MAP Forum

Although it originated within online pro-pedophile groups, the term “minor attracted person” (MAPs) has been adopted by some academic researchers as a neutral and non-stigmatizing alternative to the term “pedophile.” The transferral of this term from pedophile advocates to academic scholarship has been highly controversial. Claims that the use of the term “minor attracted people” normalizes or endorses pedophilia deserve closer scrutiny. This paper is based on a rapid evidence review of all peer-reviewed papers between 2015 and 2023 that used variants of the term “minor attracted” in their title and/or abstract. After screening, 30 studies were identified for review. Our analysis took a thematic approach to understanding the construction and use of the term MAPs in this scholarship. The analysis found that the term MAPs was operationalized in different and contradictory ways, however, 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.

This passage is not rejecting the notion of an essentialized identity, but instead advocates for the substitution of one identity based on medical notions of pedophilia for another based on “queer” sexual interests. Secondly, by comparing pedophilia to “queer” sexual attraction, it conflates arousal to non-consensual sexual activity (that is, the sexual abuse of children) with arousal to consensual sex between adults.

Fragment wrote: Tue Sep 17, 2024 5:50 pm This is probably going to be the only thing I'll agree with in the whole paper. I actually feel the same way with some of the NARSOL/ anti-registry arguments. They point to low rates of re-offending amongst sex offenders (that existed even prior to registry schemes) but then they also say "people who are forced to be homeless and unemployed have nothing to lose and are more likely to re-offend". Perhaps what they are trying to say is "the rate of re-offending is currently 6%, but this would drop to even lower if we got rid of the registries", but that's not stated clearly. As for MAPs, if we want to know how stigma will impact rates of offending we probably shouldn't be analysing VirPeds, rather we should be looking at offending MAPs and asking them how stigma played into their decisions. Of course, we'll need to find out if they are actually MAPs rather than situational offenders first. There's not much point asking a prison rapist about his experiences of homophobia.

The MAPS literature assumed a parallel between pedophilia and same-sex attraction to the point where research on the minority stress experienced by gays and lesbians was regularly cited to justify the claim that pedophiles are unduly harmed by the social stigmatization of child sexual abuse. However, it is unclear that “MAPs” are a sexual minority in any meaningful sense. A nationally representative survey of almost 2000 Australian men found that one in six expressed some sexual interest in children and young people under the age of 18 (Salter et al., 2023), which suggests that sexual interest in minors is relatively common among men in the community. This research finds a strong overlap between sexual interest in children and other deviant sexual interests, including bestiality and sadism (Salter et al., 2023), which calls into question characterizations of pedophilia as a normative sexual orientation or identity. In this study, one in three men sexually interested in children had committed a child sex offense, online and/or offline, compared to one in twenty-five men who were not sexually interested in children (Author, 2023a). Hence, the widely held belief that people with a sexual interest in children are a risk to children is rational.

For instance, Finkelhor (2008, p. 9) stated that societal “norms” play a vital role in crime reduction and that, when “norms are clear and strict, offenses are discouraged.” In his foundational work on motivations for child sex offending, Finkelhor (1984) outlines that child sexual abusers have to overcome internal and external inhibitions against child sexual abuse in order to harm children.

Fragment wrote: Tue Sep 17, 2024 5:50 pm And how's that working out? A society that constantly makes jokes about murdering "pedophiles" and yet the problem of CSA seems to continue unabated. "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." But maybe if we imprison people for 30 years and physical castration instead of 20, and threaten sausage makers instead of wood chippers then the problem will be solved!

Aurelian wrote: Sun Dec 22, 2024 8:22 pm Do you think someone like Walker or Harper will respond to this soon?

Jim Burton wrote: Sun Feb 16, 2025 7:36 pm Salter's paper has been approvingly cited many hundreds of times on X, suggesting that its net effect has been to delegitimize claims initiatives such as B4U-ACT and Mu are hoaxes.

https://monash.altmetric.com/details/167568841/twitter

Jim Burton wrote: Sun Feb 16, 2025 7:36 pm Salter's paper has been approvingly cited many hundreds of times on X, suggesting that its net effect has been to delegitimize claims initiatives such as B4U-ACT and Mu are hoaxes.

https://monash.altmetric.com/details/167568841/twitter