Talk:pedophilia

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The reason I split the single definition,"Pedophilia is when an adult commits a sexual act against or has a sexual attraction to a child", into two different definitions "Pedophilia is when an adult commits a sexual act against a child" and "Pedophilia is when an adult has a sexual attraction to a child"[1], was that on English wiktionary, I was criticized for combining them [2], and I think English wiktionary's editors were correct and I was mistaken, because sexual attraction and sexual behavior are two different things. There are some people who are pedophilic in sexual orientation but are not pedophilic in behavior, although there are probably no people who are the other way around. The editor who made the distinction on English wiktionary explained, "In the time since this discussion was started, all of the aforementioned senses have been deleted (not by me). I agree that this was the correct course of action. However, I have restored the distinction which existed in revision 31351647 (before all the changes by Paul et al started) between action and attraction. Many other entries (correctly, IMO) make this distinction, e.g. heterosexuality and homosexuality."[3].PaulBustion87 (talk) 00:47, 17 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia article[change]

I'm not sure that this entry should link to the Simple English Wikipedia (an encyclopedia) article about pedophilia. The dictionary definition of pedophilia and the encyclopedia definition are completely different. Dictionaries reflect normal/real world use of words, encyclopedias reflect precise use. The dictionary definition used here, which is what should be used in a dictionary, is any adult sexual attraction to/sexual act against a child. That is the appropriate definition for a dictionary, but it is not the one encyclopedias use nor should it be, because encyclopedias are supposed to reflect precision and fine distinctions. Simple English Wikipedia's definition of pedophilia is,"Pedophilia (paedophilia in British English) is when a person 16 years of age or older is primarily or exclusively sexually attracted to prepubescent children (children who have not begun puberty, generally 11 years old or less). A person with pedophilia is called a pedophile. The prepubescent child must be at least five years younger than the person in the case of adolescent pedophiles before the attraction can be diagnosed as pedophilia.[1]" It also states, "Adults whose primary sexual attraction is for pubescent children are properly called hebephiles, not pedophiles. Adults whose primary sexual attraction is for mid-to-late teens are properly called ephebophiles, but ephebophilia is not considered abnormal by mental health professionals." This is a different definition of pedophilia from Simple Wiktionary's or any other dictionaries because the dictionary definition of pedophilia is sexual attraction to any child by any adult, while the encyclopedia definition is much more narrow, it only includes adult sexual attraction to prepubescent children, and also the encyclopedia/medical definition includes the sexual attraction of sexually mature children (i.e.,children 16-17 years old)to prepubescent children in its definition of pedophilia, whereas the dictionary/colloquial definition is limited to adults' (18 years and older) sexual attraction to children, it does not include the sexual attraction of sexually mature children (16-17 year olds) to prepubescent children. Since the definitions are very different, I don't think the dictionary should link to the encyclopedia entry because they're really about different topics.PaulBustion87 (talk) 02:40, 26 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]