Could it be that simple?

Abstract

This post presents the faulty neoteny hypothesis as an attempt to explain findings in studies about pedophiles and homosexuals. Humans in comparison with chimpanzees mature at a much lower speed, with brain maturation at an even lower speed. The faulty neoteny hypothesis assumes that this maturation process is even further deminished in persons who developed a paraphilia. 

Introduction

Pedophilia has been the origin for this type of amateur armchair research. Pedophilia does not make much sense seen from an evolutionary point of view - this is the common understanding. More scientific oriented authors call it maladapted and have difficulties explaining its current existence from an evolutionary point of view. However, they tried to make it fit into current social settings - and that might be the reason for the failure. Starting with the question "Could pedophilia have made sense some thousand years ago?" this investigation turned to human evolution.

Short summary of human evolution

The modern human evolved from hominids, with the chimpanzee and the bonobos as our closest cousins in the animal kingdom. At least twice during the human evolution the brain increased drastically in size. The first increase might be related to the self-domestication of humans, which changed the group dynamic of human bands. The social intelligence hypothesis claims that this domestication was the cause for the brain size increase. This view is supported by the russian silver fox experiment and by comparisons of dogs with wolves. The second increase happened during the stone age and might be related to the mastering of crafts. 

This caused the neoteny in humans, a prerequisite for human society. In short, neoteny describes the retention of juvenile traits in otherwise mature adults. The famous russian silver fox experiment tried to breed foxes that are tame as a breed, not as a result of individual training. The duration in which the young animals showed the friendly behavior towards siblings and caregivers was extended. Similar, dogs retain the one-to-one relationship with group members, while wolves resort to a pecking order. Dogs need to establish a relationship with every new member of the group from scratch, pretty much like humans do. This requires social intelligence and that requires learning capabilities.

Hypothesis

The faulty neoteny hypothesis assumes that the maturation process, which in its weakened form causes neoteny, is further diminished. This leads to unfinished developments in humans. Several researchers and practitioners have postulated the arrested development hypothesis. M. Griesemer compares pedophilia with dyslexia, assuming that a major brain development process during puberty fails. "Arrested" might be a misnomer, since it implies that there are causes that prevent development. Rather than understanding the development as actively prevented, the faulty neoteny hypothesis considers a breakdown of the development. If neoteny already bent development, it gets broken in some individuals.

Sexual orientation

Hazan and Shaver in 1987 assumed that human sexual orientation consists of a sexual arousal and a romantic attraction. According to them this attraction is based on the parent-child-attachment and a rather modern phylogenetic development. They did not discuss the influence of neoteny. Neoteny makes the heritage of romantic attraction even more plausible. However, this attraction is not purely neotenous. Monogame animals with parental care for the young often show an elaborate courting  behavior as seen in birds. It is reasonable to assume that the "spouse" replaces the parent as a provider. Hence, the romantic attraction is less based on sexual reproduction and more on an attachment that fulfills some demand. 

At some point during childhood or adolescence a lovemap gets formed. There are several theories, how a desire get erotizised. How this exactly happens is beyond this post. The sexual arousal can be understood as a reflex like reaction onto clues of the desired company. The desire need not to be of sexual nature.

Research has shown that sexuality in humans is a learned behavior - it is no longer a pure instinct. It could be that comforting experience gets reinforced. The company of children provides a less aggressive environment than that of age peers. Hence some prefer the company of children to age peers. When a lovemap gets formed, the presence of clues of the desired partner causes arousal. This establishment might be under the control of a different process than the one responsible for the personality development. If the sexual arousal gets fixated in form of a lovemap before the person experiences heterosexual attraction, then arousal gets caused by the "wrong" clues. This asynchronicity could cause a failure of establishment of the correct heterosexual orientation. 

Mechanism

When humans domesticated themselves, somehow juvenile traits were preferred. That basically means that maturity is delayed. This delay might be due to an inhibitory process or due to the maturity process not working at full strength. The first assumes the existence of an additional process while the latter is a more simplistic explanation. Hence, the delayed maturation in humans might be better explained by a weakened maturation process that means a process that is not up to the speed as in our cousins in the animal kingdom.

For a reason, boys and girls do not mature at the same speed, the onset of puberty in boys is at a later age than in girls. Hence, we can assume that the process is weaker in boys. Moreover, everybody knows some children who either look much younger or much older than their age. Hence, we can assume that the maturation process does not work like a clock in humans. Some children mature earlier if the process is stronger; others mature later, if the process is weaker. In the extreme case, the process stops - which seems to be the case in the adults affected by the Highlander syndrome.

The human body does not grow uniformly during childhood, there are several developmental stages. Moreover, the brain usually does not fully mature until the age of 25 years. While bodily changes are visible, the mental development can only be guessed. The myelination of the brain is a process that goes on for several years. Young and old people have less myelinated white matter. Simple put, myelination creates a fatty insulation around the axons, something that should be visible on structural MRI. James Cantor has reported a missing white matter in pedophiles in comparison to his control group. According to the faulty neoteny hypothesis, he could have looked at brains in the juvenile stage. 

