A Defense of the Term Minor Attracted Person and Destigmatization of Non-Offending Pedophiles

It is bad that a significant portion of the population wants to kill people who have committed no crime

Every time someone defends or uses the term minor attracted person, lots of people get very outraged about this. Here are just a few examples — as the previous links show, some have gotten sacked for defending this phrase. This is a travesty — our McCarthy-esque fervor surrounding child sex abuse¹ has totally eroded our ability to have intelligent conversations on the topic. Conversations that would reduce rates of child sex abuse.

Here, I’ll defend the use of the term. It is good to destigmatize merely being a pedophile, while it is bad to destigmatize child sexual abuse.

Let’s start by defining the term pedophile — that many think should be replaced with the term minor attracted person. Pedophiles are those who are sexually attracted to minors. That’s it. A pedophile is not someone who has raped a child — it is someone who is sexually aroused by minors. This is not something that they can control any more than non-pedophiles can — one cannot choose, on a whim, to either start or stop being attracted to children.

This explains the error of many of those who idiotically opine on the topic, without an understanding of what is actually being claimed. Horowitz law, for example, claims the following.

Minor attracted person, a disturbing phrase used by Dr. Allyn Walker to describe a pedophile or sex abuser to minors. What if we called murderers “life takers?” Or embezzlers “money shifters?” What if we used the term “others’ property preferrers” for purse-snatchers? Obviously, these phrases are awkward and confusing. Worse, they are a disservice to crime victims and contrary to the truth.

Why do we feel this way? In large part, because they mask or minimize the pain caused by these crimes. What on earth prompted us to even conjure up these odd terms? It was an Associated Press article headlined “Professor Gets New Job After Pedophilia Research Caused Stir.”

But a minor attracted person is not analogous to a murderer or thief. It is analogous to a person who would find the idea of stealing or murder to be exciting. You can be a pedophile and commit no crimes — indeed, one can’t control whether they’re a pedophile. You cannot be a murderer or a thief without committing a crime, and you can control if you’re a murderer or a thief.

Thus, the claim that the term is a disservice to crime victims is ridiculous. The term does not describe the perpetrators of crime. It is more analogous to describing, as Horowitz law explains, someone who likes stuff that others have.

Imagine we lived in a society in which even saying that you’d like another’s stuff was heavily stigmatized. People who admitted to liking other people’s stuff were seen as monsters — a huge portion of the population thought they should be killed or tortured. They were called thieves merely for this — despite it being outside of their control. Liking another’s stuff was seen as an unforgivable moral failing.

In this society, people who liked others’ stuff would be afraid to seek treatment, and they’d be ashamed of themselves. They’d see the line between themselves and actual thieves as thinner, and be more likely to steal things. This is basically the situation for pedophiles.

It turns out that most minor-attracted people disclose their condition to someone in their life at some point — but this doesn’t improve their mental health. It only does if they’re accepted and not vilified by the person. Rates of sexual attraction to minors are probably somewhere between .1% and 5% — though they could be higher. Additionally, only about half of sexual assaults if minors come from pedophiles.

There’s quite a lot of evidence that stigma makes it harder for MAPs to get treatment and increases rates of sexual abuse of children.

Jahnke et al notes “pedophilia was the disorder that students reported the highest degrees of social distance toward, among more than 40 different mental disorders.”

They go on to describe various mechanisms by which this would increase rates of child sexual abuse.

The first mechanism is causing negative emotions, leading to people being more likely to assault children.

Sexual crimes are often preceded by negative emotions (Pithers, Kashima, Cumming, Beal, & Buell, 1988) and child sex offenders appear to rely more on inadequate emotion-focused coping strategies like excessive self-preoccupation and fantasizing than non-sexual offenders or other controls… For these reasons, emotional disturbances induced by stigma may indirectly contribute to the risk of sexually abusive behavior by people with pedophilia, as indicated by the finding that sexual offenders show less functional coping strategies than non-offenders (Whitaker et al., 2008).

The second is via causing cognitive distortions.

