does this make me a hebephile?

hello im a 17 year old male i find storys of girls that are 12-14 arousing
i dont find girls that are 12 or 13 attractive in real life and rarely do i find 14 year olds attractive
if i could choose id rather be with a girl my age. does being aroused by these storys make me a hebephile? i would never consider being with a girl that young in real life.

i prefer girls my age or older. but does that make me a hebephile? if im not what excatly is defined as a hebephile?

There's no such thing as a hebephile. Heterosexual men being attracted to pubescent girls is normal.

ctithe wrote:There's no such thing as a hebephile. Heterosexual men being attracted to pubescent girls is normal.

Considering the definition of hebephilia is an attraction to pubescences then doesn't the second statement mean that most men are hebephiles?

Anyway, attraction has more than one level. One can be turned on directly by the physiology of someone of something as well as simply the idea of it.

Since there is a heavy stigma about sex with children and a palpable untouchability about them, it makes sense how the idea of statutory rape arouses a person by way of their desire for rebellion or liberty.

Even if you get aroused by these stories, I feel hebephilia denotes a physical attraction so unless you would genuinely like to ogle and touch a girl's naked body then you're no a hebephile just a bit of a nonconformist at heart.

ctithe wrote:There's no such thing as a hebephile. Heterosexual men being attracted to pubescent girls is normal.

No, it's not normal if a 30 year old man is attracted to a 12 year old girl.

ElKahn wrote:

ctithe wrote:There's no such thing as a hebephile. Heterosexual men being attracted to pubescent girls is normal.

No, it's not normal if a 30 year old man is attracted to a 12 year old girl.

Of course there is always the possibility that most men have a degree of sexual desire for pubescents (even if it is considerably less than they would have for an adult) but of course no one talks about it or admits it due to social stigma.

ElKahn wrote:No, it's not normal if a 30 year old man is attracted to a 12 year old girl.

How are you defining 'normal'? The original post in this thread is useful in this regard.

My assertion is that it is normal (I'll provisionally define this as 'biologically valid') for a heterosexual male of reproducing age (which 30 years of age is) to be attracted to pubescent females (and, of course, females who have passed through adolescence into adulthood). I haven't put an age on that, and I don't think fixating on chronological age is helpful here. As I understand it, the average age of menarche in girls is currently 12.8 years. There will be plenty of 12-year-old girls who haven't started puberty and plenty who are already firmly pubescent. Proceeding from my provisional definition of 'normal', my assertion can be taken to imply that I would deem attraction to a pubescent 10 or 11-year-old 'normal' and attraction to a prepubescent 12 or 13-year-old 'abnormal'.

The term 'hebephile' was coined by a mediocre intellect (and subsequently resuscitated by other mediocre intellects) attempting to make a name for himself (/themselves) within the scientific community. And as I'm sure you're aware, proposals for its inclusion in DSM-V as an overarching 'paedohebephilic disorder' were roundly rejected. Why? The scientific consensus is that attraction to pubescent individuals is not abnormal. Granted, when defining paedophilic attraction the DSM does attempt to qualify 'prepubescent' in terms of chronological age by appending a parenthetical 'generally age 13 years or younger', but the key criterion is 'prepubescent', not a specific number.

Just because it is biologically nature to be attracted to people who can reproduce doesn't make it automatically morally valid. But I'm not sure you understand why it's harmful for a 30 year old man to date a 12 year old girl even if she's pubescent.

That said, why do you mention reproduction as a reason to be attracted to someone?
That's not always the case and hebephilia is no exception.

ctithe wrote:

ElKahn wrote:No, it's not normal if a 30 year old man is attracted to a 12 year old girl.

How are you defining 'normal'? The original post in this thread is useful in this regard.

My assertion is that it is normal (I'll provisionally define this as 'biologically valid') for a heterosexual male of reproducing age (which 30 years of age is) to be attracted to pubescent females (and, of course, females who have passed through adolescence into adulthood). I haven't put an age on that, and I don't think fixating on chronological age is helpful here. As I understand it, the average age of menarche in girls is currently 12.8 years. There will be plenty of 12-year-old girls who haven't started puberty and plenty who are already firmly pubescent. Proceeding from my provisional definition of 'normal', my assertion can be taken to imply that I would deem attraction to a pubescent 10 or 11-year-old 'normal' and attraction to a prepubescent 12 or 13-year-old 'abnormal'.

The term 'hebephile' was coined by a mediocre intellect (and subsequently resuscitated by other mediocre intellects) attempting to make a name for himself (/themselves) within the scientific community. And as I'm sure you're aware, proposals for its inclusion in DSM-V as an overarching 'paedohebephilic disorder' were roundly rejected. Why? The scientific consensus is that attraction to pubescent individuals is not abnormal. Granted, when defining paedophilic attraction the DSM does attempt to qualify 'prepubescent' in terms of chronological age by appending a parenthetical 'generally age 13 years or younger', but the key criterion is 'prepubescent', not a specific number.

I don't see any reason why hebephilia isn't a valid concept and shouldn't have a word to denote it.
I think I misunderstood something in your argument.

ElKahn wrote:Just because it is biologically nature to be attracted to people who can reproduce doesn't make it automatically morally valid.

We're not talking about 'morally valid'; the term used and under discussion was 'normal'. The question is whether a grown man being attracted to a pubescent female is 'normal'.

ElKahn wrote:But I'm not sure you understand why it's harmful for a 30 year old man to date a 12 year old girl even if she's pubescent.

I'm sure you can see how this is both an ad hominem and a straw man. Whether or not it is harmful for a 30-year-old man to date a 12-year-old girl is irrelevant, as the issue at hand is attraction, not action, and with reference to that attraction the term under discussion is 'normal', not 'harmful' (or 'benign', etc.).

ElKahn wrote:That said, why do you mention reproduction as a reason to be attracted to someone?
That's not always the case and hebephilia is no exception.

GinaSmith's post (link above) cites a number of types of usages of the terms 'normal' and 'natural'. As I'm not sure how you're defining 'normal', it was necessary to assume a likely starting point, and the most obvious of these would reside in the biological/medical sphere. It may well be that you have some other normative framework in mind.

I feel that the word hebephile is still useful for a preferential desire for pubescent children.