Hebephile
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Hebephilia is the strong, persistent sexual interest by adults in
pubescent The adjective pubescent may describe: * people or animals undergoing puberty * plants that are hairy, covered in trichomes * insects that are covered in setae In biology, setae (; seta ; ) are any of a number of different bristle- or hair-lik ...
children who are in early
adolescence Adolescence () is a transitional stage of human Developmental biology, physical and psychological Human development (biology), development that generally occurs during the period from puberty to adulthood (typically corresponding to the age o ...
, typically ages 11–14 and showing
Tanner stage The Tanner scale (also known as the Tanner stages or sexual maturity rating (SMR)) is a scale of physical development as pre-pubescent children transition into adolescence, and then adulthood. The scale defines physical measurements of developme ...
s 2 to 3 of physical development. It differs from
pedophilia Pedophilia ( alternatively spelled paedophilia) is a psychiatric disorder in which an adult or older adolescent experiences a primary or exclusive sexual attraction to prepubescent children. Although girls typically begin the process of pube ...
(the primary or exclusive sexual interest in prepubescent children), and from
ephebophilia Ephebophilia is the primary sexual interest in mid-to-late adolescents, generally ages 15 to 19 and showing Tanner stages 4 to 5 of physical development. The term was originally used in the late 19th to mid-20th century. It is one of a number of ...
(the primary sexual interest in later adolescents, typically ages 15–18). While individuals with a sexual preference for adults may have some sexual interest in pubescent-aged individuals, researchers and clinical diagnoses have proposed that hebephilia is characterized by a sexual preference for pubescent rather than adult partners. Hebephilia is approximate in its age range because the onset and completion of
puberty Puberty is the process of physical changes through which a child's body matures into an adult body capable of sexual reproduction. It is initiated by hormonal signals from the brain to the gonads: the ovaries in a female, the testicles i ...
vary. On average, girls begin the process of puberty at age 10 or 11 while boys begin at age 11 or 12. Partly because puberty varies, some definitions of
chronophilia Chronophilia are forms of romantic preferences and/or sexual attractions limited to individuals of particular age ranges. Some such attractions, specifically those towards prepubescents and those towards the elderly, constitute types of paraphilia. ...
s (sexual preference for a specific physiological appearance related to age) show overlap between pedophilia, hebephilia and ephebophilia. For example, the
DSM-5 The ''Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition'' (DSM-5), is the 2013 update to the '' Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders'', the taxonomic and diagnostic tool published by the American Psychiat ...
extends the prepubescent age to 13, and the
ICD-10 ICD-10 is the 10th revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD), a medical classification list by the World Health Organization (WHO). It contains codes for diseases, signs and symptoms, abnormal findings, complaints, social cir ...
includes early pubertal age in its definition of pedophilia.See section F65.4 Paedophilia. Proposals for categorizing hebephilia have 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 Ray Milton Blanchard III ( ; born October 9, 1945) is an American-Canadian sexologist who researches pedophilia, sexual orientation and Transgender, gender identity. He has found that men with more older brothers are more likely to be gay than m ...
''et al.'' (2009), male
sex offender A sex offender (sexual offender, sex abuser, or sexual abuser) is a person who has committed a Sex and the law, sex crime. What constitutes a sex crime differs by culture and legal jurisdiction. The majority of convicted sex offenders have convi ...
s could be separated into groups by victim age preference on the basis of
penile plethysmograph Penile plethysmography (PPG) or phallometry is a measurement of blood flow to the penis, typically used as a proxy for measurement of sexual arousal. The most commonly reported methods of conducting penile plethysmography involves the measurement ...
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. Blanchard's proposal to add hebephilia to the DSM-5 proved controversial, and was not adopted. It has not been widely accepted as a
paraphilia A paraphilia is an experience of recurring or intense sexual arousal to atypical objects, places, situations, fantasies, behaviors, or individuals. It has also been defined as a sexual interest in anything other than a legally consenting human ...
or
mental disorder A mental disorder, also referred to as a mental illness, a mental health condition, or a psychiatric disability, is a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning. A mental disorder is ...
, and there is significant academic debate as to whether it should be classified as either.


