Red flags that someone is not safe to come out to as a stigmatized paraphile! 🚩🚩🚩
[PT: Red flags that someone is not safe to come out to as a stigmatized paraphile! 🚩🚩🚩 /End PT]
Before coming out to someone as having a stigmatized paraphilia, I recommend being sure of their views on certain things. Try to bring these things up in a casual, inconspicuous manner.
1- The death penalty. If they believe the death penalty is a good thing, that is a major red flag and points against coming out to them. The death penalty kills the falsely accused, many of which are paraphiles. The death penalty is also just a major violation of autonomy and rights, and extremely dangerous, as it allows the government too much control over life and death. And it doesn't benefit anyone. The prisoner often still has people who care, and sometimes even the victims care, and would be further traumatized by the prisoner being murdered. But the prisoner doesn't need to be cared about to deserve to live - life is not a "privilege" that needs to be "earned."
2- The way that prisoner abuse is legalized. The manner of which slavery and physical/mental torture by prison guards, lack of protection against fellow prisoners, lack of resources and accomodations, and lack of stimulation or activities for prisoners is completely normalized. Same reasons as subject 1 - the falsely accused, and also that it benefits nobody, and physical/mental wellbeing are not a "privilege." The focus of prisons should be on rehabilitation and - for those unable to be rehabilitated - providing them with plenty of activities, safety, and space, sort of like a new mini society, where they can thrive without posing risk to anyone.
3- Censorship laws and censorship in fiction. If they are pro-censorship (yes, even just "some" censorship), that is a major red flag. Censorship is authoritarian and allows the government to find ways to mislabel any group it wishes to silence under the banned topic. Censorship also prevents certain paraphiles from having outlets, and is not "useful in protecting children" - what would ACTUALLY be useful to protect children is to educate them about CSA and grooming.
"But fictional CSA is often used by predators as 'evidence that it's okay' to the victim" - yeah, I agree, it is. But let's reframe this - fictional depictions of murder can be used to teach a child murder is okay, but since society at large *educates them that murder is not okay in reality*, they understand that it's *not okay.* So the same thing could be said here - the depictions aren't the issue, the lack of proper education is.
4- Any "child protection law" that requires a person to basically dox themselves in order to use the internet. First, it's stupid, because people can make fake IDs or steal their siblings IDs or use their parents accounts or a whole other range of behaviors. All it's doing is throwing your data out to big corporations that, if a data breach occurs, could get you publicly doxxed.
5- Thought crimes. If they believe that any thoughts or feelings are "a bad sign", then that's a red flag. Fantasy =/= reality, and you cannot choose what attracts/arouses you.
6- The most obvious one: are they receptive to correction on the misuse of the term -phile? Example: saying, "hey, did you know that child predator and pedophile aren't the same thing? Pedophilia describes thoughts and feelings, child predation describes predatory actions" in a non-accusatory manner. Or saying "isn't it weird how people bastardize mental health language so much? Like the way people throw around narcissist, psycho, sociopath, pedophile..."
If the person responds in an unreceptive way, that is the BIGGEST red flag I could possibly think of to not come out, because they're really not going to be receptive to you.
Be warned that some people react very aggressively if you use the terms pedophile/zoophile/necrophile, so either wait to ask this question last (after getting good responses to the previous 5 topics), or be prepared for defensiveness.
