In his article ‘‘The Puzzle of Male Chronophilias,’’Seto (2016) gives a comprehensive overview over male sexual age preferences. His model of multi-dimensional sexual preference resembles the three axial model of… Click to show full abstract
In his article ‘‘The Puzzle of Male Chronophilias,’’Seto (2016) gives a comprehensive overview over male sexual age preferences. His model of multi-dimensional sexual preference resembles the three axial model of Beier, Bosinski, and Loewit (2005) whostated:‘‘Thesexualpreferencestructure ingeneralmanifests itself in every human on three basic axes: (1) with regard to the preferred gender of the sex partner (male and/or female), (2) regarding the preferred (body development) age of the sex partner (body scheme of children, adolescents, adults, elderly persons), and(3)regardingthepreferredkindandmodusofsexualactivity with and without sex partner(s) (type, object, method, etc.)...’’ How these three axes manifest determines the stimuli to which each individual is sexually attracted, thus allowing for a huge spectrum of sexual possibilities or‘‘orientations’’as Seto puts it. The German Prevention Project Dunkelfeld, a therapy program for pedophilic and hebephilic men outside the judicial context, has greatly benefited from a conceptualization of human sexual preference in this manner (Beier et al., 2009, 2015). From thebeginningof theproject, thenotion thatall, including tabooed, sexual preferences are relatively stable human conditions was communicated and that their often early development and stabilityover lifemakes themwidely inaccessible to themature individual’spotentialwishforalteration(Beieretal.,2009).Theideas that‘‘pedophilia is a fate, not a choice’’and‘‘pedophilia is a diagnosis, not a crime’’have ever since facilitated a widely decriminalized public discourse over sexual attraction toward minors. At the same time, these ideas demanded for the explicit differentiation between the sexual preference as manifest in sexual fantasies and desires on the one hand, and actual sexual behavior on the other. In the case of attraction toward minors, sexual behavior would encompass actual child sexual offenses and/or the use of child abuse images—behaviors that have disruptive consequences for the sexual ‘‘partners’’or rather victims, given the impossibility of informed consent in such cases. The phrasing‘‘nobody can be held responsible for his or her sexual preference (or sexual orientation), but every adult needs to take responsibility for his or her sexual behavior’’was thus coined to communicate the basic principle of the Dunkelfeld therapy program. Ever since the inauguration of the program and with the help of active media relations, this view has been incorporated into public discourse, also allowing for policy makers to support the approach. Scientifically, Seto (2016) further differentiates the third axis in Beier et al.’s model by including the self-other, anthrozoo, and bios-nekros domain, which may allow for a more precise description of ‘‘kind and modus’’ of desired sexual interactions. Both models, however, await empirical proof. Conceptualizing male chronophilias as sexual orientations might prove a fruitful approach to the study ofdifferent sexual preferences. Seto states in his article that ‘‘it is not required that other sexual orientations parallel what we know about gender orientation, but the parsimonious hypothesis would be that they share similarities in features such as developmental trajectory, phenomenological experience, and behavioral expression.’’ Beieretal. intheirmodelalsostatedanappraisalofsexualpreferences on all three axes (physical gender, physical developmental stage, and kind andmodusof sexual interaction)as resembling sexualgenderorientation:‘‘Thefinalmanifestationofsexualpreference structure (i.e., multi-dimensional sexual orientation in Seto’s words) takes place during youth and remains a constituent for life in its basic features and is invariable. This includes invariability of particular sexual inclinations, which are also manifested from youth onward and which partly, or completely, characterize thesexualstructureofthepersoninvolved’’(Beier&Loewit,2013). & Till Amelung [email protected]
               
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