Been thinking about this and I promise this is a good faith question: do you think paraphilic communities (such as MAP communities) be considered part of the LGBTQ+ community or do you think they should be different communities as the two serve different purposes?
Tw; lots of kink mentions. Non-explicit :]
TLDR; I don’t think lgbtq and paraphilia is exactly the same,but I think if we could be in the same community it would be cool ^^
Honestly this might be a hot take,and something even a lot of pro-para people don’t agree with, but I think at least anti-c paraphilia should inherently be a part of lgbtq+ in at least some way. Maybe not directly as a part of it, but at the very least parallel to it, similar to how kink and sexuality overlap. They are distinctly different concepts, but work alongside eachother and share community.
I don’t think that paraphilias are an exact 1-1 for sexualities, but they’re similar in that they both describe an attraction considered non-normative. (Also,homosexuality was once considered a paraphillia as well. I think being transgender was too,and it was called crossdressing instead, but correct me if I’m wrong on that last one.)
We experience our paraphilias similar to how we’ve experienced “normative” attractions, and don’t really see why the target of the attraction would make the attraction any less queer. If I am attracted to a male animal it is still a gay attraction, if I am attracted to a masculine corpse it’s still a gay attraction. It being directed at a different subject than typically expected doesn’t Turn Me Straight, so the exclusion from the lgbtq has brought us a lot of confusion in the past.
There’s also a huge overlap between kink and paraphilia already, and kink is also a huge part of queer culture. (CNC, ageplay, petplay, corpseplay, sadomasochisim, intoxplay, etc). These things already exist in lgbtq spaces, it’s just that nobody wants to refer to it as para or adjacent in fear of being labeled an abuser.
To be completely honest I think the only reason para isn’t considered part of/parallel the LGBTQ already is that they think we will make them ‘look bad’. And to majority of the population, who already don’t know about paraphilias (and aren’t eager to educate themselves), it probably would. Mass majority of people hear paraphile and think abuser/pro-c/rapist,because they don’t want to have to challenge their beliefs and acknowledge they are being ignorant.
The LGBTQ fought hard to be destigmatized and to have a community,and I think eventually if enough people were educated on paraphilias and nonharmful contact, paras could too ^^ it would be long and hard as most fights are, but we believe that it could be done!
Feel free to debate this one in the comments!! Ik a lot of the community is divided on this one and would love to hear some other perspectives :3c We have more thoughts and theories bouncing around in here but didn’t want to get off-topic. Also, apologies if this seems disorganized, we just woke up.
