The grail isn't holy!

What causes pedophilia?

"Nobody knows" was the usual answer. This is no longer true as research has made progress. In the following, I give an interpretation that answers most of the question. But, it involves a twist of logic. 

What causes darkness?

If someone expects the holy grail to be shiny, an ordinary object will escape the attention. Similarly, if someone looks for a distinct cause, the reason for a certain situation might not be obvious. The answer I give in this blog is not an answer to the original question, but an explanation of the phenomenon. 

Pedophiles have a preference for children. This also means that they don't prefer women. This seems to be obvious, but it is seldom discussed in scientific literature. However, this is the part of the question that is mostly answered by now.

Q: What causes darkness?
A: The absence of light.

Cross wiring

James M. Cantor PhD sometimes explains pedophilia as a cross wiring within the brain. Instead of engaging the nurture instinct, the view of children causes sexual arousal: "pedophiles got their wires crossed". A similar explanation claims that sexual arousal is caused by images of children instead of the appropriate partner. The cross wiring metaphor has inherent limitations. One imagines a wire being removed and thereafter a new connection being made. However, no pedophile was truly a heterosexual to begin with. Hence, no wire was removed, it merely is absent.

Cross wiring also suggests that the new connection is established after the old connection was removed. The phrase "instead of" points in the same direction. Understanding that "cross wiring" is a metaphor, one could ponder if the order of events could be reversed, a new connection is made before the old one is removed. Moreover, is this "new connection" really a new one or existing in all humans?

The results by Cantor and his colleagues make sense with respect to the "first wire". Much of it points towards brain organization. In short, his probands are more likely to be shorter, left-handed, less intelligent, having had head injuries before the age of 13, more cranio-facial anomalies, and less white-matter in the brain. Cantor himself points out that there might be a disturbance in the development responsible for all this and it can more or less be traced back to prenatal origins. All of it sounds rather as something not working as expected than creating a new orientation from scratch. Summa summarum: this makes perfect sense when thinking of that "removed first wire". What could that be?

Intuitive sexuality

This term is made up by me. However, similar terms are used by Steven Pinker in "The Blank Slate" to refer to innate abilities. Most humans have a pretty good idea, what others are thinking. Pinker calls this "intuitive psychology" and it is missing in people with Autism. They simply have no idea what others are thinking.  

With intuitive sexuality I mean normal heterosexuality. Since most persons experience their sexuality as something natural and intuitive, nobody spends much time questioning the nature of it. Sometimes, it is described as a sex drive, while in animals it is called mating instinct. Instincts are patterns of behavior that play out once triggered. Humans have the ability to think rationally and to act according to rational decisions and overriding those urges. However, we also have a thing called gut feeling and jumping to conclusions. Both are remains of instincts. Sometimes, we act in certain consistent patterns and are not able to give a justification. Kim Sterelny's book "The evolved apprentice" gives several examples related to cooperation.

The intuitive sexuality can be understood as a weak instinct. Instinct are hard wired in the brain, which according to Cantor was subjected to some disturbances (in pedophiles). Pinker points out that the brain develops while in use. The basic structure exists at birth, but a lot of changes happen after birth and during growth. One of those changes is the myelination - wrapping neurons in fatty neuroglia cells. In short, wrapped neurons fire faster. Cantor first found out on MRI-T1 images that those fatty cells are not visible in regions related to sex. In the latest paper by him and co-authors, missing myelination was reasoned as one of the possible explanations for the discovered anisotropy.

So, Cantor & Co found evidence, which I relate to the absent "first wire". This means that big part of pedophilia can be explained by the absence of intuitive sexuality.

The second peak

It is a myth that normal heterosexual people are only attracted to age peers of the opposite sex. Violent homophobic people are found to show genital arousal to same sex scenarios. There is homosexual prison sex, and homoerotic behavior in the military. Moreover, child molestations is mainly carried out by non-pedophiles - one study found pedophiles to make up just 16.2% of the tested child sexual offenders. The average person has not a narrow sexual target but reacts to a variety of persons of both sexes and different ages. It can be imagined as a hilly landscapes with peaks here and there.

Normally, the intuitive sexuality should overshadow all other peaks. People are aware of their main attraction. 

If the peak of intuitive sexuality is absent, some other peak is the highest. Which one it is, depends on a number of things. Some animals live in a homosexual partnership, because foraging is easier in pairs. Chimps are known to use youngsters as shields against aggressivity from other males. There are many ways, a certain company can be comforting.

The two-stage model of sexuality

It is difficult to explain a lot of sexual phenomena without assuming this two-stage model. First an attraction target is acquired, then the clues of comforting company are causing sexual arousal. If this second stage fails, one develops the paraphilia known as asexuality. This model also explains, why sexual conversion therapies failed - they tried to fix the second stage without working on the comforting company.

In short, if a person fails to obtain intuitive sexuality, and finds the company of children comforting, a lot of thoughts will focus on them. This might even be a self-enforcing circle - the more one falls out of the peer group, the less one will be driven to the opposite sex. The second peak gets a chance to take over. 

