Gemma Ahearne

Gemma Ahearne (Gareth Jones)

Dr Gemma Ahearne is a British sex-worker activist with "21 years experience of the sex industry" and academic (Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Liverpool) who is highly active in expressing emotional disgust towards the concept of MAPs on social media, namely Twitter. Various contributions made by Dr Ahearne, a self-professed Christian, appear to mirror the talking points of American Conspiracy-Conservative figureheads, a group with whom she does not actively associate.

Trading on her mental strengths as a dyslexic, and professing a "Trauma Informed Approach", Ahearne is also a social media personality in her own right, with almost 10,000 followers as of early 2023.

Outbursts

Gemma Ahearne's husband, Mike (right, courtesy Mirror), was once considered a household name after taking part in a popular UK game show where members of the public face off against a series of steroidal athletes in "grueling physical challenges". Nicknamed "Warrior", he fell from grace after it was later revealed he passed money on to a corrupt police officer in an attempt to foil a prosecution. He has since been involved in a string of controversies, including being found with a "Tesco bag full of steroids".

Ahearne's level of preoccupation with MAPs rivals that of colleagues such as Michael Salter, an academic with whom she sometimes discusses Child Sexual Abuse related topics, and who Prostasia Foundation has described as a Satanic Ritual Abuse revivalist. Prior to receiving a tip about Dr Ahearne (Twitter account @princessjack), Newgon were aware of her online activities by way of casual interaction on Twitter threads. However, what we were not aware of, was the sheer volume of Ahearne's awareness-raising efforts on a subject it appears she has barely attempted to understand (frequently failing to grasp basic definitions), and has never published in.

Gallery: An "isolated critic"

Dr Ahearne appears to be an isolated critic of the MAP Movement (if such a thing is even possible), since her professed opposition to othering, purity culture, slut-shaming and the right-wing press pits her against those who have most commonly employed the same arguments as her. For example, Dr Ahearne has argued that MAPs are attempting to join the LGBT Community, and bizarrely claims that "Sex Worker Organizations" have "allowed Paedophile groups [...] to co-opt and support campaigns against online harms". Dr Ahearne dismisses the idea of pedophilia as a legitimate sexual identity (failing to distinguish Hebephilia in the case of MAPs), and has described Prostasia Foundation as a "Pedophile Organization" - a statement that is factually incorrect. She has scare-quoted "non-offending" in the case of pedophiles, stating that it is desirable that society stigmatizes (i.e. "others") them. Ahearne uses Alfred Kinsey as an example of pedophile apologia in academia, and PIE/NAMBLA as examples of the movement itself.

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  Twitter contributions by Dr Ahearne
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Commentary

Strategist: Newgon.net.

In compiling this biography, it should be noted that Gemma Ahearne is not the only example of an academic (or, indeed, professional) who, against their better judgment, chooses to opine on an adjacent subject they understand very little about. But hers is perhaps a telling example of how hypocritical and misguided beliefs about stigmatizing an entire class of people, can cloud the judgment of those who should know better. In Dr Ahearne's case, this is most unfortunate, as there are viable (and valid) criticisms of MAPs as a scientific paradigm. For example, one could take the Bruce Rind angle of criticizing "concept validity" (as he does with CSA). There is no particular reason that a scientific investigation should regard attraction to those of legal minority as a chronophilia or sexuality. MAP Researchers would in turn counter that they are simply using a broad term as a catch-all for dark-field samples of volunteer participants whose composition is not a constant, and is hard to determine. The valuable "novelty" of the data, they would argue, is providing them with something similar to Evelyn Hooker's pioneering investigations into homosexuality. At the same time, these samples are far from representative of people who find themselves preferentially attracted to minor youth, so "MAP" as a scientific (rather than political) paradigm is certainly imperfect.