The Internalization of Social Stigma Among Minor-Attracted Persons: Implications for Treatment

Rebecca Lievesley,Craig A Harper,Helen Elliott

doi:10.1007/s10508-019-01569-x

Abstract

In this article, we sought to build on existing stigmatization research by examining the extent to which internalized stigmatization (i.e., the personal adoption and incorporation of social views, operationalized as thought suppression—an avoidant coping strategy—and low psychological well-being) among minor-attracted persons (MAPs) may impact upon help-seeking behaviors and their avoidance of children. We adopted a cross-sectional anonymous survey design to recruit a sample of self-identified MAPs (N = 183) from prominent online support fora. We found that increased levels of suppression and lower levels of psychological well-being were associated with lower levels of hope about the future, but higher levels of both shame and guilt about having a sexual interest in minors. Thought suppression was not significantly associated with outcomes related to help-seeking behaviors, but did significantly predict higher rates of actively avoiding children, even after controlling for psychological well-being and other emotional variables. Independently, lower levels of self-reported psychological well-being were associated with a desire for more support and higher rates of actively avoiding children. We explore the potential implications of our data in relation to treating and supporting MAPs within the community, increasing their well-being, and encouraging help-seeking behavior.

Highlights

Minor attraction is a topic associated with widespread social debate and controversy (Seto, 2008)
While pedophilia is the most wellknown and widely studied chronophilic category related to minor attraction, other categories involving a sexual attraction to children exist (Blanchard et al, 2009; Seto, 2017), including hebephilia and ephebophilia
There is an unknown number of individuals with pedophilia as their predominant sexual arousal pattern in the community, who never commit any offenses at all (Cantor & McPhail, 2016)

Summary

Introduction

Minor attraction is a topic associated with widespread social debate and controversy (Seto, 2008). We are interested in exploring the experiences of those individuals whose sexual orientation (Seto, 2012) is dominated by their sexual attraction toward children, regardless of their preferred or predominant age of attraction, and the broader term “minor-attracted persons” (MAPs) is adopted to account for this. While sexual interests toward minors and other paraphilias have been identified as key risk factors for sexual (re-)offending (Hanson & Morton-Bourgon, 2005; Helmus, Ó Ciardha, & Seto, 2015), contemporary research in Germany has reported that fewer than half of all individuals convicted of child abuse offenses have a pedophilic sexual preference (Schmidt, Mokros, & Banse, 2013). There is an unknown number of individuals with pedophilia as their predominant sexual arousal pattern (as well as MAPs with other ages of attraction) in the community, who never commit any offenses at all (Cantor & McPhail, 2016). Around 10% of German men engage with sexual fantasies

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