Many men who have sexually offended against children report cognitive distortions concerning their crimes, such as, for instance, that children desire sex with adults and are “able to make informed decisions about sexual activities with adults” (Ward & Keenan, 1999, p. 827). Such distorted cognitions are seen as a predecessor of (further) sexual offenses (Abel, Becker, & Cunningham-Rathner, 1984; Ward & Keenan, 1999). We identified several ways in which public stigma might create or exacerbate these cognitive distortions: As described above, we suppose that most people with pedophilia will go to great lengths to avoid discovery of their sexual interests. At the same time, they are confronted with a lack of role models that could openly point out ways to deal with one’s sexuality in a responsible, legally non-problematic way, instead seeing themselves portrayed as “monsters” or “beasts” in the media (West, 2000). Many people with pedophilia therefore might lack sufficient “knowledge of any appropriate script for the paraphilic behaviour that would satisfy” (Fog, 1992, p. 137) them, and instead be prone to develop distorted beliefs about sexual offending. On top of that, hiding pedophilic interests decreases opportunities to talk openly about beliefs regarding sexual involvement with children that they might endorse, especially if these beliefs legitimize such behavior. The likelihood to be confronted with alternative explanations that could be provided by most non-pedophilic (and in many cases also pedophilic, Holt et al., 2010) members of the community is reduced if the person with pedophilia is isolated due to stigmatization.

It is furthermore problematic that some cognitive distortions are not only held by many actual or potential sexual offenders victimizing children, but by a large number of people from the general public as well, such as the belief that people with a sexual interest in children are unable to control their behavior. If people with pedophilia adopt the widespread stereotype that all people who sexually fantasize about children will sexually offend sooner or later, they might feel little motivation to employ helpful strategies to avoid such offenses (Ward & Keenan, 1999). Hence, stigma, especially if leading to withdrawal, might increase the likelihood of a person with pedophilia to adopt problematic cognitions about sex with children, and, therefore, this person’s sexual offense risk (as indicated by the meta-analytic findings that cognitions minimizing perpetrator culpability or tolerating adult-child sexual activity are a risk factor for child sexual abuse; Whitaker et al., 2008).

The third mechanism is making it harder to get treatment. (Other studies have also confirmed this).

An additional adverse consequence is that people who are suffering from symptoms of a mental disorder sometimes avoid seeking therapy because of potential stigmatization (Vogel & Wade, 2009). Although a large number of people with pedophilia who see themselves at risk of committing sexual offenses can be reached for preventive measures (Beier et al., 2009), it can be hypothesized that many do not dare to contact mental health experts, because they anticipate negative reactions from the treatment staff. In fact, practitioners in a recent Finnish sample (Alanko, Haikio, Laiho, Jahnke, & Santtila, 2015) and a sample of German psychotherapists (Stiels-Glenn, 2010) were reluctant to work with this group and, in some instances, reported corresponding negative attitudes. On the other hand, the majority of a self-selected sample of German psychotherapists in training showed comparably positive attitudes toward people with pedophilia, especially after receiving a brief anti-stigma intervention (Jahnke, Philipp, & Hoyer, 2015b). Nevertheless, if a therapist (or a fellow patient) makes an indiscrete remark that reveals the client’s sexual interest to a third party, his or her personal safety and important social and professional relationships are compromised. Thus, stigma-related stress might deter this group from seeking help.

A fourth mechanism is described by Scott Alexander here — though he doesn’t discuss this in the context of pedophiles. It turns out that if you tell people that they’re very faithful to their spouse, they’re more likely to value faith to their spouse when questioned about it subsequently. The opposite is true if you tell people that they’re not very faithful to their spouse, relative to others. The reason for this is cognitive dissonance — if you tell people that they have some property, they’re more likely to think that thing is okay. If you tell MAPs that they’re basically like child rapists, they’re more likely to think that child rape is okay.

Jahnke notes

This article provides an overview of recent findings on the stigma of pedophilia and derives guidelines for mental health practitioners based on these results. We argue that stigmatization of people with pedophilic sexual interests has undesired indirect effects on risk factors for child sexual abuse, particularly on an emotional and social level.

This is unsurprising — we find stigma having similar negative effects in other domains like alcoholism, eating disorders, and mental disorders.

