Ephebophilia - Causes, Symptoms & Treatment

Ephebophilia is being sexually attracted by adolescents. Ephebophilia is the sexual attraction of an older person to a newly pubescent person of the same sex. In that ephebophilia involves biological, fertile adults, it is not considered a pathological paraphilia, unlike pedophilia which involves pre-pubescent children. 62% of girls and 31% of boys will be sexually abused by age 18. Some people distinguish between pedophilia — the attraction to and/or behavior with prepubescent children. Sexual desire that includes adolescents as well as older individuals is common among adults with many sexual orientations; this is not labeled "ephebophilia" because the attraction to adolescents is not exclusive. In some cultures, such as those in which adolescent girls are routinely married to older men, it is considered normal for adults to include adolescents among their sexual interests. In these cultures an attraction to adolescents is not necessarily thought to require an essentialist classification in terms of abnormality, deviancy or mental health, but is seen as a possibility or a taste. Pedophiles/Ephebophiles are cunning predators with a honed mode of operation. They are experts at manipulation, thus escaping adult reality. They feel entitled, justifying their actions as loving; not harming the child. They expend considerable energy maintaining this illusion to themselves and others. As long as the child is induced into sexual activity with someone who is in a position of greater power, whether that power is derived through the perpetrator's age, size, status, or relationship, the act is abusive.

Some adolescents are unable to understand the physical, emotional, and social consequences of sexual activity. Social conservatives who believe in a transcendent moral order may complain that present conventional morality, especially sexual morality, seems to be evolving in the socially liberal direction and these changes have been, by in large, malign. Late adolescence also includes people over 18, since neurological development is still not complete at this age. Adult sexual relations with adolescents can be an abuse of power, using psychological coercion. Sexual relations with adolescent girls can lead to pregnancy and parenthood, for which adolescents may not be prepared emotionally and/or financially. Relationships between adults and adolescents that do not include sexual activity are generally legal, assuming no other laws regarding child welfare are violated. For example, a romantic relationship with an adolescent below the age of consent is generally legal, especially when the adolescent's age is above the age at which their parents could consent to marriage. In other jurisdictions, this may be illegal. Some argue that only men who consistently prefer prepubescent girls are practicing an unsound reproductive strategy ( pedophilia ), while men who prefer postpubescent girls may practice a very sound reproductive strategy (Ephebophilia). While ephebophilia (or hebephilia ) is the preferential attraction to adolescents, pedophilia is the preferential attraction to children who have not reached puberty.