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Ephebophilia is the primary sexual interest in mid-to-late adolescents, generally ages 15 to 19 and showing Tanner stages 4 to 5 of physical development. The term was originally used in the late 19th to mid-20th century.
In research environments, specific terms are used for chronophilias: for instance, ephebophilia to refer to the sexual preference for mid-to-late adolescents, hebephilia to refer to the sexual preference for earlier pubescent individuals, and pedophilia to refer to the primary or exclusive sexual interest in prepubescent children. It has been used in publications by Dutch psychologist Frits Bernard in 1950, and reprinted in 1960 in the gay support magazine Vriendschap under the pseudonym Victor Servatius, crediting the origin of the term to Magnus Hirschfeld with no exact date given. The word was in fact first published in French (), from Georges Saint-Paul's 1896 book, Tares et Poisons: Perversion et Perversité Sexuelles.
The term was described by Frenchman Félix Buffière in 1980, and Pakistani scholar Tariq Rahman, who argued that ephebophilia should be especially used with regard to homosexuality when describing the aesthetic and erotic interest of adult men in adolescent boys in classical Persian, Turkish, or Urdu literature. The term was additionally revived by Ray Blanchard to denote men who sexually prefer 15- to 19-year-olds. Women's sexual interest in adolescents has been studied significantly less than men's sexual interest in adolescents.
Characteristics
Mid-to-late adolescents typically have physical characteristics near or identical to that of legal adults. According to psychologist and sexologist James Cantor, it is "very common for regular men to be attracted to 18-year-olds or 20-year-olds. It's not unusual for a typical 16-year-old to be attractive to many men and the younger we go the fewer and fewer men are attracted to that age group."
Ephebophilia is used only to describe the preference for mid-to-late adolescent sexual partners, not the mere presence of some level of sexual attraction.