Guest Blogs
Guest Blogs are written by non-Mu members, and might include critical or controversial perspectives we have deemed to be worth discussing on our forum. These essays do not represent the collective policies or positions of Mu, which are best summarized by our principles here, and elsewhere on our site. The perspectives of our committee members form part of a separate content feed.
In this article, guest blogger Andrew K. discusses how careful choice of language and humanizing stories affect how MAPs are perceived. The thoughts expressed are those of the author, and his preferred referencing style has been maintained.
The article
In the popular imagination, “pedophile” means dangerous sexual predator. News stories supply the image of the average pedophile as a monster. Jeffrey Epstein. Ian Watkins. Jimmy Savile. To add to the stigmatization, pedophilia is studied as a paraphilia or mental disorder, not as a variation of sexual orientation. However, there are organizations and people pushing back on the mischaracterization of the average pe...