>>715829179
There's two definitions of pedophilia at work here
- yours is roughly in line with the scientific definition, where pre-pubescence is key. IIRC it's actually even stricter and it has to largely define your sexual preferences or something.
- the popular definition is that pedophile = anyone attracted to people under 18 who isn't within a narrow age gap to them.*
I think the scientific definition is more agreeable, not just in terms of potential harm and societal impacts, but also because in a pop-evo-psych way. Surely nature signals sexual maturation so you *don't* try to court them earlier.
But nobody wants to be the guy who goes "uhm actually that's hebephilia" or "you can call it creepy and still be just as disgusted, but don't call it pedophilia", so the common definition of pedophilia has been significantly broadened without its social condemnation having been watered down proportionally.
It's arguably a more extreme version of what happened to the words "rape" and "racist". Some people use "rape" for everything sexually non-consensual (sometimes even conflated with sexual harassment). The Hollywood "shut up kiss" would be rape for example. Or some people mix "racist" with "systemically racist" to end up with all-new definitions for "racist" like "anyone who is part of the oppressor race benefitting from a racist society". So even a White newborn is automatically racist** because of inborn white privilege, and traditional racists are relabeled as "racially prejudiced".
*some people on the net propose more generous cut-off-points like 25, but I think that's still pretty online-only
**logically only in the US, but I doubt anyone with that definition of racist would be cool with Whites going to China and calling people ching-chong-ping-pong
