The recent Mark Foley scandal in the US dragged the issue of pedophilia back into the limelight. It's an issue that has increasingly gripped public fears, resulting in medieval public registration programs and increasingly inflexible laws. By simply reading the mainstream media, one would think that child predators lurk around every corner and it's only a matter of time before every child is preyed upon. <h>Hurting the Innocent</h> As irrational fears go, it ranks up there with the fear of terrorism, with which it runs neck and neck these days in the battle for "thing of which to be obsessively terrified even though it has almost zero chance of happening to you or anyone you know". For every horror story of a real case, there are several cases like this one, <a href="http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=45104" source="World Net Daily">Man grabs girl's arm -- now he's a sex offender</a>, wherein laws enacted out of fear are used to prosecute the innocent. In that case, a young man (28) seeking to confront a young lady (14), who'd just jaywalked in front of his car, has been labeled a sexual predator by the state of Illinois. Tell him what he's won, Johnny! <bq>As a convicted sex offender, Barnaby is required to be listed on the state's sex offender registry and must keep authorities informed of his place of residency. He also isn't allowed to live near schools or parks. The Illinois Sex Offender Information website, operated by the Illinois State Police, lists those in the registry, along with their photographs and home addresses.</bq> <h>Ephebophilia vs. Pedophilia</h> Not only is it much rarer than it's made out to be, the term itself---<a href="http://www.answers.com/pedophilia?nafid=3">pedophilia</a>---is misused by a media more concerned with sensationalism than accuracy. The linked definition notes that the term applies to children <iq>typically 13 years or younger</iq>; it's a sexual preference for <iq>prepubertal children</iq>.<fn> The article, <a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1072-2461261,00.html" source="Times Online">Ephebophilia: it's today's word, and it matters</a>, addresses this failure to distinguish between children and postpubescents. To whit, calling <iq>those who have sex with underage teenagers ... paedophiles ... risk[s] overestimating the scale of the problem of paedophilia.</iq> A pedophile defies a law of nature, whereas an ephebophile defies a law of man. The age of consent is far from an internationally agreed-upon consensus, ranging from 17 in Iceland to as low as 12 in the Netherlands. So a young lady or man in one country is "ready" in one country, but, a short train ride later, is now off-limits. It's clear that the exact age of consent is mostly arbitrary and likely fixed more by local history than scientific study. What is important is that the world not exaggerate the problem of pedophilia by conflating it with perfectly healthy (though not societally condoned) ephebophilia. Ephebophilia is, in fact, pushed in most western societies by all forms of advertising and entertainment---there are untold numbers of offenders out there. They, however, are not, nor will ever be, pedophiliacs. <iq>As long as the law is the law, he deserves a smacked paw if he gives in to his excitement. But he does not deserve the same opprobrium as the bogeyman [pedophiliac]</iq>. <h>The Friendly Skies</h> <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2006/11/09/do0901.xml">Come off it, folks: how many paedophiles can there be?</a> tells the story of a man nearly separated from his own children by an overzealous flight crew enacting a strict anti-pedophile policy. His is a slightly more enlightened attitude, responding to those that see a pedophile behind every doorway, that: <bq>...they are right that I would worry about some strange adult sitting next to my children, chiefly because I wouldn't want the poor fellow to come to any harm.</bq> Humor aside, he continues by accusing those who think that there is a pedophile plague of having a <iq>very imperfect understanding of probability</iq> and not understanding the full effects of this mania on a large part of the male population. In a very interesting point, he considers whether the fact that <iq>society apparently regards all adult male contact with young people as being potentially a bit dodgy</iq> may have something to do with the drastic decline in number of male schoolteachers. Society has already done enough to teach us that working in education is not only not macho, it's probably downright queer. Now you're not only queer, but a pedophile, to boot. As if there's any difference, don't you know. A commenter to the above article found a silver lining by suggesting that this rule could be manipulated by the savvy traveler in order to avoid having to sit anywhere near a child on a longer flight. Simply make sure the flight attendent is watching, then lean inappropriately, fumble around a bit, stretch extravagently or give a well-practiced leer in the directly of the precious, screaming darlings; then relax and wait to be reseated far away from them. <hr> <ft>Interestingly, it also mentions that the victims are of the opposite sex <iq>about twice as often</iq>, which is yet another fact that doesn't come across well when reported by the media, who do their best to characterize it as "yet another reason why gay people are perverts".</ft>