Do pedophile/ephebophile s have a tendency to seek out friendships or romantic relationships with young adults as well as with minors?Submitted 3 weeks ago by FavouriteShapes@sh.itjust.works to [deleted]
I’m not trying to witch hunt on anyone nor will I use this to inform witch-hunts in the future, it’s just something I am wondering about.
Also forgive the use of “ephebophile,” I’m not using it in an apologist sense but because - when formulating my question - I was more thinking about people attracted to teenagers.
Also forgive the use of "ephebophile," I'm not using it in an apologist sense but because - when formulating my question - I was more thinking about people attracted to teenagers.
Thank you for clarifying. I’ve only ever seen this term used by people who seem obsessed with explaining the difference between “ephebophile” and “pedophile”. It’s gotten so bad that simply seeing the word makes me uncomfortable.
I’ve only ever heard it used by comedians explaining how knowing the difference makes you sound like a pedophile, so I must be seeing the right crowd.
This was my first encounter with the word so TIL.
Well, you’re using accurate terminology when asking a question that pertains to the distinctions of how the age related paraphilias work, so I’d actually call that a good thing. There is a difference clinically, and it does factor in to what you’re asking, though not to a great degree.
Pedophiles, as opposed to ephebophiles and also as opposed to hebephiles, have more trouble developing and maintaining adult relationships. I haven’t ever run across any studies on differentiating hebe and ephebe differences in this regard.
There’s a lot of unknowns though, and there’s a lot of issues in the existing data because it relies on either people that have offended, and/or those admitting it and willing to participate in research. That’s a really narrow band of participants.
That being said, because of what pedophilia is, there tends to be a greater degree of exclusivity than in other categories. Meaning that, when one is attracted to undeveloped bodies and/or minds, a person is much less likely to be able to experience attraction to fully developed bodies. So seeking relationships (romantic, sexual, or friendship) with young adults isn’t going to satisfy them. It’s a fairly hard line where once puberty begins causing changes, pedophiles lose interest, or even become outright repulsed.
Since hebephilia and ephebophilia are delineations that include more developed bodies and faces, the “edges” are blurrier for them. And, while people sometimes refuse to believe it, the actual age of the individual is not a primary factor in any of the chronophilias. Well, it can be, but it’s way less common. What is a primary factor is how closely the object of attraction cleaves to the chronophile’s inner “map”.
For an ephebophile, that inner set of criteria includes well developed secondary sexual characteristics. So, they have less trouble interacting with legal adults on a sexual level. Hebephiles are murkier because while their range of physical development is definitely not at adult ranges, the last I read anything (pre covid) had them being almost as capable of functioning as ephebophiles.
Which brings us back to your question more precisely. Pedophiles do sometimes seek out less obviously sketchy relationships. But it wouldn’t be something common. Whereas an ephebophile, by nature, does seek out romantic and/or sexual relationships with young adults and older teens. They (again, I’m pulling from old info here) can bypass some of the social issues as long as they pay attention to ages of consent, so have less reason to avoid seeking out their preferred level of development.
Again, hebephiles are the murkier category in that. It really isn’t as well studied, or wasn’t last time I was bored enough to go digging for an online question like this. I suspect that’s at least in part due to lower numbers. It seemed to me when looking at stuff that there’s less of them.
See, when it comes right down to it, ephebophiles aren’t the same kind of chronophilia as pedophiles are. The kind of development they respond to is near adult. Hell, in terms of the secondary sexual development alone, it’s not inherently different from attraction to adults, because by the approximate age ranges used to classify ephebophilia casually, many of those bodies are at adult development. It’s often other signs of youth that make the key difference. That attraction isn’t a malfunction, but a social issue.
Hebephiles? They’re classified as a disorder, iirc, but in day to day existence, are more likely to be able to find their attractions in legal outlets because some full adults lack the normative level of secondary sexual development.
Anyway, the short answer is yes, but there’s difference in how and why.