Etymology, definitions and history

The term ''hebephilia'' is based on the Greek goddess and protector of youth Hebe, but, in
Ancient Greece Ancient Greece () was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity (), that comprised a loose collection of culturally and linguistically r ...
, also referred to the time before manhood in
Athens Athens ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is the southe ...
(depending on the reference, the specific age could be 14, 16 or 18 years old). The
suffix In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns and adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can ca ...
''-philia'' is derived from ''-phil-'', implying love or strong friendship. Hebephilia is defined as a
chronophilia Chronophilia are forms of romantic preferences and/or sexual attractions limited to individuals of particular age ranges. Some such attractions, specifically those towards prepubescents and those towards the elderly, constitute types of paraphilia. ...
in which an adult has a strong and persistent sexual interest in pubescent children, typically children aged 11–14, although the age of onset and completion of puberty vary. Although sexologist
Ray Blanchard Ray Milton Blanchard III ( ; born October 9, 1945) is an American-Canadian sexologist who researches pedophilia, sexual orientation and Transgender, gender identity. He has found that men with more older brothers are more likely to be gay than m ...
and others who proposed the hebephilia diagnosis have focused on pubescents in
Tanner stage The Tanner scale (also known as the Tanner stages or sexual maturity rating (SMR)) is a scale of physical development as pre-pubescent children transition into adolescence, and then adulthood. The scale defines physical measurements of developme ...
s 2 and 3 (centering on children who have begun to show signs of pubertal development of
sex characteristics Sexual characteristics are physical traits of an organism (typically of a sexually dimorphic organism) which are indicative of or resultant from biological sexual factors. These include both primary sex characteristics, such as gonads, and sec ...
but are not at or near the end of this process), discussion of hebephilia has also concerned attraction to pubescents and adolescents in general, which has contributed to confusion among those who have debated the topic. The
DSM-5 The ''Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition'' (DSM-5), is the 2013 update to the '' Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders'', the taxonomic and diagnostic tool published by the American Psychiat ...
's diagnostic criteria for pedophilia and the general medical literature define pedophilia as a disorder of primary or exclusive sexual interest in prepubescent children, thus excluding hebephilia from its definition of pedophilia. However, the DSM-5's age criteria extends to age 13. Although the
ICD-10 ICD-10 is the 10th revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD), a medical classification list by the World Health Organization (WHO). It contains codes for diseases, signs and symptoms, abnormal findings, complaints, social cir ...
diagnostic code for the definition of pedophilia includes a sexual preference for children of prepubertal or early pubertal age, the
ICD-11 The ICD-11 is the eleventh revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD). It replaces the ICD-10 as the global standard for recording health information and causes of death. The ICD is developed and annually updated by the World H ...
states that "pedophilic disorder is characterized by a sustained, focused, and intense pattern of sexual arousal—as manifested by persistent sexual thoughts, fantasies, urges, or behaviours—involving pre-pubertal children." Because of some inconsistencies in definitions and differences in the physical development of children and adolescents, there is overlap between pedophilia, hebephilia and ephebophilia. The term ''hebephilia'' was first used in 1955, in forensic work by Hammer and Glueck. Anthropologist and ethno-psychiatrist Paul K. Benedict used the term to distinguish pedophiles from sex offenders whose victims were adolescents.
Karen Franklin Karen Franklin is an American forensic psychologist. For her doctoral dissertation, she conducted research on anti-gay violence.James Brooke, October 14, 1998, The New York TimesHomophobia Often Found In Schools, Data Show Accessed July 26, 2014 ...
, a California
forensic psychologist Forensic psychology is the application of scientific knowledge and methods (in relation to psychology) to assist in answering legal questions that may arise in criminal, civil, contractual, or other judicial proceedings. Forensic psychology includes ...
, interpreted ''hebephilia'' to be a variation of ''ephebophilia'', used by
Magnus Hirschfeld Magnus Hirschfeld (14 May 1868 – 14 May 1935) was a German physician, Sexology, sexologist and LGBTQ advocate, whose German citizenship was later revoked by the Nazi government.David A. Gerstner, ''Routledge International Encyclopedia of Queer ...
in 1906 to describe homosexual attraction to males between puberty and their early twenties. Hirschfeld considered the condition a common form of homosexuality and nonpathological. Franklin said that, historically, adults being sexual with pubescents was considered distinct from other forms of criminal sexuality (such as
rape Rape is a type of sexual assault involving sexual intercourse, or other forms of sexual penetration, carried out against a person without consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or against a person ...
), with wide variations within and across nations regarding what age was acceptable for adult–adolescent sexual contacts.
Bernard Glueck Jr. Bernard Charles Glueck Jr. (August 26, 1914 – July 24, 1999) was an American psychiatrist. He served as director of research at The Institute of Living, now part of Hartford Hospital.Ploss, Donna E. (July 31, 1999). A promise Kept, a journey ...
conducted research on sex offenders at
Sing Sing Sing Sing Correctional Facility is a maximum-security prison for men operated by the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision in the village of Ossining (village), New York, Ossining, New York, United States. It is abou ...
prison in the 1950s, using ''hebephilia'' as one of several classifications of subjects according to offense. In the 1960s, sexologist
Kurt Freund Kurt Freund (17 January 1914 – 23 October 1996) was a Czech-Canadian physician and sexologist best known for developing the penile plethysmograph (a measurement of sexual arousal in males), research studies in pedophilia, and for the " court ...
used the term to distinguish between age preferences of
heterosexual Heterosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior between people of the opposite sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, heterosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions ...
and
homosexual Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior between people of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" exc ...
men during
penile plethysmograph Penile plethysmography (PPG) or phallometry is a measurement of blood flow to the penis, typically used as a proxy for measurement of sexual arousal. The most commonly reported methods of conducting penile plethysmography involves the measurement ...
assessments, continuing his work with Ray Blanchard at the
Centre for Addiction and Mental Health The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH, pronounced , ) is a psychiatric teaching hospital located in Toronto and ten community locations throughout the province of Ontario, Canada. It reports being the largest research facility in Can ...
(CAMH) after emigrating to Canada in 1968. After Freund's death in 1996, researchers at CAMH conducted research on
neurological Neurology (from , "string, nerve" and the suffix -logia, "study of") is the branch of medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of conditions and disease involving the nervous system, which comprises the brain, the s ...
explanations of pedophilia, transsexuality, and homosexuality, and based on this research, hypothesized that hebephiles could also be distinguished on the basis of neurological and physiological measures. Although hebephilia is distinct from pedophilia, the term ''pedophilia'' is commonly used by the general public and the media, at least in the English-speaking world, to refer to any sexual interest in minors below the local
age of consent The age of consent is the age at which a person is considered to be legally competent to consent to Human sexual activity, sexual acts. Consequently, an adult who engages in sexual activity with a person younger than the age of consent is un ...
and/or
age of majority The age of majority is the threshold of legal adulthood as recognized or declared in law. It is the moment when a person ceases to be considered a minor (law), minor, and assumes legal control over their person, actions, and decisions, thus te ...
, regardless of their level of physical or mental development.


