Just got an email telling me someone had liked my post and then realized that the post was partly in error. In fact, it is only when the PRIMARY or EXCLUSIVE sexual interest is in teenagers, it is Ephebophilia. The OCCASIONAL sexual interest in someone under 18 is not any sort of condition at all, and even less of anything resembling a paraphilia.

Hence the fact that models, pop stars and starlets who are or look like teenagers are often seen as sexually attractive by the mainstream (and why, for example, any large and legitimate lingerie makers will sell a LOT of "schoolgirl" outfits - to women). Again, you can make a case that such an attraction indicates something less than admirable about the person who feels it, but it's not freakishly depraved and completely removed from the horrifying and repulsive mental illness that is Pedophilia.

Sent from my iPad using ThaiVisa ap

Thank you. I'd never heard of ephebophilia.

You're most welcome, of course! (Gratifying to be able to teach some small thing to someone like yourself )

Perhaps the reason it's not widely known is because - though it's not PC to admit it or say so - many or most men (and women, for that matter) can recognize that sometimes a person who is under the age of consent is sexually attractive in terms of physical appearance. Because of changes in many societies and cultures we can no longer say it and people will reflexively object whenever some openly evinces such attraction but the occasional feeling of such an attraction is NOT unusual; so folks don't consider that might be a defined sexual preference and just think that people can be grouped as either "normal" - those who find only to people over the age of 18 to be sexy (think how silly that sounds) - or pedophiles. They don't realize that just as there are people with a primary or exclusive attraction to someone with large feet or fuzzy sweaters (or petite bodies and Asian features) there are people who are similarly wired towards teenagers. Wanting only or mostly that may be weird or creepy or unfathomable to most of us but it isn't so far from the many people who have an OCCASIONAL attraction.

Pedophilia, on the other hand, is very far from most people's sexual makeup and is not only disgusting to us but incomprehensible.

Sent from my iPad using ThaiVisa ap

While it's always been exceedingly obvious what an intelligent and erudite poster you are, you have, as so many do, confused Pedophilia with Ephebophilia. A primary or exclusive adult sexual interest in pubescent but under the age of consent children (teenagers)

The age of consent in the UK is 16 so I think that calling those under the age of consent 'teenagers' is slightly misleading.

The age of consent in the UK is 16 so I think that calling those under the age of consent 'teenagers' is slightly misleading.

If it was, it certainly wasn't intentionally so - and I'd take great offense at anyone who'd suggest it was, given what would seem to be implicit in such an accusation.

Oxford defines teenager as someone between thirteen and nineteen (I wonder why?) as I had always thought of it. Which of course means one can still be under the age of consent in the UK (which is not where I'm from so that law has nothing to do with any terms used by me)and be a "teenager".

But I have no problem if someone thinks "teenager" doesn't belong in that sentence even parenthetically - removing it would change absolutely nothing about the point I was making or any message I was intending to convey.

Over to you. In the meantime, diner...

The age of consent in the UK is 16 so I think that calling those under the age of consent 'teenagers' is slightly misleading.

If it was, it certainly wasn't intentionally so - and I'd take great offense at anyone who'd suggest it was, given what would seem to be implicit in such an accusation.

I wasn't implying anything - just pointing out that 'teenager' applies to those both under and over the age of consent depending on where you live. In Spain all teenagers are over the age of consent as it's 13 for all sexual acts both hetero and homo.

The age of consent in the UK is 16 so I think that calling those under the age of consent 'teenagers' is slightly misleading.

If it was, it certainly wasn't intentionally so - and I'd take great offense at anyone who'd suggest it was, given what would seem to be implicit in such an accusation.

I wasn't implying anything - just pointing out that 'teenager' applies to those both under and over the age of consent depending on where you live. In Spain all teenagers are over the age of consent as it's 13 for all sexual acts both hetero and homo.

As soon as I went downstairs for dinner, I realized that I may have totally misread what you might have meant when the obvious fact occurred to me that a "teenager" can also be a couple years ABOVE the age of consent. and I thought I recalled there might be some places where the age of consent could be as low as 13, or at least had been in the recent past (don't think I would have guessed Spain though).

In any case, my point in using the word was to distinguish - not excuse or otherwise - between consensual sex with an underage pubescent and sexual assault on a prepubescent child.