Justincredible,
And what I've always found interesting is that men generally think young women are more attractive than older women.
Of course there are outliers.. but for most men I would say that's the case.
I was browsing a reddit thread yesterday and, in short, basically all of the 25 replies (I counted because it was that depressing) by 20-something year old women or older women recollecting how they felt in their 20s said that they were physically turned off by men in their 40s and older (some mentioned the usual ideas about power imbalance, it being creepy when older men hit on or want to date young women, etc. but most were non-political and just expressing an honest preference). What really surprises me is that I've heard some young women (in different places) say that they're not attracted to men in their early 30s or mid-late 30s. My attraction to women doesn't start to wane until after around 40 (which isn't to say that there aren't very attractive middle-aged women but, I'm wording this quickly, attraction is relative and you can kind of feel out that your attraction to certain people isn't necessarily going to be stable etc. I'm sure I might think of someone who defies this but, off the top of my head, other than when I was in the second grade, I can't remember the last time I had a crush on anyone outside of the 12, maybe 11, through 39 age range. If I'm thinking about someone sexually I feel affection for them but I can't immediately remember ever having a crush on a woman over 40. A 'crush' to me would be attraction + affection+ obsession, when you're inclined to focus on someone because they are 'special' to you and it's ultimately more about a kind of emotional intimacy than sex/sensual contact etc.), there are many women in their late 30s who basically fit my 'ideal.'
Involuntary personal preferences aren't cruel (and I'm generally careful to frame my preferences as a matter of attraction, so I'm only telling you about my feelings, rather than someone's appearance being inherently good or bad; so if I'm less attracted to older women it's not because I think that their appearance is inherently negative in value which would effectively mean that no one should be attracted to them). What bothers me is the shaming (and stereotyping) of older men who are attracted to younger women (or more to the point, honest and open about their attraction). It would be nice if people could be open and honest about their age preferences and there's no excuse for stigmatizing age gap attraction even if risk aversion/harm reduction justifies preventing certain actual relationships in practical scenarios.
Even an old man in his 70s being 'allowed' to admit to having a crush on a 12-year-old girl he knows will never be into him and to be honest about his fantasies (without going into detail, depending on his audience; in fact it might be best if he not share his feelings about that specific girl with that specific girl, but still just being open about having a fantasy life that involves minors and young women or this wonderful erotic dream he had about a 20 year old he's attracted to) would be a great victory, in my book.
Women are probably more intimidating (than girls), I don't really like the complexity and compromise involved in attracting or dealing with them (I don't know how to word it, and that has nothing to do with negative stereotypes about them because even when they're kind, caring people they seem to generally be more complicated than I am. My ideal partner would just need to be physically attractive to me and nice and it's that straightforward). There's also this 'too good to be true' aspect in fantasizing about them although it's not as though unrequited attraction wouldn't be an issue with prepubecent girls as well (I don't know why I'm even mentioning this, I'm only mildly attracted to prepubescent girls at times), there might even be times when I might say I find their bodies 'overstimulating' (too intimidating, rejection would be too harsh to let myself get into them, I don't know how to put this. I don't even have a decent libido most of the time and extreme body dysphoria that I feel on a daily basis makes sexual fantasy very difficult) but as comically horrible as it sounds a nice combination for me in a purely fantasy scenario (I wouldn't wish this kind of arrested development on anyone in real life) might be a grown woman with the mind of a little girl (some of the more endearing childish traits are a collection of stereotypes that apply/don't apply to individual girls/women, depending on how old the girls are, but the absence of intentionally ambiguous communication is one thing that I would find appealing and that has something to do with cognitive complexity and just being able to recognize ambiguity which is a sharper difference between girls of a certain age and women, although an adult could share my aversion to ambiguous hinting or innuendo I don't think I've come across any who do). Then again, if fantasy has no limits then that's not necessary, as appealing as it might be, but my fantasy woman is not very realistic.
Fragment,
It's why I really don't like being lectured at by non-exclusive anti-cs. "This is the only way I can be romantically fulfilled and it's banned" is a hard pill to swallow.
For the time being I lean toward discouraging child-adult sex in practice (as a general rule at least), without government coercion, until there's no more taboo/stigma for children to internalize but that's definitely something to consider. At the risk of sounding callous or 'centering' people 'like me,' that's something probably every allosexual person will have to deal with at some point (sexual frustration from unrequited attraction, if not from it being illegal to act on one's attraction. What would help me personally is if I had the memory of having at least kissed someone I was attracted to when I was younger, the despair and regret that I've felt over that has been unbearable).
WavesInEternity,
I don't have any hard data to back this up, but I'd surmise that the main reason for that is that hebephiles are more likely to be non-exclusive, i.e. they can be attracted to some adults with high neoteny.
I have a hard time believing that there are hebephiles who aren't attracted to adults. In fact, it seems to me that the concept (of hebephilia) is only really meaningful if you're talking about people who have a preference for visibly pubescent children or teens. When I was a preteen/teen I never made a distinction (between girls in my own age group and women) one way or the other.
For the thread, my vote would be girls.
As other people have noted, it's not surprising that pedophiles would often be bi-sexual since prepubescent children are more androgynous. Age aside, I'm personally attracted to femaleness.