In my experience, yes… But I’ve only ever known one such person. He volunteered as a group leader in a scouting club I also volunteerd at. He had been with that group since his childhood. So he was never vetted or anything. Only after years, he started showing signs that were not ok. He had started a too close relationshio with one of the kids. We’re sure nothing sexual had happened, so thats a blessing, but he did start a relationship with one of the kids.
I’m not sure what exactly happened. It’s been more than a decade. But it was bad enough that the group had to solicit external advice.
I did know that person outside of scouting a bit and he did hang out mostly whith people a decade his junior.
Wow what a stupid reason to not vet/background check someone? That’s actually a scenario I’ve wondered about before but I think all the places where I live aren’t making that mistake (hopefully)
I don’t think it would’ce mattered. He never did anything before that would make him not pass any vetting. My take on this is that he just had mental problems (liking young boys) and his exposure to young boys made him snap eventually.
The whole situarion took place in a span of a 3 to 6 months, if I remmeber correctly. By the time we started noticing some weird stuff, it took maybe two weeks before the first conversation with that guy. A warning was given. Advice was solicited. The guy was fired. Parents were notified. And the guy was put on a blacklist.
It was all handled as well as any amateur group could’ve handled it. It could’ve been better,but that’s hindsight.
seek out friendships or romantic relationships with young adults?
So, there are kinds of people you hear about culturally that despite whatever age bracket they are in, for some reason, keep wanting to go out with people that have just come out of high school, and are 18+.
For SOME reason, they KEEP trying to get into these kinds of relationships.
I wonder why that is? Not “oh, this random person I encountered and have good chemistry with happens to be lower age than me, but my previous and next partners have been a roughly sensible age for me”. No, these people keep going for that age range specifically; people who are legally adults, but only just.
I wonder what motivates these people to do that? 🤔
Yes, a fair point. That is part of what I was wondering actually - is someone who exhibits that behaviour doing so because a young adult is adjacent to a teenager, in their eyes?
Your observations bring us onto some natural follow-up questions.
It’s difficult to discern between the people praying on young adults because they want to exploit young adults or they themselves are immature (or other legal but distasteful paradigm) and those praying on young adults because they are settling on the nearest legal target.
I think the current views are sufficient. These relationships are frowned on but legal. It’s not impossible for these relationships to be mutually beneficial for both parties but it is unlikely. Having them be legal but frowned upon helps raise caution when it might be abusive or call attention to that to the parties involved.
I have no comments on the love life of Mr Di Caprio.
leanardo is walking a fine line though, alot of memes about him is dating people younger than 25, he probably knows if he dates anyone younger than 18 it would be questionable, there hasnt been indication he has done it yet.
Strictly according to the dictionary definition of the term, yes, sometimes. The definition of the disorder contains the words “primary or exclusive attraction”, leaving open the possibility of being attracted to other people of other ages.
To understand why you need to ask them while we csn just guess our guesses and so far output from someone else, I personally don’t have average reason on that but regardless of romantic or any kinda similar attachment feelings towards teenagers or minor or even less than 20 should be taken as something is wrong 🧐 that’s my opinion
yes, its called GROOMING. its not outright pedophelia, but they start “Befriending” minors at a young age, and then they try to marry them when they are adult. karoline leavitt married someone more twice her seniour, i believe she was groomed while a teen.
akunohana@piefed.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
I worked as a correctional officer at a sexual offenders only prison for three years and during all my talks with the inmates - which is a lot, seven hours a week on average - I never got the impression that those that were sentenced for sexual offenses against minors had had platonic relations with their victims. It could just be the case that they didn’t tell me about it, so take this with a grain of salt.
fluffykittycat@slrpnk.net 2 weeks ago
I didn’t k ow there were sex offender only prisons. Are you talking about a special wing of a prison?
akunohana@piefed.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
No, it was a prison dedicated to sex offenders and domestic violence. The last of it’s kind. It housed 220 inmates, 200 in the mid security section and 20 in the minimum security section. Last I heard it’s going through reconstruction to house 700+ inmates, this time dividing the sex offenders in a separate wing.