Research


General

Multiple research studies have investigated the sexual attraction patterns of hebephilic and pedophilic men. The sexual attraction to children appears to fall along a continuum instead of being
dichotomous A dichotomy () is a partition of a set, partition of a whole (or a set) into two parts (subsets). In other words, this couple of parts must be * jointly exhaustive: everything must belong to one part or the other, and * mutually exclusive: nothi ...
. The attractions of hebephiles and pedophiles are less focused on the child's sex than are the attractions of teleiophiles (people who sexually prefer adults)—i.e., much larger proportions of hebephiles and pedophiles than teleiophiles report being attracted to both males and females. Hebephilia, together with pedophilia and some other paraphilias, has been found to be an important motivator of sexual offending. It also has a high degree of overlap with pedophilia, as well as with similar correlates of sexual offending. The
Prevention Project Dunkelfeld The Prevention Project Dunkelfeld (PPD) is an effort founded in Germany to provide clinical and support services to people who are sexually attracted to children ( pedophiles and hebephiles) and want help controlling their sexual urges, but are ot ...
is an effort founded in Germany to provide therapy and abuse prevention techniques to adults attracted to children. In a study of 222 men contacting the Dunkelfeld project for help, roughly two-thirds had a sexual interest in pubertal children. These men also reported experiencing high levels of psychological distress, at clinically relevant levels. Both the hebephiles and the pedophiles showed greater distress than teleiophiles, but they did not differ from each other.


