, so we should be able to come out with our real names, right? >


> The answer for me is partly about the effects on myself but as much about the effects on other people. (1) Certainly, any out pedophile (even if never offending) can expect to lose their job, as employers protect their reputations (which they could probably do with indemnity) >


> (2) You have to find somewhere to live where you're hopeful local vigilantes or angry people will bot be able to assault you. (3) If you have a partner and an extended family, whether you stay with them or not, you can't be sure your decision won't negatively affect them. >


(4) Your extended family might include young people who could do without the stress of people knowing their relative is a MAP. (5) You expose everyone you ever knew to a period of wondering what they should have done (either for or against you). >


(6) In seeking to establish a blameless reputation in a world that doesn't want to hear that from a pedophile, you encourage hundreds of internet warriors to lie about you, and people from your past to consider dealing with their new ambivalence about you >


> and their fear of being associated with you by demonising you in public (which is easy to understand). Against all these downsides, the upside is you no longer live a lie, though you cannot undo any collateral damage from the lie's ending. >


> Some people have been forced out by doxxing, others in the future perhaps will be brave enough to declare themselves MAP under their real life identities. However, I hope those sceptical of our motivations for anonymity can acknowledge this bind we're in. ||