{"id":72,"date":"2018-09-11T02:22:50","date_gmt":"2018-09-11T02:22:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tnf13stories.wordpress.com\/?p=72"},"modified":"2018-09-11T02:22:50","modified_gmt":"2018-09-11T02:22:50","slug":"tgpp-transcript-dr-allyson-walker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aboutpedophilia.com\/2018\/09\/11\/tgpp-transcript-dr-allyson-walker\/","title":{"rendered":"TGPP Transcript: Dr. Allyson Walker"},"content":{"rendered":"

Original audio.<\/a><\/p>\n

Candice:<\/p>\n

Welcome to the prevention podcast, I\u2019m your host, Candice Christiansen. Our goal, at the prevention podcast, is to talk about dicey, controversial issues related to preventing sexual abuse. Why? Because it needs to be said. Topics include the biology of pedophilia, risk, need and responsivity principles related to non-contact and contact sex offenders, researchers in the field of sex offender treatment, and more.<\/p>\n

Join us bi-weekly, and let\u2019s talk about it.<\/p>\n

Hello, this is Candice Christiansen, welcome to the Prevention Podcast. As I have been sharing, we are doing a series of podcasts talking about pedophilia, and we\u2019re interviewing all kinds of interesting people, including anti-contact pedophiles, and today we have a wonderful guest, doctor Allyson Walker, welcome.<\/p>\n

Allyson: Thank you!<\/p>\n

Candice: I first want to say that Dr. Walker identifies as non-binary, and so today we will be referring to Dr. Walker as \u201cthey,\u201d \u201cthem,\u201d and \u201cthey\u2019re.\u201d Alright, well welcome to our podcast.<\/p>\n

Allyson: Thank you so much!<\/p>\n

Candice:<\/p>\n

I\u2019m so happy we met! It\u2019s really great that you found us, and that we found you, and that you\u2019re doing the amazing research that you\u2019re doing. That\u2019s one of the things that I want people that are listening to us to know, is that you are doing research on pedophiles. And so, really, if you are open, let\u2019s start with that. What is your research about?<\/p>\n

Allyson:<\/p>\n

So, I did a study that I call the MAP resilience study, MAP stands for minor attracted person. A lot of the time, people will talk about pedophiles and MAP is a term that is used by people in the minor-attracted community to refer to themselves. It includes pedophiles, which are people who are attracted to prepubescent children, and then also to hebephiles, who are attracted to children in the early stages of puberty, and then sometimes ephebophiles, which are attracted to children in the late stages of puberty. So often, MAP is used by people in this population as a less stigmatizing term and also as an umbrella term that kind of includes everyone.<\/p>\n

So, I did this study, the MAP resilience study, to find out\u2026 I come from a criminal justice background, my PhD is in criminal justice, and also a social work background. So, I wanted to find out what motivates MAPs to not commit offenses, how do they strategize not to commit offenses, and then also, how do they cope with their attractions, their sexuality, and deal with the stigma that they\u2019ve got going on in their lives.<\/p>\n

Candice: That\u2019s great! I appreciate you explaining MAPs because we have talked about MAPs on this podcast, and I kept saying pedophile, which is funny because I do<\/em><\/strong> know about hebephiles and ephebophiles. And so, thank you for clarifying that, I think that\u2019s really important. And it\u2019s such an interesting topic of research. What interested you in this type of research?<\/p>\n

Allyson:<\/p>\n

So, before I had gone back to get my PhD, I was hearing about individuals who are attracted to minors saying, \u201cI\u2019m attracted to minors, I don\u2019t want to offend, and I never have.\u201d I had never really considered that, that this population even existed. So, I was working in criminal justice at the time, I started looking into the criminological literature about it, and there\u2019s really nothing that talks about people that are attracted to minors that don\u2019t commit sexual offenses, so I got really<\/em> interested in this.<\/p>\n

Especially, I don\u2019t know if you\u2019ve heard this research, but there\u2019s a bunch of it saying they\u2019ve done studies the general population and talking about pedophiles and asking them, \u201cDo you think this population should be incarcerated, even if they haven\u2019t committed an offense?\u201d And a huge<\/em> proportion say yes. A huge proportion say they would be better off dead. So, it\u2019s really upsetting stuff, and I was interested in how are people dealing with this stigma and how do they deal with their sexuality in general, so I decided to study it.<\/p>\n

