MAP Forum

MANN_LAI5 wrote: Fri Sep 11, 2026 7:35 am

NeverLoseKibou wrote: Tue Sep 08, 2026 7:49 am

pedo233 wrote: Mon Sep 07, 2026 10:41 pm

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



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.

What do you think it (pedo and hebephilia) would be classified as? Would it be a sexuality or perhaps a kink? Something else?

My view isn't popular. Most maps seem to think of it as a sexuality, but I don't. I think the reason people want to see it as a sexuality is to get special protections that exist for other sexualities, and I can understand why that's a strong attraction, but I don't think it is any more than finding mature women, ethnic women or tall women attractive is. There are people only attracted to a specific ethnicity or only attracted to mature women or only attracted to tall women. I think being attracted to preteens is the same effect as being attracted to these other characteristics, it's just what we are wired to find attractive.

We don't choose what we find visually appealing or who we're attracted to or fall in love with. That doesn't cheapen the attraction, it's as real and good as anyone elses attraction. It isn't a mental condition any more than any other attraction is. It isn't a sexuality either.

Actually I don't think sexuality exists because gender attraction is the same as the other attractions I listed, it's just what an individual finds creates that chemical reaction of attraction. And all sexuality is fluid to a degree. I straight man, in an extreme situation may find their attraction changing. Men in populations with only other men or intoxicated can sometimes find a man attractive, or a gay person can in extreme situations find the opposite gender attractive. Or a man never attracted to a young girl if in an extreme situation might find that to change. I also think attraction is a scale anyway, so I'm straight but I don't think that's a 100% straight value, it might be 99% today but time and circumstances could change that, short term or long term.

I think if people didn't insist on just creating categories for people leading to an ever growing LGBTQ+ list, and we just went back to the ancient Greek idea of people just being sexual or not, then we'd remove a lot of prejudice.