Strictly according to the dictionary definition of the term, yes, sometimes. The definition of the disorder contains the words “primary or exclusive attraction”, leaving open the possibility of being attracted to other people of other ages.

Also forgive the use of “ephebophile,” I’m not using it in an apologist sense but because - when formulating my question - I was more thinking about people attracted to teenagers.

Thank you for clarifying. I’ve only ever seen this term used by people who seem obsessed with explaining the difference between “ephebophile” and “pedophile”. It’s gotten so bad that simply seeing the word makes me uncomfortable.

As I understand it there’s no friendship possible. Pedophilic individual don’t research friendship, they research control. They will lie to themselves and to others so they could have a modicum of control over their prey

I talked with one, awaiting his sentencing IIRC, what did he do when he lost control over the little girl he fancy ? Kill himself with his car, ram a wall. The guy was genuinely convinced the girl loved him.

In my experience, yes… But I’ve only ever known one such person. He volunteered as a group leader in a scouting club I also volunteerd at. He had been with that group since his childhood. So he was never vetted or anything. Only after years, he started showing signs that were not ok. He had started a too close relationshio with one of the kids. We’re sure nothing sexual had happened, so thats a blessing, but he did start a relationship with one of the kids.

I’m not sure what exactly happened. It’s been more than a decade. But it was bad enough that the group had to solicit external advice.

I did know that person outside of scouting a bit and he did hang out mostly whith people a decade his junior.

Edit: I just realized that I only touched upon half of your question. 🤣 There were some inmates who had committed sexual offenses against minors while being in a romantic and/or sexual relationship with a grownup, but if I recall correctly, they were a minority.

I worked as a correctional officer at a sexual offenders only prison for three years and during all my talks with the inmates - which is a lot, seven hours a week on average - I never got the impression that those that were sentenced for sexual offenses against minors had had platonic relations with their victims. It could just be the case that they didn’t tell me about it though, so take this with a grain of salt.

seek out friendships or romantic relationships with young adults?

So, there are kinds of people you hear about culturally that despite whatever age bracket they are in, for some reason, keep wanting to go out with people that have just come out of high school, and are 18+.

For SOME reason, they KEEP trying to get into these kinds of relationships.

I wonder why that is? Not “oh, this random person I encountered and have good chemistry with happens to be lower age than me, but my previous and next partners have been a roughly sensible age for me”. No, these people keep going for that age range specifically; people who are legally adults, but only just.

I wonder what motivates these people to do that? 🤔