But why are some missing out on intuitive sexuality?

Some try to find an evolutionary reason for the existence of pedophiles. It is even harder to argue why some people should be affected by autism. It makes no sense, considering hebephile, pedophiles or autistic savants as isolated groups. Human evolution reduced the way instincts impacted our behavior, made humans more flexible, and it made intelligence possible. All this is related to the neoteny humans possess. Most attractions are to signs of balanced neoteny. Cute children are treated with many favors - so much that it is not fair to plain children. 

The price of this development is paid by those, who get some of it in abundance. Too much reduction of an instinct renders it weak. It is advantageous when not reacting with panic, when the box we are sitting in is moving. Fear of flying has become rare. Sea sickness as a false alarm to food poisoning is still frequent. Most persons are able to understand the mind of other people. Most people are still seeking the opposite sex for lifetime partnership. But a few don't. 

Conjectures

The ticking-time-bomb meme portrait in media and some scientific journals probably is false. If the absent intuitive sexuality is a precondition for pedophilia, sexual urges should be less strong than in heterosexuals. Most statements about pedophiles are made by normal hetersexuals. It is too tempting to draw from personal experience, when making statements about other. Too much what is said about pedophiles are in fact projections by heterosexuals.

Evolution of pedophilia

Many are accused of normalizing pedophilia, as it could be normalized. Pedophilia is normal and has been normal through the evolution of mankind. Evolution is not a myth either, and everything that evolution created is normal.

It started around 1.8 million years ago, when the first human brain size increase happened. The forest disappeared and with it the safety of tree branches. Big cats preyed onto the ancestors who had to survive in the resulting savannah. The ancestors had to live in bigger groups or die alone. Major obstacles to living in larger groups are fear and aggression. Hence, our ancestors had to get rid of these two.

The famous russian silver fox experiment did just that. They collected wild foxes from fur farms for the breeding experiment. Only the 10% friendliest foxes were selected for the next generation. Due to this rigorous selection they obtained domesticated foxes after few decades. Something similar happened to our ancestors, and it is called self-domestication. Any preferential treatment of those less aggressive exerts the same selective pressure as the selection by the experimenters, albeit at a much lesser magnitude.

As Belyaev (he started the russian silver fox experiment) noticed, domestication has a destabilizing effect. The timing of developmental processes is disturbed and leads to neoteny. The socialization period gets extended and the fear instinct manifests itself at a much later time or not at all. Evolution up to that point had endowed our ancestors with a range of instincts. They functioned like hard-wired methods for solving the challenges the individual encounters in a typical life. Then, domestication weakened all instincts. That poses both a problem and an opportunity. The hard-wired instincts had to be replaced by learned behavior. Domesticated animals lose the ability to tackle wildlife problems, since food and shelter is provided by humans. On the other side, they learn to interact with humans.

Solitary animals are aggressive to every other animal except to the opposite sex during mating season. The mating instinct kicks in and the love hormone oxytocin prevents aggression. Like a reflex the characteristics of the opposite sex cause a sexual arousal. This instinct too gets weakened during domestication. Attraction to a large degree gets learned during childhood. Some say that men are replacing their mothers with wives. The truth to it is that children have learned to deal with a certain personality and later in life tend to find partners that match this personality. This works by an erotization of clues that indicate a comforting environment.

However, living without instincts is not possible. There has to be a mechanism in place that starts the learning process. Moreover, not everything can be learned or is teached. Belyaev noticed that about 30 to 40% of is female fox population failed to breed or did not show maternal care to the litter. Does this sound familiar? Clearly, domestication process has gone too far in those foxes and they lost a necessary instinct.

Is there a mechanism in place that prevents the loss of necessary instincts? It happens, but no on a personal level. If the mating instinct fails to manifest, then it means the end to the genes of that person. Evolution pushes mankind to have less and less instinct until some have less than necessary. They are not forced towards the opposite sex and the erotization happens to other clues of comforting company. Let's be honest, the company of children is refreshing. Who doesn't like children?

Are pedophiles sick?

No! They are normal, but not average. Nobel prize winners are normal, but not average with respect to intelligence. Pedophiles are not average with respect to sexual desire. Nothing causes pedophilia. Something causes heterosexuality.

The sexual desire in average people is driven by innate behavior (instinct), it is said that the sexual instinct is the strongest in humans. But humans are losing instincts in the course of evolution.

If one gets food poisoning, it affects the inner ear. The horizon does not move before our eyes as our ears indicate. That is how we feel the effects of food poisoning, and we become nauseated and throw up. On a ship, when we lose the horizon and the felt movements do not correspond to our vision, our body recognized food poisoning and we throw up. When we sit on an airplane and the airplane starts moving without any outside view indicating it, some people get panic and try to leave the place. Some innate behavior is good, while others like fear of flying affects us negatively. Hence, during evolution we got less and less affected by innate behavior and had to replace the guiding effect of innate behavior by learned behavior - we got intelligent.

