so normally i avoid making serious posts like this but whatever

so i saw a post about MAP discourse vs people who have intrusive thoughts, and i thought that as someone who suffers from pretty bad ocd, so bad that i’ve had borderline psychotic breakdowns from it, should lend their two cents.

“maps” and people who have pocd are NOT the same

MAPs are pedophiles, period. pedophiles enjoy sexual thoughts about children and without a doubt find young children sexually attractive. people with pocd aren’t pedophiles. people with pocd have sexual intrusive thoughts about children and find those thoughts extremely disturbing and disgusting. some people with pocd avoid children altogether, and that includes siblings, students, their own children, etc. that being said, pocd can strain the relationship of a child and their parent(s) due to their parent(s) severe phobia of hurting their child.

if not already obvious, the difference between a pedophile and someone with pocd is that a pedophile would absolutely take the chance to have sexual contact with a child if it meant no consequences, while someone with pocd is deathly afraid of the concept of an adult doing such a thing to a child, and will suffer from debilitating anxiety and may go to extreme lengths to prevent any perceived danger that may happen if they are even in the same general area as a child.

the concept and existence of intrusive thoughts brings up the existence and concept of “gray moral areas”, which i know tumblr has a difficulty with understanding the latter, from my experience of viewing countless discourse threads in the almost 3 years ive spent here. i dont support “maps” at all, but both the anti-map and map communities need to understand the significance of an intrusive thought vs a conscious thought. lumping in people with ocd with actual pedophiles is very gross and harmful to us with ocd, because we’re already misunderstood and belittled enough.