MAP Forum

Given the wide range of AoAs one can witness, it would appear that chronophilias exist on a continuum. The difference between a hebephilic and nepiophilic individual would be a quantitative one.

The other possibility is that such a difference is qualitative. I am not sure if I am wording this accurately, but this would mean that there are a handful of age-related trait combinations that one can be attracted to. Then your range of attraction would be determined by a choice of a few of these trait combinations.

Mokros (2016) suggested this latter possibility.

Personally, I find the second alternative more likely, from personal experience. I don't think that, for example, the difference between a minor-attracted and an adult-attracted male-attracted person is purely quantitative, because the shared experiences of BLs seem to differ in a qualitative way from those of androphilic people.

This second alternative also explains why some people have "age gaps" in their attractions, e.g., they might be attracted to children and adults but not much to teens.

On the other hand, the first alternative points to a form of "open" diversity in human sexuality, where the traits one can be attracted to have no limits. Maybe this explanation fits better with the variety of animals zoophiles can be attracted to, or other paraphilias. But even if this were in fact true, I still think this is not the main mechanism behind minor-attraction.

I would like to hear your opinions.

'Normal' heterosexuals find buttocks and lesbians hot but personally I couldn't care less about either of them.

Sexuality and orientation generally exist on a continuum. When you talk about 'quantitative' versus 'qualitative' descriptors, this usually refers to research approaches for coding and analysing the data. Using one approach versus another does not change the nature of the orientation, it is just a different approach in organising info about it.

It's like asking whether the difference between heterosexuality and bisexuality is a quantitative or qualitative one. Certainly any analysis could be coded either way, or both ways in a mixed-methods approach. But generally, sexuality is understood to fall on a continuum. There are a lot of different ways to 'describe' people who fall on that continuum, and many different valid ways to break down the data.

OnionPetal wrote: Wed Jan 14, 2026 9:06 pm Sexuality and orientation generally exist on a continuum. When you talk about 'quantitative' versus 'qualitative' descriptors, this usually refers to research approaches for coding and analysing the data. Using a one approach versus another does not change the nature of the orientation, it is just a different approach in organising info about it.

Yeah, but one approach can be more enlightening than the other. I never felt quite identified with an "Age of Attraction", which is the model that the "continuum" idea would suggest (not saying it's useless). Maybe there are more enlightening ways to categorise chronophilias, based on the traits one likes and not the ages. Maybe the traits one is attracted to tend to come in buckets.

I find a high level of congruence in traits such as the voice, face, smooth skin, flexibility, boldness... of boys up to early puberty. And later I might find the sporadic body hair and the body shape hot. The attraction is to different features as the person grows up. I'm not particularly attracted to their voice or face at advanced puberty, for example. Suppose all this range of features I like in boys comprises a single bucket of pedo/hebe/ephebophilic BL (it could be more than one, but suppose it's one). (I might at the same time have other buckets. For example, I might like young women's voices.) It's an interesting question how / if this bucket would differ from exclusive pedophilic BL or from ephebophilia in adult-attracted androphilic people, or even from other people with a similar range of attraction but who are attracted to different features.

For example, maybe an androphilic teleiophile who also likes teens has a different bucket of traits, and will be attracted to their voice and the first signs of facial hair, which is something I don't find appealing in teen boys. So even if we are attracted to the same individual, it would be in different ways, and this would go a bit against the "continuum" hypothesis. It's like with convergent evolution—we have both developed a functionally similar attraction to teen boys but following a very different mechanism.

Then again, I know that sexuality would not manifest in the same way even in people with the same buckets. It truly is flexible / a continuum.

In a sense, the "discrete / qualitative" view would be related to an essentialistic, hereditary understanding of chronophilias, whereas the "continuum / quantitative" view would be related to an environmental, developmental understanding of chronophilias. Probably both are not totally mutually exclusive. I realise my point could be expressed better...

I am not aware of modern attempts to classify MAPs (I am aware of some classifications that are very old-fashioned. I recall seeing one where BLs were considered either "too gay" or "too straight"...). Not that we should be giving undue importance to such classifications or try to fit everyone into a mold, it's just out of curiosity.