During puberty, average boys start feeling a very strong attraction towards same aged girls. Girls experience something like that too, where they get flattered by the strange attraction of boys. Average boys start behaving irrationally, ignoring advices and prohibitions. Everybody says they should concentrate on their studies, pals demand them to spend time with them. Parents are concerned wrt. STD's ... And they do sexting, because they might score. These are the effect of a strong mating instinct. Every unexplainable consistent irrational behavior probably is an instinct. The human brain has evolved and many processes have been broken down into smaller pieces. The mating instinct probably now is a combination of an attraction and an erotization part. 

In pedophiles, the mating instinct seems to have become too weak. Prenatal insults can prevent the manifestation of innate behavior (instincts). Boys are supposed to play in a certain way, also called gender conform. They should prefer certain toys, and if they do not, chances are that they become homosexuals (or other paraphilic). All MRI studies find something that is not average in pedophiles and similar. They also have found non-average responses in hormones. Pedophiles are not average, pretty much like the overly intelligent nobel prize winners. But they are normal!

With respect to the sexual mating instinct, pedophiles are on the low end of the distribution - just like stupid people, or short people. When pedophiles start loving someone, it was someone whose company was comforting. The problem with society is, that they have made this love impossible. The more distance they put between pedophiles and the children they love, the less they see them as subjects with a personality and more as sexual lust objects. If all you want is to put your dick in a bum, then you have gone the whole mile and lost out on the refreshing company of children.

Not all pedophile-labeled people are like this. There are antisocial psychopath who kill children. There are dads and stepdads who don't get enough of the love they need from their wives. There are arrogant men who travel to third world countries to buy child sex, because money buys everything.

Cross-wiring in the brain of pedophiles

There is this "common consensus" among "experts" that the brain of pedophiles is cross wired. In the last paper by Cantor et al, the authors say that there is no "disconnection", but a "dysconnection". Right. Or are they wrong? The "experts" claim the following. If a "normal" person sees a child, the parental love is activated. But in a pedophile, it is the sexual love instead.

Ok, there are studies using functional MRI's and they report differences. I have also seen a meta-study where they listed all those studies and listed which regions were activated in pedophiles - there was not much consistency to see. This could be a case of p-value hacking, which i discussed earlier.

Back to the "common consensus" of cross-wiring, how much truth is there to this assumption? Is there really an activation of something completely different in parents than in pedophiles? That is what cross-wiring implies, or am i wrong?

What are the chances that evolution created a sexual love system and completely separated parental love? Testosterone, oestrogen, adrenaline, dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and vasopressin are the usual suspects for love hormones or the cocktail of them. Some say it is a myth that mothers get sexual aroused by breastfeeding their children. But it is oxytocin that controls the milk let down. One treatment option for social interaction orders involves a nasal spray containing oxytocin. Just by reading the article about oxytocin, one understands that there are no two separate love systems, there is only one. So what is parental love, then?

I have read several accounts of boy- and girllovers, who did not feel any sexual attraction to their own children. However, the friends of their children had the usual effects. The reason for that is the Westermarck effect. It renders long known acquaintances sexually inattractive. Is parental love the same as sexual love, but with brakes put on by the Westermarck effect? I think so. From an evolutionary points, it makes sense to reuse an existing system and to add some inhibitors to it than to evolve a brand new system for offspring caring.

Moreover, it makes sense to loose sexual interest in a person after getting to know him/her for a long time. In former times children of age 7 were supposed to fend for themselves, coincidentally the seventh year is also the one with the most breakups in marriages. Love hormones make us befriend a complete stranger. The own kids are around from day one, not exactly being strangers. This is another reason, why parents don't feel a sexual attraction, they are already close to their children. If they have not been close to their children, genetic sexual attraction happens, just think of oedipus.

So, what exactly is this cross-wiring talk about if there is nothing to cross?

Pedophilia for dummies

First of all: Nobody makes the conscious decision to become a pedophile.

Think of the children!

This slogan is enough to mobilize and justify any action against pedophiles. Public figures demand actions to cope with the assumed pandemic. Some even demand that every pedophile be put to death - more or less merciful. If you still blame pedophiles for their "sick lifestyle", here is a question for you: Why would anyone want to be a pedophile? Trust me, it's not a desirable destiny. Do you really think that someone would choose that life?

Few are bothered to question the nature of pedophilia and what is causing it. When pedophiles are hunted, stigmatized and persecuted in the manner they are, it is obvious that this is not a choice.

Are they born this way?

The argument "we are born that way" has been used by homosexuals to demand acceptance of homosexual love. It is not really an explanation, because it raises the question, why are some born this way? Together with "It's a sexual orientation" it is more of an activist slogan than a scientific explanation. The best current explanation is that something went wrong during the development. There is some evidence that it starts very early - even before birth.

Think of it like a train derailment. There are tracks, which the train is supposed to ride on. And then there are obstacles and defects that can cause the train to leave the tracks. So, what went wrong with pedophiles? If we start asking about something "wrong", we should know what is "right". Hence, what is it that goes right in most people? What happens in people that don't turn out to be pedophiles? It is kind of an obvious mystery, since most people don't spend much time thinking about stuff that comes natural.