Candice:<\/p>\n

I appreciate you saying that it\u2019s upsetting. One of the things that I post on Twitter quite a bit is that it is<\/em> upsetting anti-contact, and I\u2019ll literally put it in CAPS, \u201cANTI-CONTACT pedophiles\u201d are told, like, \u201cDie,\u201d threatened, and there\u2019s so much hate out there, and it\u2019s acceptable in our society. And, this misunderstanding, \u201cOh, yeah, let\u2019s just throw them all\u2026 lock them up and throw away the key.\u201d And so, what I think I\u2019m struggling with, and this is why I\u2019m doing this podcast, they\u2019re anti-contact. They don\u2019t have a history of contact. But because the media has run wild with the term, \u201cpedophile,\u201d I think really misused it, and I think you see that too, right?<\/p>\n

Allyson:<\/p>\n

So many people think that \u201cpedophile,\u201d means \u201csex offender,\u201d and that wasn\u2019t a finding of my study necessarily because I already knew it doesn\u2019t mean that. But so many people talked in my study even about that misconception, people have come out to their parents, people in my study said that, you know, this one person in particular told his dad, \u201cI\u2019m a pedophile,\u201d and his dad said, \u201cBut being a pedophile is illegal.\u201d<\/p>\n

No, it\u2019s not illegal, it specifically refers to that attraction, or sexuality if you will, of being attracted to minors, and does not in any way refer to their behavior at all. It\u2019s really upsetting that so many people make that connection, and also like you were saying, about the online people saying, \u201cKill yourself! Die!\u201d I\u2019ve seen Tumblr pages belonging to MAPs. So, often people connect to other people using hashtags, and tags to spread positivity to each other. And so, there\u2019s like a tag that\u2019s \u201c#map positivity\u201d or \u201c#nomap positivity\u201d for \u201cnon-offending minor attracted person positivity.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, people on Tumblr who are against MAPs have been latching onto this tag and posting things like, \u201cKill yourself!\u201d but with hearts and stuff so MAPs will look at it think, \u201cOh, this is going to be some positivity!\u201d and they see, oh no, it\u2019s someone telling me to kill myself again. One of the people in my study told me, \u201cWe get used to the phrase, \u2018Kill yourself!\u2019 we hear that a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Candice: Which is sad. But you and I are talking, and some of our listeners are going to be people who believe that. And so, I think what I\u2019d like you to, even though you may have already said it, I feel like we need to say it again. What is a non-offending or anti-contact pedophile?<\/p>\n

Allyson:<\/p>\n

A non-offending pedophile or MAP is a person who has an attraction to minors, if we\u2019re talking specifically about pedophiles, to prepubescent children, and they have not committed a sexual offense against a child. Anti-contact people are specifically people who are against sexual relationships or sexual contact of any kind between adults and youth, and those people exist. So, not all MAPs, not all pedophiles are interested in sexual contact. A lot of them believe it would cause harm to children, and so they just don\u2019t have any interest in engaging in that and causing that kind of harm. Never have, and never will.<\/p>\n

Candice:<\/p>\n

So, some of our listeners might say, \u201cSo this is a choice. Being a pedophile\u2019s a choice.\u201d What do you say to that? And, what does your research say, perhaps?<\/p>\n

Allyson:<\/p>\n

So, a lot of research, I have not done this particular research, but a lot of research out there shows that, pedophilia is a sexual orientation, it can\u2019t be changed. So, a lot of the people in my study had tried to change their orientation, tried to change their sexuality. What we find is, people who study this have found, it mirrors being gay. You keep being attracted to that age throughout your lifetime, so Michael Seto refers to it as a sexual age orientation<\/a> rather than a gender orientation. So, some people are just attracted to a specific age.<\/p>\n

