The MAP term is these days derided on the one hand by conservatives as the epitome of 'woke', and by liberals on the other hand for 'glorifying/normalizing pedophilia'. To many across the entire political spectrum, MAP = pedophile = child rapist. The term was intended not to push any kind of sexual contact agenda, but to unify people attracted to children and teens while avoiding the stigma of the misused 'pedophile' and the many outrageous assumptions surrounding those to whom this term is applied. Pedophile is also a word used to describe a variety of phenomena which are not necessarily connected. Many people, when using this word, are not 'calling a spade a spade', but instead calling a fork a spade.

The unclear meaning of 'pedophile'

Consider various usages of the word pedophile.

1) A person convicted of a child sex offense (including someone convicted for having prohibited images of minors).

Usage: This is the usage typically found in news media. The term convicted pedophile is often used, implying that the crime is itself 'pedophilia'. Based on this definition, pedophilia would refer to having sexual contact with minors or downloading criminalized images.

Problem: About 40% of sexual offenders against minors are preferential (that is, they are predominantly minor-attracted). Around 20% of men in the general population might be deemed minor-attracted by the same standards. However, 60% (under some definitions, more) of those convicted are what criminologists refer to as situational offenders. They commit such offenses due to proximity, convenience (having greater power over a child) or impulsivity, despite preferring adults. 'Child sex offenders' who aren't attracted to children or minors have been compared to to men in prison, or boys in boarding schools who seek sex with other males, but aren't 'gay'.

2) Someone who is at least 16 and who has an attraction to prepubescent children at least 5 years younger.

Usage: This is a technical usage of pedophilia as described in the DSM (though in order to count as a disorder, the attraction needs to cause distress or be acted upon).

Problem: This term at least tries to capture people who are sexually oriented toward prepubescent children (they are usually well under 12/13), but not the many people attracted to pubescents (11-14) and late adolescents (15-17). Since it doesn't technically apply to non-offending people who are free of distress, it fails to account for a form of egosyntonic pedophilia one suspects would still be seen as disordered. This has been picked up on by MAP Activists, and also caused controversy in the academy when the idea of "contented pedophiles" and "pedophilic orientation" was raised in debates over the DSM's wording.

3) Someone who is attracted to significantly younger people, regardless of age.

Usage: Often shortened to 'pedo' and treated as a slur. Used fairly indiscriminately, it is commonly applied to a person who expresses interest in someone either a) under the age of consent (e.g. an 18 year old saying an 15 year old looks "hot") or b) substantially younger (e.g. Leonardo DiCaprio (49) dating only women under 25 years old).

Problem: The 'slur' form of pedophile almost entirely abandons the original meaning, and contradicts the two above. Leonardo DiCaprio's love interests represent the same teleiophilic drives he likely experienced as a man in his mid-20s.

Origins and Purpose of 'MAP'

MAP has its origins in the work of interfaith journalist Heather Peterson, who was frustrated by the lack of an accurate and agreed-upon term to refer to the phenomenon of adult attraction to people under the age of 18. In her own words:

It should be clear from the above that all terminology that presently exists for adult attraction to minors is either imprecise, etymologically incorrect, unfamiliar, or all of the above.

Choosing appropriate terminology is therefore a case of choosing the lesser evils. At the Philia sites, an attempt has been made to choose terminology that is – as much as possible – precise, etymologically correct, and familiar. Unfortunately, none of the terms used can fulfill all of these requirements.

Adults who are attracted to minors are referred to as minor-attracted adults, a term which may smack of political correctness to some, but which describes precisely the indicated group.

Peterson was not trying to engage in what would nowadays be described as 'woke politics'. According to an archived post she submitted to MAP activist resource Newgon, she had stated back in 1998:

So what do you think of the term “minor-attracted adults”? It sounds a bit silly to my ears, but maybe that's just because I hate neologisms. It certainly says what I'm trying to say. It's more accurate than “child-attracted adult” because there's a lot of dispute over what constitutes a child, and though it does leave teenage boylovers out of the picture, one could always use the term “minor-attracted person” if one wanted to include them.

In early 2007, 'BLueRibbon' (currently writing for Mu as Brian Ribbon) used the term 'minor-attracted people' a number of times on various websites, having joined the MAP activist community as an older minor himself. Although he was a non-offending pedophile by definition, being attracted to prepubsecent boys, he was frustrated by the horrific and inaccurate associations between his sexual orientation and the commission of violent sexual crimes. At this time, discussions on terminology were quite common across the MAP community in what is now referred to as the 'second wave' of MAP activism, although this was not picked up on much by the outside press, and the modern iteration of social media hadn't yet taken off.

Later that year, B4U-ACT's Richard Kramer, who had been in contact with Heather Peterson for some time, endorsed the term MAP. Through his connections with various respectable organizations, he was able to promote usage among academics. The term was eventually picked up and spread across social media by young MAPs who would be described by many as 'woke', perhaps leading to the mistaken notion that MAP represents a woke neologism. Why did Kramer endorse the term? He explains in a recent e-mail to Ribbon:

I first learned of the term "Minor-attracted adult" from Heather Elizabeth Peterson, who coined it, and I thought it was better than "pedophile" because it was more accurate, since it includes "hebephiles" and maybe even "ephebophiles" who are not "pedophiles", and because the vast majority of people, including many professionals and so-called experts, think pedophiles are identified by their behavior rather than their attractions. This was in the days before B4U-ACT. Then when I and others at B4U-ACT realized that many people predominantly attracted to people younger than themselves were not adults, we thought it was essential to recognize this fact by using the term "minor-attracted people." It was really a consensus decision within B4U-ACT, rather than mine alone.