Sexual development - what is it exactly?

Imagine that you are a normal boy heading for a straight heterosexual orientation. A "normal" boy plays with certain toys, later he plays football/soccer with other boys. At first, girls are icky and boys are afraid of catching girl cooties, with Valentine's day being an exception. However, something strange happens during puberty - boys are starting to behave irrationally. Parents told us to wait with it, teachers are against it, even pals are complaining that we spend less time with them. Nonetheless, spending time with a girl becomes important on it's own.

Because "everyone" has this attraction, this is kind of normal and nobody is questioning it. Is it culture, or is it the expectation of others that drives "normal" boys to try to get the attention of girls again and again? If it were just a search for friendship, then we would see a 50/50 distribution of boy/girl and boy/boy couples. There are even fewer obstacles for a boy to befriend another boy than to befriend a girl.

Actually, several things are already known. Gay men tend to have more older brothers. There are hypotheses that explain how the influence happens, developed antibodies in the mother being the current favorite explanation. Gender atypical behavior during childhood is considered to be an indicator for later homosexuality. The latter statement is remarkable. Not only does it state a deviation from "the norm", it also states that certain behavior is "the norm" for a boy. Already as little boys, their behavior is supposed to follow some invisible tracks.

Gender typical behavior - but why?

Stripping "gender" from the question, we could ask: What causes a typical behavior? Some behavior is so common typical that we have named them. Fear of flying is an example. As soon as the airplane starts moving, those affected freak out. In a rational discussion outside the plane, they will agree that the fear is irrational and somewhat silly. But that does not matter once the airplane starts moving. It is a consistent innate behavior very difficult to override. This is not an exception.

Human behavior follows certain patterns, this is the very base of psychology. If we were able to just snap out of a depression, we wouldn't need psychiatric institutions. Often, we need to become aware, how much trouble a certain behavior will cause and we need help to avoid or handle those situations.

If we were animals, we would simply call it instincts. Many animals are born with a fully developed set of instincts. This is not the case with a human baby. Unlike a baby deer, it does not get up within a few hours after birth and follows the mother around. A human baby resembles more a fetus than a preteen child during the first year. Some animals can walk a few hours after birth and instinctively follow the flock. For most animals, instincts are like solid railway tracks guiding their behavior. They are so controlled by their instincts, that a lion jumping through a burning hoop is a circus sensation.

Instincts are considered to be non-existing in humans, since we are in general able to override them. This is taken to the extreme by the assumption that humans have a free will. The example of the fear of flying shows that this obviously is not the case. Few million years ago, our ancestors certainly had instincts and those instincts didn't disappear suddenly. And they haven't completely vanished. 

How little instincts do we need?

Humans are superior to animals, because we can think and decide on a rational base what actions to take. That is the theory, in praxis we quite often behave in a certain manner that we are not aware of. Sometimes it is good for us, otherwise it can present an obstacle like the fear of flying. The fewer irrational behavior we are forced to act out, the better it is for us.

Instincts are in a way hard-wired knowledge how to behave in certain situations. Without hard-wired instincts, the appropriate behavior has to be learned. The freedom from instincts not only requires us to make rational decisions, but also allows us to adjust them in order to get anticipated outcomes. Without guiding instincts and learned knowledge, we are doomed to make stupid decisions. Hence, loosing instincts is not only an advantage, but it is a liability too. Using trial and error, we learned what was best for our survival. Hence, those with a lesser amount of instincts had a greater learning potential. This presents an evolutionary advantage leading to a higher survival rate for human genes.

Animals have instincts to a varying degree. Reptiles have a primitive brain and are completely instinct controlled. The higher up on the evolutionary stage the animals are, the less they are controlled by instincts and more able to learn things. It is no surprise that most trained animals are mammals.

Animals living in a stable environment tends to show very little variations. It is almost impossible to tell two penguins apart. Animals living in a changing environment show a greater variation. Individuals that are better adapted to a change will ensure the survival of the species, while the unfortunate die. Over time this will lead to a higher variation of individual characteristics in those species, which represents a higher flexibility. This is the reason for the noticeable individual characteristics among humans. Some of us are born with stronger instincts and have to suffer from fear of flying or similar compulsive behavior, while others enjoy a higher degree of free will.

How does evolution know where to stop?

It doesn't. Well, evolution does not stop before it is too late. Evolution is not about the survival of species or to make individuals comfortable in their environment, but about the survival of DNA. Humans are pushed by evolution towards the edge of losing all instincts, and due to the variation some are pushed over the edge. Those, who were too far on the other side, would not pass down their DNA. Evolution comes with a price tag attached, the dead end of an DNA-line. It is like a tree, where only few branches are allowed to continue to grow, while others are cut back.

As it seems, a certain minimal amount of instincts is necessary for procreation. Boys need to find girls. That is why boys start to behave irrationally during puberty, even when they were angel-like to their parents during previous years. The current society makes it  hard for them: child sexuality is not encouraged and abstinence-only sex education is on the program in some countries. Hence, the instinct of chasing girls meets a lot of obstacles, experiences headwind. 