Candice:<\/p>\n

Well, I appreciate you saying that too, sexual age orientation, because I can\u2026 my guess is\u2026 a lot of individuals might listen to this LGBTQ and say, \u201cWHOAH, whoa, whoa\u2026 we DO NOT want to be affiliated with someone that\u2019s a pedophile.\u201d<\/p>\n

Allyson:<\/p>\n

Yeah, and that\u2019s understandable, especially given the assumption that pedophiles are automatically sex offenders, really it\u2019s difficult for us to in our minds separate that. There\u2019s also been a history of people in the LGBT community being accused of sexual contact with minors based on their sexual orientation. So there\u2019s really a lot of parallels in how MAPs and the LGBT community have been treated, have been assumed to exist.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, those parallels have maybe made the LGBT community not want to associate with the MAP community, which makes sense. It\u2019s also unfortunate.<\/p>\n

Candice:<\/p>\n

Yeah, it\u2019s unfortunate. Let\u2019s get into your research. Your research is amazing and I hope that the world gets to read it and see it and I hope you present it at ATSA (Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers), ATSA conference, I think it needs to be out there. So, who did you interview for your study, specifically?<\/p>\n

Allyson:<\/p>\n

So, I interviewed 42 minor-attracted individuals. They came from all over the world, so I had a lot from the US, some from Canada, Europe, Asia, Africa\u2026 they were from all over. These were all individuals who not only were minor-attracted, but also were committed to not offending and had not offended. They had not committed a sexual offense against a child: That was a requirement for participation in the study.<\/p>\n

Candice:<\/p>\n

Where did you find your participants? I was thinking that, like, how did they come to you?<\/p>\n

Allyson:<\/p>\n

So, I interviewed them from two different groups. One is Virped, which stands for Virtuous Pedophiles. They\u2019re an amazing website. I don\u2019t know the latest count, but when I was doing my study, which was a little over a year ago, there were 1,800 members of Virped, and not all of them post regularly but a lot of them do, and they\u2019re a peer support group so they kind of help each other with the stigma that they\u2019re facing and sometimes with strategizing not to offend. So, I got a lot of my participants through there, I advertised on there, or, people advertised for<\/em> me on there I should say.<\/p>\n

And then I also advertised on the B4UAct website. They\u2019re a group located out of Baltimore, Maryland. They also provide peer support like Virped, but they have an in-person component as well. They try to advertise to mental health professionals, who might work with MAPs, and try to teach them about issues related to them so they can provide effective services.<\/p>\n

Candice:<\/p>\n

So you got a wide range and from all over it sounds like, which is great!<\/p>\n

Allyson:<\/p>\n

Yeah, I had also a wide age range as well, so a lot of people think that pedophiles\/MAPs, that they\u2019re\u2026 even people in my study told me they had this image of pedophiles as like, creepy old men. The people in my study ranged in age from 19 to their mid-60\u2019s, and were a mix of men and women, I had 39 men and 3 women in my study.<\/p>\n

Candice:<\/p>\n

And I think one of the things I\u2019ve talked about before is women\u2026 there are<\/em> female pedophiles. It\u2019s such an under-researched population, so I think it\u2019s great that at least you had 3, right? I also, we interviewed somebody that was in their late teens recently, and so I think that\u2019s\u2026 There is a clear misunderstanding that like, it is this old man, this dirty old man, hiding out in n alley waiting to snatch you up in the van. That type of a thing\u2026 I do wonder if some of our listeners might say, well, \u201cIf you\u2019re a teenager<\/em>, how do you know if you\u2019re a pedophile?\u201d What would you say to that?<\/p>\n

Allyson:<\/p>\n

Sure, I mean, I think for a lot of people, even in the MAP community, you hear people saying, \u201cWell, you\u2019re a teenager, this could<\/em> change, your sexuality could change as you age.\u201d But, for a lot of folks, they just know. Especially, teens tend to have attractions towards adults and other teens, so if you\u2019re a teen and you\u2019re having attractions toward people that are way younger than you, that can be a pretty solid sign that they\u2019re minor-attracted.<\/p>\n

Candice:<\/p>\n

I think that\u2019s a good delineation. What surprised you most about what you were told or about what the participants told you?<\/p>\n

