More than you needed to know

Pedophiles, Hebephiles, and Ephebophiles, Oh My: Erotic Age Orientation: Scientific American

Well, Michael Jackson would presumably not be pleased to see that his death has led to a detailed discussion of pedophilia in Scientific American.

The column is by Jesse Bering, who is gay and tends to spend a lot of time writing on issues of sexuality, always with a gay sympathetic viewpoint, of course.

I for one did not know there were so many possible names for sexual interest in those of certain ages:

If Jackson did fall outside the norm in his “erotic age orientation”—and we may never know if he did—he was almost certainly what’s called a hebephile, a newly proposed diagnostic classification in which people display a sexual preference for children at the cusp of puberty, between the ages of, roughly, 11 to 14 years of age. Pedophiles, in contrast, show a sexual preference for clearly prepubescent children. There are also ephebophiles (from ephebos, meaning “one arrived at puberty” in Greek), who are mostly attracted to 15- to 16-year-olds; teleiophiles (from teleios, meaning, “full grown” in Greek), who prefer those 17 years of age or older); and even the very rare gerontophile (from gerontos, meaning “old man” in Greek), someone whose sexual preference is for the elderly. So although child sex offenders are often lumped into the single classification of pedophilia, biologically speaking it’s a rather complicated affair. Some have even proposed an additional subcategory of pedophilia, “infantophilia,” to distinguish those individuals most intensely attracted to children below six years of age.

The column is of interest, as it notes there is currently controversy in the psychiatric profession as to whether hebephilia should be counted as a medical disorder.

In that context it talks about one of those studies where the male subjects' sexual response to certain stimuli is tested by "phallometric testing":

Because this technique measures penile blood volume changes, it’s seen as being a fairly objective index of sexual arousal to what’s being shown on the screen—which, for those attracted to children and young adolescents, the participant might verbally deny being attracted to.

I don't know: this type of study has always sounded to me like it could have a very large "false positive" rate. At least for younger men, there's going to be some instances during the test of "increased blood volume changes" which are not necessarily related to the particular stimulus.

Anyway, according to the research:

...it’s possible to distinguish empirically between a “true pedophile” and a hebephile using this technique, in terms of the age ranges for which men exhibited their strongest arousal. They also conclude that, based on the findings from this study, hebephilia “is relatively common compared with other forms of erotic interest in children.”

Bering makes the point that it probably makes evolutionary sense that older men should have some attraction to pubescent teenage girls. Yet, he does admit that the reason some older gay men are attracted to teenage boys is harder to fathom.

Anyhow, some comments following the article think that Bering is setting up excuses for those with an interest in sex with youngsters. I don't think he necessarily is, even when he points out that it seems that society will forgive the artistic type for their sexual activities with youth more readily than they will if the guy is an unkempt lower class loser with the same interests.

All interesting reading, in any event.

UPDATE: readers wishing to conduct their own phallometric test are recommended to visit here.