Correlates

Researchers from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto conducted a series of studies on neurological and psychological correlates of hebephilia, including brain structure,
handedness In human biology, handedness is an individual's preferential use of one hand, known as the dominant hand, due to and causing it to be stronger, faster or more Fine motor skill, dextrous. The other hand, comparatively often the weaker, less dext ...
,
intelligence quotient An intelligence quotient (IQ) is a total score derived from a set of standardized tests or subtests designed to assess human intelligence. Originally, IQ was a score obtained by dividing a person's mental age score, obtained by administering ...
, lesser educational attainment or greater probability of repeating a year in primary education, height, and other markers of atypical physical development. These findings suggest that problems during prenatal development play a significant role in the development of hebephilia. In some cases, head trauma during pre-pubertal childhood, or experiencing sexual abuse during puberty, could also be contributing factors. Differences in brain structure may mean that hebephilic interests result from disconnections in the brain networks that recognize and react to sexual cues.


Prevalence

The prevalence of hebephilia within the general population is unknown. There is evidence suggesting that within clinical and
correctional In criminal justice, particularly in North America, correction, corrections, and correctional, are umbrella terms describing a variety of functions typically carried out by government agencies, and involving the punishment, treatment, and su ...
samples, as well as anonymous surveys of people sexually interested in children, there are more individuals with an erotic interest in pubescent rather than in prepubescent children.


DSM-5 debate


Proposal

The DSM-5's diagnostic criteria for pedophilia specifies it as a disorder of sexual interest in prepubescent children generally age 13 years or younger. A 2009 research paper by Ray Blanchard and colleagues indicated that, based on penile plethysmographs, sex offenders could be grouped according to the sexual maturity of individuals they found most attractive (because ages are not a specific indication of adolescent sexual development, Blanchard used stimuli with a Tanner scale rating of 1 on essentially all measures to evaluate hebephilic offenders while adult control stimuli all had a Tanner rating of 5). Blanchard noted that the most common age of victims for sexual offenders was 14 years, and suggested there were qualitative differences between offenders who preferred pubertal sex-objects and those with a prepubertal preference. The paper concluded that the DSM-5 could better account for those data if it split the
DSM-IV-TR The ''Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders'' (''DSM''; latest edition: ''DSM-5-TR'', published in March 2022) is a publication by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) for the classification of mental disorders using a c ...
's existing criteria for pedophilia, which focuses on sexual attraction to prepubescent children, but sets the age range at generally 13 or younger. Blanchard suggested the criteria be split into ''pedophilia'' as sexual attraction to prepubescent children who are generally younger than 11, and ''hebephilia'' as sexual attraction to pubescent children, generally 11–14 years old. What the
DSM-IV The ''Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders'' (''DSM''; latest edition: ''DSM-5-TR'', published in March 2022) is a publication by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) for the classification of mental disorders using a com ...
calls ''pedophilia'' would instead be termed ''pedohebephilia'', with pedophilic and hebephilic sub-types. The proposed criteria for the DSM-5 involved an adult who, for six or more months, experienced sexual attraction to prepubescent or pubescent children that was equal to or greater than their attraction to adults, and who also either found the attraction distressing, used
child pornography Child pornography (also abbreviated as CP, also called child porn or kiddie porn, and child sexual abuse material, known by the acronym CSAM (underscoring that children can not be deemed willing participants under law)), is Eroticism, erotic ma ...
or had sought sexual stimulation from a child, on at least three occasions in the case of the hebephilic type. The proposed criteria would have been applied to subjects aged 18 or older and who are at least five years older than children to whom they are typically attracted. The sexual and gender identity working group justified inclusion of the use of child pornography due to the expectation that pedohebephilic individuals would deny their sexual preferences, leaving it up to the diagnosing clinician to make inferences whether their patients are more interested in children than adults. The altered wording (from "prepubescent" to "prepubescent and pubescent") and reference age (from a maximum age of 13 to 14) would change how pedophilia was diagnosed to include victims with Tanner scale ratings of 2 or 3 who had partially developed some secondary sexual characteristics.


