Jun 252009
 

One of my pet hates is the inappropriate use of the word paedophile. If you look up the proper definition of the word it is someone who is sexually interested in children specifically prepubescent children. That means children who have not been through puberty.

Is that the same as someone who is sexually interested in post-puberty “children” ? No it is not. Yet people assume that anyone who has sex with someone under the age of consent is a paedophile. However wrong it is to have sex with someone under the age of consent, it is a different order of magnitude with a child under the age of puberty.

Even more ridiculously, people have even used paedophile to refer to anyone who expresses an interest in anyone a great deal younger than themselves. The “victims” of such “paedophiles” are well over the age of consent.

By misusing the word paedophile, we trivialise the ofense. Sex with an “adult” under the age of consent may be bad, but it is ridiculous to compare it to abusing a 2 year old.