Dear readers
This is Max with a personal message today. It is now the 14th of December 2022, and January will mark 14 years of me being active online on the topic of pedophilia. The activism and peer-support are very important to me and they have become central themes of my life.
In the last 3-4 years, unfortunately, I have started to feel increasing tension and frustration with my own team. There is agreement on the goal, but is that enough?
I think Fate and Challenge's team mates lacks structure and reliability among ourselves. Long discussions led to no real agreement, clearer wording of team-decisions brought only little stability, and addressing serious concerns rarely led to a change in behavior. Years of futile attempts to better our working atmosphere have eaten me up. After the events of early November, I finally realized: I no longer have the energy for this. That is why I am now taking my hat and leaving our team and the Fate and Challenge as an association.
What remains? I intend to continue in the field of education and self-help after a recovery phase. To what extent is still unsure.
What has led to this? Since the last trigger has unfortunately been something, that has happened quite publicly in the forum I think giving a rough outline is appropriate at this point:
To make this clear: I am writing this entirely from my point of view. From Nov. 4-7, 2022 users and team of our forum have discussed sending a letter to voice our concerns before the German Ministers of Justice met up for their autumn conference. As I said this was openly discussed in the GSA-forum - two teammates willingly made a fool out of me equally publicly: A veto mechanism within the team (written down in our team's internal "moderation guideline") was ignored and both my and Mascha's interjection that a more detailed discussion was needed before such a letter could be sent "on behalf of the association" were just passed over as if we both had said nothing. In public. The discussions that followed showed me how far our priorities and views sometimes diverge and how little of my words had even been understood or even read. Even third uninvolved persons felt a need to insult and condemn me afterwards in the forum and one also bothered me privately via a direct Messenger for hours. This has little to do with the team, but it shows part of the problem.
This was the proverbial "icing on the cake" in a long series of similar experiences. Images that others have thrown in are "many cooks spoil the broth" or "a ship without a captain", where someone rows to the right instead of to the left as they see fit, or spontaneously hoists one of the sails but no one scrubs the deck.
For some time now, I have seen a fraying of the team (according to everyone's own aspirations and views) as well as problems with basic reliability. For example, I regularly felt resistance as soon as I reminded people of agreements we had made together in the past. Parts of the team went into defence mode and internal team agreements (like the mentioned "moderation guideline" and also other regulations) were subject to personal interpretation and were often discussed anew and anew and anew.
This felt excruciating. In fact, it has even started to change me: right now I have grown to expect resistance all the time. And I have become quite tough and sometimes unfair as a result. One of my favorite songs says, "Pain is a warning that something's wrong."
Especially sad for me: the causal mistake was probably even with NewMan and me. We weren't aware of it at the time but when we expanded our team in 2016/17 we should have presented a better thought-out structure, communicated it more clearly and also enforced it. In my eyes, we failed to do that at the time. It would probably also have delayed the opening of our new forum.
This is my view and assessment of the situation. It is subjective, as is everyone's personal view.
Our team is already tackling some of these issues. However, because of this last "icing on the cake" and the controversy it has ignited, I have come to the conclusion that there is too much going wrong and I no longer have the strength to continue to try and fix it. Or in other words: I no longer have the confidence that we will solve the problems before I personally suffer further mental harm. (Tinnitus is even knocking on my door right now)
That is why I am taking my leave now. To my previous teammates, I wish that despite these current challenges, they will manage to guide Fate and Challenge on a safe course. It is incredible what we have accomplished together in the 14 years since I have known NewMan and participated in this project! Could Marco have dreamed of this when he started laying the foundation in 2006? I'll ask him about it sometime within the next days for sure.
It is with great sadness but (unfortunately) also a feeling of liberation that I leave our association and its teams.
Take care guys!
Your Max Weber
(Of course Max is not completely "gone" from now on for we are still working closely with him on a clean handover the next couple of weeks. Even after that, as he has written above, he will not be abandon the non-offending pedo community)
The translation abose and below have been translated with help of the free version of DeepL (see https://www.deepl.com). The following has not been checked for errors manually though. See the german original text for comparison.
Dear Max,
I think it is very important in life that you take the path that gives you the necessary strength and energy again. You played a major role in setting up this project and invested an incredible amount of your heart and soul in all the projects and ideas. You also managed many problems during this time and you experienced ups and downs together with the team, many moments of success, but also defeats and setbacks. Nevertheless, you kept going and didn't give up when something didn't work and, as the administrator of the projects, you carried a lot of responsibility. Maybe too much.
If at some point you can no longer muster this energy, then it's time to think about yourself. You helped many people with your work and gave them strength, advising by mail and in the forum. You wrote a book, did public relations and educated about our topic. Now it's time to give that energy to yourself. I have been here on the forum for over a year and have worked with you. You have brought a lot of valuable advice and enriched the discourse. I was also able to learn a lot from you and benefit from the experiences.
Now you are leaving us and I wish you to regain your energy and be better because of it. If I ever need advice, I continue to hope for your open ear and remain,
with many good wishes for you, for your future.
Markus
Turning Points in Retrospect:
Max Weber leaves SuH/GSA. This marks the end of an important period of development for SuH/GSA "Fate and Challenge" and "Gemeinsam statt allein" (german for "Together instead of Alone"). Rich in successes, highlights, yes, uniqueness. But of course also of failures, sometimes of tears. Also of farewells, like this one. In order to be able to appreciate what was created there, closely connected also with Max Weber, it is worth taking a look back.
