Excuse Me While I Point Out the Obvious

Paul Christiano here, lone GLer to attend B4U-Act's workshop last week. I haven't posted here since my outing on Wikisposure last July, which quite successfully destroyed my ability to pursue my livelihood. I've dealt with the exposure, the job losses, the death threats, the inevitability that life as I'd known it is no longer workable. These days, I'm buoyed by a masochistic curiosity as to what new and devastating ways the mockery my life's become sees fit to entertain me. While I've got nothing left to lose by trolloping through here waving a big "GL" sign with my real name tatooed on my exposed ass cheeks, I have no intention of posting here on a regular basis. I've learned the hard way some thoughts are too private to serve up on an information super-highway so full of potholes. I realize how easy I made it for PJ to puncture my Internet persona with the blunt edge of a blade of grass, though I far from predicted the degree to which I'd be penalized for having the audacity to talk about my problems. In an ideal world, I'd be able to exercise my candor in a non-adversarial, therapeutic setting, but the five years I spent in sex offender treatment rudely awakened me to how far from that ideal world I reside. I joined B4U-Act in the hopes of one day being able to consult a therapist about how to navigate the world as a self-identified minor-attracted person without being forced to regard my orientation as a "disease" or accept that choosing to embrace my sexual identity places me at risk to harm children. As a B4U-Act participant, I'd like to thank those who've taken the time to respond to Michael's summary statement, and feel I owe it to B4U-Act's cause to chime in on this feedback:

It seems the name "B4U-Act" is producing as visceral a reaction in MAPs as the word "Predator" produces in the general populace. While I understand the thinking behind the namesake of the organization from Michael's standpoint, I'm forced to admit, based on the responses I've read to Michael's post, that "B4U-Act" presents a double-bind most MAPs (myself included) find irreconcilable; namely, promoting neutral understanding all the while implying (quite unintentionally) a sexual impulsiveness on the part of MAPs which requires therapeutic and/or legal intervention, thus contributing to the very language problem B4U-Act is attempting to dispel.

I encourage any BCers/GCers put off by B4U-Act's namesake to forge ahead with the finer details of Michael's summary statement despite frustrations regarding this single (though valid) point and to recognize what an accomplishment it was for this (albeit small) group of MAPs/MHPs to carve out some linguistic common ground together. I also get the impression that some MAPs (BCers included) don't really care about taking these steps (infinitesimal though they are) toward public acceptance, because they know they'll never live long enough to personally reap the benefits of a paradigm shift. I sincerely hope this attitude is the exception, not the rule. I shudder to think of the stunting effects this kind of myopia, wrought en masse, is likely to wage on progress of any kind.

In order to prevent B4U-Act's attempts to educate the mental health community about MAPs from being discredited by the very people who might one day benefit from such efforts, I agree the name has to change. I'm sorry that progress, at this point, boils down to semantics, but as was already established at the workshop, to underestimate the power of language is to overestimate one's ability to be accurately understood.