Thank you

I've had a day to calm down and see things more clearly, but I still feel like Dissident unfairly savaged me, and it will be a long time before I get over that.

There is much we don't agree on, but I generally agree with your broad points here. While I think those of us here at GC are probably a bit better than average (simply because of the qualities commonly found in early proponents of any idea), I share your concern about the fact that pedophiles probably are very similar to telios apart from sexual orientation. The us-vs-them mentality that sometimes crops up here is one example, even though there is often good reason for that.

Actually I can agree with your point about us being better than average, but with the proviso that we understand that this is only true while we are in the position that we're in. When/If our sexuality becomes normalized, we will see the same numbers of insensitive louts, manipulators and bastards amongst our numbers as there are in any other sexual orientation. I see it in gays all the time, but I suspect they were probably more sensitive back in the days when they were persecuted too.

That said, I have often been surprised at how decent average people can be, once they come to understand how their actions affect others, and our attractions force us to be more aware of that than average. Besides all this, I would simply note that giving children more autonomy is not the same as separating them from their parents. Parents tend to act protectively towards their children even after they become adults, and there is no reason to believe that most children will have to fend for themselves if they are emancipated at a younger age. In most of Europe children are emancipated at age 16, and yet these societies continue to function reasonably well.

In the immortal words of Jim Morrison: people are strange. They can angels one day and absolute devils the next. And people snap all the time. What worries me is that kids, while certainly underestimated in general, are still more vulnerable than adults on the whole. I can foresee some desperate or jealous MAPs making some children's lives hell because they were spurned for someone else, or being subjected to emotional abuse, etc. Basically all the things I've seen in teleio relationships in my nigh 40 years, and I have pretty much seen it all. (How many people here can claim a brutal murder in their family?) I've seen every kind of relationship, from the most loving to the most abusive to completely apathetic.

Perhaps given the fact that I'm not a parent but always wanted to be, maybe my parental instinct has been transferred to kids in general, because I do feel quite protective. And I know it is not entirely rational, but it is what I feel and that has to be acknowledged. So if someone like me, who knows the myths and bs that is spread about us and is on the other side of the issue than most people, can feel that protective instinct, how much more so do real parents who don't really get us feel it for their kids? I can only imagine what that's like, just as they can only imagine (if they're willing) what our romantic feelings are like. I used to be somewhat anti-parent but I have since come to realize that the love I feel for little girls is no more intense than that which parents feel for their kids; it is merely of a different design.

I think a lot of people here feel like we are somehow superior to parents in the main, and I think that is an arrogant and presumptuous attitude. I also think most parents are decent enough, or try to be, and I think we might have a tendency to exaggerate the harm parents commit because it feeds into our perspective. I don't believe this is deliberate on our part; it's just something that fits the schemas we've developed as MAPs. It behooves us to try to set that aside and look at these issues purely from a parent's p.o.v. That's what I try to do, and I do so for our benefit. I only wish others would try to do the same.