If you want to be really strict about it...
Paedophilia is a sexual attraction towards children that are not physically mature enough to have sex (prepubescent), single digit ages and a bit older
Sexual attraction towards children that are emotionally immature but not physically immature is something else, and there’s your nonces
AFAIK, Epstein's victims were the latter and he wasn't a paedophile
I can live with paedophilia being used to refer to both things by most people (not psychologists and law enforcement etc.) though because "actually, it's not paedophilia" is often used to diminish the severity of sexual abuse of underage children / minors, or just fancying them, or the disgusting things tabloids used (?) to publish before famous minors' 16th birthdays
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custard, Mon 13 Oct 2025, 19:55,
Reply)
I think it goes a bit deeper than that.
Like the article says, it's almost 'natural' for heterosexual men to have some level of lizard-brain sexual attraction to females once they begin to present as being fertile/pubescent. It's our moral/cultural compass that decides at what age that sexual attraction becomes appropriate (18 in the UK, currently).
Being attracted to infants is something completely different. It's much more of a psychological disorder than an issue of morals. There is absolutely no evolutionary explanation for paedophilia. It's simply a case of having a faulty brain. I'm sure there are a few proper fucking wrong 'uns out there who revel in their paraphilic tendencies (Savile, Watkins, etc). But I suspect that most paedos arent paedos by choice - especially if the 1 in 50 figure is accurate.
Either way, whether its infants or adolescents, it's only really an issue of you make the choice to act on those urges. And it's always a choice.
(, Mon 13 Oct 2025, 20:41, Reply)