You Say Potato, I Say Pedophile

On pedophile terminology and stigma

As I have mentioned in many of my posts, the word pedophile is charged with a lot of negative connotations that are the result of the conflation of the condition of being sexually attracted to children with the action of sexually abusing a child. This conflation, often at the hands of reputable and supposedly ethical mainstream media organization, fosters stigma and helps to contribute to the current situation in which pedophiles are forced to remain in the shadows, which ultimately works against the goal of keeping children safe from sexual abuse.

So many people automatically think “child molester” when they hear or read the word “pedophile”, that it seems like an uphill battle to win to reclaim the word pedophile from what people currently think it means and to what it actually means. In addition, “pedophile” has a very specific meaning which is attraction to prepubescent children; however most of society would not really care if the kids you’re attracted to have started puberty or not, and they vilify the same anyone who has a sexual interest in “children”, whereby they mean anyone under the legal age of consent, or even more categorically, any minor — which is typically anyone under 18 in most jurisdictions around the world.

Without entering into whether it’s normal or not to be attracted to “children” in their late teens — spoiler: it is — most people attracted to minors are subject to pretty much the same kind of prejudice and stigma as those attracted to prepubescent children. But let’s get a little specific and break out the different types of attraction to children into the ones commonly described and accepted by science:

• Pedophilia is the sexual attraction to prepubescent children.
• Hebephilia is the sexual attraction to pubescent children.
• Ephebophilia is the sexual attraction to postpubescent children.

There’s another category called nepiophilia, which is attraction to babies and toddlers, but since they are by definition prepubescent it can also fall under the category of pedophilia. It is tricky to put age boundaries to these categories, since every child is different and will start and complete puberty at different ages. Technically, these categories are best defined by the Tanner stages of development or Tanner Scale.

In spite of there being all these different categories of attraction to children based on their development stage, the masses will lump everyone that is attracted to children under the pedophile label, a label that — as I mentioned — is loaded with stigma.

Coming up with new labels

For this reason certain sectors of people attracted to children have coined a new term: Minor Attracted Person (MAP). By distancing themselves from the toxicity of the pedophile label, they want to avoid the stigma that surrounds it and the conflation of sexual abuse with attraction. In addition, the term MAP encompasses all the different categories of attraction to children that I outlined in the previous section, and doesn’t incorrectly lump them all under just one of them, pedophilia.

Most of those who identify with the MAP label are very averse to the word pedophile, or are simply not technically pedophiles, but hebephiles or ephebophiles instead. In any case, I think it is a worthy goal to want a label you can identify with that doesn’t have such a negative baggage. They often seem to overlook, however, that the main reason it doesn’t have such baggage is because very few people outside of pedophile circles have actually ever heard it.

The problem with coming up with new terminology is twofold, though. First, using new terminology is often perceived by those that are determined to vilify and stigmatize you as a cop-out, a euphemism, or an attempt to try to deny your “nature” so you can sneak behind society’s back and fool them into allowing you to have sex with their children. We can already see this happening, in a recent article on Christian Messenger to which I wrote a response:

«Friends, do you know pedophiles in the US have started calling themselves as ‘minor-attracted people’? Do you know they have started using the same tactics that homosexuals used years ago in the US and in the west to gain legitimacy to their sinful and repugnant behavior? […]»

The second problem is that, over time, the stigma attached to the original label will just carry over to the new one, and you’ll just have to continue the same uphill battle you were fighting in the first place.

Is there a solution?

I am not against minor attracted individuals coming up with new labels that they can identify with to help them feel more comfortable with themselves. Sometimes all it takes is a label behind which you feel comfortable standing and realizing that you are not alone to have a much better outlook on life.

In addition, a single label to refer to all those that are attracted to children and subject to very similar social injustice and prejudice is also a good goal. In that sense, I think the coining of the term MAP is a good thing and I have nothing against it. However, I don’t put too much stock into coming up with new terminology as a key tool in advancing our goal of acceptance of minor attracted individuals as human beings deserving of the same sympathy, respect, support and —yes— rights as any other person (rights that do not include having sex with anyone, by the way).

The solution, whether we want to use the term pedophile (as a catch-all term) or MAP, is education. There needs to be more rational conversation about what it means — and even more importantly, what it doesn’t mean — to be sexually attracted to children, pitchforks aside. Only through civil, respectful discussion can we really come to an understanding as a society that pedophilia is nothing more — and nothing less — than an unchosen sexual attraction that in no way determines the subject’s moral character nor actions, and that continuing to stigmatize and drive pedophiles — or MAPs — underground through blind and irrational hatred is not ever going to help anyone, particularly children.

I choose to stand behind the label pedophile, partly because it does describe the kind of children I am attracted to, but also because I think it is important that we reclaim the proper meaning of the word. Every single scientist and researcher of the topic of pedophilia — that is, those that actually know what they’re talking about — stresses the importance of differentiating between the condition of being attracted to children — what pedophilia is — and the act of sexually abusing children, which are two different things.

Come to think of it, the media is the ultimate responsible party for the conflation of the two different concepts and much of the stigma and the harm caused by it to real, struggling people, and to children. They should be publicly called out for it, and with enough people doing so they will eventually learn and stop using irresponsible and stigmatizing language.

With that in mind, I will continue doing what I’m doing to help educate society, to the best of my ability, to better understand pedophilia and the difference between it and child molestation, and how pedophiles are just normal people that want to live our lives without being blindly hated for an attraction that none of us chose or can get rid of.