Allyson:<\/p>\n

I came from a criminal justice background, as I said, and I was really trying to figure out, well, what is motivating people not to offend. So, I just generally assumed, when I asked people that question, they would say, \u201cWell, I don\u2019t want to go to jail.\u201d And, for some people, that is what they told me\u2026 but the overwhelming majority <\/em>just were kind of like, \u201cWell, obviously I don\u2019t want to hurt a child.\u201d<\/p>\n

Really, that did<\/em> surprise me, these people are highly moral people, you know, they\u2019re like anyone else, a lot of them told me, \u201cI love children, I wouldn\u2019t want to hurt them.\u201d So, this is not just the sexual urge that people have, it\u2019s also, people have romantic attractions to children, they have romantic feelings, they have emotional feelings, and they\u2019re not interested in harming a child.<\/p>\n

They love children, they\u2019re attracted to them, but they don\u2019t want to harm them. So, that was their answer and it shocked me.<\/p>\n

Candice:<\/p>\n

Yeah, and I appreciate you saying that too, because we have interviewed individuals who have said, \u201cWell, I love a child, I love children, I would never do that.\u201d So, I can see with some listeners saying, \u201cWell, they love children!\u201d And then judging it, like, \u201cThat\u2019s disgusting,\u201d or, \u201cThat means they\u2019re going to hurt someone! If they\u2019re around the child\u2026!\u201d What I hear you saying, which I appreciate, \u201cNo, because I love children\u2026\u201d They truly don\u2019t want to harm a child, because it\u2019s this moral choice and they don\u2019t want to hurt anybody.<\/p>\n

Allyson:<\/p>\n

So, I was asking people, \u201cHow do you strategize not to do this?\u201d And, for a lot of them, they were like, \u201cIt\u2019s easy! I just don\u2019t! I can\u2019t just trip and fall into a child!\u201d \u2026is what one of them said. And it\u2019s really interesting that we think of this group as having maybe impulse control issues, and like if they just saw one, they\u2019d you know, prey on that child? That\u2019s not<\/em> the experience of the people I spoke to at all.<\/p>\n

Candice:<\/p>\n

Well, that\u2019s a huge assumption too, isn\u2019t it? I mean, that\u2019s the assumption that pedophile equals child molester.<\/p>\n

Allyson:<\/p>\n

Right, absolutely, and it\u2019s a ridiculous assumption if you think about it. But, media interpretations of pedophiles, of MAPs, it\u2019s so<\/em> pervasive. I had someone tell me that it was a trope, and that, \u201cIf you want to make your character a bad guy, make him a pedophile.\u201d He said, \u201cWhen have you ever seen, in the media, a pedophile being a good guy?\u201d And I said, \u201cWell, no, I never have\u2026\u201d And he said\u2026 \u201cWell, that\u2019s the point! You never do! It\u2019s easy to villainize someone.\u201d Because that\u2019s just our expectations.<\/p>\n

And the really<\/em> upsetting thing to me was that when I talked to a lot of these folks, they told me that when they realized that they were attracted to children they assumed they were going to be<\/em> monsters. That was literally the term that they used, \u201cAm I a monster? What\u2019s wrong with me? I assumed I was going to end up like those other people I\u2019ve seen in the news, who hurt children.\u201d And it took them a while sometimes to get to that place where they were like, \u201cThat\u2019s not who I am, I\u2019m not going to do this, I\u2019m not a monster, I\u2019m not going to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Candice:<\/p>\n

Isn\u2019t that interesting, that influence though? Right, the media\u2019s influence? So even someone say, growing up and watching a movie where there\u2019s a rape, but growing up and watching it so much and \u201cOh, this boy with blonde hair and blue eyes was a rapist. So, if I have blonde hair and blue eyes, I\u2019m going to be a rapist\u2026 I\u2019m going to be a rapist\u2026 I\u2019m going to be a rapist\u2026\u201d Instead of, no. But it is sad that the media\u2019s so powerful that for someone who has an attraction such as this, it really can impact them to think, \u201cI am<\/em><\/strong> a monster.\u201d<\/p>\n

