Hi everyone.

I can appreciate that there is a lot of skepticism towards researchers. We recognize that participating in research is time consuming and I am sure frustrating when it feels like researchers are missing the boat with the questions they ask.

Both Ian and I are looking at involving MAPs in the research process in the future so they have direct influence in the questions that are asked, the research procedures that are used, and the dissemination of the results. A major takeaway from this research project is that involvement of the MAP community as partners in research is absolutely crucial.

To clarify, we do not think of GL as sick or disordered. We fully recognize that there are many MAPs who are doing quite well. At the same time, there are others who may not be doing so well and would be interested in seeking out support. Our survey does have questions about mental health symptoms, stigma, and past treatment experiences in part because we would like to help increase access to services, but only for those people who are interested. In order to do so we need to better understand things like past treatment experiences and barriers. It is completely possible our data will demonstrate that most MAPs are doing well. Further, it will be interesting to examine differences between the 2 groups (e.g., it is possible that people who are not doing as well have a higher degree of internalized stigma than those who are doing very well). All of this to say that we don't make assumptions that MAPs are sick, disordered, ticking time bombs, etc.

We are also interested in studying the development of minor attraction and its overlap with other sexual interests. We have a second survey that will ask more questions about this. It is currently posted on Twitter and we will start posting it in the various forums soon.

Thanks for considering taking our survey and for engaging in discussion with us.