They state that non-pedophilic offenders tend to offend at times of stress; have a later onset of offending; and have fewer, often familial, victims, while pedophilic offenders often start offending at an early age; often have a larger number of victims who are frequently extrafamilial; are more inwardly driven to offend; and have values or beliefs that strongly support an offense lifestyle. One study found that pedophilic molesters had a median of 1.3 victims for those with girl victims and 4.4 for those with boy victims. Child molesters, pedophilic or not, employ a variety of methods to gain sexual access to children. Some groom their victims into compliance with attention and gifts, while others use threats, alcohol or drugs, or physical force. History
Pedophilia is believed to have occurred in humans throughout history, but was not formally named, defined or studied until the late 19th century. The term paedophilia erotica was coined in an 1886 article by the Viennese psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing but does not enter the authors Psychopathia Sexualis until the 10th German edition. A number of authors anticipated Krafft-Ebings diagnostic gesture. In Psychopathia Sexualis, the term appears in a section titled "Violation of Individuals Under the Age of Fourteen", which focuses on the forensic psychiatry aspect of child sexual offenders in general. Krafft-Ebing describes several typologies of offender, dividing them into psychopathological and non-psychopathological origins, and hypothesizes several apparent causal factors that may lead to the sexual abuse of children.Krafft-Ebing mentioned paedophilia erotica in a typology of "psycho-sexual perversion".
Society and culture
General
Pedophilia is one of the most stigmatized mental disorders. One study reported high levels of anger, fear and social rejection towards pedophiles who have not committed a crime. The authors suggested such attitudes could negatively impact child sexual abuse prevention by reducing pedophiles mental stability and discouraging them from seeking help. According to sociologists Melanie-Angela Neuilly and Kristen Zgoba, social concern over pedophilia intensified greatly in the 1990s, coinciding with several sensational sex crimes (but a general decline in child sexual abuse rates). They found that the word pedophile appeared only rarely in The New York Times and Le Monde before 1996, with zero mentions in 1991.Social attitudes towards child sexual abuse are extremely negative, with some surveys ranking it as morally worse than murder. Early research showed that there was a great deal of misunderstanding and unrealistic perceptions in the general public about child sexual abuse and pedophiles. However, a 2004 study concluded that the public was well-informed on some aspects of these subjects. Misuse of medical terminology
The words pedophile and pedophilia are commonly used informally to describe an adults sexual interest in pubescent or post-pubescent persons under the age of consent. The terms hebephilia or ephebophilia may be more accurate in these cases.Another common usage of pedophilia is to refer to the act of sexual abuse itself, rather than the medical meaning, which is a preference for prepubescents on the part of the older individual (see above for an explanation of the distinction).