I'm dating a hebephile. Advice?

On February 13th of this year, I found a number of jailbait porn sites and non-nude preteen model sites on my boyfriend's browser history. After confronting him about what I had found, he confessed to me that he had been attracted to young girls for quite some time. He told me that his age preference is about 10-14 years old, mostly girls around 12. He also told me that when he sees a young girl he considers attractive it's like looking at a woman he would find attractive but his fantasies about girls are more of an abstract concept of sex. He said he would never act on his urges and I know that be wouldn't. After talking for quite some time, he told me that he often has trouble climaxing when looking at preteen models or jailbait porn and needs to watch regular porn to finish. He's said that his attraction to women his own age (21) is much stronger than his attraction to little girls and that his hebephiliac desires cause him a lot of pain, self-hatred, shame, and confusion.

That brings me to my position. As a very young girl, I was raped by a relative. My boyfriend was the first person I was able to open up to. When I first found out about his hebephilia, I was very angry and depressed. It felt like he had betrayed me and by staying with him, I would let my rapist win. I'm no longer angry or upset with him but I am confused. I need some help understanding what's going on. I've been doing a lot of reading about pedophilia, hebephilia, and ephebaphila. From what I've gathered, there may be a much larger segment of the population that would be considered hebephiles if we could poll them. The prevelance of hebephilia cannot be accurately determined because of the stigma those with it would face if they came forward. The current DSM does not consider hebephilia to be a paraphilia.

Long story short, is hebephilia a disorder? Or is it merely conditioning from his pubescent years, when he first began to think about sex, to find 10-14 year olds attractive? How can I help him? Is there anyone else going through this?

Important information about us: I'm 20, my boyfriend is 21. We have been together for almost two years and are incredibly in love. I'm not looking for people to tell me to leave him or say that he's sick. I'm looking for advice from people who are or have gone through something similar. I love him more than anything in this universe and would do whatever it takes to help him understand what he's going through.

Hi whalesonland, welcome.

I see a lot of myself in your description of your boyfriend. I am attracted to girls and women. In terms of physical attraction I find younger girls around the onset of pubescence most attractive, and girls in early to mid puberty most sexy, though I do find women attractive to the extent that they embody these qualities (physically, behaviourally), and I also find younger prepubescent girls attractive to the extent that they resemble pubescent or adolescent girls. I believe that my sexuality is the way it is because I started puberty at 9 and my sexuality was properly 'awake' in the adult sense before I hit double figures, so by the time some of my peers were entering puberty (around 12 or 13) I had had a fully fledged sexuality for several years. It doesn't surprise me, therefore, that the lower end of my age range of attraction is lower than theirs. I don't view child porn, as I consider it immoral. I don't view child modelling sites as I believe they're a legal grey area here in the UK. I do view videos of younger girls on YouTube (doing gymnastics, for example), but I don't leave comments as I feel that is immoral. In terms of sexual fantasies, I can relate to what your boyfriend says. If I were to fantasise about a woman the fantasy could be very explicitly sexual. If I fantasise about a prepubescent girl I'm generally just visualising the way she looks and not thinking about interaction. And with young pubescent girls there will be some fantasy of gentle exploration. I find it hard to separate fantasy from morality. I should add that I have a long-term girlfriend who knows absolutely everything about my sexuality, and is entirely accepting because she knows me better than I know myself, knows that I didn't choose my attraction, and knows that I wouldn't hurt a fly.

^I hope that gives you some insight into a man/a couple in a similar situation.

