# Ephebophilia **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 17, 2002, 10:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ephebophilia/119384 "2002-07-17T10:53:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![kiffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/d78d45/32.png) [@kiffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kiffa)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2002, 10:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ephebophilia/119384/1 "2002-07-17T10:53:52Z")
What is this? I’ve searched several standard dictionaries and medical dictionaries without success. The word appeared in the New Yorker Magazine article on the Catholic Church and pedophile priests. Any one know this word? ---
**Author:** ![Crusoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/49beb7/32.png) [@Crusoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crusoe)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2002, 10:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ephebophilia/119384/2 "2002-07-17T10:56:50Z")
I don’t meant to be smug or rude (honestly), but putting that word into Google brought back 742 hits, with definitions included in the first page of results. > [@](#): > > Ephebophilia is a condition in which a person is attracted not to prepubescent children but to children or adolescents around the time of puberty, basically teenagers. ---
**Author:** ![Rhapsody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9de0a6/32.png) [@Rhapsody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhapsody)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2002, 11:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ephebophilia/119384/3 "2002-07-17T11:03:52Z")
ephebophile Sexually attracted to young teenage boys ephebology Rarely used term for the study of the morphologic and other changes incidental to puberty. Origin: G. Ephebos, puberty, + logos, study ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2002, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ephebophilia/119384/4 "2002-07-17T14:03:40Z")
I read recently that it is a new term whose only apparent purpose is to say that all those priests are not pedophiles. In terms of the historic meaning of pedophile, that is a crock. What do you call a bishop who covers it up? I call him an accessory after the fact. When he transfers him elsewhere, the bishop becomes an accessory before the fact. Would I like to see some of those guys prosecuted, since they were in a position to stop it and didn’t. They (the bishops) are still in denial of their own culpability. ---
**Author:** ![Ringo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/779978/32.png) [@Ringo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ringo)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2002, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ephebophilia/119384/5 "2002-07-17T14:14:13Z")
> [@](#): > > I read recently that it is a new term whose only apparent purpose is to say that all those priests are not pedophiles. In terms of the historic meaning of pedophile, that is a crock. I’m not sure I understand. If a pedophile is a person whose sexual attraction is to prepubescent children, would not a different term apply to those attracted to young folk of pubescent or post-pubescent development? ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2002, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ephebophilia/119384/6 "2002-07-17T15:35:08Z")
Hari Seldon: “I read recently” is hardly a useful citation. I read something recently, too: the Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders of the American Psychiatric Association. This tome, the authority on classification of disorders, defines pedophilia as recurrent sexual fantasies, urges and behaviors involving prepubescent children, typically 13 and younger. It’s part of a larger category of sexual disorders called paraphilias. We can thus see that ‘pedophile’ is not a term properly applied to someone with sexual fantasies, urges, or behaviors focused on post-pubescent minors. - Rick ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2002, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ephebophilia/119384/7 "2002-07-17T15:37:29Z")
Oh, and Hari? Your other point, regarding the potential criminal culpability of bishops, was covered extensively in a Pit thread a few weeks ago. The short summary: the Hari Seldon definition of accessort does not appear to comport with the legal definition. In other words, while the bishops’ conduct may have been contempible, it was not illegal. If you would like to provide a citation to the law you claim was broken by their conduct, by all means, do so. - Rick