Pedophilia vs Hebephilia
“Pedophilia” refers to sexual attraction to pre-pubescent children. “Hebephilia” refers to sexual attraction to post-pubescent minors age 11-14 . “Ephebephilia” is sexual interest to those in later adolescence, approximately 15–19 years old. There are strong and consistent findings in the research literature that reveal:
- Attraction to post-pubescent adolescents is normal for healthy adult males. It is a matter of biology. The “primitive brain” (mesolimbic system) in a healthy male identifies primary and secondary body characteristics in a pubescent female that signal she is capable of bearing children. The primitive brain has no sense of morality – it is pure primitive instinct. It is the job of the “thinking brain” (neocortex) to interrupt primitive impulse. Everyone experiences “inhibitory struggle” on a regular basis – whether to eat the extra donut, sleep past the alarm clock, drink too much at the bar after work, etc. This contrasting tension between our “two brains” is the basis for civilized behavior in civilized society.
- The distinction of pedophilia vs hebephilia has important implications for recovery and future risk. Pedophilia is a biologically abnormal impulse that can involve significant defect in personality and psychological health. In contrast, hebephilic actions involve “normal” impulse that are not successfully inhibited by the neocortex. These actions do not require defect in personality or psychological functioning. Notice that the DSM-5 has a diagnostic category for pedophilia but does not identify hebephilia as a mental disorder.
- Research reveals someone struggling with hebephilia is more responsive to treatment as compared to a pedophile. With proper treatment, someone with hebephilia also has a better prognosis against future relapse.
- Research suggests 3% upper limit for pedophilia and hebephilia, and 1% for strictly pedophilia. (Santilla, et al., 2010)
Hebephilia is approximate in its age range because the onset and completion of puberty vary. Partly because of this, some definitions of chronophilias (sexual preference for a specific physiological appearance related to age) show overlap between pedophilia, hebephilia and ephebophilia; for example, the DSM-5 extends the prepubescent age to 13, the ICD-10 includes early pubertal age in its definition of pedophilia, and some definitions of ephebophilia include adolescents aged 14 to late adolescents. On average, girls begin the process of puberty at age 10 or 11; boys at age 11 or 12, and it is argued that separating sexual attraction to prepubescent children from sexual attraction to early-to-mid or late pubescents is clinically relevant.
According to research by Ray Blanchard et al. (2009), sex offenders could be separated into groups by victim age preference on the basis of penile plethysmograph response patterns. Based on their results, Blanchard suggested that the DSM-5 could account for these data by subdividing the existing diagnosis of pedophilia into hebephilia and a narrower definition of pedophilia. Psychologist Bruce Rind and sociologist Richard Yuill have published criticism of the classification of hebephilia as a mental disorder, though their view is that Blanchard et al. successfully established hebephilia as a “genuine sexual preference”; they suggested that if hebephilia were listed in the DSM-5, that it be coded as a condition that results in significant social problems today. Blanchard’s proposal to add hebephilia to the DSM-5 proved controversial, and was not adopted. (text from Wikipedia, 2015)
Dr. Michael Seto defines hebephilia and ephebophilia as;
Clinically and scientifically defined as a sexual attraction to pubescent children— that is, children who are showing some signs of pubertal development such as breast budding, genital changes, and the development of axillary hair, but who are clearly not physically mature. Can be distinguished from pedophilia, a sexual attraction to prepubescent children (i.e., children who are not showing any signs of pubertal development). Hebephilia does not refer to sexual attraction to older adolescents who appear to be physically mature and who could be mistaken by naive observers to be 18 or older.
Seto, Michael C. (2013-06-30). Internet Sex Offenders. American Psychological Asso.
Evidence of construct validity in the assessment of hebephilia.
Stephens, Skye., Seto, Michael C., Goodwill, Alasdair M., Cantor, James M.
Archives of Sexual Behavior, Nov 29, 2016.
Abstract:
Hebephilia refers to a persistent intense sexual interest in pubescent children. Although not as widely studied as pedophilia, studies of hebephilia have indicated convergence in self-report and sexual arousal. The present study expanded on previous work by examining convergent and divergent validity across indicators of hebephilia that included self-report, sexual behavior, and sexual arousal in a sample of 2238 men who had sexually offended. We included men who denied such interest and specifically examined the overlap between hebephilia and pedophilia and examined pedohebephilia (i.e., sexual interests in both prepubescent and pubescent children). Results indicated that there was considerable convergence across indicators of hebephilia. The results suggested poor divergent validity between hebephilia and pedophilia, as there was substantial overlap between the two constructs across analyses. Finally, a distinct pattern of sexual arousal was found in offenders with pedohebephilia. The results of the present study were discussed with a focus on implications for the assessment of sexual interest in children and the conceptualization of pedohebephilia.
