I have mentioned before that LGBT people has been mistaken for paedophiles.  To understand the concept of paedophilia one first has to understand the concept of puberty.  This is a physical maturation process taking place over several years.  The gonads start producing more hormones which make the genitals grow compared to the rest of the body.  Secondary sex characteristics gradually develop.  Most have a growth spurt in connection with puberty.  It peaks at 12 for girls and at 14 for boys.  Growth then gradually slows down until it stops entirely at 18.  By “growth” I here mean the person gets taller.  Unfortunately, some confuse this with other different processes.

Please note 16- and 17-year-olds are already nearly fully gown.  Their height and secondary sex characteristics are often within the adult normal range of variation.  Neither are they cuter than people in their early 20ies.  So being sexually attracted to them is completely normal.  To prefer youths this age or just a little younger goes by the name of ephebophilia.  I don’t view this as a problem unless the person exploits his or her position.

Sexual attraction to children which are in early puberty can be called hebephilia.  At least if there is a preference for children being that young.  It then becomes a problem due to the children’s mental immaturity.  They often don’t understand signals about adult sexual interest.  I don’t think most girls want to have sex until they are at least 14 – 15.  This has more to do with the width of their hips than their degree of pubescent development.  Boys’ willingness to have sex is more connected to puberty.  However, when their sexual desire starts to develop most are too mentally immature.  So trying to entice them to sex becomes a problematic behaviour.

In a strict sense paedophilia consist of sexual attraction to children which has not reached puberty yet.  Such children have no sexuality in the adult sense of the word.  So it is always one-sided exploitation to use them for sexual pleasure.  Moreover, it can be traumatising but does not have to be so.  Having sexual attraction to them can as such be a problem.  Far from all with such attraction have ever sexually exploited a child.  However, one can’t presuppose everyone to be able to avoid it.

What can we do about this problem?  Only 7 percent of all paedophiles are exclusively sexually attracted to children.  If they are not, they can be trained to prefer sex with other adults.  Everyone has use of strategies to avoid tempting situations.  If it is about impulsivity there are medications against that.  Some substances can be injected to drastically reduce men’s sexual desire.  This is the same effect one gets if one surgically removes the balls.  The only difference is the result not being permanent.  Someone needs to take such injections on a regular basis to uphold the effect.  Drastically reducing sexual desire only works on a voluntary basis.  The effect can easily be knocked out with anabolic steroids.

How common is it then to have sexual attraction to children?  I only know about one study done in Sweden in 2010.  People were anonymously asked questions about which ones they were sexually attracted to.  One of the questions was if they ever had felt sexual attraction to a person they know was under 13.  0.75% answered yes out of which 2/3 were men.  I think the largest source of error is overestimating the child’s age.  It is common to believe pubescent development to take place later than it does.  So I think those which answered yes were paedophiles and hebephiles.  Interestingly there is an older study of which ones grope and sexually abuse children.  In this study from 1990, 1/3 of the perpetrators were women.  For this reason, there are likely no gender difference in the fraction giving full expression to that.

Uploaded on the 13th of December 2023.