Talk:Pedophilia
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 Q1: Why does this article characterize pedophilia as a mental or psychiatric disorder? A1: Fundamentally, Wikipedia articles need to reflect the consensus expressed in the best-availablereliable sources. Those sources characterize pedophilia as a mental or psychiatric disorder, so this article must as well. Those sources state that a mental disorder is a mental or behavioral pattern or anomaly that causes distress, disability or a strong impulse to harm oneself or others. Because pedophilia creates a strong impulse to have sexual relations with prepubertal children (an act which is inherently harmful), and people with the disorder that avoid doing so often suffer great distress, it is considered to be a mental disorder. This is what differentiates it from other types of sexual attractions or orientations that do not innately lead to harm or distress. Q2: Why isn't ______ point of view about pedophilia represented in this article? A2: Information on Wikipedia must rely first and foremost onreliable sources that can be independentlyverified. Sources come in many forms but some are clearly better than others. Peer-reviewed journal articles, major published manuals and textbooks are considered very reliable, while personal blog posts or anonymous forums are often nearly worthless and almost never acceptable. This article in particular is about a topic in the area of medicine, and so requires amuch higher standard of source than, say, an article about a fictional television program. Another key matter in excluding some material is the concept offringe theories; sources that represent extremely minor and often flawed views of a topic that are plainly contradicted by more rigorous and reliable sources. For pedophilia in particular there are many fringe points of view that exist, but few have any scientific backing verifiable by reliable sources, and many are outright discredited for questionable relevance or due to the author(s) clearly having ulterior motives, i.e. being a pedophile themselves attempting tojustify ornormalize their behavior. Q3: Why doesn't this article talk about pedophilia during historical periods of time (e.g. Ancient Greece or Rome, Muhammad)? A3: Covering this particular sub-topic is highly problematic for several reasons. The term "pedophilia" itself did not exist until the 19th century, and was coined specifically to refer to a mental illness with set criteria. While the condition no doubt existed prior to that, there was no way to categorize or name it, and thus noreliable source exists labeling any historical person as having "pedophilia." Labeling a historical person based on sexual behavior alone, especially a single recorded perpetration, is also problematic because not all child sexual abusers are pedophiles. The person's internal mental "drive" to engage in such behavior is a key component in diagnosis, something that is almost always missing from historical accounts. A third problem is that the vast majority of such recorded instances in history that people often think of actually would not qualify, because the victim was at or past puberty, whereas, medically,pedophilia usually only refers to prepubescent children. |
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Regarding the phrase "In popular usage, the word pedophilia is often applied to any sexual interest in children or the act of child sexual abuse, including any sexual interest in minors below the local age of consent or age of adulthood", I want to specify, just like in the article about ephebophilia, that this belief is common in the English-speaking world and doesn't apply to the rest of the world.Cretin Fox (talk)08:44, 25 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's unfortunate the creation of this compound word is such a corruption of the greek roots.
In truth, it should be pedo-eros, not philia.Christopher Theodore (talk)20:32, 10 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
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The 2009 Seto source cited at the end of the first sentence in the Epidemiology section ("but is estimated to be lower than 5% among adult men") is out of date. Please replace that text and source with: "but self-reported sexual attraction to children is estimated at about 13% and actual sexual contact with children at about 7%.[1]"
References
That is a more recentWP:MEDRS source. I am making this request here because I wished to do so on the article talk page from this throw-away account due to the sensitive nature and reputational risks of such discussions, but the article talk page is semi-protected.TA2993 (talk)02:51, 28 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Not done for now: please establish aconsensus for this alterationbefore using the.svg)
{{Edit semi-protected}} template.I might be missing something, but I don't see the exact data you mention in the cited article? It would also help in general to add page numbers. As I understand the source itself, there is also some disagreement about if the self reported data can be interpreted as paedophilia properly.
I think it would be a better idea to first discuss this carefully on this talk page.
I am not a big fan also of the way this is phrased.is estimated to be
could imply a consensus. A single source would not be sufficient to state this, I'd think.Slomo666 (talk)19:15, 28 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sexual Interest in Pre-pubescent Children. A total of 19 studies provided overall prevalence rates of SIIC [sexual interest in children] by looking at various factors such as sexual preference, sexual arousal, sexual fantasies, hypothetical/actual sexual contact with children and diagnostic criteria. When including every element in the definition of sexual interest in pre-pubescent children (aged 13 or younger), the prevalence rates for overall samples ranged from 0.2% to 65% with a mean of 12.8%.... [p. 37]
Actual Sexual Contact with Children.... When looking at individuals who self reported having had actual sexual contact with children (pre and pubescent children), the mean prevalence rate was 7.34% (n = 7 studies), ranging from 0.05% to 39.4%.... However, ... the highest prevalence rate (i.e., 39.4%) was obtained from ... individuals who already admitted having SIIC.... [so the] sample had a higher probability of recruiting individuals who had committed sexual offence against children compared to general population samples with lower percentages of individuals self-reporting SIIC. When excluding this study as an outlier, the mean prevalence rate was 2% in the general population (range = 0.05% - 4%). [pp. 39-40]
seems to be a lot of c.2008 material. surely there are more recent good research refs?Asto77 (talk)10:31, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
p.s. article mentioned by a reader herehttps://www.ft.com/content/513761bb-3b6c-4b32-9931-a34f01047558 ref whether some wiki articles are "overwhelming bias, to the point of comedy."
Since no one likes convicted pedophiles,not even prisoners, it makes sense to make this article extended-confirmed-protected.Masterlet05:23, 3 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]