So, we have solid evidence that stigma towards pedophiles leads to more child sexual abuse and makes the lives of a sizeable portion of the population — maybe around 2% — much worse. This segment of the population is more likely to suffer rates of depression and suicidality — all based on crimes they haven’t committed. We also have solid evidence that the term pedophile increases stigma.

And stigma is very widespread. Imhoff notes

As recent work has demonstrated, individuals have a strong desire to keep people with pedophilia at a large social distance, more so than other groups whose mental condition will arguably put them at an increased risk of violating the rights of third persons (e.g., alcoholics, persons with antisocial personality disorder; Jahnke et al., 2014).

Jahnke et al reveal that a lot of people want to kill non-offending pedophiles.

Both studies revealed that nearly all reactions to people with pedophilia were more negative than those to the other groups, including social distance. Fourteen percent (Study 1) and 28 % (Study 2) of the participants agreed that people with pedophilia should better be dead, even if they never had committed criminal acts.

They later conclude

Using the label “pedophilia” to refer to a sexual interest in children led not only to lesser ascriptions of intentionality, but also to—at least latently—more punitive attitudes.

It’s a shame that our moral outrage around child rape leads to supporting things that lead to more child rape — and stigmatizing one of the most victimized groups on the planet.

The moral panic around pedophiles is so extreme that people who advocate destigmatizing MAPs are accused of being MAPs themselves — or child rapists. This is pretty typical in human history. Those who defended the rights of blacks were called N-word lovers and race traitors. Those who stuck up for the rights of gay people were accused of being gay themselves.

Those who oppose the term minor attracted person seem to have very few arguments for the conclusion. This article, for example, just has a list of people equating being a MAP with being a child rapist and calling defending MAPs evil.

Horowitz law doesn’t do any better. They say

Some years ago, US Catholic bishops started calling various types of child abuse and child sexual abuse “boundary violations.” Some of us here at Horowitz Law laughed out loud when we heard this phrase. One staffer said, “I thought a ‘boundary violation’ was when a stranger stood too close to me in an elevator.”

But of course, that was the goal of the new term minor attracted person is to use the term in media and public relations campaigns to suggest that someone was made to feel slightly annoyed or uncomfortable by a pervert priest’s actions, rather than suggesting an innocent child was (or was made to feel) severely violated and deeply harmed.

But, of course, none of this involves destigmatizing the act of sexually assaulting a child. It just involves destigmatizing being sexually attracted to children. A decent analogy is this one. It turns out that a high percentage of the population finds the idea of rape arousing. This doesn’t make them monsters who should be killed — nor does it mean they should be heavily stigmatized to the point of depression and suicide. Claiming this does not in any way downplay the horror of rape.

Back to Professor Walker for a moment. We understand a desire to make sure no one demonizes those with enough control not to offend – at least not yet. But to call murderers “life takers” or calling purse-snatchers “others’ property preferrers” is bad. And calling adults who are sexually attracted to kids “minor-attracted persons” seems to be on the edge of a slippery slope that leads to downplaying the horrors of child sex crimes, particularly since there is no guarantee that a “MAP” won’t eventually offend.

For Horowitz Law, it’s always better safe than sorry when it comes to kids.

All of this could be said about the rape analogy. One could retype this entire paragraph, but replace the term MAP with person who finds the idea of rape arousing. The claim that it’s a slippery slope is absurd — just as it’s absurd to claim that destigmatizing those who have rape fantasies is the same as destigmatizing rape. The claim that it’s better to be safe than sorry is no defense of something that will cause more child rape.

This video, for example, involves a woman being very outraged at the term MAPs.

so maps or minor attracted people aka pedophiles … they're trying to insert themselves into the lgbtq community basically claiming that they did not choose their sexuality they did not choose to be attracted to literal children

Notably contrasted with figurative children. The claim that they make is obviously correct — one doesn’t choose to be attracted to minors.

so therefore they deserve our support they should be normalized and we should treat them with respect and this isn't anything new pedophiles have been around trying to rebrand themselves as maps for a while now many even call themselves totally harmless and even virtuous in some cases

Well, presumably some pedophiles are virtuous in some cases. It would be a very substantial coincidence if no person with a particular sexual predilection outside of their control was ever virtuous. She then goes on a strange culture war rant about how it is not the case that all LGTQ people are pedophiles — obviously true, but she claims that it’s worth talking about because lots of people are trying to normalize it.

