English

Alternative forms

• paedophilia British
• pædophilia British, dated

Noun

pedophilia ‎(countable and uncountable, plural pedophilias)

1. Sexual attraction to children by adults.
   • 2007, Margaret Mary Wright, Judicial decision making in child sexual abuse cases, page 122:

     As noted earlier, pedophilia was cited as both an aggravating and a mitigating circumstance by trial judges, as was the absence of pedophilia.

   • 2009, Ann Kring, Sheri Johnson, Gerald C. Davison, Abnormal Psychology:

     Sometimes a man with pedophilia is content to stroke the child's hair, but he may also manipulate the child's genitalia, [...]

   • For more examples of usage of this term, see Citations:pedophilia.
2. Sexual activity between adults and children.
   • 1998, Kaufman, Andrew L., Cardozo, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, ISBN 0674096452, page 25:

     Fifteen months later, a committee of the congregation found that he had sexually abused several boys within the congregation. […] The fact that Alger committed pedophilia at the age of thirty-four casts a shadow over his subsequent yearning for relationships with boys and young men, but there is no evidence of any later misconduct.

   • 2005, Carol Weiss Lewis, Stuart Gilman, The ethics challenge in public service: a problem-solving guide, 2 edition, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, ISBN 9780787967567, page 88:

     Entire books have been written about the role of scandal in US politics (Garment, 1992). Offenses include smoking marijuana, hiring illegal aliens, plagiarizing, sexually harassing others, engaging in pedophilia, […]

   • 2009, Nancy Cavender, Howard Kahane, Logic and Contemporary Rhetoric: The Use of Reason in Everyday Life, page 309:

     It's quite another (a bad idea) to expect amateurs to figure out who is telling the truth about Iraq, or which priests have committed pedophilia.(Can we verify this quotation?)

   • For more examples of usage of this term, see Citations:pedophilia.

Usage notes

• Many psychologists recommend against using the term pedophilia to denote sexual activities with children, because not all people with a primary or exclusive sexual attraction to prepubescent children (i.e., pedophilia) commit such acts, and child molesters often lack a strong sexual interest in prepubescent children.^[1][2] Furthermore, psychological texts define pedophilia as a primary or exclusive attraction towards specifically prepubescent children;^[3] primary or exclusive attraction towards pubescent children is known as hebephilia and towards post-pubescent adolescents ephebophilia. See Wikipedia for more information.

Synonyms

• childlove (euphemistic)
• pederosis
• (psychiatry): pedophilic disorder ‎(“a clinical diagnostic classification”) (American Psychiatric Association)

Antonyms

• pedophobia

Hypernyms

• (psychiatry): paraphilia ‎(“a clinical diagnostic classification”)

Derived terms

• pedophile

Related terms

Translations

References

1. ↑ Seto, Michael (2008). Pedophilia and Sexual Offending Against Children. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. p. vii.
2. ↑ Lanning, Kenneth V. (2010). Child Molesters: A Behavioral Analysis (fifth ed.). National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. pp. 29–30 (45–46 of PDF).
3. ↑ American Psychiatric Association, ed. (2013). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (fifth ed.). American Psychiatric Publishing. p. 697.