Professor Removed from Campus for Writing and Talking About People Who Have Sexual Attraction to Minors
Inside Higher Ed (Colleen Flaherty) has the story: Old Dominion University put a professor who studies pedophilia on administrative leave this week …. “Reactions to Dr. Walker’s research and book have led to concerns for their safety and that of the campus,” the university said in a statement announcing that Allyn Walker is on leave. “Furthermore, the controversy over Dr. Walker’s research has disrupted the campus and community environment and is interfering with the institution’s mission of teaching and learning.” Walker, an assistant professor of sociology and criminal justice, was recently interviewed by the Prostasia Foundation about their book, A Long Dark Shadow: Minor-Attracted People and Their Pursuit of Dignity . The foundation describes itself as a “child protection organization combining an evidence-based approach to child sexual abuse prevention with its commitment to human rights and sex positivity.” Walker was asked a series of questions about their research on “non-offenders,” or adults who are sexually attracted to minors but do not act on those attractions. In the interview, Walker advocated calling those who are attracted to minors “MAPs,” or “minor-attracted people,” because that is a term that non-offender advocacy and support groups prefer over “pedophile” or other terms. “A lot of people, when they hear the term ‘pedophile,’ they automatically assume that means a sex offender, and that isn’t true, and that can lead to a lot of misconceptions about attractions toward minors,” Walker told Prostasia. Walker also recommended affirming therapies, as opposed to conversion therapies, for people who need help navigating their attractions, and made a clear moral distinction between those who are attracted to children and those who act on those impulses. The latter severely harms children, whereas the former does not, they said. “Having an attraction to minors, as long as it isn’t acted on, doesn’t mean that the person who has those attractions is doing something wrong,” Walker said in the interview. “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. In other words, it’s not who we’re attracted to that is either OK or not OK, it’s our behaviors in responding to that attraction that is either OK or not OK.” Ultimately, Walker said, help for those who need it “is not widely available, and it should be more widely available.” The interview, posted to YouTube last week, quickly proved controversial on campus and off. Several petitions call on Old Dominion to “release” or otherwise act against Walker, suggesting that they are a pedophilia apologist and that their comments make the campus less safe…. The university statement about Walker quotes President Brian O. Hemphill as saying, “I want to state in the strongest terms possible that child sexual abuse is morally wrong and has no place in our society. This is a challenging time for our university, but I am confident that we will come together and move forward as a Monarch family.” In a separate statement, Hemphill […]