She then points out that pedophiles are attracted to children, who cannot consent. This is true, however, a person can’t consent to be raped — this does not mean that those with rape fantasies should face heavy stigma and be seen as horrific moral monsters. People with rape fantasies represent a sizeable portion of the general population.

She then misrepresents the views of the defenders of MAPs in an unfathomably egregious way.

It was called the life of a virtuous pedophile like he says in this video since you know he's not pro-contact so he doesn't think you should actually go out and uh you know touch children then it's like really moral and really great and therefore he's virtuous you're telling me that just because someone who's fantasizing about murdering people goes up to you and tells you well I haven't actually murdered anyone so I don't need to go to therapy you should actually not stigmatize you know the whole murder thing I think it's totally normal my thoughts and my desires to kill people

But these people don’t claim that their desires are totally normal and innocuous — just that they shouldn’t face stigma and they’ve done nothing immoral. If someone has uncontrollable murder fantasies, we should encourage them to seek therapy — not stigmatize them. The claim that those who think something should be destigmatized also think that one shouldn’t seek therapy for it is similarly asinine — being depressed should be accompanied by therapy; it should not be accompanied by stigma.

Of course, this video is not primarily watched for the quality of the arguments. It’s watched so that lots of people can together be outraged about those creepy pedophiles and attack paper tigers of hordes of pedophiles who think it’s totally fine when they rape kids.

She then claims that if we destigmatize it then people won’t feel guilty and they won’t go into therapy for it. This is contradicted by the overwhelming evidence shown above that being stigmatized makes a person less likely to seek therapy. Lots of people seek therapy for depression and uncontrollable anger, even though those are not moral failings, nor generally seen as such.

When the pedophile in the video that she’s responding to tells his story of being raped as a kid, she declares this “no excuse to go out and do that to another kid,” despite the MAP in the video being non-offending and explicitly advocating this. It’s a bizarre, desperate grab for some innocuous statement to be outraged about — even when the statement in question is literally the MAP simply telling the story of being abused as a child.

The MAP in the video then describes a fantasy he has about sex with magic super smart beings that are very mature and look like children. In response, the creator of the video about how terrible MAPs are describes that kids cannot consent, a point that’s not in dispute. This is like a person with bestial sexual urges saying that he fantasizes about having sex with super-intelligent animals, and someone else replying by pointing out that animals aren’t super-intelligent and can’t consent. Obviously — though that wasn’t in dispute!

She then bizarrely objects to the claim that pedophilia should be legalized, seemingly unaware that pedophilia is already legal — it’s just child sexual abuse that’s not. Though she correctly argues that child sexual abuse should remain illegal — a point disputed only by a small number of crazy people.

This video, like many videos attacking the idea of MAPs has no substance. Instead, it is just a bizarre emoting session, in which the producer expresses her outrage about MAPs. This may seem like low-hanging fruit, but, to be honest, there isn’t really high-hanging fruit here. There are not videos making careful and well-evidenced cases for stigmatizing MAPs and calling them pedophiles.

Michael Knowles has a video titled The Left Wants Pedos to Be Normalized. His evidence for this is citing two people who think pedophiles should be called MAPs and destigmatized. You can find several examples of conservatives advocating slavery — this doesn’t mean that The Right Wants Slavery to Be Legal!

He next says that desires should be stigmatized because desires can be bad. The claim that desires, including pedophilic ones, are bad is, of course, true, but that doesn’t mean the desires should be stigmatized. For one, pedophilia isn’t about desires, it’s about attraction. A person who has no desire to rape may still find the idea of rape arousing. But also, lots of desires are bad but shouldn’t be stigmatized. It is a bad thing that I have the desire to write blog posts instead of studying sometimes — but it shouldn’t be stigmatized. It would, in fact, be bad if lots of people thought I should die for that desire. It is bad that alcoholics have the desire to drink alcohol, but that doesn’t mean that we should stigmatize alcohol.