Responses


General

Researchers at the German Dunkelfeld project supported the explicit mention of hebephilia in DSM-5: "Concerning the update of the DSM (DSM-5) a category called 'hebephilic disorder' would have been appropriate, especially considering the given data which shows that in men with a hebephilic preference, who seek treatment, the disorder criteria of the DSM-5 (psychological distress, behavior endangering others) are given in many cases. In this respect there would be men with hebephilia as well as men with a 'hebephilic disorder.'" In a letter to the editor, Thomas Zander argued there would be serious consequences from expanding the definition of pedophilia to include hebephilia, and stated that there are problems in distinguishing between prepubescent versus pubescent victims and thus in classifying offenders, and concluded that it required more research and consideration of implications before the DSM was changed. Blanchard agreed that distinguishing between pedophiles and hebephiles may present difficulties, but stated that in the case of a repeat sexual offender, these fine distinctions would be less important; he noted that other objections raised by Zander's letter were addressed in the original article. In another letter to the editor, physician Charles Moser agreed with Blanchard et al.'s premise that there was a distinction between sex offenders who preferred pubescent versus prepubescent victims and supported the term's usefulness in conducting research, but questioned whether hebephilia would represent a true paraphilia. Karen Franklin stated that she believes the concept is largely the result of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, although CAMH scientist and pedophilia researcher
James Cantor James M. Cantor is an American-Canadian clinical psychologist and sexologist specializing in hypersexuality and paraphilias. A former senior scientist with the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) in Toronto,peer review Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work (:wiktionary:peer#Etymology 2, peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the ...
ed papers researching the concept. Psychologist Skye Stephens and sexologist Michael C. Seto also argue that because the ICD-10 includes "prepubertal or early pubertal age" in its classification of pedophilia, it includes both pedophilic and hebephilic sexual interests. At a 2009 meeting of the
American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law The American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law (AAPL) is a professional organization in the field of forensic psychiatry. History and organization It publishes the quarterly '' Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law''. The Acade ...
, concern was raised that the criteria could have produced both false positives and false negatives, and that hebephilia as a DSM diagnosis could pathologize sex offenders who have opportunistically preyed on pubescent victims but do not have a paraphilic attachment to a specific age of victim, while excluding offenders who had committed serious offences on only one or two victims. During
academic conference An academic conference or scientific conference (also congress, symposium, workshop, or meeting) is an Convention (meeting), event for researchers (not necessarily academics) to present and discuss their scholarly work. Together with academic jou ...
s for the American Academy of Psychiatry and Law and International Association for the Treatment of Sexual Offenders, symbolic votes were taken regarding whether the DSM-5 should include pedohebephilia, and in both cases an overwhelming majority voted against this. In a
letter to the editor A letter to the editor (LTE) is a Letter (message), letter sent to a publication about an issue of concern to the reader. Usually, such letters are intended for publication. In many publications, letters to the editor may be sent either through ...
, clinical psychologist Joseph Plaud criticized the study for lacking
control group In the design of experiments, hypotheses are applied to experimental units in a treatment group. In comparative experiments, members of a control group receive a standard treatment, a placebo, or no treatment at all. There may be more than one tr ...
s for post-pubescent and normal patterns of male sexual arousal, overlap between groups Blanchard believed were separate, and lack of specificity in the data. Blanchard replied that the initial publication used sex offenders who had committed crimes against post-pubescent adults as a control group, and that the results supported victim age preferences being a
continuous Continuity or continuous may refer to: Mathematics * Continuity (mathematics), the opposing concept to discreteness; common examples include ** Continuous probability distribution or random variable in probability and statistics ** Continuous ...
rather than
categorical variable In statistics, a categorical variable (also called qualitative variable) is a variable that can take on one of a limited, and usually fixed, number of possible values, assigning each individual or other unit of observation to a particular group or ...
. In separate letters to the editor, forensic psychologist Gregory DeClue and mathematician Philip Tromovitch agreed the term would be valuable for research purposes and to subdivide the current diagnosis of pedophilia into victim age preferences, but expressed concern over the term's potential to dramatically expand the number of people diagnosed with a paraphilia without an adequate research base to support it, and that the article did not include a definition of "mental disorder" and thus lacked the ability to distinguish the pathological from the non-pathological. Blanchard stated in a reply that his paper was written under the assumptions that the DSM-5's definition of mental disorder and pathologizing of sexual activity with underaged individuals would be similar to the one found in the DSM-IV.
Child sexual abuse Child sexual abuse (CSA), also called child molestation, is a form of child abuse in which an adult or older adolescent uses a child for sexual stimulation. Forms of child sexual abuse include engaging in Human sexual activity, sexual activit ...
researcher
William O'Donohue William T. "Bill" O'Donohue (born August 18, 1957) is an American psychologist who focuses on human sexuality, especially child sexual abuse.Begley, Sharon (March 19, 2001). What Is a Pedophile? Not all of them are child abusers, and they often bel ...
believes, based on the incentive for offenders to lie, that there is a risk of false negatives. O'Donohue praised Blanchard et al.'s proposal to distinguish hebephilia from pedophilia, but questioned the inclusion of offender distress, the use of child pornography as a determining factor and requiring a minimum of three victims, believing the latter choice would result in delayed treatment for hebephiles who have not acted on their urges while ignoring the often hidden nature of child sexual abuse. O'Donohue also had concerns over how information for making decisions about the proposed diagnosis would be acquired, whether the diagnosis could be made with
reliability Reliability, reliable, or unreliable may refer to: Science, technology, and mathematics Computing * Data reliability (disambiguation), a property of some disk arrays in computer storage * Reliability (computer networking), a category used to des ...
and sufficient agreement between clinicians and issues related to treatment.