Should we expect everyone to develop a "normal" heterosexual orientation? Some think that gender is a social construct and feminists claim men and women to be equal. Moreover, many romantics claim that it was the personality that attracted them to their spouse. If the existence of a vagina or penis is that insignificant, shouldn't we be equally attracted to men and women? I mean, if we downplay the importance of the gender/sex, shouldn't we see like a 50% prevalence of homosexuality?

Evolution does not like 50% homosexuality, it is simply not sustainable. It would mean that 50% of the genes are pushed over the edge and are not passed down. During the evolution humans lost much of the intensity of instincts. The behavior became more and more rational and that was an advantage. This also meant that the gender of the significant other half became less important. We are more attracted to the personality than to the outlook of intercourse. At the same time, sex became more versatile than just as a means to procreation. Intimacy creates strong social bonds. Hence, evolution drove humans away from the 100% heterosexuality towards a point where the advantage of free will is balanced by procreation failure.

So what went wrong in pedophiles?

Nothing! Everything went according to the plan. That means the plan of evolution. Evolution does not care about individuals, only about the survival of genes. Individuals are just a means for procreation. Fish have many thousand offsprings, most end up being prey for others. For evolution it is ok that just enough individuals make it into adulthood. 

Flexibility was and is a necessity for humans. In order to adapt to the changing environment, we show rather big differences between individuals, we are taller or shorter, we have different skin colour, and we lost much of the control instincts had over our behavior. Variance is part of the evolutionary game. This means also variance in the strength of certain instincts, among them the instinct that drives boys towards girls during puberty.

To be honest, this post is actually "paraphilia for dummies" - i never talked why pedophiles prefer the company of children. Most think it is for sexual gratification only, but this is wrong. The company of children averts aggression of bullies, children are very emotional and might satisfy the demands of someone with a more intense emotional life. There are in fact many reasons why adults turn towards children and turn the back to adults. The current stigmatization is one of them. Children don't judge someone based on media incited hysteria, they judge people according to their actions.

Making sense of James Cantor's research

James Cantor's articles are heavily discussed in the pedophile community. He is a researcher at CAMH and carries out research using forensic samples, meaning men who are caught in the legal system. Among his findings are that on average: their IQ is lower, they are missing white matter, they are shorter, have craniofacial anomalies and shorter legs. Of course the tall, smart, beautiful pedos cry out.  His articles are scrutinized and critiques have been written pointing out holes. Ok, i might be too stupid to date women, but how exactly do short legs cause pedophilia? Craniofacial anomalies or simply ugliness might ruin my chances of getting laid, but i would still chase women and not children. What could be behind all those research findings?

Preamble

Many researchers look to chimpanzees and bonobos, our closest cousins in the animal kingdom, for some clues. Other sex researchers like Jim Pfaus use rats to study sexual behavior. However, there is one huge difference between most animals and humans. Humans are neotenous, more than cats and dogs. Neoteny means the retention of juvenile features. It does not mean that adults look childish. It means that without neoteny our heads should look much more like grown up chimpanzees and not like those of chimpanzee babies. We should have larger teeth, a smaller brain, and a bigger fang.

There is little to be found on the internet how neoteny manifests itself. The best explanation is a retarded development, meaning that all developmental processes run with a much reduced speed. Different processes run at different speeds. Some processes never finish, like the skull bone fusion which still goes on in the ninth decade. Compared with the mammal model, human processes take 5 to 15 times more time. According to that model, humans should be born after 21 month of gestation. Since the head would be too big by then, humans are born at the latest possible moment, when the baby's head just passes through the birth canal. After birth the baby continues to grow at the same rate for the next year. One of the processes taking longer time is the brain maturation, 90% completed by age 10, but almost finished first in the mid-twenties, give or take a few years.

Human instincts

Psychologist Abraham Maslow argued that humans no longer have instincts because we have the ability to override them in certain situations. The criteria for instincts cited in this wikipedia article create a false dichotomy. Either it's an instinct or should be considered a drive, but the latter is defined much different by Drive theory. The biggest counter argument against the non-existence of instincts is the fact that psychology works. Psychology works because human behavior follows rules. Patients in psychiatric care have difficulties overriding certain "innate behavior" (aka instincts). Probably the reason for the renaming into "innate behavior" might be related to the illusion of a free will. Free will denotes the idea that humans can do and behave in the way they want, ultimately meaning that all actions are deliberate and thought through.

During the human evolution the increasing intelligence made us to a lesser degree the marionettes of instincts. The notion of free will represents the ultimate end of this development.  This development will affect all instincts, some more other less. Some instincts are necessary for the survival of the species, like the sexual mating instinct. Hence, the human evolution weakened those instincts to the point where they are just strong enough for the genes to survive. Evolution works by variation: some get stronger, while others get weaker instincts. Those men, who have sex with strange women when completely drunk, got a higher amount of sexual mating instincts. Those, who develop a paraphilia instead of a healthy heterosexuality, probably got less than necessary. As a consequence, the appearance of not sufficiently strong enough instincts is part of evolution. Basically, this means that those instincts get overridden before they manifest themselves.