Allyson:<\/p>\n

Absolutely, and there\u2019s so little community\u2026 I mean, the community that exists is amazing, especially VirPed and B4UAct, but there\u2019s so little advertising for these communities that so few people know that they exist. So, even when the people that I talk to that thought originally, \u201cAm I a monster?\u201d They got to this place where they were like, \u201cNo, it\u2019s not going to be me,\u201d but then they thought, \u201cI\u2019m the only one who\u2019s good and minor-attracted,\u201d or \u201cI\u2019m the only \u2018good\u2019 pedophile out there\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s shocking the number of people that I heard tell me that, because they just did not realize<\/em> that there were other people like them out there. When they told me that they found a community, that they did find out there were people like the, it was just this revelation of, \u201cI\u2019m not alone, I\u2019m not the only one, there are others like me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Candice:<\/p>\n

There are a lot of similar people who are pedophiles, and I think our society wants to say, again, it\u2019s the older man in a dark corner alleyway that\u2019s a child molester. Then, they automatically say, \u201cOh, they had sex with a 16-year-old, they\u2019re a pedophile<\/em>.\u201d Again, it\u2019s just this uneducated explanation, which does isolate people with pedophilia. There is, because there\u2019s so much stigma, and there\u2019s pedo hunters and so much hate, that it makes sense that people do feel alone. And it also, when I think of the work we do with prevention, and thinking of the folks that we\u2019ve treated, it is really scary to reach out. Because, who are we, first, can we be trusted to offer that support, or, are we going to judge them as monsters, are we pedo hunters, you know, what might<\/em> we do, are we going to expose them on the web and slander them, and so on and so forth\u2026<\/p>\n

Allyson:<\/p>\n

That was something that I found in my research to, I talked to people a lot about how<\/em> they coped with their sexuality, and a lot of people told me that they wanted<\/em> some kind of mental health treatment, wanted to go see people like you, and they were just too afraid. They\u2019d heard stories about people where mental health professionals were outing them to the police, outing them to family, just straight-up telling them, \u201cI can\u2019t help you,\u201d leaving them without a referral, treating them with suspicion in general, or even trying to do some kind of conversion therapy where they would be asked to write down their attractions and then smell bath salts or ammonia or something.<\/p>\n

So, just really horrible treatment from a lot of mental health professionals. It kept a lot of them from seeking out care at all. A lot of the people I spoke to did have those experiences, where they were turned away from care, they were treated with suspicion. Someone said to her counselor, \u201cWould you be able to work with someone who is attracted to children?\u201d And her counselor said, \u201cNo, I can\u2019t work with someone who\u2019s hurt a child.\u201d And she said, \u201cNo, that\u2019s not what I said\u2026\u201d and they were able to have that conversation and fortunately work it out, but there was that moment in the beginning where the person got up to leave, and the practitioner said, \u201cWell, I can\u2019t treat you if you\u2019ve done something to a child.\u201d She had to go back, and then it was on her to educate her counselor about that.<\/p>\n

Candice:<\/p>\n

Which would be nice if counselors were more educated, one of the things that we\u2019re known for is, we get calls from clinicians and therapists nationwide who will say, \u201cWe\u2019ve heard that you\u2019ve got support for psychoeducational support,\u201d or locally we\u2019ve heard that you are willing to treat, and then we do a lot of educating as well. We\u2019ll also get a lot of questions when we first started out, this was several years ago, people saying, \u201cWell, how is it possible that you\u2019re treating these individuals? Don\u2019t you need to report them?\u201d And it\u2019s like\u2026 what exactly do we need to report them for?<\/p>\n

Allyson:<\/p>\n

That\u2019s scary that so many people think that they need to be reported, and I did talk to someone who had never committed an offense, he did not say that he was going to commit an offense, but his counselor reported him to the police and told him about that in his second session with her, and he hasn\u2019t been able to trust mental health professionals since. So, a lot of these people if they are concerned that they are going to act out about their orientation and they don\u2019t feel like there\u2019s anyone out there they can trust, that\u2019s a huge problem that keeps us from preventing crime.<\/p>\n

And also, a lot of these people don\u2019t struggle with urges, with that kind of stuff, but they struggle with the stigma that is attached to their sexuality, they struggle with depression or anxiety, shame for sure, and again they just don\u2019t feel like they can find any help out there.<\/p>\n