Many, meanwhile very many years ago I googled, "NewMan" for the first time the word "Pettofelli" or one of the numerous other, possible misspellings. In search of a refutation of certain fears concerning my own feeling. The success was, unfortunately, rather moderate…
One of the few pages where the words "child fucker" and "child molester" did NOT jump out at me on the one hand, or the words balls and dick in connection with cut off, nail on, burn… , or on the other hand a massive trivialization of sexual child abuse, one of these few sites was the forum "Verantwortung für Kinder" (german for "Responsibility for Children") , which then unfortunately disappeared shortly thereafter.
Some time later the website "www.schicksal-und-herausforderung.de" appeared. It was operated by a pedophile named "Marco".
This website offered informative texts, reports of experiences of pedophiles, a link list and- a guestbook.
This guestbook developed into a kind of mini forum. A few pedophiles wrote back and forth, exchanged opinions, occasionally advised those seeking help… . Besides Marco and NewMan (me) there were especially Gabriel and - Max. Marco and Gabriel had been moderators of "Responsibility for Children" before. The forum was unfortunately pulverized between pedosexuals on one side and people who couldn't or didn't want to keep disposition and behavior apart on the other side.
When SuH appeared, I was in the therapy phase at PPD and then started the aftercare group. One day it turned out that Max had also finished his therapy and was in more serious mental problems. I recommended him to come to the upcoming aftercare group. That's how we got to know each other personally.
SuH was already getting requests from media and art professionals at that time.
The four of us were involved in at least one major newspaper article "Der Schatten des Begehrens" (German for "The Shadow of Desire.") This article even received a media award. We are still waiting for the thank you today.
Furthermore, I remember an art project in Bonn, in which texts and childhood pictures, drawn from original photos, were exhibited. The protagonists were all members of stigmatized minorities.
And it came to a play at the German Theater "Der Kapitulation zweiter Teil" in which, among other things, a text of mine was performed. The performing artist was Alexander Khuon. The four of us met in Berlin for one of these performances. It was really a great experience. Pure goose bumps for several reasons.
Soon after, Marco announced his retirement from public relations. The reason was one of the best possible ones you can think of. He had a traumatic relationship with his mother. He was able to work through this with psychotherapeutic help. As he worked through the trauma, this purely homopaedophilic man, whose pseudonym reminded him of his first great love, developed more and more of a sexual interest in adult women, while his interest in boys diminished and reduced to a side stream! A happyend.
Marco was planning to close down the site as it had outlived its usefulness to him. The three of us literally begged him not to do that and to give us SuH. Soon after, however, the opportunity arose for Gabriel to emigrate to his favorite country, whose culture he loved and whose language he spoke fluently. He took advantage of this biographical and linguistic break to leave public relations behind and, in our view, "ride off into the sunset."
In exchange, we were able to enlist Anne to help maintain the website. Marco's trust in us that we wouldn't do any mischief was finally big enough and he handed SuH over to us in trustworthy hands and, as ex-Marco, continued to be available for advice. Together with Anne we updated several texts of SuH.
Anne was a victim of sexualized violence and for a long time she was willing to serve as a contact for victims of abuse, if they so wished. Max and I took care of the content of the website. We updated news, wrote some texts, there should have been some more. We continued to be active in the media. Answering questions by e-mail for information and help…
A very important life insurance in all this became Leon, who kept the project running technically. And advised us well in media contacts. We met with Leon a couple of times and look forward to more… Another important life insurance was Mr. Welslau, who gave his clear name and postal address, trusting that we would always do a correct job.
People came and went, mostly when we could help them with their problem. In one case, for example, Max succeeded in helping an acutely suicidal young pedophile on his way to give life another chance…
Some people also came to stay longer, like Lisa. Lisa worked with victims of abuse and wanted to get to know "the other side", for which she had a good opportunity with us and greatly expanded her "horizons". Unfortunately, we never had a real meeting with Anne, but we can look back on some wonderful experiences with Lisa. Both got married and are mommies.
Through Max's book "Für ein Kinderlachen" and the media work we became better known and more people came to us, partly to find out about help, partly to help. Some people were helped by the project at first and after they had stabilized they started to become part of it themselves. Thus, more and more positive energies, shoulders, knowledge, skills, ideas, … came together, stabilizing the project in its existence and making things possible that for a long time we only (but still) dared to dream about.
Outstanding to mention here is undoubtedly our forum "Together instead of alone". with a sub-forum for relatives and partners of pedophilic feeling people and that we are with the "Fate and Challenge"" the only active registered pedophile association in Germany.
With the clear objective of reconciling the absolutely legitimate interests of children, the legitimate interests of pedophiles and all other affected people as well as the legitimate interests of the society with one another to bring and hold.
What we NEVER thought is that SuH or GSA would create so many real-life friendships and even love relationships. Who knows when there will be the first SuH/GSA wedding or the first SuH/GSA baby…
Unfortunately, where there is so much light, the shadows are not far. The more people find together, the more different characters, ways of working, views, world views,… meet. Also the more mental and physical injuries, restrictions of various kinds. The theme alone, which connects us all, ensures that each of us has to get through life with his or her individual backpack, which is bigger than one generally thinks. I can hardly think of a single person in connection with this project who has not been overly burdened… There are definitely still many challenges waiting for us in this area.
"Max Weber" was instrumental in getting SuH/GSA through the travails of the mountains.
Now the travails of the plains lie ahead.
We thank you for all that you have given in these many years, in the last years also as moderator of GSA and extended board from the Fate and Challenge Association.
Voluntary work (the german word is more like "honorary position") is a job, which one can accept in honor, and also leave again in honor. All the best to you. And much success on your new ways.
NewMan