Pro-contact

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Pro-contact, often abbreviated as pro-c or pro c is an ideological stance in contact discourse. It can be summed up as a belief that sexual and romantic relationships between children or adolescents and significantly older people do not carry any inherent risks and are permissible.

Possible Variations

Just like the anti-contact ideology, pro-contact beliefs are a spectrum. Some people who identify as pro-contact believe in a total abolition of the age of consent and the possibility of moral and consensual sexual relationships with babies. Some identify as pro-contact with only young teenagers in mind. Some believe youth age gap relationships are okay to participate in right now, some believe they should be avoided till a more equal and safe society is built.

People who have questions and doubts about the fairness of existing laws are often pushed to identify as pro-contact by mapmisiacs, as well as by radicals of the anti-contact movement.

Common Misconceptions

“Pro-Abuse”

"Pro-contact is pro-abuse" was a popular radical anti-contact slogan in 2020. It conveyed the anti-contact view of youth age gap relationships correctly, but created a wrong impression that pro-contact people as a whole do not care about boundaries or health of children. In reality, both sides in contact discourse describe themselves as caring about children.

Predatory Behavior

It is believed that all or most pro-contact individuals are actively seeking CSAM/CSEM or sexual/romantic relationships with young people. In reality, many separate their ideology and what they believe to be a reasonable course of action for the present. Some pro-contacts refrain from predatory behavior because they do not want to risk legal or social repercussions, although they support decriminalization and destigmatization of such actions. Some refrain because they believe that in a society which criminalizes or stigmatizes such behavior, youth will likely be harassed and maltreated by authority figures or other members of their social circle if an older individual's sexual involvement with them is found out. Some pro-contacts believe that in a society which criminalizes or stigmatizes such behavior, disapproving outsiders will likely "gaslight" a youth into retroactively considering the relationship or interactions abusive and traumatic, or cause pressure which makes it difficult for the older party to carry out a healthy relationship, so they do not see it as "worth the trouble." Other pro-contacts are not personally interested in CSAM/CSEM or relationships with young people, but still believe other people should be permitted to carry out such behavior. Just because someone does not plan on sexually or romantically engaging with youth does not mean that they are necessarily anti-contact.

“Just a MAP Issue”

It is believed that all pro-contact individuals are maps wanting to promote contact for selfish reasons tied to their orientation, and that contact discourse is exclusively a map issue or inherently tied to opinions on mapness. In reality, many pro-contacts are not maps themselves, but map allies who simply support pro-contact beliefs on ideological grounds. Many pro-contacts are indifferent to map discourse, or even anti-map, and their views on contact discourse are not necessarily related to their views on minor attraction.

“SOMAP”

SOMAP, an abbreviation standing for "semi-offending MAP," is a troll term coined by a confirmed anti who ran the fake MAP blog pinkpetal-pedo. It was implied that the term denotes a MAP that has sex with consenting children. However, real pro-contact MAPs either do not use the term "offending" to denote youth age gap relationships at all, or embrace all criminal terminology fully as a part of anti-law rebellion.

Criticism

Normalization And Bigotry

Pro-contact people, more than anti-contact people, are generally more likely to regard their attractions as lying within the norm. Many also believe that mapness is good because it is normal. This leads to bigotry towards other paraphilias which they do perceive as abnormal, such as biastophilia (attraction to rape) or erotophonophilia (attraction to murder) that largely mirrors the arguments mapmisiacs have against mapness.

Some pro-contact people also easily adopt amatonormativity and oppose alternative forms of relationships, such as loveless or non-monogamous relationships.

Renaming Attempts

Some activists have tried to change the core word of contact discourse (i.e. "contact") and claim "pro-c" and "anti-c" do not stand for "pro-contact" and "anti-contact."

The most known case refers to the word pro-consent, a neologism made up by antis and adopted by a pro-contact activist in 2020.

Another slightly older occasion (as early as 2008) is "pro-choice." On the rise of abortion debates in USA (late 2021/early 2022), pro-contact activists from Newgon have picked it up again.

On both occasions, this renaming resulted in some people referring to anti-contact people as "anti-consent" and "anti-choice," which is why these terms are controversial. The controversy could have been avoided by using a term that cannot be abbreviated as "pro-c," such as "freedom of choice," coined in the 4th issue of the AliceLovers Magazine.

Prominent Groups

Besides Newgon, Open Map Community is a group, popular among pro-contacts. Older MAP platforms, such as BoyChat and GirlChat, as well as Visions of Alice also tend to have a pro-contact majority. It's worth to note that exclusively pro-contact groups and forums are rare.