The link between instincts and neoteny lies in the way our brain develops. Most animals are born with most instincts functioning. Their brains are fully myelinated at birth, while humans are born with mostly unmyelinated brains. During the first years the myelination takes place. That means neuroglia cells are formed and their fatty parts show up as white spots on T1-sMRI. Neuroglia cells are shielding the axons of neurons, hence they are part of the white matter or the so called connecting tissue. Neoteny delays the manifestation of instincts. However, it seems that there are critical periods during the development. If a skill or behavior is not learned during such a time window, it is hard if not impossible to catch up.

The research findings

One of the better known results regarding pedophiles is the missing white matter. Sometimes it is also referred to as cross-wiring, since the researchers believe that instead of parental instincts, sexual instincts are activated. This is an overly simplistic view and there is no explanation why the cable instead of going to A goes to B instead. If it were a random cross-wiring, we should see an activation of the whole spectrum of instincts.

The craniofacial findings point to prenatal events, also called prenatal insults. Skin cells and neurons differentiate in the same way during embryogenesis before the blastula folds inwards and the spinal cord and brain are formed. If the development of skin cells gets disturbed during that period, it is likely that it affected neural cells as well. The observed correlation has been interpreted as an indicator for prenatal causes of pedophilia. Another anomaly is the testosterone level during certain critical prenatal periods. Getting the wrong amount of it and something goes wrong. It has been experimentally shown in rats (Jim Pfaus & Co) and there has been a longitudinal study in Denmark confirming it.

I'm wondering, whether the testosterone level in humans is similar to other mammals. The slowed down development in humans is caused by something or something necessary for the development is absent. Gaffney and Berlin reported a dysfunction of the hypothalamic–pituitary–gonadal axis in pedophiles, which again is important for testosterone levels. Testosterone breaks down into estradiol, which seem to have far reaching influence.

The latest papers propose a disturbance in the development to be the cause for some paraphilias. If we add the reasonable assumption that exclusive pedophiles are not interested in women, then we can conclude that the heterosexual instinct did not manifest itself. The development of the human sexual mating instinct, aka heterosexual orientation, got derailed. As with train derailments there might be multiple ways of that happening. This is the reason why some meta-studies report many different and sometimes conflicting results. Trains can go with a high velocity into a tight turn, rails can be deformed, the rail bed can have broken away, the wheels might lose contact, the bogie can oscillate - all of them possible causes for a train derailment.

Non-exclusive pedophile men are attracted to women, hence there is a working instinct, but the erotic attraction includes more than women. Normally, only the sight or scent of women should cause arousal. This arousal seems to be learned - clues of the preferred partner get erotized. John Money calls this disturbance a vandalization of the lovemap, which are supposedly formed around the age of 6. This would implicate events in early childhood as possible causes. Again weak instincts might have enable those developments, since they didn't offer much resistance to aberration.

Weak human instincts are not mainstream psychology. Common for paraphilia is the absence of a healthy heterosexual orientation. Hence, it seems kinda obvious to assume that something went wrong with the heterosexual mating instinct. This assumption is simple, it is supported by human evolution, the existence of human neoteny and the limited degree of free will among humans. So instincts failed to work as they should. I call it the faulty neoteny hypothesis.

Disclaimer

This is amateur research, making sense of research papers. As such it is not backed by a financed scientific study, but based on logic and scientific literature. As an amateur i'm free to pursue ideas that are not mainstream.

The first pedophile

Is this a fantasy of a pedophile or does it make sense?

The idea in this post came like a stroke last christmas. Pedophilia is a destiny which is a heavy burden to carry. It does not make sense to be attracted to children nowadays. It does not make sense according to contemporary standards, but did it make sense 5000 years ago? Delving into internet i discovered the following.

Pedophilia is not a recent phenomenon, Michael Jackson was not the first one to have eyes for boys in the magic years between being a little boy and becoming a man. Leonardo da Vinci had eyes for his Salai, and he too was not the first. The greeks didn't invent pederasty, it had already conquered the world. The Japanese had the love for boys, apparently for over thousand years. This love for boys can be found in cultures all over the world. If a behavioral trait has spread throughout the world, it is believed to be more than 50.000 years old. Ergo: let's go back in time, much back in fact.

The Descent of Chester

The story of the descent of Chester is a humorous explanation why evolution allowed the existence of pedophiles and how pedophiles survived natural selection. Even though written as an satirical essay it contains several ideas on the survival of genes. Sometimes laymen interpret evolution quite narrow, when giving birth to children is already counted as success. Chester in this story makes sure that related children survive. This worker bee hypothesis has also been used to explain the acceptance of Fa'afafine. Another support for this hypothesis is the fact that mothers of homosexual children tend to give birth to more children. These explanations center around the value of nutrition for survival.

