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Why do people believe that all MAPs are child molesters when it isn't true? The words pedophile and child molester mean the same thing to most people. When they are told the two terms can be separate, sometimes they react in surprise, and often they react by rejecting the correction.
Indeed, some authoritative sources do suggest that the definition of pedophilia can include "engaging in sexual acts with a prepubescent child".
But if you look closely at that definition, it says that pedophilia can involve sexual fantasies or sexual acts. Not necessarily both.
People seem to either want to believe that anyone who is attracted to children molests them, or that if you admit they might not, you are somehow denying the existence or importance of child sexual abuse.
But these are mistakes. Why?
What is the fallacy?
The idea that anyone who is sexually attracted to children is sexually abusing children, or has in the past.
Random example: You actually believe in "non-offending pedophiles"? Did you read _any_ of the articles I linked? I'm sorry but I was very patient with you and you clearly have no respect for this topic or for the actual research done by actual experts on the topic of these hypothetical virtuous pedophiles. — Salty 🇵🇸 🇵🇸 (@nacl.sh) 8 December 2024 at 08:06
What makes it false?
The fact that not everyone who is sexually or romantically attracted to pre-pubescent children does abuse a child. Some people do go their entire lives with the attraction but never acting on it.
There is not good evidence about how many people with the attraction exist and there is not clear evidence about how many people who abuse children are not attracted to them. Therefore there is not enough evidence to make the statement. It is based only on prejudice.
Why do people believe it?
People believe it because:
(a) a lot of people who actually do sexually abuse children are motivated by a sexual attraction toward them. There is good evidence for this, even though there is also good evidence that many child sexual abusers are not attracted to children.
(b) hardly any non-abusing pedophiles (who only have the attraction) 'come out' to their families or seek publicity to explain they also have the attraction, and so are invisible. The cases where people do come out create a lot of danger for the person. Some media appearances happen, but few enough for most people to be unaware of them or to consider them insignificant if they do.
(c) when non-abusing pedophiles (with only the attraction) explain that this is what they are, people prefer to believe they are liars and assume that they are, in fact, also child sexual abusers. This is because they have understood that criminals will lie about the acts they have committed and they assume any pedophile is a criminal.
The innocence of such people is very hard to prove, since nobody has anything other than their word that they have not committed a crime. A crime is supposed to only be suspected when there is evidence for it (if someone said you were a criminal, your first response would be "where's your evidence?"), but the presumption of innocence is not applied to people attracted to children. They are assumed to be criminals first, then on that basis assumed to be lying about being criminals.
(d) there is lots and lots of media coverage every day of pedophiles who do sexually abuse children or do other illegal things. Most days there is a story about this. Most days there is not a story about a non-abusing pedophile—or rather, there probably are lots of such stories, but about people who are not identified in the stores as non-abusing pedophiles. This creates a bias in people's minds. Everybody they ever hear about who was attracted to children abused children. It seems like 100% of pedophiles they heard about abused a child or did something similar.
Is any part of it true?
The key part that is true is the fact that the opposite is not true. If somebody said "people with attractions to children don't abuse children" this would be false, as many do.
Where the fallacy comes in is that people seem to feel they must choose between only two possible situations
a) either ALL people with attraction to children are child sex abusers or
b) NONE of them are.
Since the second one is clearly false and also outrageous, people are comfortable sticking with the first, which is a very common belief and unlikely to be challenged. They may also prefer to believe it is fairer to potential victims to begin with suspicion of anybody who says something that suggests they have the attraction.
However, b being false does not make a true. In fact a is not true.
What if it were true?
If it were true that every single person with attractions to children were a sexual abuser, we would expect to see different laws and different approaches to the problem of child sexual abuse than we have now.
Firstly, there would be outright black-and-white bans on people with an attraction to children having access to children. Future parents would be tested for the attraction and teaching applicants would be too. Precautionary decisions would be taken to bar people where there was some doubt. No such bans exist.
People would be imprisoned for having the attraction whether or not there is evidence that they have abused a child and there would be specific laws for this purpose.
Instead, the laws in every country require some evidence that sexual abuse has actually taken place before someone is arrested, tried, convicted or punished for it. The law considers abuse separate from attraction, even if many people in law enforcement and the public see a correlation between the two things.
What would it take to get people to stop believing it?
For people to stop believing that all people with the attraction are abusing children, a lot of people would need to become aware of people close to them who have the attraction and who don't abuse children.
It is difficult to believe a stranger's claims or the claims of someone anonymous on the internet. But it is easier to believe someone you have known for a long time if you have seen them in other contexts besides their attractions.
There are two ways this might happen.
One way is that the people are forced into the open as many gay men were during the AIDS crisis. A possible way this might happen to people attracted to children is that laws criminalising fictional material that they like may begin to identify those who use it in preference to (or as well as) abusing children or viewing photographic or video child sexual abuse material.
Another way is that people in this situation choose to tell their families or or friends, or to reach out for mental health support because they feel bad about being stigmatised. This is extremely risky at the moment but as society becomes less tolerant of milder and milder expressions of attraction to anybody under the age of 18, more and more people will begin to feel unease about such feelings and may reach out for help.
A second way in which people might stop believing that all people with the attraction are child abusers is the collection of evidence about this whole population, such that it becomes more possible to reliably estimate the total number of people who have the attraction and compare it to the number of such people who commit sexual offences against children.
At the same time if more reliable information is gathered about people who do sexually abuse children—establishing how many actually have the attraction—it would be clearer still what the size is of four separate groups:
1) People who abuse children and are attracted to them
2) People who don't abuse children but who are attracted to them
3) People who abuse children and are not attracted to them ('situational offenders' or young people only somewhat older than the victims)
4) People who don't abuse children and are not attracted to them.
We can be confident that group 4 will be the largest.
Groups 1 and 3 are difficult to measure because many people faced with sexual charges against children often claim they are not attracted to them, and also because people who abuse children are often assumed to be attracted to them without anyone actually checking.
Group 2 is difficult to measure because very few non-abusing people with the attraction are likely to identify themselves to researchers, and because they are not usually in the criminal justice system, they are unlikely to be compelled to do so.
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