I am so tired of people new to the community bastardizing contact stances because they only know them from other people new to the community. Contact stances were made by MAPs, for MAPs and MAP allies, and they were originally meant to refer specifically to your moral stance on Chronological adults having romantic/sexual relations with Chronological teenagers and children, and Chronological teenagers having romantic/sexual relations with Chronological children.
Anti-contact means you're against chronological adults dating and having sex with chronological teenagers/children, and teenagers with children. Pro-contact means you're okay with chronological adults dating and having sex with chronological teenagers, and sometimes children. It was always that way, until pro-contacts decided to deliberately confuse newcomers.
The nuance for contact stances is not "ohh but the terms are too confusing we should drop them entirely and force decent beings to interact with predators", the nuance for contact stances is only "what age does it become okay to have sex with adults." Anti-cs just usually have this age at 18 and pro-cs just usually have this age at 13 or younger.
If an pro-c agrees with anti-cs, they are an anti-c that has been fed disinformation and told that (some bullshit, like "contact stances apply to transids" which has never been true). Does not mean that contact stances are useless, just means the pro-cs and neu-cs knowingly lying about what contact stances are need to be kicked out of the community and new paraphiles need to be educated about what contact stances actually are.
i've had rather low energy today — so i apologize for not getting back to you sooner. i wanted to make sure i wrote something meaningful.
i am aware of the origins of contact stance labels, however with the broader propara movement widening & the birth of radqueer as an ideology, the meanings of anti, pro, and neu -contact have changed. whether you want to blame it on new people or not, that's up to you, but that is just how vocabulary works. definitions of words can and will change overtime.
i am not arguing about what the definitions of contact stances should be / what they are. i was pointing out that, with the definitions of these stances becoming more broad, the labels have become unhelpful and lead to more misunderstanding and infighting.
if we lived in a world where everyone agreed with your idea (and/or the original meaning of contact stances), then sure. i'd be agreeing with you in saying that all pro-contacts are predatory. but we don't live in that world. the reason why i say pro-contacts are not inherently predatory is because not all of them believe it is okay to pursue bodily children / animals / anyone else who doesn't / can't consent — the majority of people in the modern radqueer community do not believe that is okay.
The nuance for contact stances is not "ohh but the terms are too confusing we should drop them entirely and force decent beings to interact with predators",
i have never said anything of the sort — i will never be okay with or interact with predators, nor do i think anyone else should be. in the post of mine you are referencing, i said "i think as a community, we should be more specific in our stances and ideologies, rather than using one label (pro/anti/neu) without any nuance."
the reason why i am of this opinion is because of the confusion, and variety of definitions, surrounding contact stance labels. (specifically anti, pro, and neu). i think people should be specific in their stances, rather than only calling themselves "pro/neu/anti", which realistically tells us nothing anymore.
If an pro-c agrees with anti-cs, they are an anti-c that has been fed disinformation and told that (some bullshit, like "contact stances apply to transids" which has never been true).
you can say it has "never been true" — it may not have been true in the past, but many people view it that way in the present. like i said before, definitions change overtime.
i also want to add, i think people have the right to identify with whatever label makes them feel most comfortable / feels most fitting. many people are uncomfortable with the idea of contact stances not applying to transids because it implies that their transids aren't valid/real. many people identify as pro-c, despite being anti-abuse, for this reason.
Does not mean that contact stances are useless, just means the pro-cs and neu-cs knowingly lying about what contact stances are need to be kicked out of the community and new paraphiles need to be educated about what contact stances actually are.
in my opinion, they are unhelpful within the radqueer community on their own, due to people having different definitions of what they mean, and the confusion surrounding them.
my post was simply trying to say is that we should be more specific than simply using the words "pro/anti/neu" due to this.
also, i do not think someone is lying or deserves to be kicked out because they have a different definition of what a contact stance means than you do.
