Re: As did I...

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I said that comment as a gay man myself, not as a slight to gay people.
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I understand that. I was aware of your homosexuality already, although that didn't really factor into my analysis, as I was speaking in generalities about how statements may be perceived by identity groups, especially identity groups which have experienced oppression. Even though you are gay yourself, some gays might find the notion that Dahmer's homosexuality had anything to do with his crimes insulting. Coming from you, they might consider it as "self hate". If I said it, they might say it was "homophobic". I don't agree with you on this issue, but I respect your opinion, and I'm not necessarily saying you're "wrong", but just acknowledging that there is a difference of opinion, which of course is perfectly fine.
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Everything is in a context, everything has a history, everything is interrelated. You can't say that Michael's sadistic, sociopathic tendencies are completely unrelated to his desire to have sex with a child. We just don't know how they are related for him. They inform each other. Dahmer's homosexuality or desire to have sex with men is interrelated to his crimes. You can't just switch out the sexual orientation, as he grew up with certain experiences, contexts, etc.
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Personally, I do believe that sexual orientation and sociopathic tendencies are largely unrelated, although I do understand how sexual orientation can inform the particular crimes that a criminal commits in some cases. I believe that the vast majority of MAPS are functional people and are not suffering from mental disorders, mental illnesses, developmental disabilities, etc. However, I do agree with your statement about context, history, and things being interrelated. I would say that Michael's homosexual pedophilia made him less socially active than he otherwise would be, because his crimes are among the most socially unacceptable, if not the most socially unacceptable. Going back to other fictional character comparisons, Dexter Morgan as a serial killer, is a lot less social than Tony Soprano, the Mafia don. That's likely because there is an element of glamor and glitz in the gangster world, whereas serial killing, and especially kidnapping and keeping a child for sexual purposes is less socially acceptable.
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The point is that I see what you guys are saying. I agree with everything you are saying. I just think you're giving me kind of a hard time and assuming at every step that I think the worst. I understand that you are used to people who "don't understand" and you have to be very guarded. What I am asking of you is to give me the benefit of the doubt and see where that takes us.
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I'm glad that you're trying to truly listen to us and that we can agree on many issues. I also am one of your supporters here, and I have spoken out in the past about the way some members here have mistreated you. I want you to be treated fairly and respectfully here, and I implore my fellow members here to act accordingly. My aim in this thread was not to give you a hard time, but rather to explain to you the way that minority groups in general feel about both real and perceived insults, as well as MAPS in particular. If you felt like I was jumping on you, then I sincerely apologize. That wasn't my aim at all. I will attempt to give you the benefit of the doubt as much as I can, and ask other posters here to do the same. I'm glad that you're here and I appreciate what you do and are trying to do. When a member over at VoA* was inquiring about mental health services, I (as well as some other members there) recommended you. If I were to seek services myself, you'd be at the top of the list, despite being so far from where I live. So sorry if you're feeling alienated here, and I do want you to know that there are a lot of people in our community who do support you. And I think there are more who potentially would support you, but they're paranoid/scared/unsure, which is understandable given our life experiences, unfortunately.

*VoA=Visions of Alice. I understand that you weren't interested in joining that forum when I originally brought it up, but I still would recommend maybe giving them another look. Generally, people are less hostile/paranoid/angry there than they are here, IMHO. There are also people there who have inquired about mental health services recently and in the past, and they were unaware of you. So if you're interested in reaching out to more of the community and more people who are open to your services, message, etc., VoA might be worth a second look.

Their address is:

http://alicelovers.info (for the main site)

http://alicelovers.info/forum (to go directly to the board)