Attraction to Younger Images in the United States and in the World
Ogas & Gaddam, (2011) used meta-analytic data to reveal what people search for in pornography and relate these data to sexual preferences. These two authors looked at over 400 million individual searches submitted to the Web Browser “DogPile” between July 2009 and July 2010 and found that over 55 million of these searches were sexual. Of over 55 million searches the most common search was “youth”, accounting for 13.54% of all sexual searches.
More recently, with reference to sexual preferences in the United States, arguably the best source of information on what pornographic images people search for are the yearly statistical reports produced by one of the larger pornography distribution sites – PornHub. In 2014 in the United States “teen” was the third most popular pornographic search term. For the United States in 2015 “teen” was the fourth most popular pornographic search term, and in 2016 “teen” was the third most common category of pornography searched for. The United States accounts for approximately 40% of the PornHub traffic across these three years. It should be noted that this is not exclusively a North American phenomenon with the pornographic search term “teen” being the most common search term worldwide in 2014, second most common in 2015, and the fourth most common is 2016. These data clearly reveal that interest in young images is very common not only in the United States but worldwide.
As is evident from the Internet search data of both Ogas and Saddam (2011), the PornHub yearly summary data, and a study of sexual fantasy in the general population (Joyal, Cossette, & Lapierre, 2014), a great deal of the adult population has fantasies involving teens, youth, and young people.
Sexual Fantasy Involving Young People in the General Population
Within the general population, fantasies of having sexual encounters with “someone much younger” than themselves are quite common (Reynaud & Byers, 1999). A study by Joyal, Cossette, & Lapierre (2014) surveyed 1,516 people from the general population and found that 57% of men and 18.1% of women admitted to having sexual fantasies about “having sex with someone much younger (legally) than me”. Further, 1.8% of men and 0.8% of women admitted to fantasizing about “having sex with a child under the age of 12 years”. When the data were reduced to themes, 3.3% of men admitted to fantasizing about having sex that “involves a teenager – between the ages of 13 and 17”.
For a more complete understanding on this topic see Dr. Simpson’s seminar handout for the State Bar of Arizona CLE training – Online Sex Offense: What Every Attorney Should Know. You can access this at http://www.drpaulsimpson.com/seminars/ .
Research on Hebephilia
Pedophilia, hebephilia, and the DSM-5.
Blanchard, Ray, Lykins, Amy D., Wherrett, Diane, Kuban, Michael E., Cantor, James M., Blak, Thomas, Dickey, Robert, Klassen, Philip E..
Archives of Sexual Behavior, Vol 38(3), Jun, 2009. pp. 335-350.
The term pedophilia denotes the erotic preference for prepubescent children. The term hebephilia has been proposed to denote the erotic preference for pubescent children (roughly, ages 11 or 12–14), but it has not become widely used. The present study sought to validate the concept of hebephilia by examining the agreement between self-reported sexual interests and objectively recorded penile responses in the laboratory. The participants were 881 men who were referred for clinical assessment because of paraphilic, criminal, or otherwise problematic sexual behavior. Within-group comparisons showed that men who verbally reported maximum sexual attraction to pubescent children had greater penile responses to depictions of pubescent children than to depictions of younger or older persons. Between-groups comparisons showed that penile responding distinguished such men from those who reported maximum attraction to prepubescent children and from those who reported maximum attraction to fully grown persons. These results indicated that hebephilia exists as a discriminable erotic age-preference.The authors recommend various ways in which the DSM might be altered to accommodate the present findings. One possibility would be to replace the diagnosis of Pedophilia with Pedohebephilia and allow the clinician to specify one of three subtypes: Sexually Attracted to Children Younger than 11 (Pedophilic Type), Sexually Attracted to Children Age 11–14 (Hebephilic Type), or Sexually Attracted to Both (Pedohebephilic Type). We further recommend that the DSM-V encourage users to record the typical age of children who most attract the patient sexually as well as the gender of children who most attract the patient sexually.