I am of the opinion that hebephilia is a nonsense term invented (and subsequently dredged up) to make a name for a few scientists eager for glory. The voting on its inclusion in the latest edition of the DSM was conclusive: it was roundly rejected. As far as the vast majority of the scientific community are concerned, it is a nonsense term. If a man finds girls in puberty more attractive than women, this is not a pathological condition; indeed, if a man were not driven wild by girls in early puberty, he would be at a major biological disadvantage, and at the back of a very long queue to sow his seed. Age of consent laws (which are only a proscription on sexual activity and say nothing of the validity of attraction) are a recent phenomenon, relatively speaking. For the majority of human history girls have been having babies shortly after it becomes possible for them to do so (a couple of years into puberty, say), which made perfect sense when life expectancy was considerably lower than it is today. Besides which, the age of menarche has fallen over the past century or so (it is believed the seismic change in Western diets may be responsible for this), and girls are entering puberty around 1.2 years early than they were at the start of the 20th century. Furthermore, the scant studies available on adult male attraction to girls is exceedingly revealing; most men won't admit it, but the evidence paints a completely different picture, one that society would find shocking (cf. Hirschman et al. 1995, for example, which pertains to attraction to prepubescents, so if nigh on 90% of men experience some level of arousal to prepubescents and nigh on one third experienced arousal that equalled or exceeded their arousal to women, then one would imagine that attraction to - or at least arousal caused by - pubescents would be nigh on universal).

Anyway, to cut a long story short, my partner and I have been in more or less the same position as your partner and you.

First, congratulations for having investigated this matter to the extent of being aware of what the DSM says (and also prevalence of hp)!
(I'm already envious of your boyfriend for having such a resourcefull and smart gal).

Next, your problem (and it IS yours), is emotional.

You were raped, you react negatively to the hebephilic attraction as a consequence. This is silly and you need to be told so in no uncertain terms. Wanting to ###$ someone does not make one a rapist. Period, full stop.

Now for some positivety.
Your boyfriend is with you, and that is the practicality of the matter.
Ideally, you as a woman would not want him to look at other women or porn.
But he does, because he is a man and not a woman.
Yet he stays with you (because hey, he likes you - I would!), and quite obviously you are aware of how much he cares about you, because otherwise you would never have reciprocated his care by going to the extreme lengths you have, to collect and assess information and also post your concerns here.

My advice: Tell you boyfriend that you are okay with it, and that you love him. If you're feeling brave, add "and you don't need to lie to me" - because he probably does, on some points.

Life goes on.

And you can't have everything you want. That, is one of the very first things you learn to accept (without understanding), as a child.

Build on your relationship, use this secret that you share as a way for you to become closer and show eachother empathy, talk about things openly and calmly.

To add, my background is that I lust for eleven year old girls, but I don't see that part of my sexuality as a practical problem. And I have no patience for guilt-trips or thought-policing anymore, as I have friends (with kids!) who know and love and trust me. And I'm being nice and considerate, so I have zero bad conscience.

Wow, what a great human being you are. I told my girlfriend, and she left me.

We are in the same boat.. Maybe we could chat.

To start off, we are in what feels like a really healthy relationship. We both work, go to the gym, take care of our family. We are very happy and always laughing. We have a phenomenal sex life. I have always needed an aggressive man in bed. I love all of the forced, aggressive sex. We are also very open, which is unusual for both of us. We are both young, but have both been married before. Me for 8 years him for 14. Both with no kids. We started off as friends, and after a year or so of true friendship. This gave us a great base of honesty and openness. We, him especially, have never been with anyone we trusted enough to be ourselves, and by that I mean share this sexual desire he has. I try not to judge. As being a woman, most of us are not open to the kinds of taboo I have been recently shown. It started simple.. Max Hardcore. I really got into the rough aspect of this. I even watch it on my own when he is not around to fool around with. I also like dressing up and playing that I am a young innocent girl that gets destroyed. Basically what we call a Max girl. It has never gone as far as the pee stuff, but one day in the right light I could see me being open to it. It was until recently, by accident I found some online porn from a site that is one of those jail bait sites.. .. just girls that are around 12-15 years old, some look even younger. Always dressed, but very provocative poses and when I saw their faces, how little they really were... this is when I started feeling uncomfortable. As honest and open as we are, I haven't told him that I saw it..yet. I really love him, and he is a really great, honest and loyal man. Everyone has to have a flaw, is this really it?
What I want to do is try to understand it. I am just assuming that this isn't something that can be easily changed, I want him to be free to be himself, and I thought that I had really done that for him especially since I pretend to be 12 during sex. I didn't realize that it could really be an attraction to real little girls, just the ones that play one in porn like Max's. Finding this has made me worry that I haven't. Is it true that we all have to have a secret? Is this something that I can get past? Is this something that can be helped? If we have a daughter... is this something that could be tempted? What about her friends, will I worry in the future that he is thinking something inappropriate about them? I realize some of these questions are based on the insecurity of myself, (like this one: I look young for my age, as I age, is he still going to be attracted to me like that?) and we as humans in the past have been in times where it is completely acceptable.. is that true or is it just because we weren't living as long and people got married much younger than they do now?
This is my second day knowing this. The first was really hard to get through. Today is easier.
I would really appreciate any help on this, especially from someone who is like him. I am seeking to love my man for who he is, not try to change him, to accept him the way he is.. I am just not sure that this is something that I can live with for years to come, but I am willing to try.

