I hesitated to write on pedophilia because it was brought up as a joke. Honestly, a pretty funny one regarding the Catholic Church. I'm already going to H-E-L-L so I might as well admit that I laughed. And then thought, but wait, why DOES pedophilia exist? I'm not a strict selectionist (read: I have some basic understanding of science and therefore recognize that "useless" or "unproductive" things pop up all over evolution because it isn't guided). However, something that appears to have such negative consequences would logically get culturally phased out, if not biologically.
First, there's the argument that "almost every sort of sexual activity... has been considered normal and acceptable in some society at some time" (Bauserman 1997). True, and still is completely acceptable in more than a few around the world. The most famous (infamous?) examples are the tribes in Africa and Australia that honor young men taking younger boys as sexual partners until they find wives, and the Etoro of New Guinea where young boys swallow semen from olden men to become men themselves. Semen = power, even our uptight society believes that! These are usually brought up in college anthropology classes which frat boys then drunkenly share with friends ("Guys, it's sick! SO GAY, amiright?!) Ahh, you say, but those are distant lands with backwards people (Ok, this is actually a pointless article, but it's at The American Conservative so I had to include it). Well, fun fact: the legal age of consent in civilized England was 10 until late in the 1800's.
Ok, but what about the SCIENCE. What possible reasons could pedophilia have come about in nature? Some instances of pedophilia do exist in related species, such as the hyper-sexual bonobos (Green touches on this issue). In humans, most people classified as pedophiles are males. This makes some sense in light of what we evolutionarily find attractive. Our sexual dimorphism (females look different from the males) has led to males finding young, healthy, fertile females attractive. Courtship patterns include aggression and dominance in males and submissiveness in females (generally, evolutionarily; feminists, take a deep breath right now, geez). Therefore, hebephilia (the cusp of puberty, girls ranging from 11-14) might more adequately describe many of the pedophilia cases (Jesse Bering's excellent article on the topic).
Yes, but pedophilia is not productive; it doesn't produce babies. Right. However, only a small fraction of the population participates in it. Here the majority factor comes into play. The small number of unsuccessful reproductive strategies (flawed, evolutionarily-speaking) are overwhelmed by those that are. Does that mean it's genetic? I simply do not know.
I won't speak to the legal and moral issues surrounding this topic. In the past, the US has at turns deemed it a mental disorder along the lines of homosexuality (for real), a mental disorder that can be treated (pray it away!), or just an inevitable crime waiting to happen for those that are born this way. And in explaining why it exists, I'm certainly not justifying the actions of those that harm others. However, oftentimes understanding WHY someone acts the way that they do is a key to understanding how to help them.