Adult sexual attraction to early-stage adolescents: Phallometry doesn’t equal pathology.
Zander, Thomas K.
Archives of Sexual Behavior, Vol 38(3), Jun, 2009. pp. 329-330.
Comments on an article by Ray Blanchard et al. (see record 2009-04510-009). There are at least three major reasons why the Blanchard et al. proposal to extend the diagnostic criteria for pedophilia to include adult sexual attraction to early-stage adolescents is a leap that is insufficiently supported by their data. First, as conceded in their article, ‘The main methodological limitation of the present study was the absence of models age 15–18 (mid- to late-adolescence) among the phallometric stimuli.’ Second, the proposal to extend the already problematic diagnosis of Pedophilia to include early-stage adolescents would complicate the diagnosis further by exacerbating the problem of the diagnostic discriminability that Blanchard et al. aptly and punningly identify by pointing out that ‘The onset of puberty varies from child to child and.. the boundaries of puberty are fuzzy to begin with.’ Third, the decision to designate a behavior as pathological should be based not merely on phallometric evidence but also on consideration of the extent to which the behavior is abnormal in our culture and other cultures.
A critique of the proposed DSM-V diagnosis of pedophilia.
O’Donohue, William.
Archives of Sexual Behavior, Vol 39(3), Jun, 2010. pp. 587-590.
Comments on an article by R. Blanchard (see record 2010-06193-010). The author has made several specific proposals for significant revisions in both the general criteria for a paraphilia as well as revisions for the diagnosis of Pedohebephilic Disorder. A positive development should be recognized: the inclusion of hebephilia—arousal to developing but still minor adolescents—is a decided improvement. Diagnostic categories should be informative and make critical distinctions. The distinction between deviant arousal to a child (pedophilia) and arousal to a pubescent minor (hebephilia) is a useful distinction and one that communicates important information to stakeholders. This proposal should be adopted. However, there are many proposed alterations which are not useful and which actually may make the current diagnostic criteria even less adequate. The person is sexually attracted to children or adolescents under the age of 16 as evidenced by one or more of the following: (1) self-report, (2) laboratory findings, (3) past behavior. The same subtyping options used by the author would still be used. It is irrelevant if it is distressing to the individual— this sexual attraction has the potential to cause significant harm to others and is also not in the best interests of the individual.
Sexual preference for 14-year-olds as a mental disorder: You can’t be serious!!
Green, Richard.
Archives of Sexual Behavior, Vol 39(3), Jun, 2010. pp. 585-586.
Comments on an article by R. Blanchard (see record 2010-06193-010). As a psychiatry professor and graduate of Yale Law School, I hope I understand the domain of both disciplines. The DSM proposal trespasses their boundary. Concern is expressed that ‘the current definition of pedophilia is excluding from specific diagnosis a considerable proportion of men who have a persistent preference for humans at an incomplete stage of physical development’. In several European countries, the age of legal consent to have sex falls within the range proposed for the DSM as signifying mental disorder for the older participant. A cornerstone of the argument for bundling hebephilia with pedophilia is the overlap between interest in prepubertals and pubertals. The proposed diagnosis may not attach short of sexual contact with a pubescent person, even when there is intense attraction. If diagnosis requires action, then psychiatry, the scientific/medical discipline of the emotions and thought, is turned on its head. I agree that it is of theoretical and research interest if there is a population of humans attracted equally or primarily to humans in mid-stage puberty to be compared to those attracted to 5-year-olds or 80-year-olds, or those of a similar adult age as themselves. But their study does not require inclusion in the DSM.
Hebephilia: Quintessence of diagnostic pretextuality.
Franklin, Karen.
Behavioral Sciences & the Law, Vol 28(6), Nov-Dec, 2010. pp. 751-768.
Hebephilia is an archaic term used to describe adult sexual attraction to adolescents. Prior to the advent of contemporary sexually violent predator laws, the term was not found in any dictionary or formal diagnostic system. Overnight, it is on the fast track toward recognition as a psychiatric condition meriting inclusion in the upcoming fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. This article traces the sudden emergence and popularity of hebephilia to pressure from the legal arena and, specifically, to the legal mandate of a serious mental abnormality for civil commitment of sex offenders. Hebephilia is proposed as a quintessential example of pretextuality, in which special interests promote a pseudoscientific construct that furthers an implicit, instrumental goal. Inherent problems with the construct’s reliability and validity are discussed. A warning is issued about unintended consequences if hebephilia or its relative, pedohebephilia, make their way into the DSM-5, due out in 2013.
