Who knows, these days such a gesture might be oppressive? An Old Dominion sociologist publishing under the name Allyn Walker is at the center of a campus controversy for his efforts to come up with a euphemism for "pedophile." Yes. Seriously.
Walker advocated calling those who are attracted to minors “MAPs,” or “minor-attracted people,” because that is a term that non-offender advocacy and support groups prefer over “pedophile” or other terms.That's an interesting position for a female-to-male crosser (a real live mangina, to borrow a term from the s**tlords?) to take, given the thinness of the dating market for crossers. First, you take the stigma away from the attitude, then to take the stigma away from acting on the attitude. And little kids get hurt.
“A lot of people, when they hear the term ‘pedophile,’ they automatically assume that means a sex offender, and that isn’t true, and that can lead to a lot of misconceptions about attractions toward minors,” Walker told Prostasia.
Walker also recommended affirming therapies, as opposed to conversion therapies, for people who need help navigating their attractions, and made a clear moral distinction between those who are attracted to children and those who act on those impulses. The latter severely harms children, whereas the former does not, they said.
“Having an attraction to minors, as long as it isn’t acted on, doesn’t mean that the person who has those attractions is doing something wrong,” Walker said in the interview. “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. In other words, it’s not who we’re attracted to that is either OK or not OK, it’s our behaviors in responding to that attraction that is either OK or not OK.”
It puts the university president, a diversity hustler called Brian Hemphill, in a tough spot.
The university statement about Walker quotes President Brian O. Hemphill as saying, “I want to state in the strongest terms possible that child sexual abuse is morally wrong and has no place in our society. This is a challenging time for our university, but I am confident that we will come together and move forward as a Monarch family.”It's probably a little late in the game to start defending "care and precision" in academic writing, given the past thirty years of increasingly tight priors and epistemic closure. Here's a reaction, for instance, that defies parody.
In a separate statement, Hemphill said, “Many individuals have shared with me the view that the phrase ‘minor-attracted people’ is inappropriate and should not be utilized as a euphemism for behavior that is illegal, morally unacceptable and profoundly damaging. It is important to call pedophilia what it is. As a father, I am troubled by this narrative and its potential consequences for my children and that of future generations.”
Hemphill continued, “Ideally, we would be able to debate even the most challenging issues without disruption or threats of violence, but that is not the world we live in today. Our campus has recently become the target of threats and other unacceptable disruption.”
Further addressing academic freedom, Hemphill said that “sensitive topics and the expression of new or controversial views lie at the heart of academic research. Old Dominion University remains committed to providing an environment in which our faculty can and will engage in rigorous research. At the same time, this freedom carries with it the obligation to speak and write with care and precision, particularly on a subject that has caused pain in so many lives.”
He added, “I am confident that our Monarch family will rise to the occasion in our continuing campus dialogue, and I am equally confident that we share a common starting point for the discussion: rejection of any form of sexual abuse of children.”
Skye Stephens, associate professor of psychology at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, Canada, who studies atypical sexual interests and childhood sexual abuse prevention, said Wednesday, “In my field, we distinguish between sexual attraction and sexual behavior, which is not controversial.”A few Militant Normals, or fired-up evangelicals, are unlikely to shape the course of research the way the day-to-day pronouncements from Student Affairs, let alone the funding priorities of the foundations and the government agencies does. In addition, too often have we seen these euphemisms put forth first as a way to make the words less painful and subsequently deployed to define the deviancy down.
People can have sexual interests or attractions that they do not act on, she said, meaning that “not every individual who is sexually attracted or interested in something will act on these fantasies, which extends to people with sexual attraction to children. Researchers and clinicians are increasingly aware of individuals who are sexually attracted to children who do not sexually offend against them.” Stephens said it was also important to note that not everyone who sexually offends against a child has a sexual interest in children, per se, and may offend against them in this way for other reasons.
Stephens said the term “MAP” is also used “by some who have sexual attraction to children and youth under the age of consent,” and that it appears in some of the academic literature on this topic. As with other areas of research, there remains debate over the best or most appropriate terminology, she said.
Asked how the Walker case might impact research-backed efforts to prevent harm to children, Stephens said the negative attention it’s attracted “could have a chilling effect on those who work in the field. I do wonder if the current climate might impact people who do this type of work or those who might do this type of work.” For example, she asked, “How many people who might be interested in researching this topic see the intense backlash and simply choose to pursue another topic? I think this is very unfortunate if we want to make real progress on important societal issues.”
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