Gaffney and Berlin in 1984 assumed a hypothalamic - pituitary - gonadal dysfunction in pedophiles, with elevated levels of LH as a response to a GRH infusion. This might be relevant since the HPG axis is responsible for the sexual development. Moreover, the HPG-axis shares parts with the HPA axis that manages stress. The letters H, P, G, and A denote certain endocrine glands. The endocrine system controls the growth of the human body and must have been affected by the human evolution. To a layman's eyes, it looks like the neotenous feature of better stress handling has negatively impacted the development.

Why it could be true

Studies show that pedophiles have had on average more head injuries during childhood than the controls. This could be due to a clumsy behavior, where motor control is still insufficient. Delayed speech acquisition might be another indication of coordination problems. Fine motor skills are much about the correct timing of muscle actions. Myelination does change the speed at which the signals are traveling along the nerves. A disturbed myelination could be responsible for that. 

The missing white matter study by James Cantor & Co specifies a lower density of white matter. This lower density could be due to fewer connections or due to thinner connections. The latter would be without myelination. The interesting fact about myelination is that both young and old people have less white matter than humans in their prime. The question to ask would be: How much do pedophile brains differ in their biological age from their chronological age?" The faulty neoteny hypothesis would assume that pedophiles retain their juvenile brain characteristics. 

Pedophiles are reported to have emotional congruence with children. Some therapists denote this as an arrested emotional development. Again, using the simplicity approach, I assume that the emotional development simple came to a stand still. Hence, those pedophiles are eternal "Peter Pans". 

Since the onset of puberty in boys is delayed in comparison to girls, boys are more affected by neoteny. This would also make them more exposed to a faulty neoteny. Hence, the presented hypothesis supports the finding that most pedophiles seem to be male.

Studies also reported that pedophiles on average are 2.3 cm smaller than the controls. This would indicate that the growth process ended to early. Growth is influenced by testosterone, for which the mentioned HPG axis is responsible.

Handiness is higher in pedophiles than in controls and seem to indicate brain organization. The assumption is that a lesser organized brain would lead to a handiness by chance, that means 50% for each. A fully organized brain in the animal kingdom is one where all instincts are present at birth. Those newborns get up right after birth and move along their parents. This usually means that newborns have a fully myelinated brain. Humans however, are the other extreme. Hence, one could conclude: the more neotenous the individual is, the lesser organized is the brain, which would mean fewer or weaker instincts.

Child advocates claim that children on the day they turn into legal adults somehow obtain sexual knowledge, no teaching required. This no-sex-education attitude implies a belief that sexuality is instinctive. This belief is ridiculed on child love chat boards. Assuming that there is some truth to it, the conclusion is that heterosexual persons experience it as an instinct, while pedophiles do not. This is consistent with the assumption of a lesser organized brain at birth in pedophiles. The heterosexual instinct was not present when the lovemaps were formed. This correlates with the observation that homosexuals often do not behave gender conform during childhood. The observation implies the assumption that gender conformity is innate, hence an instinct.

Common cause and pedophilia

So far, nothing special for pedophiles has been considered. Nothing indicates, why the affected persons should be romantically attracted to children. The reasons for not being attracted to the opposite gender could be biological, but the replacement could be due to circumstances. Hence a future homosexual will miss the innate attraction to the opposite sex, but it is the comforting experience with same-sex age peers that renders him/her homosexual. 

The company of children might be preferred for several reasons. The presence of children lowers the aggressivity in adults and adolescents. Moreover, children are more emotional than adults. For youths, who are overly emotional, they satisfy a demand for emotional contact. Moreover, faulty neoteny might be responsible for a developmental delay. Then, contact with age peers might get challenging and children are again the easier company. The term "age peers" denote peers of similar chronological age, not of the equivalent biological age, which might be lower in those affected.

How and when a sexual orientation gets established is beyond this post. It seems that the sexual orientation gets fixated at a certain time. How solid this fixation is, is still unclear. Women seem to have a higher fluidity, while forced sexual orientation changes in men have failed.

However, faulty neoteny assumes that development is not finished. This would imply that the sexual orientation could be changed by some measures. Aversion therapy did not work, and the reason for that might be that aversion therapy attacks the wrong end - it tried to change the arousal instead of the romantic attraction. MC Seto comments on a study showing a lessened pedophilic attraction, that the effect was there
"even though treatment focused on intimacy,relationship skills and self-esteem, rather than modification of sexual arousal patterns." (bold by me). This astonishing result supports the view in this post that the attraction part of sexual orientation is based on attachment rather than a sexual reproduction instinct.

Conclusion

The faulty neoteny hypothesis assumes that the maturation process in some individuals is slowed down to a standstill and therefore some developmental processes never finish. This assumption is so far consistent with the findings and explains, why a normal heterosexual orientation is not acquired. 

Different degrees of neoteny in humans will lead to different outcomes. While a lesser amount of neoteny leads to premature adolescence and adulthood, the question of "too much neoteny" has not yet been answered.

Disclaimer

This poster knows nothing about psychology or neurobiology and does not even have a PhD. The explanation in this post is based on common sense and some thinking. Hence, all the stated things are not automatically assumed to be true for everybody with a paraphilia.

