‘Minor-Attracted Person’: Inside The Growing Effort To Destigmatize Pedophilia

Earlier this month, an Old Dominion University (ODU) professor of sociology and criminal justice, Allyn Walker, brought global attention to a newer term, “Minor-Attracted Persons” or “MAPs” for short, within a greater argument that pedophiles shouldn’t be ostracized for their urges. Although ODU seemingly initially defended the comments, they eventually placed Walker on administrative leave. Walker, a transgender male, goes by they/them pronouns.

In the controversial interview with the Prostasia Foundation, an activist group seeking to destigmatize pedophilia, Walker discussed her book, “A Long Dark Shadow: Minor Attracted People and Their Pursuit of Dignity,” and claimed that the stigma associated with attraction to minors was harmful — not just to the pedophile, but potentially to children.

“[T]he stigma that we have against MAPs throughout society can not only affect well-being, but it can actually lead to harm against children,” said Walker.

Walker also claimed that pedophiles’ attraction to children wasn’t immoral, arguing that actions alone could be moral or immoral.

“I’ve definitely heard the idea that you brought up though that the use of the term minor attracted person suggests that it’s okay to be attracted to children. But using a term that communicates who someone is attracted to doesn’t indicate anything about the morality of that attraction. 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’s either okay or not, okay. It’s our behaviors and responding to that attraction that are either okay or not okay.” (emphasis added)

Prior to being placed on administrative leave from ODU, Walker released a statement through the university condemning the sexual abuse of a child.

“I want to be clear: child sexual abuse is morally wrong and inexcusable crime. As an assistant professor of sociology and criminal justice, the goal of my research is to prevent crime. My work is informed by my past experience and advocacy as a social worker counseling victims. I embarked on this research in hopes of gaining understanding of a group that, previously, has not been studied in order to identify ways to protect children,” stated Walker.

According to a profile on 500 Queer Scientists, Walker’s career began as a social worker counseling crime victims. After working with sexual assault victims, Walker became more interested in “wanting to help prevent harms created by systems.” Walker later earned a criminal justice PhD and focused on “institutional harm,” an emphasis on the harms created by systems such as criminal processing and mental health care.

Walker was also involved in the American Society of Criminology (ASC) Division on Queer Criminology (DQS). The DQS published a post in support of Walker’s research and conclusions; they claimed that any controversy or opposition to Walker’s perspective was a personal attack on Walker as a transgender person.

“Recently, DQC member Dr. Allyn Walker’s work on minor-attracted persons has been targeted by people who are misrepresenting their research. It is necessary to understand the causes of sexual offenses in order to prevent them, and Dr. Walker’s work aims to do just that.

It is an example of the type of work that can prevent victimization and reduce harm, specifically child sex abuse. Dr. Walker’s research focuses on people who find themselves sexually attracted to children but have not committed any sexual offenses against children.

Some of these individuals were sexually victimized themselves as children, but fear asking for help given they are labeled by society as “pedophiles”.

Much of the bias against Dr. Walker’s research is rooted in their gender and is an attack against transgender people specifically and LGBTQ+ people more generally. We firmly believe a cisgender researcher would not have been targeted in this manner.

The leadership of the Division on Queer Criminology is fully supportive of Dr. Walker and the important contributions their work makes to the field of criminology.” (emphasis added)

Along with the book, Walker released several other research papers on the topic — “Minor Attraction: A Queer Criminological Issue” (2017), and “‘I’m Not like That, So Am I Gay?’ The Use of Queer-Spectrum Identity Labels Among Minor-Attracted People” (2019).

The works convey a consistent idea, the same one Walker’s intellectual predecessors have steadily marched to impress upon society: pedophiles aren’t necessarily dangerous or immoral. In fact, they say, society may be to blame if they do act. At the tip of this intellectual iceberg is the term used to destigmatize pedophilia: “MAP.”

In the past 14 years, the acronym “MAP” has gained traction with those seeking to destigmatize pedophilia: pedophiles themselves, with the assistance of those in academia and even in the medical community. Some use the distinction “NMAP” or “NOMAP,” short for “Non-Offending Minor-Attracted Persons,” to signify those that don’t act on their urges through contact or mediums like child porn. However, most simply use “MAP.”

“Pedophile” is the generally accepted

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