Most conversations about maps in the infosphere revolve around this mystical thing called “urges”, and it's very difficult to move them somewhere else. An anti believes that a map is someone who has an unstoppable desire to sexually date any minor of any age, bad maps are people who love and indulge in this desire, and good maps are maps who suffer from it and learn to suppress it with guidance of a therapist. That's not quite so, and “not quite so” is a gentle understatement.
I'm a map. Several times I, as an adult already, developed feelings for minors below the age of consent. There was a bit of sadness, a great deal of imaginary conversations with them in my head, dedicated playlists with cryptic names, and other small things people do when they have something on on their mind, yet no way to expose this to the world. In the end it would wilt and fade, like everything does, and leave room for other things to be dramatic about. I think you can guess what I'm getting at – I wasn't tempted to violate their sexual autonomy in the slightest, just like I'm not tempted to violate drunk unconscious women, because I'm a modern age person with progressive views, and I know what consent is.
It's not the attraction that turns a person into a creep with no regards for boundaries, that's why there exist creeps of all possible orientations, while the majority of people, especially millennials and zoomers, are ok. Yes, most maps are actually ok. We're not deprived of ethics, we know how to handle and manage our emotions properly. “Urges? Don't know her.”
But the persistent, deliberate focus on urges when discussing map topics makes so many things so difficult. I lost count how many times I had to explain someone that we need positivity and support not because otherwise we might snap and offend, but because we just want to feel like full human beings, members of the society for once. Our recovery and treatment doesn't end at proper self control, we need to process years of stigmatization and self-stigmatization and learn to love ourselves first and foremost. And in map positivity tags we don't celebrate any urges, we celebrate our lives, but equating living as a map to an urge to rape twists any positive message aimed at maps into caving in and encouraging rape and sexualization of minors. Sexualization is another painful topic that harms maps more frequently than minors, because our existence is seen as inherently sexual, strangers think it's ok to ask us all kinds of inappropriate questions, send us porn, start NSFW conversations under SFW posts. This is legitimate sexual harassment that gave many of my friends actual trauma, which also needs attention of a specialist.
People must understand that our lives expand past our possible and unlikely impact on minors, that we have thoughts and mental health needs not connected to the bare fact of our attraction. Our attraction is innate and makes us whole, but it doesn't define who we are and can't be used as a prediction of our behavior. This was the map ideology in one sentence as I, Midsummer, see it, and this is the ideology I spread for the sake of our health and safety.