This article has a lot of people getting outraged about the term, but zero arguments beyond simply asserting that MAPs are predators, even when many of them are not. This article describes an incredibly reasonable take by an assistant professor, which includes the following.

An assistant professor at a Virginia university is taking heat for saying it isn’t necessarily immoral for adults to be sexually attracted to children — prompting college officials to put out a statement clarifying the claim.

Allyn Walker, who teaches sociology and criminal justice at Old Dominion University, made the controversial comment while discussing “minor-attracted persons” and pedophiles during a Nov. 8 interview with the Prostasia Foundation, a San Francisco-based child protection organization.

Walker was discussing their book, “A Long Dark Shadow: Minor-Attracted People and Their Pursuit of Dignity,” when he insisted it’s important to use that terminology instead of “pedophile” because it’s less stigmatizing.

“A lot of people when they hear the term ‘pedophile,’ they automatically assume that it means a sex offender, and that isn’t true,” Walker said during the 28-minute interview. “And it leads to a lot of misconceptions about attractions towards minors.”

Walker acknowledged use of term “minor-attracted persons” — or MAPs — suggests to some that it’s OK to be attracted to children, but said labeling anyone wholly by their sexual desires doesn’t indicate anything about their morality.

“From my perspective, there is no morality or immorality attached to attraction to anyone because no one can control who they’re attracted to at all,” Walker said. “In other words, it’s not who we’re attracted to that’s either OK or not OK. It’s our behaviors in responding to that attraction that are either OK or not OK.”

Walker said child sex abuse is “never, ever OK,” but that having sexual urges toward children isn’t necessarily wrong — as long as those carnal desires aren’t acted upon.

“We have a tendency to want to categorize people with these attractions as evil or morally corrupt,” Walker continued. “But when we’re talking about non-offending MAPs, these are people who have an attraction they didn’t ask for.”

Of course, this provoked huge amounts of outrage. The outrage didn’t involve making any counterarguments, just complaining and asserting the opposite of what Walker argues.

“Following recent social media activity and direct outreach to the institution, it is important to share that Old Dominion, as a caring and inclusive community, does not endorse or promote crimes against children or any form of criminal activity,” ODU’s statement read.

Of course, Walker was equivocal that they didn’t promote crimes against children either. They merely said that being attracted to children doesn’t make a person evil.

Some students at the public university in Norfolk, meanwhile, said they were disturbed by Walker’s comments.

“Honestly, it just sounds gross,” student Jaelan Jackson told WTKR. “Just because you’re not acting on it, to acknowledge it is weird and not OK at all. It feels uncomfortable to know that someone’s like that on campus.”

On the one hand, we have significant evidence that destigmatizing pedophilia would dramatically reduce child sexual assault and improve the lives of lots of non-offending pedophiles. On the other hand, student Jaelan Jackson thinks the position sounds weird. Well, if a random student thinks something sounds weird and gross then of course it’s wrong. That’s why gay rights are bad — at least one student no doubt finds gay people to be weird and gross. (Sarcasm in italics).

A Change.org petition signed by more than 1,600 people as of Monday called on ODU to oust Walker.

“Dr. Walker uses the term ‘MAP,’ which is an umbrella term for minor attracted persons,” the petition reads. “We want to be clear that this is pedophilia and should not be considered a sexual preference. Being that they teach in the sociology and criminal justice department makes us worried their views will effect the next generation in a negative way.”

No argument here, just more outrage. As is typical. It’s genuinely hard to find anyone making real arguments about why the term MAP is bad. People are just outraged by it. Knowles is basically the only one with a real argument, and it’s obviously fallacious.

The view I’ve defended here seems to be the mainstream view of those who have published on the subject. There just aren’t good objections to the term MAP. All those opposed to it have is outrage and fear.

1. And before anyone accuses me of downplaying child sex abuse, calling something McCarthyesque doesn’t imply that the thing it’s persecuting is good. Non-communists opposed McCarthy’s reign of terror.