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RE: Psychology Addict # 66 | Paedophilia.

in #psychology11 months ago (edited)

In reference to your statement that reads:

In fact, 8.2% of sexually abused individuals report being sexually attracted to children and young teens.

According to the Fifth Edition of the Statistical and Diagnostic Manual of Mental Disorders ("DSM-5"), an adult's attraction to young teens would not be deemed to be pedophilia, unless, of course, that young teen is younger than 14 years old and is still in Tanner Stage 1. There are also provisions therein that exclude an adult from being a pedophile if he or she is attracted to 12- or 13-year-old boys or girls. For example, if the adult is still in his or her late teens, then it would not be pedophilia. If the 12- or 13-year-old is in Tanner Stage 2 or higher, then the adult admiring him or her would not be diagnosed with pedophilia.

In other words, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) that issued the DSM-5 deems an adult's sexual attraction to young teens to be normative. Hebephilia is not really a paraphilia but rather acts as an exception-to-the-rule provision when focusing on the question on whether an adult attracted to someone between 11 and 13 years old is a pedophile.

Last year (2022) the World Health Organization (WHO) also removed young teens from the description of juveniles to which pedophiles would be attracted in the 11th Edition of the International Classification of Diseases ("ICD-11"). Therefore, at this point in time, anyone's accusation against an adult of being a pedophile for being sexually attracted to young teens would be a product of pop psychology at best rather than professional psychiatry.

Of course, I understand that you wrote your article and posted it back in 2020, so I am not sniping at you for stating therein what you did. I can tell from the way you spell "pedophilia" as "paedophilia" that you must live in Europe somewhere where the ICS-10 was more popular than the DSM-5 at the time.