Commentary: Hebephilia—A would-be paraphilia caught in the twilight zone between prepubescence and adulthood.
Prentky, Robert., Barbaree, Howard.
Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, Vol 39(4), Dec, 2011. pp. 506-510.
Comments on an article by John Matthew Fabian (see record 2012-02498-006). This commentary addresses the controversy surrounding the proposed Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Revision (DSM-5) diagnosis of pedohebephilia. We examine adult male sexual attraction to young pubescent females and whether such attraction is deviant and constitutes a mental disorder, and, independent of that question, whether there is any defensible basis for asserting that hebephilia is a legitimate paraphilia. We conclude our analysis by looking at three profiles: adults with sexualized interest in pre- and postpubescent children, adults with sexualized interest in adult and pubescent adolescent women, and adults with exclusive sexualized interest in young pubescent women. We suggest that in the third instance of exclusivity, the Criterion B requirement of impairment may become critical to legitimizing a diagnosis of hebephilia.
Diagnosing and litigating hebephilia in sexually violent predator civil commitment proceedings.
Fabian, John Matthew.
Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, Vol 39(4), Dec, 2011. pp. 496-505.
In recent years, state and federal legislative initiatives have heavily emphasized punitive laws to combat sexual crime. These statutes include indefinite civil commitment, which is the ultimate infringement on sexual offenders’ civil liberties. Many of these committed offenders have repeatedly offended against prepubescent children (pedophiles), and many have committed nonconsensual sexual offenses against adults (rapists). A substantial number of sex offenders have offended against postpubescent adolescents and teenagers outside the age range of pedophilia (commonly referred to by some clinicians and researchers as hebephilia). The use of the term hebephilia has recently received heightened scrutiny in sexually violent predator civil commitment proceedings. Specifically, experts debate whether hebephilia is recognized within the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision (DSM-IV-TR) and whether it is a generally accepted diagnosis within the field of sexual offender assessment. Scholars and practitioners question how hebephilia pertains to sexual deviance and one’s risk of reoffending and whether it ultimately meets the legal mental abnormality threshold of civil commitment through DSM diagnostic criteria. This article addresses these questions and provides recent federal case law that attends to hebephilia in sexually violent predator proceedings.
‘Diagnosing and litigating hebephilia in sexually violent predator civil commitment proceedings’: Comment.
Blanchard, Ray.
J Am Acad Psychiatry Law
Comments on an article by John M. Fabian (see record 2012-02498-006). John M. Fabian, reviewed scholarly, clinical, and legal questions concerning hebephilia, with particular reference to sexually violent predator civil commitment proceedings. Fabian accidentally reversed the conclusion made through a study done and confirmed in the Kurt Freund Laboratory, which states that normal men called as teleiophiles respond with some degree of penile tumescence, at least in the laboratory, to depictions of nude pubescent and even prepubescent children of their preferred sex. There is a difference, however, between the finding that teleiophiles respond at some detectable level to depictions of pubescents and the finding that other hebephiles men respond more strongly to depictions of pubescents than to those of pre-pubescents or adults. The former observation does not make the latter normal. It certainly does not make the latter finding adaptive. That was the whole point of the study that was published on this topic a few years ago. This commentary aims to point out in closing that this factual error does not affect the rest of Fabian’s interesting article, which addresses various aspects of hebephilia, the law, and psychiatry.
Hebephilia and the construction of a fictitious diagnosis.
Good, Paul., Burstein, Jules.
Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, Vol 200(6), Jun, 2012. pp. 492-494.
As mass media and the advertising industry sexualize children at earlier ages, DSM-5 is considering a proposal for a new mental disorder involving sexual attraction to adolescents. Despite the fact that most men are sexually aroused by pubescent teens, some clinicians and researchers believe they have identified a new subgroup of chronically impaired men who are compulsively drawn to older children. We discuss the proposal and conclude that it is insufficiently documented and that with such potentially serious medicolegal consequences, inclusion in the new manual is not advised. Clinically, there are insufficient data showing the construct to be reliable and valid. Forensically, a new diagnosis of hebephilia is likely to be used to justify indefinite civil commitment and other onerous punishments.
