Kinksters R' Us

Keeping the World Safe for Pedophiles

Background: The Prostasia Foundation casts itself as a “new kind of child protection organization.” When the San Francisco-based group tweeted it was “inclusive of LGBTQ people, kinky people, and sex workers,” it was serious. It is so inclusive, in fact, it has employed such folks at the top, having a self-proclaimed kinkster as its resident “child development specialist”¹ and a convicted sex offender on its advisory council throughout 2019.²

According to its website, Prostasia addresses the problem of child sex abuse by “engaging with diverse stakeholders whose voices are not normally heard.” In combining the interests of human and civil rights, child protection, and sex positivity, Prostasia boasts that it holds “unique” positions on internet freedom, sex-worker rights, sexting law reform, and “kink awareness.”³

Reason for Surveillance:

Unique, it is. While its website gives lip service to protecting children as “a cause that everyone can unite behind,” Prostasia is primarily focused on supporting sexual kink and sex fetishists. Ayden Férdeline, a public interest researcher and social scientist, examined the group’s stated positions and concluded that Prostasia centers its work around justifying the behavior of adults, not safeguarding children.⁴ It advocates for the lawful possession and sale of child-like sex dolls,⁵ defends sexually explicit depictions of minors in art,⁶ and argues that sex-offense registries do “almost nothing” to protect children from abuse.⁷

At the foundation’s 2018 launch, program director Meagan Ingerman shared her response to minors interested in “kink”: “First of all, that’s great that you’re interested; please come back when you’re eighteen. Here are some books to read.” In the same interview, she further explained that the principles she learned from the kink community inform how she teaches “consent” to children, including infants and toddlers.⁸

Prostasia all but recruits children into kink. This is manifested in Ingerman’s blogpost, “Ageplay is for Adults,” wherein she fantasizes about being touched non-consensually while pretending to be a “little.” At the time of writing it, the 33-year-old identified as a 4½-year-old.⁹

Most Recent Offenses:

In its 2020 campaign to “Stop treating art as child abuse,” Prostasia criticized INHOPE—an international association of hotlines for reporting child sex abuse materials—for acting on reports of images that were not photos of real children but rather drawings of children. Decrying censorship, Prostasia charged INHOPE with seeking to “criminalize” marginalized artists and LGBT communities.¹⁰

More recently, Prostasia led efforts to challenge a proposed Queensland, Australia, ban on sex dolls that look like children. Citing its own “experts,” it said that sex dolls “might be used in substitution for sex with a real partner” and argued that the banning of young-looking dolls “may lead to [an] increase in the abuse of real children.”¹¹ Its top leadership suggests that by supporting minor-attracted people (MAPs) in their sexual fantasies, we will prevent them from acting out their fantasies on real children.¹²

But clearly, such sex fantasizing provides the occasion for perpetrators to rehearse these activities. As a “charity” purportedly advocating for the protection of children, Prostasia serves instead as a magnet for MAPs, kinksters, and sex fetishists.

Notes
1. youtube.com/watch?v=dVS5QKEluxY, 45:00ff.
2. prostasia.info. See also web.archive.org/web/20200525002428/http://kspsor.state.ky.us/Home/OffenderDetails/14171.
3. prostasia.org/about
4. prostasia.info
5. prostasia.org/sex-doll-laws
6. web.archive.org/web/20200524234043/https://prostasia.org/blog/experts-to-united-nations-hentai-ban-would-be-a-mistake
7. archive.is/5KgSK
8. youtube.com/watch?v=dVS5QKEluxY, 45:50ff
9. web.archive.org/web/20200524234713/https://prostasia.org/blog/ageplay-is-for-adults
10. prostasia.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Letter-to-Internet-hotlines.pdf
11. prostasia.org/campaign/queenslands-proposed-ban-on-dolls-is-based-on-a-lie
12. youtube.com/watch?v=adBYkBTwNXQ, 4:00ff.