# Female version of Greek pais or English pedo **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 7, 2010, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-version-of-greek-pais-or-english-pedo/556345 "2010-10-07T11:47:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2010, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-version-of-greek-pais-or-english-pedo/556345/1 "2010-10-07T11:47:17Z")
I noticed the word hebephiliac in a [thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=12998910#post12998910) CS, and had a brain fart and couldn’t remember what it meant. So I looked it up on Wikipedia, and noticed the word pederasty as a See Also link. This got me wondering about the pedo prefix. Apparently, it is an inclusive male prefix, and thus can contain females. But what would be the corresponding term that just includes females? And, like pais, how would it convert to an English prefix? ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_T](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Gary\_T](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_T)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2010, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-version-of-greek-pais-or-english-pedo/556345/2 "2010-10-07T14:25:39Z")
Male or masculine? Masculine gender does not necessarily mean biologically male (e.g. Latin _nauta_, feminine gender, “sailor”). The overwhelming majority of words in Greek and Latin only come in one gender, and can apply to either sex as appropriate. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2010, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-version-of-greek-pais-or-english-pedo/556345/3 "2010-10-07T15:22:19Z")
This is trickier than it sounds. I’m going to presume **Big T** is looking for terminology for paraphiliac attractions; I’m sure there are other places where the distinction might be made, but cannot think of any offhand. Okay, given that, what I learned in the 1960s-70s (abnormal psych class in '68, kept up on the subject in personal reading thereafter) was that there were three distinct paraphilias: [ul][li]_ **Pedophilia** _ (British use always _paedo-_) was attraction to a child below puberty.[/li][li]_ **Ephebophilia** _ was attraction to an adolescent, nearly always specifically a male adolescent.[/li][li]_ **Hebephilia** _ was attraction to a female adolescent.[/ul][/li] In the last few years, however, I’ve encountered material that suggests the terminology I learned is not accurate: Rather than being distinguished by sex, the latter two (P(a)edophilia being left alone) are distinguished as: [ul][li]_ **Hebephilia** _ is attraction to a child in puberty or in that gangly period immediately after puberty before the “filling out” of later adolecence and young adulthood hits – either male or female. Examples might be the boys pictured in any teenybopper fan magazine or the girl on the Blind Faith album cover, discussed in a recent thread.[/li][li]_ **Ephebophilia** _ is attraction to someone in later adolescence, and is used somewhat more often of gay attraction to “twink” males since society considers finding a 16- or 17-year-old girl sexy though off-limits to be normal.[/li][li]_ **Opalophilia** _ is the perverse attraction to adding a third item to a list of only two, such as this entry. 😉 [/ul][/li] I can see how this terminology could be used also for developmental stages, though TTBOMK it is normally not so used. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Robson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gary_robson/32/3448_2.png) [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2010, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-version-of-greek-pais-or-english-pedo/556345/4 "2010-10-07T18:11:15Z")
[quote=“Polycarp, post:3, topic:556345”] [ul][li]_ **Opalophilia** _ is the perverse attraction to adding a third item to a list of only two, such as this entry. 😉 [/ul][/li][/QUOTE] Nicely done. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2010, 6:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-version-of-greek-pais-or-english-pedo/556345/5 "2010-10-10T06:33:37Z")
All I know is that the Wikipedia article say that pedophilia is for adults having paraphilic attractions for children, while pederasty, which uses the same prefix, is limited to males, both in subject and object. The reason given on the pedarasty page is that pedo- comes from pais, which is masculine, and therefore can mean either all children, or just males. I assumed it worked like the other languages in which I am familiar, and that there is a female version of that same Greek word, and that there might be English words that were formed from it. Or there at least might be a general formula for how to convert a Greek word into a prefix. And, I must admit, it’s because I learned a long time ago when researching the subject that male adult-female child is the most common form of pedophilia, despite most people thinking it is male adult-male child. I wanted to be able to say “Pederasty isn’t the most common form of pedophilia: \_\_\_\_\_ is.” And I was frustrated at not being able to find the female version of pais on Google, so I thought to ask here. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2010, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-version-of-greek-pais-or-english-pedo/556345/6 "2010-10-10T12:38:33Z")
So I was ponderously unhelpful? I’m sorry. Greek scholars? Is there a Greek word for “girl” that is specifically or predominantly signifying preteens?