However, the same can be applied to all animals, hence we should find homosexuality and pedophilia to the same extend in the animal kingdom. Homosexual behavior can be observed, even sexual interaction with immature youth is common, but not in the same manner as in humans. Homosexual behavior is observed in the absence of females or in captivity. Researchers have tried to instill homosexuality as a preference for males in rats and have failed. Sexual behavior with immature youth is found in species that are not at all discriminatory in sexual partner selection, but a preference for immature partners is not evident.

What happened to homo habilis & Co?

There are some peculiarities in the human evolution. Humans share a last common ancestor with chimpanzees and bonobos. From comparison with them, we can infer that certain events happened during the human evolution. Artifacts like skeletons provide hints where to place them on the timeline. From those artifacts we know that the human brain increased in size twice during the evolution.

The first increase happened with homo erectus 1.8 million years ago , who had to counter environmental changes. In mobbing is human heritage i tried to explain what happened to them. Homo ergaster most likely self-domesticated himself, leading to groups that were more successful at fighting off predatory animals. Analysis of his skull shows more neotenous features than the chimpanzee skull. The famous russian silver fox experiment also lead to neotenous features as a result of a selection based on behavior. If homo ergaster became neotenous, then the reason could have been a self-domestication process, which we know has happened in the human past.

Hypothesis about human evolution

It is impossible to prove anything about the behavior of human ancestors, since no documentation ever existed or survived the tooth of time. Artifacts can only be found where the conditions were right for conservation. Human tissue or tools made out of wood and similar did not survive. Due to that most commonly acknowledged theories are based on simple assumptions and correlations with other events. The principle of Occam's razor is used to select some hypothesis as more likely.

Fortunately, there are some facts, which we know to be true. First of all, humans became intelligent and are able to use complicated tools. Second, we master a huge volume of knowledge. Finally, homo sapiens evolved into the shape of modern humans. The latter implies the neotenous character.

Neoteny - the retention of juvenile features

The picture to left shows a young immature chimpanzee. The contrast to adult chimpanzees is quite markant. Actually adult humans resemble chimpanzee babies much more than mature chimpanzees, which is denoted as physical neoteny. Neoteny itselfs denotes the retention of juvenile characteristics. 

How does neoteny appear? There is little to be found about it, but it seems to be related to a slower maturation speed. There exists a mammal model that predicts when certain developmental events are supposed to happen. Compared to that model, humans are maturing at a slower speed, between 5 and 15 times slower. According to that humans never done with growing up. Even in the ninth decade, some skull bone fusion processes are still at work.

Not only does a human mature at a slower speed than the mammal model predicts, but different parts mature at different speeds. The brain maturation is one of the slower processes. Several human peculiarities are due to that. Human instincts are dwindling and weak, interfering less with a rational behavior than in animals. However, some instincts are necessary and an insufficient instinct has undesirable outcomes. And again, the russian silver fox experiment did some interesting observations. Some neotenous foxes neglected their offspring.

The second brain size increase

The second brain size increase happened presumably during the Lower Palaeolithic era (800 000 years ago) leading to homo heidelbergensis. The placement of either on the timeline is somewhat uncertain, but the correlation makes sense. Homo habilis already had the ability to carry tools around unlike tool using animals. The usual sequence in animals is that they are first confronted with a problem and then start using tools. Not only are they using available items, but it has been observed that they modify items to fit for the purpose. Sticks are selected and sometimes modified for retrieval or for foraging. After the animals got what they wanted they usually discard the used tool. Since stone tools have been found together with skeletons, we know that they have been carried around even when there was no usage during the transport.

If there had been a "wood age" before the stone age, then we wouldn't know about it. It is possible that our ancestors had been using wooden tools before stone tools. In this case, the second brain increase could have happened earlier.

Tool making requires understanding and the ability to learn. I have seen a BBC documentary where a professor specialized in anthropology showed the presenter how to cut a stone for making a stone axe. The presenter surely had attended school and knew a lot about physics. The professor also told the presenter how to do certain steps, both spoke english and were quite intelligent. Even with those favorable abilities it took about half an hour to get the lesson across. Prof. Brian Cox tried it once to cut a stone without any instructions and gave up. He needed advice from some expert. Knifes and longer cutting tools require careful craftsmanship, where several flakes have to be cut off. This requires remarkable skills, not easy to teach even today.

In order to simulate ancient conditions we need to modify the situation drastically. First of all, no physics knowledge is allowed. Language was not yet invented. There were no books and no schools. And we have to reduce the intelligence level in both participants. Instead of a professor teaching an intelligent presenter we should consider a 5 year old teaching a 2 year old how to do that. The time needed to get the lesson across would be much larger and requiring the student to spent considerable amount of time with the teacher.

In the animal kingdom the youths learn from their parents. The sex of the offspring does not matter since all animals have to hunt, assuming no division of labour. If there is a sexual division of labour, then it is mostly instinctive behavior not requiring much learning. The situation is different with humans. First of all do humans give birth to fewer offspring. Moreover, some have only daughters while others only have sons. So, what is the best strategy to transfer knowledge to the next generation?

