I am a MAP whose family claimed to be very supportive up until they stabbed me in the back recently.

My friends are still supportive and hate my family.

I've been separated from my niece, and best friend in the whole world, on account of someone suspected sexual abuse and I was forced to come out to her parents or let said person out me to them instead. Her parents sadly reacted with bigotry and told me I would never see her again and that she would never know why.

This despite the fact that everyone is quite sure I would never harm her, this despite the fact that she already is aware (to her parents ignorance) that I am a MAP through sheer power of observation and loves me regardless. But they aren't even telling her that they're separating us, I guess because they're afraid she would stand up for her right to see me (she would). And I'm not allowed to contact her at all or else her parents threaten to call the police (a vague threat and I'm not guilty of any crime but still not something I want to get wrapped up in).

Because she is "just a 10 year old girl" and I'm "just a pedophile", we both have to suffer. Because ignorant people put labels on others - damning labels - my niece loses a key support and best friend, as do I... and our only choice is to shut up and let them live out their fantasy where I play dead for them until she's finally out of their realm of control so I can tell her the truth myself and then I swear to God, they don't even realize how much she's going to hate them.

Because we were already, actually, in love. And had been for some time. You're probably going to say I'm full of shit, but I'm not. She's grew up fast and likes older guys and was already asking me for sex. And I refused every single time. We would flirt and communicate our feelings, but that's all. We had an understanding that we couldn't date or do anything sexual. We cared too much about each other to jeopardize our connection that way. And I always put my responsibility to her as an uncle first and foremost. I never acted immorally. We aren't even biologically related. It was true love in the purest of ways, against all odds, and we even avoided flying towards the sun so that we could preserve the beautiful thing we had in the first place:

Yet I still lost the most precious person to me who exists (at least for long time), I lost other family members, I'm depressed so badly I'm non-functional... I feel the weight of this oppression every single day. When I was with my niece, I honestly never thought of myself as different from anyone else. It was just she and I as people, as these two souls who met very early on in life and were simply had so much to offer each other that we had to be together somehow, we had to be close, physically, and emotionally.

It was magic to both of us. There were no labels when we were together, no limitations. In the realest sense, we were truly free.

I don't know how to live without that anymore. I was always sure she would be a mainstay, all the way through.

Why is this happening to us? How can they be so cruel as to separate us without any sort of practical reason and not even tell her? Since they're my family and I can't feel completely cut off, I just feel like I'm permanently in the dark. I can't even begin to imagine how she feels now, or how she's going to feel in so many years when I explain that her parents cut me out of her life, without her consent, because of one single characteristic about me that she already knew.

How can people be so incredibly ignorant and STUPID in the face of MAP issues?

But in the end, I'm a filthy pedophile and she's 10, so they get to just steamroll us and do whatever they see fit. Neither of us can say anything to change their minds because, due to their misconceptions about both of us, from their point of view all information we give is coming from an inherently flawed source. No, a "wrong" source.

I appreciate what you and Skye among other researchers are trying to do... The problem, in my opinion, is a failure to ask questions about the heart of these issues which might cause MAPs to feel the need to seek therapeutic advice in the first place (which, as you are aware, is pretty much useless in many cases - like mine, for example).

The point is: pedophilia is not a mental health issue. It is A SOCIAL ISSUE, along the lines of homosexuality was / is a social issue. You simply are not going to learn much of value about a systematically opressed demographic by asking the types of questions you ask. Sorry.

~ Loom