Seems like pedophilia is a persistent topic in popular culture and, maybe, for good reason, with Epstein, UK rape gangs, groomers, trafficking, elite weirdos and all. Also seems like it’s obligatory to let everyone know how horrible it is; woodchippers and the like. As with virtually all popular topics, misconceptions abound and I question the psychology behind some of the reasons why this topic is so persistent. Some of the points here will be obvious eye-rollers, but it appears they need to be said.
Probably the definition of word is the most obvious misconception. Pedophilia is sexual attraction to prepubescent people. If a person has completed puberty, they are, technically, not children and sexual attraction to them is not pedophilia. There are other categories, like hebephilia and ephebophilia and you can read about those here if you want.
Pedophilia is sexual attraction to prepubescent people. One can be a pedophile and never have any sexual interaction with any child; they fit the definition if they have the attraction, whether or not they’ve acted on it.
Puberty is the beginning of sexual maturity. Throughout the animal kingdom, this marks the readiness of an animal to begin mating and reproduction. For humans, it’s complicated by the fact that children don’t go through the experiences necessary to prepare them for sexual activity by the time they complete puberty. They’re sheltered throughout childhood and youth, producing physically mature and psychologically immature young adults. That’s really where the problem lies.
It isn’t the case so much for women as they have other evolutionary priorities, but from an evolutionary perspective, men tend to be attracted, instinctually, to young women, because they are more fertile, healthy and likely to be able to bear strong offspring. They are also likely to have less sexual experience than older women, reducing the chance that a man will use his scarce resources providing for another man’s offspring that he thinks are his own. Evolutionary pressures have hard-wired this into the human species. As young women emerge from puberty, they will increasingly become attractive to men – of all ages.
Because young, sexually mature, but psychologically immature people are referred to in modern society as “children”, men feel guilt and shame about their natural attraction to young women. To assuage this guilt and shame, they tend to virtue-signal an oversized opposition to what they mistakenly believe is pedophilia. In other words, many, if not most men, recognize their sexual attraction to young women, those young women are falsely referred to as children, the men mistakenly fear that they, themselves, may be pedophiles and then lash out against pedophilia in silly ways to hide guilt. They protest too much.
To further complicate matters, there are arbitrary Age of Consent laws. These make little sense for many reasons. First, they’re different in different places. According to common parlance, you’re a “pedophile” if you have sex with someone who’s 15 years, 365 days old, one foot south of the Georgia/Florida border, but if you step across the state line and do the same thing with the same person, everything’s cool! The age of consent in Florida is 18, but in Georgia, 16. Second, these laws assume that all people are the same. Everyone’s ready for sex at 17 years, 364 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes and 60 seconds old, but not at 17 years, 364 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds old. Is there something about that one second that makes that huge difference? Different people become ready or remain unready for virtually anything at different ages. Are some ready for sex at 14? Probably. Are some unready at 25? Probably. Third, the difference between an upstanding citizen and rapist can be separated by trivial amounts of time. If someone 17 years, 364 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes and 60 seconds old has sex with someone 17 years, 364 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds old, they’re a rapist, but if the same people had waited one second later, they suddenly become consenting partners? If that’s a gray area, where does it become black and white and why? That’s important to know if there are going to be punitive consequences for being wrong.
With the recent Epstein scandal, there’s consistent rhetoric about elite “pedophile” rings. It may be true that there are groups of elites that are engaged in sexual activities with prepubescent people (I say “people” because it’s redundant to say “prepubescent children”), however, from what it seems, most of the victims were actually young adults, under the age consent in some jurisdictions. What is the age of consent on Epstein Island? If it turns out that it’s 12 years old, will people who argue that what these elites have done is a crime based on the law eschew their outrage? I doubt it. The reason is that everyone knows it’s not really about age of consent laws. It’s about maturity, manipulation and power dynamics. It’s not because these men have had sex with young women, it’s that everyone knows that these women were almost certainly raised in sheltered environments and are too naive, ignorant and inexperienced for these situations. It’s too easy to manipulate them into doing things that are clearly against their long-term interests.
Sex is going to happen. There’s no way around that, and thank goodness! However, if women are going to be done the disservice of the social blocking of psychological maturity, then we’re going to continue to have these problems. Men shouldn’t be ashamed of their natural, evolutionary attraction to young women, they should simply realize why actually pursuing those young women is questionable. If we’re going to use strong language incorrectly, like “pedophile”, the consequences are going to continue to be negative. Like so many issues, it’s about understanding the fundamentals and having the courage to be honest that will get society to a better place and the inability to do so which will likely keep us where we are.