The DSM-5’s proposed new categories of sexual disorder: The problem of false positives in sexual diagnosis.
Wakefield, Jerome C.
Clinical Social Work Journal, Vol 40(2), Jun, 2012. pp. 213-223.
The proposals that have emerged from the DSM-5 revision process have triggered considerable controversy, especially regarding potential invalid inflation of diagnostic categories. To illustrate the kinds of issues that have emerged, I closely examine the proposed new categories of sexual disorder. The DSM-5 Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders Work Group is proposing the addition of three categories of disorder to the DSM-5—hypersexuality, hebephilia (as part of a revised pedophilia category that would become pedohebephilia), and coercive paraphilic disorder (basically a ‘nonconsent’ or rape paraphilia). These proposals are driven by perceived clinical or forensic needs. I argue, however, that their conceptual soundness remains problematic; each could lead to large numbers of false positive diagnoses (i.e., diagnoses that mistakenly label a normal variant of behavior as a mental disorder), with potential for serious forensic abuse in ‘sexually violent predator’ civil commitment proceedings.
Hebephilia: A postmortem dissection.
Singy, Patrick.
Archives of Sexual Behavior, Vol 44(5), Jul, 2015. pp. 1109-1116.
In 2008, the concept of hebephilia, which denotes an erotic preference for ‘pubescent children,’ was suggested by Blanchard and his team for inclusion in the DSM-5 (Blanchard et al., 2009). Four years later, the APA’s Board of Trustees opted for the status quo and rejected that proposal. This essay sheds light on the reason for this rejection. I consider three important questions related to hebephilia: Does hebephilia exist? Is it a disease? And what would have been the social consequences of including it in the DSM? I argue that if Blanchard failed to convince others that hebephilia should be included in the DSM-5, it is not because he focused too much on the first question and was unable to offer a convincing answer to the second one, but because he made the mistake of dismissing the third one as extraneous. The DSM is not intended to be a pure research manual, and a category like hebephilia cannot be evaluated without taking into account its potential forensic impact. In part or in whole, the decision to include a new diagnostic category in the DSM is, and always should be, a political decision.
An Internet study of men sexually attracted to children: Sexual attraction patterns.
Bailey, J. Michael, Hsu, Kevin J., Bernhard, Paula A.
Journal of Abnormal Psychology, Vol 125(7), Oct, 2016. pp. 976-988.
To our knowledge, this is the first large study of the attractions of child-attracted men recruited in any manner other than their being charged with legal offenses. We recruited 1,189 men from websites for adults attracted to children. Men in our sample were highly attracted to children, and they were much less attracted to adults, especially to adult men. However, men varied with respect to which combination of gender and age they found most attractive. Men in our sample were especially attracted to pubescent boys and prepubescent girls. Their self-reported attraction patterns closely tracked the age/gender gradient of sexual arousal established in prior research. Consistent with the gradient, men most attracted to prepubescent children were especially likely to have bisexual attractions to children. Pedohebephilia—attraction to sexually immature children—is best considered a collection of related if distinct sexual orientations, which vary in the particular combination of gender and sexual maturity that elicits greatest sexual attraction. Finally, our study reveals the potential power and efficiency of studying highly cooperative child-attracted men recruited via the Internet.
Evidence of construct validity in the assessment of hebephilia.
Stephens, Skye, Seto, Michael C., Goodwill, Alasdair M. Cantor, James M.
Archives of Sexual Behavior, Nov 29, 2016.
Hebephilia refers to a persistent intense sexual interest in pubescent children. Although not as widely studied as pedophilia, studies of hebephilia have indicated convergence in self-report and sexual arousal. The present study expanded on previous work by examining convergent and divergent validity across indicators of hebephilia that included self-report, sexual behavior, and sexual arousal in a sample of 2238 men who had sexually offended. We included men who denied such interest and specifically examined the overlap between hebephilia and pedophilia and examined pedohebephilia (i.e., sexual interests in both prepubescent and pubescent children). Results indicated that there was considerable convergence across indicators of hebephilia. The results suggested poor divergent validity between hebephilia and pedophilia, as there was substantial overlap between the two constructs across analyses. Finally, a distinct pattern of sexual arousal was found in offenders with pedohebephilia. The results of the present study were discussed with a focus on implications for the assessment of sexual interest in children and the conceptualization of pedohebephilia.