Derail-Activism - Pro-Paraphilia

Derail-Activism is what I’m deciding to call this idea since as far as I know it’s not something that’s currently practiced, if it is practiced it’s very uncommon. The idea is to reach a wide audience of people by targeting viral posts/content and commenting a pre-written message in the associated thread. This allows someone to reach a wide audience without first having to build that audience (which can be a very slow process and will mostly attract people already in the same social sphere)

This is an idea I’ve been thinking about since I was doing activism on X. The drawback that made me unsure was that its undeniably annoying. I’ve come to the conclusion passionate activists have always been annoying, and as long as we tailor our words to have the best impact possible, we should embrace being annoying. We’ll never change the world if we let the fear of being annoying or the fear of receiving negative attention hold us back.

This strategy would be effective for any form of activism and I’ll probably end up making my own messages for each topic I care about as I learn more.

Some important things to keep in mind if you want to do derail-activism:

1 – Always be friendly

For the sake of your movement you want to be approachable so that anyone watching is more likely to reach out (or at the very least form a positive association to the movement in their mind.) As tempting as it is to bite back you need to be a good face for your movement.

You don’t have to respond to aggressive comments, but if you do, focus on neutrality and educating.

2 – Be prepared for negative reactions

Like I said, derailing a topic is undeniably annoying. Not only that, if the movement in question is one attached to large amounts of stigma (like paraphillia is) that stigma will come up. Remember to take care of yourself and take breaks. I don’t recommend starting out in derail-activism, a good place to start is making educational posts about your movement of focus and using hashtags.

3 – Keep additional sources on hand

To make the message usable on sites like X and Bluesky you have to work with a limited amount of characters. This means most of the educating will have to happen in discussion. I’ll include sources for that purpose at the end of this post and update it as I find new ones.

You can use these in any order (all are written to fit X’s character limit) but I’m going in the order I think works best. Work your way through them as needed. I recommend not focusing only on minor attraction, but because it’s the most stigmatized it will get the most focus from others. I’ll likely add to this as I think of more or come across new sources (or as I create my own)

If someone is being unreasonable and argumentative, a good strategy is to just keep throwing sources at them. Include screenshots! Use them as an excuse to educate anyone watching.

Have you heard of the pro-para movement? Pro-paraphillia is based on the acceptance and destigimitization of all attractions (both sexual and romantic) and kinks. Stigma hurts everyone, including youth and survivors of abuse. Support can’t exist when shame demands silence.

Did you know the average age someone finds out they’re a pedophile is 14? The most common age for a MAP’s first suicide attempt is also 14. Spread information and support, not hatred. https://www.b4uact.org/research/survey-results/youth-suicidality-and-seeking-care/

If MAPs and gay people discover attractions in adolescence it’s reasonable to assume many people discover other stigmatized sexual attractions and kinks during the same period. Paraphillic youth are vulnerable and deserve support.

Stigma leads to social isolation which is known to lead to a decline in mental health, suicidal ideation, and increase the risk of sexual offense as well as other harmful anti-social behavior. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-019-01569-x

(additional links for above: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-022-02377-6 , https://blog.mapresources.info/2022/10/does-pedophilia-stigma-prevent-abuse.html , https://prostasia.org/blog/that-stigma-itself-can-lead-to-harm-an-interview-with-researcher-and-author-allyn-walker/ , https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-015-0503-7 , https://prostasia.org/blog/stigma-makes-it-more-difficult-to-fight-csa/ , https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0092623X.2022.2149437#d1e148 , https://prostasia.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Editors-Code-of-Practice-Committee.pdf)

50% of child sexual abusers do not have a preference for minors, and 93% of all child sexual abusers are trusted with the child. https://www.b4uact.org/know-the-facts/behavior/ https://rainn.org/statistics/children-and-teens

(additional links for above: https://www.vice.com/en/article/most-child-sex-abusers-are-not-pedophiles-expert-says/ , https://prostasia.org/blog/stigma-makes-it-more-difficult-to-fight-csa/ , https://prostasia.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Editors-Code-of-Practice-Committee.pdf)

Thought suppression can be counterproductive and harmful because it can cause the thoughts to become overwhelming and more distressing https://www.psypost.org/attempts-suppress-sexual-thoughts-result-increase-thoughts/

Conversion therapy is ineffective and can have negative impacts on a patients mental health https://www.b4uact.org/know-the-facts/immutability/ https://blog.mapresources.info/2022/03/can-pedophilia-be-cured.html

Professionals who study and work with MAPs encourage peer support and self acceptance https://virped.org/supporters/ https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0092623X.2022.2149437 https://prostasia.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Letter-to-Twitter-re-MAPs.pdf

Anti-para stigma can be used by abuser’s to isolate and control (potential) victims. Survivors with stigmatized sexual interests benefit from destigmatization. https://apologeticoptimist.wordpress.com/2024/11/11/how-accepting-misogyny-kink-helps-free-survivors/

Anti-para stigma means people with problematic kinks will be more likely to seek out abusers because it’s harder to find sexual fulfillment safely https://apologeticoptimist.wordpress.com/2024/12/14/the-downward-spiral-of-seeking-dehumanization-an-open-letter/

(additional link for above: https://apologeticoptimist.wordpress.com/2024/10/19/the-importance-of-sex-positive-kink-positive-feminism/)

Taboo fantasies and fictional content are safe and supported by mental health professionals https://prostasia.org/blog/fantasies-as-harm-reduction/ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1359178918302404?via%3Dihub

(A good argument to use there is to mention most people who enjoy violence in video games don’t become violent in real life, people who enjoy horror don’t necessarily want to actually be in a horror movie setting even though they enjoy being scared, etc)