Is pedophilia the most taboo paraphilia?

[NeverLoseKibou]

Excellent response - it's as if the taboo is on the word "pedophilia" and acknowledging it rather than the state of being turned on by the idea of children.

The fantasy of an adult woman eroticising childhood "innocence" is reserved entirely for consenting adult women. Almost as if it were a power game against children - a celebration and protection of their lesser status.

It is the age gap that makes it "pedophilic", and not the fantasy itself.

But if that were true, then why is pedophilic fantasy art and AI generated fantasy content illegal? Why is it illegal to have graphic fantasy conversations about sex with children? Why in the UK is barely legal porn becoming illegal? That's people of a legal age depicting fantasy scenes depicting young people? In none of these situations is an actual child involved, only consenting adults engaged in fantasy play.

[PurpleHouse]

But if that were true, then why is pedophilic fantasy art and AI generated fantasy content illegal? Why is it illegal to have graphic fantasy conversations about sex with children? Why in the UK is barely legal porn becoming illegal? That's people of a legal age depicting fantasy scenes depicting young people? In none of these situations is an actual child involved, only consenting adults engaged in fantasy play.

I get the feeling this sort of law is driven by the idea that being MAP is a choice and not a core part of someones sexuality, and that this type of porn/scene helps take people on the road to the learned MAP behaviour.

Born out of ignorance and/or political gain. And yet the approach will help to make true MAPs feel more isolated which is just the sort of thing to make a person stop caring and go off the rails.

[Jim Burton]

Excellent response - it's as if the taboo is on the word "pedophilia" and acknowledging it rather than the state of being turned on by the idea of children.

The fantasy of an adult woman eroticising childhood "innocence" is reserved entirely for consenting adult women. Almost as if it were a power game against children - a celebration and protection of their lesser status.

It is the age gap that makes it "pedophilic", and not the fantasy itself.

But if that were true, then why is pedophilic fantasy art and AI generated fantasy content illegal? Why is it illegal to have graphic fantasy conversations about sex with children? Why in the UK is barely legal porn becoming illegal? That's people of a legal age depicting fantasy scenes depicting young people? In none of these situations is an actual child involved, only consenting adults engaged in fantasy play.

Because the line is drawn just before the acknowledgement of pedophilic desires towards real children (see bold). There is hand-wringing around what type of content (and its use) can be taken as an admission to pedophilic desires, and also over the definition of "child". Typically this has favored written content over images, but there are counter-examples - see for example how those who defend porn regulations in the UK, and the prosecution of the ageplay author in Australia were adamant this material refers to real children.

[pedo233]

What do you mean by mature adolescents exactly? How do you define that?

I mean fully sexually mature. Girls usually finish puberty at 15 or 16.

Where do you get the 1-2% statistic from when there isn't any consensus on what that figure is? I've hear everything from 1% to 33% quoted and even higher. It's such a taboo subject that it's impossible to get anything even close to an accurate figure.

The psychologist Michael Seto estimated around 1% of men are pedophiles and he said hebephilia is slightly more. But the general consensus is that hebephilia and pedophilia are mental disorders. So presumably they would be rare, like less than 5%.

Either way, I used to think my preference was normal and that most men liked women with small breasts or preteen girls, but apparently they dont. I see men talk about women with big breasts and butts all the time. Ironically that used to be my preference but when I was 16 I began to feel attracted to women with small breasts as well as preteen girls and I slowly developed a preference for them.

[NeverLoseKibou]

Excellent response - it's as if the taboo is on the word "pedophilia" and acknowledging it rather than the state of being turned on by the idea of children.

The fantasy of an adult woman eroticising childhood "innocence" is reserved entirely for consenting adult women. Almost as if it were a power game against children - a celebration and protection of their lesser status.

It is the age gap that makes it "pedophilic", and not the fantasy itself.

But if that were true, then why is pedophilic fantasy art and AI generated fantasy content illegal? Why is it illegal to have graphic fantasy conversations about sex with children? Why in the UK is barely legal porn becoming illegal? That's people of a legal age depicting fantasy scenes depicting young people? In none of these situations is an actual child involved, only consenting adults engaged in fantasy play.

