How ‘Cancel Culture’ Stifles Efforts to Combat Child Sexual Abuse

In a recent Op Ed,in The New York Daily News, Cheryl Roberts, a city court judge in Hudson, N.Y., and the executive director of the Greenburger Center for Social and Criminal Justice, wrote  that “childhood sexual abuse is still too often underreported or, even more tragically, not acted upon by ‘responsible’ adults when a child manages to speak up.”

“If the goal is to stop this kind of harm, we must talk about sex — the good, the bad and the very ugly — and make sure children are well versed in it too,” argued Judge Roberts, who went on to call for greater understanding of “paraphilic disorders, including pedophilia because, as one study explained, ‘only about 50 percent of all individuals who do sexually abuse children are pedophilic.’”

Roberts continued: “Not every person with pedophilia abuses children. Contrary to stereotype, for most living with pedophilia, it does not come from being sexually abused as a child.”

My first thought was amazement that a conservative paper like the News actually published an honest article about America’s fear of sexuality. My second thought was to wonder whether the newspaper would be a target of  “Cancel Culture.”

You cannot have open discussions about pedophilia or sex offenses without the accusation that doing so will somehow “normalize pedophilia.”

One of the buzzwords used to propagate fear and stifle critical discussion on sex crime prevention is the phrase “normalizing pedophilia.”

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, to “normalize” means “to allow or encourage” something considered extreme or taboo to become viewed as normal.  Pedophilia is defined as a long-term sexual attraction to prepubescent children.

However, “normalizing pedophilia” is used solely ad hominem to describe anyone who tries to understand why some people are attracted to children, even if the goal is to understand the condition in order to prevent sexual abuse.

In recent years, the term “pedophile” has been misused both as an insult and to confer negative social status. Simply discussing those suffering from pedophilia as those in need of help rather than evil monsters deserving of death, will stir up outrage from the online mob.

The top article listed in my Google search of “normalizing pedophilia defined” is an article by Catholic League president Bill Donohue who tied “normalizing pedophilia” to homosexual activism.

Donohue attacks former Old Dominion University (ODU) professor Allyn Walker, whom Donohue describes as “a biological woman who thinks she is a man,” after Walker wrote a book entitled, “A Long Dark Shadow: Minor-Attracted People and Their Pursuit of Dignity.”

Donohue bashed Walker for encouraging the use of the term “Minor Attracted Person” (MAP) to describe anyone with a sexual attraction to those under the age of 18.

In the book, Walker encouraged MAPs to never act on their desires and to seek help if they are considering committing an offense. Walker writes: “I worry that my readers will somehow think that I am downplaying sexual abuse against children or that I am even trying to normalize it. Nothing could be further from the truth.”

The backlash led to Walker’s resignation from ODU. Walker later said his efforts to combat child abuse work had been “mischaracterized by some in the media and online, partly on the basis of my trans identity.”

Miranda Galbreath, a Pennsylvania Department of Corrections sex therapist and counselor, also suffered the wrath of the online mob and mass media outrage when she posted a YouTube video “Let’s talk about minor-attracted persons.”

“The term pedophile has moved from being a diagnostic label to being a judgmental, hurtful insult that we hurl at people in order to harm them or slander them,” she said.  “I also like to use person-first language that recognizes that any label we apply to a person is only part of who they are and doesn’t represent everything that they are.”

Like the Walker book, the Galbreath video ended with a discussion on how understanding MAPs can help prevent child sexual abuse.

Unfortunately, reaching such understanding isn’t easy.

Conservative Twitter page “LibsOfTikTok” posted only the first two minutes of the Galbreath video. Lauren Boebert tweeted, “Every person who uses the term MAP needs to be ostracized from civil society.”

Mike McDonnell, a representative of SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) accused Galbreath of “minimizing” the issue and claimed her comments were a “slap to the face” to abuse victims.

“Pedophile” is a clinical term, not a legal term. You cannot be “convicted” of pedophilia. Not every pedophile or a MAP has committed a sex offense, and not everyone who committed a sex offense, even an offense against a child, is a pedophile or a MAP.

Liberals and conservatives alike have been guilty of this.

Americans want to end child sexual abuse, but few want to talk about it in a meaningful way.

Harmful language and ostracism does not motivate anyone to change. When conservatives and liberals alike are criticized for behavior deemed harmful, their response has been to double down on their beliefs.

Derek W. Logue

Discussing difficult questions in a positive manner and seeking positive solutions should be normalized.

But that discussion begins with positive labels. Dehumanizing anyone in need of help is a disservice to improving our society.

Derek W. Logue, a Nebraska registrant and activist for the rights of returning citizens, is founder of the sex offense education and reform website OnceFallen.com.