A Review of Academic Use of the Term "Minor Attracted Persons"

[UtopiaPlanitia]

I came across this journal article thanks to Mike Salter (Professor of Criminology) posting the following tweet:

https://x.com/mike_salter/status/1854700225648378001

'Our review of academic use of the term "minor attracted people" is now published in Trauma Violence Abuse, highlighting the conceptual, political and empirical problems with characterising paedophiles as an oppressed sexual minority
^https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/15248380241270028^'

I thought I'd post the tweet and link to the article in FWR as this a subject that is of interest and concern to many contributors here.

There appears to be no end to the weaselly ways that men will try to make their vile fetishes socially acceptable.

Fucking hell. I know I should manage a more erudite comment but I’m afraid that’s all I’ve got for the mo.

Sorry I quoted the original post 🫣

A non stigmatising alternative?

Good grief 🙄

Yes. In my view this is a behaviour that needs all the bloody stigma it can get.

I haven't got the stomach to read it right now, and I've said this before but paedophiles do not need redefining to something vanilla.

If they don't like the word paedophile tough fucking shit and anyone who uses minor attracted person is either a fucking moron or a paedophile.

There are already plenty of alternative words out there. Nonce for example works perfectly well.

'the literature broadly agreed that MAPs constitute an oppressed sexual minority who are subject to undue stigmatization and discrimination. We point to the similarities between this sympathetic framing of MAPs and the political goals of the pro-pedophile advocacy groups that created the term MAPs, and from which many MAPs studies recruit their research participants. The review concludes that, in the absence of adequate self-reflexivity and awareness of bias, academic collaborations with pro-pedophile groups can produce work that minimizes the risk and harm of child sexual abuse and has the potential to delegitimize child sexual abuse prevention and treatment efforts.'

Yep.

Very well expressed Beetle!

I don't know why certain academics feel the need to remove stigma from paedophilia but it's definitely happening more over the last few years. I've even heard nominally GC sexologists Michael Bailey and James Cantor express these sentiments. It makes my blood boil!

If paedophiles got their act together and sorted out organisations that provide therapy that works to stop offending, and groups that aren't covers for paedophile activities; many people might be sympathetic to those organisations.

But they haven't, so they can FOTTFSOF and I'll continue to be disgusted by their activities and mistrustful of their activism.

What the actual....

Exactly! There should never be any removing of stigma. Paedophiles should be amongst the most reviled people in society.

For those who'd like a quick to read summary of the paper:

Critical Findings

•The use of the term MAPs has been adopted by a small group of academics in the fields of child sexual abuse prevention and the clinical treatment of pedophilia.

•MAPs is defined in this literature in various and sometimes contradictory ways, including as a category for any person with sexual feelings toward children, as a synonym for pedophilia, or as a sexual identity, orientation, or minority.

•Academic MAPs scholarship does not openly acknowledge the origin of the term “MAPs” in online pro-pedophile organizations; however, academic use of the term contains many of the same assumptions and arguments put forth by those organizations.

•MAPs scholarship presents pedophiles as an oppressed sexual minority subject to undue discrimination and oppression. This framing draws, implicitly and explicitly, on controversial comparisons between pedophilia and same-sex attraction.

•Strong claims in the MAPs literature that the stigmatization of sexual interest in children is the primary driver of child sexual abuse, and thus sexual interest in children should be socially and culturally normalized, are empirically unsupported and contrary to child protection prerogatives.

•Many of the assertions contained in academic scholarship using the term MAPs are congruent with the long-standing political goals of pro-pedophile advocates and activists.

Implications for Research, Policy, and Practice

•“MAPs” is part of the nomenclature of contemporary pro-pedophile movements seeking social and legal rights for those with a sexual interest in children and is not a neutral or scientific synonym for pedophile.

•Pedophile movements and groups have conflicted, dissembling, and sometimes positive views about the sexual abuse of children, and therefore academic engagement with these movements should be cautious and informed.

•Research studies based on the recruitment of research subjects from online pedophile networks and spaces must acknowledge, as an urgent matter of ethical and research integrity, the likelihood of bias.

•Research into undetected pedophiles and offenders in the community should consider methodological approaches that do not depend on support or sponsorship by online pedophile networks.

•The stigmatization of the impulse to sexually abuse children plays an important role in deterring child sexual abuse and delineating between acceptable and unacceptable sexual behavior.

•Academic comparisons between pedophilia and same-sex attraction run the risk of undermining LGBTIQ+ civil rights and delegitimizing the project of child sexual abuse prevention.

I've had a quick read of the actual article, and as far as I can see it is highly critical of the term MAP and its role in 'destigmatising' child abuse.
It does NOT support the term MAP, it sees it as dangerous and advises academics to avoid it and be careful of using it in research.

This is from the conclusion:
the transposition of the terminology of MAPs from online pedophile networks to the academic community has brought with it a questionable set of commitments, including comparisons between pedophiles and oppressed sexual minorities, and the recommendation that sexual interest in children is “de-stigmatised.”

Such conclusions do not originate within the academic or scientific literature, but were first formulated by the pro-pedophile advocacy movement, which predates MAPs scholarship by several decades. It should not be a surprise that scholars who source their research participants from such organizations will find their data is skewed toward the agenda of those organizations, however, this likelihood was rarely countenanced in the MAPs scholarship.

What's wrong with that?

Not this article, the fact that it's happening at all.

I think the article is great and I'm very glad it's been published because it shows that 'MAP activism' is dangerous and duplicitous.

My disgust and concern is wholly regarding the academics/activists (such as those discussed in this article) who are trying to normalise paedophilia as a sexuality and frame it as part of LGBTQ+, and I also abhor the use/promotion of the sanitising term MAP rather than paedophile.

I think it is more than obvious that the people happy to research “MAP” on a “neutral basis” are in all likelihood “MAP” individuals.

they walk amongst us.

I am also suprised academic institutions would allow such research, in the light of very restrictive attitudes to women's rights researchers.

Meant not suprised

Academics again, I'm being to think Chairman Mao had the right idea.

Much as i hate the Daily Mail i wish they would pick this one up.

IIRC the Mermaids trustee who was a researcher at the LSE claimed to have coined the term MAP. (Jacob Breslaw? Too tired to check/can't be bothered)

@Igmum yep tis him.

Quite ironic innit?

Users of the acronym MAP may as well walk around with garments signifying their support of PDFiles, or even i am a PDFile, see how far down the street they got before an erm comeuppance.

I doubt mainstream this will ever fly.

If there's one thing pretty much everyone except "MAPs" agrees on, it's that being a "MAP" is a Very Bad Thing.

So I doubt an attempted name change will get them very far.

I haven't read the article but to my mind paedophile and MAP could be two different things. In that someone might be a MAP without or before crossing a line and acting on it. I actually wish there was support for MAP and this could be accessed easily BEFORE any crime was committed, to constantly remind people this was wrong, dangerous and criminal, perhaps even to access medication if that was what was needed to prevent a line being crossed.
Redefining paedophile as a sexual orientation though, that's a hard NO.

@Kendodd what? How is one able to locate a PDFile who does not “act on it”

They are often on line “not acting” on it, you know watching child exploitation, not in the moment so erm “less harmful”

There is plenty of research that suggests that PDFiles are themselves victims of childhood sexual abuse who have a hardwired fetish as a result. Not that all male abuse victims are destined to be abusers.

it comes down to male power not recognising male pattern behaviour.

Well if they are online, looking at child porn, they have acted on it. I'm talking about before that, before any crime is committed.