in general, i really hate to make big distinctions along biological lines, but i have serious problems with any definition of p(a)edophilia which doesn't acknowledge a major and significant distinction between prepubescents and postpubescents.
as Bobossboy noted, in many cultures, past and present, marriage and sexual activity between adult males and 12-13 year old girls is commonplace, and in most important biological senses, women are adults at around that age, if not earlier - the age of menarche is dropping in most developed countries. i believe the average in some areas is as young as 9-10 years old now. it's unreasonable to expect that men of whatever age are not going to react on some level to a biologically adult woman as if she were a biologically adult woman, and so i think that any attempt to pathologize attraction to teenage girls is misguided at best. at worst, it's cruel to make adult hetero males feel like perverts for feeling twinges in their pants when a 15-year old with nice tits walks by, or for whacking off to a TATU video. attraction in such circumstances is both reflexive and perfectly normal and should not be stigmatized.
however, that said, behavior is another matter, which, to me, is less clear-cut.
the stigma attached to adult-teenager sexual relations in Western culture and the concerns of emotional trauma and victimization are clearly cultural in origin, as demonstrated by the commonplace nature of teenage sexual activity (often with adults) in other cultures. however, simply because it's a cultural thing doesn't mean that it's not very real in practice to the people in that culture. young teenagers in our society are generally not adults, whether they are in other cultures, and, as a result, the psychological consequences can be devestating. perhaps more problematic is the perhaps inevitable power imbalance in an adult/teen sexual relationship, which raises the victimization issue.
however, i don't think none of these issues are black and white. a lot of the emotional trauma, i think, stems from feelings of shame or guilt or confusion or whatever, so we're left with a situation where the social stigma essentially causes the problems by which it justifies itself. that's kind of stupid in my book, but it's irresponsible to pretend that it's the kind of thing that we as an enlightened culture can just chuck to the wind without lots and lots of people getting hurt.
i think that it's important to strike a balance between the reality that there can be healthy sexual relations between older and younger partners in certain circumstances, with certain partners, and the other reality that, because of cultural realities, most such situations will not be under those circumstances and will not be healthy. it's important to acknowledge that age differential is a major factor, but it's not the only one.
it's really a case-by-case thing that has to be judged based on the psychological makeup of the individuals involved - some 15 years olds are more adult than others. for that reason, i'm not sure that a witch-hunting atmosphere or legal/penal action based on broad, arbitrary statutes make the situation any better. i think that the weight of social disapproval is sufficient to keep the problem to a minimum, and interferes unnecessarily with the private sexualities of those few people who might enjoy a consensual, mutually-fulfilling romp with a partner outside of the normal range of social acceptability. |