Because the line is drawn just before the acknowledgement of pedophilic desires towards real children (see bold). There is hand-wringing around what type of content (and its use) can be taken as an admission to pedophilic desires, and also over the definition of "child". Typically this has favored written content over images, but there are counter-examples - see for example how those who defend porn regulations in the UK, and the prosecution of the ageplay author in Australia were adamant this material refers to real children.

It is interesting and what you're saying makes sense and does explain how the law is exercised.
It isn't immediately intuitive, I've found it confusing how the law is exercised in the past. A photo of naked child is held by two people, one is a pedophile, the other is not, the way the laws treats that photo is different for each. Why, when it's the same photo? If a drug addict and a non-drug addict held a bag of cocain, they would each be prosecuted, and yet in the case of an image it is different. I have heard it said that the reason it's treated different is intent or how it is viewed, the non-pedophile see's it as just a picture of a naked person, a pedophile could get sexual enjoyment from the image. I've never felt that is a sensible line because a pedophile may not get sexual satisfaction from it, a non-pedophile could depending on other aspects of their personality. A sadist who isn't a pedophile could look at it and become aroused at the idea of sadistic acts, or a bully might see it and become aroused at the idea of exploiting the image for entertainment. Intend and reaction is detemined by so many factors that it seems ham-fisted to just say a pedophile sees it in a harmful way and a non-pedophile doesn't.

But ham-fisted or not, since that is how the law operates then it makes sense that things like written conversations augment the case that a person is gaining sexual satisfaction from an image. It seems odd since being a pedophile isn't illegal, but an AI generated image, or written text, that gives a pedophile satisfaction as a result of their nature which they have no control over, is considered illegal. It's the equivalent of someone having a desire for sweet foods, is handed a cake, and eats the cake, not harming anyone in the process, is considered bad because they enjoyed it, while the same cake given to someone who doesn't have a sweet tooth but eats it anyway is considered acceptable. It was the act of enjoying the cake that is bad.

What you've said does make a lot of sense, it explains how the law interpretes these things and operates which is important because it isn't intuitive. I always believed the law was based on actions, I never appreciated that it's also based on feelings and beliefs.

[NeverLoseKibou]

What do you mean by mature adolescents exactly? How do you define that?

I mean fully sexually mature. Girls usually finish puberty at 15 or 16.

Where do you get the 1-2% statistic from when there isn't any consensus on what that figure is? I've hear everything from 1% to 33% quoted and even higher. It's such a taboo subject that it's impossible to get anything even close to an accurate figure.

The psychologist Michael Seto estimated around 1% of men are pedophiles and he said hebephilia is slightly more. But the general consensus is that hebephilia and pedophilia are mental disorders. So presumably they would be rare, like less than 5%.

Either way, I used to think my preference was normal and that most men liked women with small breasts or preteen girls, but apparently they dont. I see men talk about women with big breasts and butts all the time. Ironically that used to be my preference but when I was 16 I began to feel attracted to women with small breasts as well as preteen girls and I slowly developed a preference for them.

Fair enough, although there is still wide uncertainty of the numbers due to social stigma. Academics acknowledge this, it is expected that if you ask men if they have sexual thoughts about children them most men would respond with "no" even if they did. They may not even realise it themselves, some would genuinely not acknowledge even to themselves that they do, others who do recognise such feelings would never acknowledge it even in survey. For example, a 2022 survey of 1,000 men from six English-speaking countries found that 15.3% reported ever having been sexually attracted to someone under 15 (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8848059/) while another study came out with a figure of 9% (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4478390/). A range of 0.8% (the lowest I've seen) to 23.1% (the highest I've seen in one of the studies above) is very broad meaning that figures are finger in the air at best, so I treat them as such until there is a reliable way to estimate, I certainly wouldn't try to draw a sound conclusion.

Yes, general consensus is that hebephilia and pedophilia are mental disorders, but the American Psychiatric Association considered being gay a mental disorder until 1973 and the World Health Organization classed being gay as a mental disorder until 1990. They were taboo at the time and so it made sense to classify them as disorders, it is only reasonable to class pedophilia as a mental disorder in exactly the same way while it maintains a taboo nature. I'm quite sure that if not taboo then the disorder label would be dropped and if being gay became taboo again then the disorder label would return.