Attraction as normal or abnormal

Debate about hebephilia has also concerned whether the attraction is normal or abnormal. Karen Franklin has criticized use of the term ''hebephilia'' for pathologizing and criminalizing an
adaptation In biology, adaptation has three related meanings. Firstly, it is the dynamic evolutionary process of natural selection that fits organisms to their environment, enhancing their evolutionary fitness. Secondly, it is a state reached by the p ...
, arguing that the concept stigmatizes a "widespread and, indeed, evolutionarily adaptive" sexual attraction of homosexual and heterosexual males who, across cultures and throughout history "tend to prefer youthful partners who are at the peak of both beauty and reproductive fertility". Commenting on Blanchard et al.'s proposal, psychologists Robert Prentky and Howard Barbaree stated that examples of highly sexualized young girls appear frequently in advertising, fashion shows, television programs, and films, making it questionable whether sexual attraction to pubescents is abnormal. Psychiatrist
Allen Frances Allen J. Frances (born 2 October 1942) is an American psychiatrist. He is currently Professor and Chairman Emeritus of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Duke University School of Medicine. He is best known for serving as ch ...
argued that attraction to pubescent individuals is within the normal range of human behavior and thus could not be considered sexually deviant, though acting on such attraction could be considered a crime. Thomas Zander also expressed concern about the degree to which the potential diagnosis genuinely reflected normal versus abnormal sexual desire. Blanchard argued that critics of his proposal were performing a "rhetorical sleight-of-hand" that conflated sexual attraction with sexual preference, arguing that while normal men may show some degree of attraction to pubescents, they overwhelmingly prefer physically mature adults. In contrast, hebephiles have an ''equal or greater'' sexual preference for pubescents compared to physically mature adults. He responded to Franklin's comment, writing that presumably Franklin's "adaptationist argument" applied only to heterosexual males, as homosexual hebephilia would have no reproductive advantages. Blanchard cited recent research he had conducted regarding the alleged reproductive success of hebephiles, pedophiles and individuals attracted primarily or exclusively to adults. The results indicated that teleiophiles had more children, and thus more adaptive success than hebephiles, while hebephiles had more success than pedophiles. From this, Blanchard concluded that "there is no empirical basis for the hypothesis that hebephilia was associated with increased reproductive success in the environment of evolutionary adaptedness. That speculative adaptationist argument against the inclusion of hebephilia in the DSM cannot be sustained". Some authors have argued that dysfunction is culturally relative or a
social construct A social construct is any category or thing that is made real by convention or collective agreement. Socially constructed realities are contrasted with natural kinds, which exist independently of human behavior or beliefs. Simple examples of s ...
, such as by pointing to historical societies where marriage between pubescent girls and older men was practiced. Anthropologist David Ryniker wrote that cultures that practiced marriage between adult men and pubescent girls did so for economic and social reasons, not due to any sexual preference. He argued that, based on the biological evidence, humans did not evolve a strategy of early fertility, and that a sexual focus on pubescents would be maladaptive. Anthropologist Raymond Hames and Blanchard argued that in most cultures, pubescent girls did not begin sexual activity until they were at or near the end of puberty. Stephens and Seto argue that hebephilia can be considered dysfunctional, stating that "conceptually, hebephilia is a paraphilia, reflecting an atypical (statistically rare) sexual age interest in pubescent children." They state that hebephilia is a malfunction of the biological mechanism which drives males to be attracted to sexually mature females, and that while typical men are attracted to youthfulness, they are also interested in cues of sexual maturity (adult size, fully developed
breasts The breasts are two prominences located on the upper ventral region of the torso among humans and other primates. Both sexes develop breasts from the same embryology, embryological tissues. The relative size and development of the breasts is ...
, and a waist-to-hip ratio of around 0.70). Hebephiles, by contrast, respond positively to cues of youthfulness but negatively to cues of sexual maturity. Penile plethysmography results show that heterosexual men are preferentially attracted to adult women, with lower responses to pubescent girls and then prepubescent girls, and then males of all ages causing the least response. Stephens and Seto also argue that hebephilia is dysfunctional because it causes significant distress or impairment in those who have it, perhaps via legal issues or disrupted adult relationships, because hebephilic behavior violates
social norm A social norm is a shared standard of acceptance, acceptable behavior by a group. Social norms can both be informal understandings that govern the behavior of members of a society, as well as be codified into wikt:rule, rules and laws. Social norma ...
s or is even illegal in most contemporary cultures.


