A sex therapist who works with jailed sex offenders has caused a stir online after she called for the term 'paedophile' to be dropped due to its offensive nature to people who are attracted to children.
Miranda Galbreath uploaded a video to YouTube entitled 'let's talk about minor-attracted persons'.
In the now-viral clip, Galbreath said that the term paedophiles is a 'judgemental, hurtful insult' used against 'the most vilified population of folks' who are ostracised by their communities.
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She suggested that 'minor attracted people', or MAPs for short, is a better term.
Galbreath is attempting to separate an attraction to children from the actually committing a crime against a child.
She says 'attraction does not equal action'.
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She went on to compare being attracted to children to other sexualities, stating that '[minor-attracted person] simply means that the person has an enduring sexual or romantic attraction to minors'.
She added: "They have not chosen this attraction… you don't get to choose to be heterosexual or gay, and you don’t get to choose to be a minor-attracted person."
The video, which has been shared on Twitter by Libs of TikTok, has now been watched over 500,000 times.
It's safe to say it has copped a fair amount of backlash online.
One Twitter user said: "She is essentially saying that paedophilia is a sexual orientation. It isn’t. Nothing could be further from the truth. Sexual orientations don’t harm other people."
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The same user added: "It is pathological, dangerous, and needs to be treated when not acted upon, and punished severely when acted upon."
A second Twitter user said: "I personally just cannot embrace paedophiles no matter how 'inclusive' it may be."
A third said: "We wouldn't want to hurt the feelings of those poor poor paedophiles who hurt children, right? People like her disgust me. It's one thing to provide those people help to not act on their urges, it's another thing to attempt to guilt people for calling them what they are."
Despite the overwhelming social media backlash, Galbreath said on social media that she understands talking about paedophilia is a 'controversial and difficult to talk about topic for most'.
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"I have worked with minor-attracted persons for years now, and have heard and witnessed so many misconceptions that I wanted to put something out into the world to clear some of those up," she said.
"If you're seeing this post, I hope you can set your prejudices aside and take a few minutes to understand a bit more about these folks who are our fellow human beings."
Featured Image Credit: Sexual Safety Space/YouTube.Topics: Crime, Mental Health, News, US News
