Virginia Professor Says Sexual Attraction To Children Isn’t Always Immoral

Virginia Professor Under Fire For Saying Sexual Attraction To Children Isn’t Always Immoral

An assistant professor at a Virginia university is receiving a lot of heat for explaining it isn’t necessarily immoral for adults to be sexually attracted to children.

Allyn Walker, who teaches sociology and criminal justice at Old Dominion University, made the controversial statement while talking about “minor-attracted persons” and pedophiles during a Nov. 8 interview with the Prostasia Foundation, which is a San Francisco-based child protection organization.

“A lot of people when they hear the term ‘pedophile,’ they automatically assume that it means a sex offender, and that isn’t true,” Walker shared during the 28-minute interview. “And it leads to a lot of misconceptions about attractions towards minors.”

Walker was speaking on their book, “A Long Dark Shadow: Minor-Attracted People and Their Pursuit of Dignity,” when he argued it’s important to use that terminology instead of “pedophile” because it’s less stigmatizing.

Walker admitted use of term “minor-attracted persons” — referred to as MAPs — indicates to some that it’s OK to be attracted to children, but said naming anyone completely by their sexual desires doesn’t imply anything about their morality.

“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,” Walker said. “In other words, it’s not who we’re attracted to that’s either OK or not OK. It’s our behaviors in responding to that attraction that are either OK or not OK.”

We have a tendency to want to categorize people with these attractions as evil or morally corrupt,” Walker continued. “But when we’re talking about non-offending MAPs, these are people who have an attraction they didn’t ask for.”