Candice:<\/p>\n

So, I appreciate us talking about that too because, you\u2019ve talked about some of the damaging ways that mental health practitioners will show up for these individuals, and one of the things that we are huge proponents of is, let\u2019s work on shame reduction, let\u2019s work on lifestyle and choices, and ways to stay safe and have a healthy adult relationship and\u2026 manage your attractions in a way that keep you and society and children safe. That\u2019s such a more productive way to look at supporting these individuals rather than, again, lumping them in a category as a child molester and a sex offender, so I\u2019m so happy we\u2019re talking about this. What challenges did you or your research participants face or come up against?<\/p>\n

Allyson:<\/p>\n

The big one I would say is that stigma piece, people saying, \u201cWell, I can\u2019t be out on the internet because people will tell me to die.\u201d They had issues with coming out to their family, or not coming out to their family, because they really didn\u2019t feel like they could trust them with that. A lot of them were in relationships with other adults, so another piece that we didn\u2019t talk about is this difference between being exclusively and non-exclusively attracted to minors. So, a lot of the people in my study were exclusively attracted to minors or children, and some were attracted to minors preferentially, but then had attractions to adults as well.<\/p>\n

They were often able to find adult partners that they could be in relationships with, and even though they were in those relationships, often very happy in those relationships, that\u2019s a big secret to be keeping from someone. These attractions, this sexuality that you have. And you want to be open and honest in any relationship, so to feel like, not necessarily that this person that they\u2019re with is not trustworthy in general, but everyone has this idea of what a pedophile or minor-attracted person is, so even a very trustworthy person in general could have suspicions toward people.<\/p>\n

Some people did come out to their partners, and that was to a range of different reactions. Some of them were very supportive, which was awesome, some of them broke up with them immediately or reported them, even though they hadn\u2019t committed a crime, so it was a big risk to them to tell their partners.<\/p>\n

I think another huge challenge that these folks came in contact with was loneliness. Especially for the people who were exclusively attracted to minors, these people often grew up assuming, \u201cI\u2019m going to get married, I\u2019m going to fall in love, I\u2019m going to have kids, yada yada,\u201d and\u2026 then they realized they were minor attracted and, again, exclusively, and they said, \u201cThat\u2019s never going to happen with me, I\u2019m never going to be with someone I\u2019m romantically or sexually attracted to, at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s\u2026 a really<\/em> tough thing to deal with, this realization that you don\u2019t have any prospects romatically? Or sexually? I can\u2019t imagine feeling that way. Just, that loneliness was a big part of their lives, and there\u2019s really nothing that a lot of people can say to them about that. So important for them to get some kind of support. To know that they didn\u2019t have that support, on top of those feelings of loneliness, that\u2019s really hard to hear.<\/p>\n

Candice:<\/p>\n

I wanted to ask you if any of your colleagues or anyone in your cohort, when you were doing your research, if they had any judgment or opinions about, or even your professors, had any opinions\u2026 because this is definitely such a dicey topic\u2026<\/p>\n

Allyson:<\/p>\n

Yeah, when you say professors, so, first day of a specific class, I won\u2019t say which, we were asked to go around the room and say our research interests, and it got to me and I said, \u201cI want to study individuals who are attracted to minors, who have never committed a sexual offense.\u201d My professor looked at me and said, \u201cYUCK!\u201d and moved on to the next person. So, that was quite a way to start my program.<\/p>\n

Candice:<\/p>\n

What was that like for you?<\/p>\n

Allyson:<\/p>\n

I think I thought, \u201cWell, I\u2019m going to get a lot of this, I may as well get used to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Candice:<\/p>\n

Did you?<\/p>\n

Allyson:<\/p>\n

You know, I really haven\u2019t encountered many of those kinds of reactions. I have had people tell me my research is triggering to them. I can see people being triggered by, triggers can happen with anything, so that\u2019s understandable. But I think a lot of the idea of it being triggering is, again, this assumption that individuals who are minor attracted are going<\/em> to commit an offense. So, even if I\u2019m talking about people who have never committed an offense, they\u2019re committed to non-offending throughout their lives, it\u2019s still\u2026 that really says something when someone says, \u201cI\u2019m triggered by that.\u201d It shows how deep those assumptions are.<\/p>\n