So what is the purpose of the MAP term? It is to avoid conflation of attraction and action, and to accurately refer to a range of sexual orientations erroneously labeled 'pedophile'. It seeks to distance responsible MAPs from violent offenders, who often form a distinct group and may not even meet the clinical definition of pedophilia. While "MAP" is sometimes used by people heavily involved in extreme identity-based politics (often intersectionally, i.e. in connection with other kinds of identity), it is not the next step of a 'woke agenda' and is not derived from the work of a Tumblr fandom.

Mu takes a moderate stance on the debate over the value of identity politics. We see MAPs (and potentially, new allies) as being transformative in reinvigorating a stagnant identity-based politics that has lost its ability to effect real, radical change.

Origins and Purpose of 'AMSC' and 'PIM'

In 2024, Mu proposed two new initialisms: AMSC (Adult-Minor Sexual Contact) and PIM (Prohibited Images of Minors). As with MAP, these are not supposed to be euphemistic (euphemisms mask reality, as opposed to correcting distortions), nor the next frontier of 'woke'.

AMSC

Current research terminology (Child Sexual Abuse) used to describe adult-minor sexual contact lacks not only age-appropriateness, but neutrality. Under the most common definitions, many of the younger individuals are not only pubescent or post-pubescent, but the older partners can be prosecuted as minors. "Abuse" is applied to all sexual contact involving minors and an arbitrary age gap. While this does represent a prevailing attitude among many westerners, it is not scientific, nor neutral. While Mu refuses to take a position on the merits of such relationships (despite evidence that challenges the belief they are always harmful), we do expect researchers to use objective language. We would like to see adoption of terminology such AMSC in research, whether the findings are 'positive' or 'negative', for the same reasons that MAP needed to be adopted as a more accurate and neutral way of referring to people attracted to minors. We are very happy to see the usage of MAP in so many high quality research articles, and we hope that AMSC will likewise start to replace the wholly unscientific 'CSA'.

PIM

PIM has a similar purpose, being a value-neutral description of the content to which it refers. Organizations whose funding relies on public hysteria over criminalized images of under-18s have promoted the belief that such images always depict horrific sexual crimes against children, hence the term 'Child Sexual Abuse Material' or 'CSAM'. They know quite well that a significant number of images classified as such contain nothing more than erotic posing, and that many are produced by minors themselves, but it is in their interest to pretend otherwise. Even the expression 'child pornography' is wrong, and not because it implies consent where none is given, but because many images that fall under the remit of criminalization may not even meet the threshold for 'pornography' as a dictionary definition. Furthermore, people are now being prosecuted for images of minors that are wholly generated by AI, and organizations such as the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) are clamoring to whip up panic over this in a desperate bid to stay relevant. The only proper way to refer to such images in a scientific manner is to refer to them by their legal status, hence our proposal for the term 'Prohibited Images of Minors' (PIM).

MAPs have a variety of stances on AMSC and PIM

The MAP term is frequently used by people who are against the reform of laws and attitudes toward AMSC, but that isn't always the case. Within the MAP community, there are a number of different stances with varying degrees of popularity. However, the MAP community as a whole is opposed to sexual violence, and the vast majority of MAP communities do not allow members to encourage law-breaking regardless of their philosophical stance. Harm reduction for minors and adults is a key focus of any activism supporting the reform of relevant laws, including Age of Consent abolitionism that is focused on finding different ways to protect people of all ages from harm.

It has unfortunately been claimed by hate groups and far-right politicians that organizations like Mu advocate for the wholesale decriminalization of sex with minors. However, as an an organization aiming to represent the broader MAP community, we do not take a stance on Age of Consent laws. Members of our editorial team, writing in a personal capacity, have proposed a cautious 16/12 hybrid Age of Consent that would better protect young people and same-age or older partners. The proposal would allow teenagers to have a say in whether or not they were exploited and support prosecution, and this right would extend into early adulthood.

Stances on PIM are also varied across the MAP community. Many MAPs do not support even the private viewing of PIM. Some see a difference between pornographic PIM and non-pornographic PIM (as discussed in research linked above, many legal cases have been brought over the latter). Other MAPs believe that downloading PIM from file-sharing websites is not harmful as it provides no benefit to the original producer, and thus the 'supply and demand' argument is reduced to nothing more than moral repugnance or 'harm by voodoo'. Almost all MAPs agree that images generated entirely by AI, not based on real minors, should be decriminalized; Mu very much endorses this position.

Summary

The terms that Mu uses, such as MAP, AMSC, and PIM are not intended to be euphemistic, nor do they imply any value statement. They exist as neutral phrases for exploring issues that currently have no other neutral and accurate alternatives. No matter how one feels about an issue, it is in everyone's interest to be accurate in the expressions we use, and it is absolutely crucial for researchers to use both accurate and value-neutral terminology.

Please feel free to discuss this article in our dedicated forum thread.