First of all, to whalesonland:

I'm sorry to hear that you were raped. You are a very supportive girlfriend and it's very good that you want to seek help for your partner rather than leave him. Not a lot of people, especially after a 2 year relationship, would stay with someone who admits to being a hebephile.

I agree with Lyta; let your boyfriend know that you accept the way he is and continue to support him any way you can. Good luck

Secondly, to oiamher:

I think you should tell your partner what you've seen and let him know that you want to understand him and accept him for who he is. I'm sure that he will appreciate your honesty and you may be the only person on earth to find out. He might be desperate to talk about his feelings towards young girls, but he's ashamed/guilty. Let him know that what goes on in his mind does not hurt anybody.

Like you said, yesterday was hard, but today isn't as tough. And as each day goes by, it will continue to get easier. In regards to having a daughter, that is something you need to discuss with him; let him know your fears and ask him about his. Use this as an opportunity to become closer and build your relationship. I wish you the best of luck

What I am about to say is potentially quite sexist, but here goes:

Women generally react to these things with more anxiety, fear and anger than men.

I'm not sure if this observation is necessarily sexist; if you feel it is, feel free to point that out to me. Putting that aside, the reason why, I think, is because sexual abuse in this society, contrary to the notion of middle-aged men, waiting in vans by school buses, is, in actuality, more common within the family unit, more common for women and girls to be sexually assaulted than boys, more common for them to be assaulted by family members, or friends.

So, it's understandable, especially given your history, that you would be frightened by what you found on your boyfriend's computer.

However; you need to give him space. You need to let him be his own person. You need to see him as him, not as the "hebephile boyfriend". Most importantly, you need to have trust in your relationship; you need to be able to trust him, to feel safe with him. If being with him revives hurtful memories of abuse, or feelings of fear, it would be very unhealthy to put those to the back-burner. These things need to be confronted, for the sake of your relationship.

I would say that the part, perhaps the only part, depending on how comfortable he is talking to you about this, that you can play, is a part of moderation. It isn't your place to keep him in check, you don't need to do that, but he may start to see you as the person to rely on in terms of talking about his feelings for younger girls, and that may also imply struggles he may feel about girls he sees in his daily life.

As to "hebephilia" being a disorder, I don't buy into those definitions; I don't consider sexualities "taboo" to the rest of society to be disorders, even if the psychological establishment (or, as I call it, the psychiatric industry) says they are "dysfunctions", or "disorders". It's probably not necessary to take him to a psychologist, and certainly not necessary to get him on any kind of medications; this isn't curable, there isn't anything wrong with him, it is just that his most tender and affectionate, loving feelings are directed towards younger girls, and (lets not forget) you as well.

I speak as someone who likes younger boys.

Very interesting, thanks for sharing whalesonland.

I cannot condone the porn, he needs another way.
And I think the other way is being able to discuss the truth with you honestly.
And I think if you approach the situation properly, this could heal both of your lives together.
(or possibly tear you apart if you let it)

You cannot blame him for being hebe, it is totally natural and normal for him.
The idea that porn is okay but hebe tendencies are not okay, that will only exacerbate the problem, because the opposite is true.

I just wanted to ask how did you go about confronting him and now that it's been a few months how are things, whats going on?