Ephebophilia is the sexual preference of adults for mid-to-late adolescents, generally ages 15 to 19.[1][2] The term was originally used in the late 19th to mid 20th century, and has been more recently revisited by Ray Blanchard.[2] It is one of a number of sexual preferences across age groups subsumed under the technical term "chronophilia". Ephebophilia strictly denotes the preference for mid-to-late adolescent sexual partners, not the mere presence of some level of sexual attraction. In sexual ethics, it may be defined as a sexual preference for girls generally 14–16 years old, and boys generally 14–19 years old.[3] Some authors define ephebophilia as a sexual preference for pubescent and adolescent boys.[4]
In research environments, specific terms are used for chronophilias: for instance, ephebophilia to refer to the sexual preference for mid-to-late adolescents,[1] hebephilia to refer to the sexual preference for earlier pubescent individuals, and pedophilia to refer to the sexual preference for prepubescent children.[5] However, the term pedophilia is commonly, but incorrectly, used to refer to any sexual interest in minors below the legal age of consent, regardless of their level of physical, mental, or psychological development.[6] Acting upon ephebophilic preference is illegal when the adolescent is below the legal age of consent (e.g. statutory rape).
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The term comes from the Greek: ἔφηβος (ephebos) variously defined as "one arrived at puberty", "a youth of eighteen who underwent his dokimasia and was registered as a citizen (Athens)", and "arriving at man's estate;" and φιλία (-philia) "love".[7][8] It has been used by Dutch psychologist Frits Bernard as far back as 1950,[9] reprinted in 1960 in the gay support magazine Vriendschap under the pseudonym Victor Servatius,[10] also crediting it to Hirschfeld though giving no exact date.[11]
The term has been described by Frenchman Félix Buffière in 1980[12] and Pakistani scholar Tariq Rahman,[13] who argued that "ephebophilia" should be used in preference to "homosexuality" when describing the aesthetic and erotic interest of adult men in adolescent boys in classical Persian, Turkish or Urdu literature.
Because mid-to-late adolescents may have physical characteristics near (or in some cases, identical) to that of full-grown adults, some level of sexual attraction to persons in the age group is common among adults.[6] Ephebophilia is used only to describe the preference for mid-to-late adolescent sexual partners, not the mere presence of some level of sexual attraction. Generally, the preference is not regarded by psychologists as a pathology when it does not interfere with other major areas of one's life, and is not listed by name as a mental disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision (DSM-IV-TR), the ICD-10, or as a paraphilia. However, the preference can sometimes be diagnosed as a disorder if it results in dysfunction or exploitative behavior, under the DSM specification 309.2, "Paraphilia Not Otherwise Specified."[14]
Researchers state that hebephilia, erotic interest which centers on pubescents, has not come into widespread use, even among professionals who work with sex offenders, and may have been confused with the term ephebophilia, "which denotes men who prefer adolescents around 15–19 years of age."[2] It is concluded that "few would want to label erotic interest in late — or even mid — adolescents as a psychopathology, so the term hebephilia may have been ignored along with ephebophilia."[2]