Use in court

Forensic psychologist
Charles Patrick Ewing Charles Patrick Ewing is a forensic psychologist, attorney, SUNY Distinguished Service Professor, and Professor of Law Emeritus at the University at Buffalo Law School. He was Vice Dean for Legal Skills from 2009 until 2012, and for Academic Aff ...
criticized the diagnosis, saying it is a transparent attempt to ensure that sex offenders who target pubescent teenagers may be subject to involuntary
civil commitment Involuntary commitment, civil commitment, or involuntary hospitalization/hospitalisation, or informally in Britain sectioning, being sectioned, commitment, or being committed, is a legal process through which an individual who is deemed by a qual ...
. DSM-IV editors
Michael First Michael B. First (born 1956) is an American psychiatrist who focuses on diagnostic criteria for mental disorders. He is Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at Columbia University. First was one of the editors of DSM-IV-TR, the Editor of Text and C ...
and Allen Frances expressed concern that hebephilia could be misused in civil commitment hearings, and questioned the need and evidence for the inclusion. Frances wrote that the diagnosis of hebephilia "has no place in forensic proceedings." Charles Moser argued against what he saw as the problematic use of paraphilic labels to pathologize unusual sexual interests and incarcerate individuals on the basis of their paraphilia rather than their behavior. He also questioned the usefulness of paraphilias in general when the real issue may be criminal behaviors or stigmatization of unusual but benign sexual acts. Of hebephilia in civil commitment, Prentky and Barbaree wrote, "Hence, for self-serving reasons, it is applauded by those who generally work for the prosecution and criticized by those who generally work for the defense. This is an admittedly cynical, if unfortunately accurate, commentary on the influence of adversarial litigation on clinical deliberation." Psychologist Douglas Tucker and lawyer Samuel Brakel stated that civil commitment as a sexually violent predator does not require a DSM diagnosis, so long as the clinicians who testify in courts do so in good faith and they identify a conceptually and empirically meaningful mental abnormality that is predictive of future sexual violence, irrespective of the term used. Some courts have accepted the hebephilia diagnosis while others have not. In court cases where the term ''hebephilia'' is used, it is placed within the DSM category of paraphilia, not otherwise specified (NOS). The diagnosis of hebephilia was rejected in one
United States federal court The federal judiciary of the United States is one of the three branches of the federal government of the United States organized under the United States Constitution and laws of the federal government. The U.S. federal judiciary consists primaril ...
in 2009 for being a label, not a "generally accepted mental disorder", and because a mere attraction to pubescent adolescents is not indicative of a mental disorder. Although the court rejected the government's claim that hebephilia is a mental disorder, the government argued that hebephilia may at times fall within a DSM-IV category of NOS. The court was also unconvinced by this.


References


External links


List of articles on the diagnostic controversy
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Karen Franklin Karen Franklin is an American forensic psychologist. For her doctoral dissertation, she conducted research on anti-gay violence.James Brooke, October 14, 1998, The New York TimesHomophobia Often Found In Schools, Data Show Accessed July 26, 2014 ...
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