I think the majority of the responses I get are interest. People really don\u2019t know that this is a population that exists. I had a job talk where I started talking about my research, and people in the room started Googling while I was talking. They started, like, taking out their phones? And what I found out afterward is that they were doubting whether or not this was a population that existed. I think what they specifically were Googling was the word \u201cpedophile\u201d they were like, wait\u2026 and these are criminal justice people, they did not know that pedophile does not mean sex offender. They were checking up on me.<\/p>\n

Candice:<\/p>\n

I was on a listserv recently, and an individual reached out and said, \u201cHey, I\u2019m in a different state, I\u2019ve got an individual who has pedophilia and needs some support,\u201d so I responded and said, we have these services, and gave my information, then a colleague reached out on the listserv and said, \u201cHey, just so you know, we treat pedophilia as well, we\u2019re all sex offender providers,\u201d and just went into this language of sex offender treatment. Again, it\u2019s kind of frustrating, this automatic assumption that, \u201csex offender providers\u201d and, \u201ctherefore we\u2019re treating pedophiles,\u201d and nowhere on the email did he say this was a contact-offending individual who was a pedophile.<\/p>\n

Allyson:<\/p>\n

A lot of the people that I spoke to who had sought out mental health care, they ended up in treatment with people who specialized in sex offender treatment. On the one hand, it kind of makes sense, it made sense to them, they were saying, \u201cwell, okay, these professionals know what a pedophiles is, they specialize in this, I should get help from them,\u201d but then on the flip side, they often treated them, a lot of the times the phrase was, \u201clike a ticking time bomb.\u201d They said, \u201cYou\u2019re probably going to commit an offense, we\u2019re going to work with you not to,\u201d and a lot of the time they weren\u2019t there to try to get help with non-offending, they were just there to deal with loneliness, deal with stigma, all that stuff, and so this suspicion that providers had, who are there to hopefully start where the client is, treat them like a person\u2026 they just weren\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Candice:<\/p>\n

Well, hopefully you\u2019ll be doing some research with providers or research on providers to find out\u2026<\/p>\n

Allyson: That\u2019s the goal. So, the next step for me is to do some research with mental health professionals and their opinions toward pedophiles and MAPs, and also looking at their knowledge of mandated reporting, since it was such an issue with a lot of folks in my study, and just to see how do people know who are providing services or who are going to be providing services. The laws, the policies in this field surrounding when you should and can report.<\/p>\n

Candice:<\/p>\n

That is so needed, I\u2019ve not heard of any<\/em> research out there that\u2019s looked at mental health provider\u2019s views. I think that is so needed. And then some education, and even training, and hopefully some continuing education for professionals, right?<\/p>\n

Allyson:<\/p>\n

I think B4UAct is trying to start that kind of dialogue. They have a monthly dialogue between MAPs and providers. But yeah, we need a lot more of it.<\/p>\n

Candice:<\/p>\n

Yeah, we do. Well, thank you so much for being on the show. Is there anything else, Doctor Walker, that you want to share with our listeners? This has been such a privilege, so anything else that\u2026<\/p>\n

Allyson:<\/p>\n

You know, I asked at the end of my interviews with MAPs, \u201cWhat would you say to another person who\u2019s struggling with this?\u201d And, the majority of them said, \u201cYou are not a monster.\u201d And, I really want to take that and leave you with that message of, these people are not monsters and if you are struggling with these attractions and you haven\u2019t been able to tell others, just know that for yourself, and know that there are groups out there. There\u2019s VirPed, there\u2019s B4UAct, there are others who would love to talk to you.<\/p>\n

Candice:<\/p>\n

Great, thank you so much, thank you for being on our podcast. Thank you for listening to this week\u2019s podcast. Please visit, www.thepreventionproject.org<\/a> to learn more about our project and programs. Please remember to subscribe to our podcast at www.thepreventionpodcast.com<\/a> or iTunes. See you next time!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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