Is sexual orientation a nonsense term?

Everybody knows what sexual orientation is. There is even a lengthy wikipedia article about it. But researchers are still trying to figure it out. I'm not a researcher in this field, but a layperson who is sceptical on the whole concept. Looking carefully i even question if the term makes sense at all.

Ingredients of sex

Dr. Jim Pfaus thinks of sex as encompassing four categories — arousal, desire, pleasure, and inhibition. There is love and lust — and rewards. Moreover books are filled with romantic stories, another side to it. The christian church wants you to believe that reproduction is the sole purpose of sex. When listening to the many TED-talks about sex on youtube, you learn:

• there are at least 16 different functions of sex,
• 95% of all sexual activity is not reproduction related,
• hidden estrus is something special in humans,
• humans and bonobos are the only ones having sex face-to-face

among many other facts. Moreover, humans are exceptional with respect to upbringing of children and society. Hence not all explanations can be transferred from the animal kingdom without modifications.

Tampering with the wrong end

The term "sexual orientation" tends to unify sexual arousal and sexual desire. The former is this excitement when our senses catch sight of the object of our desire. The rush is real as hormones are released that switch our brain into the mode where we are blind to all flaws. It even tempers with rational thinking, making us believe to be the heroes we are not and makes fools of ourselves. The latter is more complex and might have been misunderstood.


Gay conversion therapies aimed at redirecting the sexual arousal onto more appropriate targets. It has failed big time, it is now considered to be unethical, and it is banned. Why didn't it work? Are we not desiring what arouses our senses? Or are we aroused by what we desire? D.J. Bem published a model for sexual orientation, the exotic becomes erotic theory. One basic element of that theory is that stuff becomes erotic if desired long enough. Women are hot, so are cars. Although, as men we find cars to be cool, or even sub-zero. So in order to understand sexual orientation, we should consider what we desire. Gay conversion therapies did not work, because nobody questioned what it was to was desired. The therapists were so disgusted by it that they never looked for the attraction.

What we want or not

There are clues out there, what influences our desire. Disgust has been found as a major factor in homosexuals. Sexual disgust is learned unlike pathogen disgust. Another important factor influencing relationships is the attachment from childhood. People who grew up with an avoidant attachment to their caregiver face difficulties in finding a trustworthy partner. One explanation for homosexuality is the older-sibling theory. However, having many older siblings leaves little attention to the smaller one. According to the older sibling theory, latecomers should be equally bound to be homosexual, but usually get much more attention from all family members. I haven't heard of a single case of such an homosexual, while i knew plenty who had to fight for attention.


Attachment is primarily not sexual, hence it tends to get overlooked in the sexual orientation discussion. It seems obvious that we seek company of those who make feel us comfortable. Reading Lautmann "Die Lust am Kinde" i noticed that pedophilic men desire the company of boys more than their bodies. Their attraction is to boys who behave like boys. As it turns out, their aim is not to transform the child into an adult sex partner, but to indulge into the childness. When listening to homosexuals talking about their partners, i notice that they tend to talk how the other half is making them into a whole one. Do homosexuals seek what they are missing in themselves?


Fish may have a pure sexual desire. Humans are more complicated. Women have hidden estrus, which means only frequent sex makes an offspring. The rate of attempts per success is one of the highest among mammals, equalling those of fishes 1000:1. Somehow reproductions scores low on the list of priorities when it comes to the selection of a partner. There is certainly sexual arousal, but the desires is not much sexual.

Genetic, prenatal influence, inborn or track bound result?

Our genetic makeup makes us women and men at the moment we were conceived. During the late first-trimester and second-trimester our developing brains are influenced by prenatal exposure to hormones making us more or less feminine or masculine. When we are born, we are more or less put on a track, like a railway track. We got engines of a certain kind and are exposed to family. From that moment on a certain dynamic is at work. How do we respond to our parents and siblings? Both nature and nurture are at work, working hand-in-hand and against each other. We know that gender is not a social construction, but we also see patterns in development. Those patterns are the tracks we were put on at birth. There are switches, but most of them are unknown. We have evidence, mostly from women, who show a fluid pattern of sexuality - hence we can assume that sexuality is flexible in some of us.

Conclusion

John Money assumes phylism to be part of the game. The ignorance of the sexual aspects seems to be right. Much of the search for a sexual partner is a quest for the right spouse with the right qualities. It seems like a puzzle game, where only certain pieces can get attached to each other. Which brings me back to attachment. From the cradle we learn to prefer to be around certain people or stuff. We get to feel secure and to derive comfort from their company. This sharpens our mind, at least the limbic system, to signal whenever we get close. We have to remember that the conceptual thinking is a recent acquirement in humans, symbols and gut reaction have accompanied us for millennia. Over time the exposure to the desired company will result in an arousal which will further drive us towards them or it. There might be no sexual desire, but a desire to seek certain learned attachments.


The ability to seek out and established attachment, the kind of attachments we seek seems to be in my opinion the key to understanding "sexual orientation".