The kid could learn from the same sex parent. Any imbalance of the sex will lead to a loss of knowledge in that case. If kids leave the parental care and look for a same-sex teacher in the tribe, then the sex balance is almost equal. Moreover, if kids learn from several teachers, knowledge gets distributed. From a game theoretical point of view, kids learning from unrelated same-sex members of the band have an advantage. Since knowledge means a higher survival rate, a band where knowledge is transferred to unrelated children gives a higher chance to their genes.

The first pedophile

There are DSM/ICD definitions of pedophilia and hebephilia. The border between those two lies at puberty, which ignores the basic fact that most boylovers are attracted to boys at that border. Boylovers often ask themselves, whether they are pedophiles or not. Compared with ancient times puberty nowadays has an earlier onset. I sometimes wonder when ancient greek boys went through puberty. It seems like they were much older than contemporary boys in puberty. This would change the definition of ancient pederasty. In the following i do not differentiate due to that reason. Moreover, i don't assume a sexual preference for children in the following.

The transfer of knowledge like the making of stone tools requires a teacher - someone who spends a considerable amount of time with the student. Nowadays teachers are paid and teaching became a profession. This was not the case in the lower palaeolithic era. Everybody had to teach the craftsmanship one possessed unlike today, where some specialized teachers teach the profession of others.

Rind&Yuill in 2012 showed that hebephilic interest is an evolved capacity, and pointed out some commonalities in cross cultural studies. T. Vanggaard wrote in Phallós about semen culture and masculinity. The mature-immature homosexual relationships were an institution to transfer manhood from adults to boys.  Only in such relationship a boy would become a man and in ancient time it was seen as a stigma not to become an erômenos. This has changed with Plato. Before Plato, the institution of pederasty was ritualized and served a well known purpose. After Plato, the sexual gratification got condemned and the former purpose lost. Moreover, the condemnation requires that the manhood building aspect has to be ignored.

How did the teacher-student or master-apprentice relationship came together in lower palaeolithic times? It seems likely that those relationships were formed spontaneously. They were just spending more and more time together without realizing the nature of their relationship. Boylovers jokingly claim that sexy boys are the cause of pedophilia. This is not far from the truth. A dedicated teacher is more efficient than an indifferent one. Hence, students that catch the interest of the teacher got a more enthusiastic education. If a red nose were enough to cause such an interest, we all would be running around with red noses. What characteristics could probably have been preferred?

If we compare chimpanzees with humans, there is a long list of differences. Humans have eyes that are white around the iris. That makes it easy to guess what the other is looking at. Is the student banging 2 stones together to imitate the noise or actually aiming at a fault line? It is certainly easier to teach someone whose mind is easier to read. This too is supported by a hairless face. Humans faces are able to express emotions due to the amount of facial muscle, by the way the only muscles in the human body attached to skin.

Lautmann in "Lust am Kinde" notes that boylovers admire the boy's personality while girllovers admire beauty. Of course, personality is not everything, the boys body is admired too. The statues of the ancient greeks idolized the young man's body. It is likely that a combination of physical and behavioral attributes attracted the teacher. And as always, there will be a competition for attention. This can be seen in any group of children. Boys will compete with each other for the sole attention of a popular group leader, while group leaders will compete in attracting the most desired child.

A child attracting a teacher has to show its abilities. It might be a bit far fetched, but entertaining adults is a perfect opportunity to show intelligence, the ability to learn and present oneself. This is quite similar to courtship behavior between mates.

Natural selection in humans

Evolution works in many ways. Sexual selection is a narrow interpretation, where the choice of a mate decides over the survival of genes. The only thing that counts is the survival of genes. In the simplest case, the survival of the individual until reproduction is sufficient (see fishes). Care of genetically related family members is related to kin selection. However, if one supports distant or not-related family members based on the existence of certain pleasant traits, then those traits will be selected for.

It has been argued that the human brain is a result of sexual selection, where women and men have used their display of intelligence in courtship. So where are the nerds with models as girl friends? It is kind of obvious that this explanation is flawed. Hence, the question is who has selected somebody else for his/her brains? Moreover, it is not necessary for the selecting individual to pass his genes on - that is only required for the one with the brain.

The common explanation how women select brainier men is based on the men's results during hunts. A common mistake is to ascribe a certain development to one and only one cause. That women preferred men who contributed more to society does not preclude other causes. It is not like women evaluated men, but men evaluated each other and build their mutual social status based on that assessment. It is common knowledge that women tend to prefer men of higher social standing. Hence, if men elevated certain boys into the ranks of manhood, then women would prefer those. The rituals of manhood in native cultures marked youths as to be eligible. Women were taught that only men with the right markings are suitable as mates. This is a case where the selection process is carried out within one sex, but has an effect on the passing of genes.

In my humble opinion the mature-immature relationships had a beneficial effect. Not only did the existence count for the transfer of knowledge, but also the length of the apprenticeship had an effect. Child mortality had been high and survival depended on the income of the father. A longer apprenticeship meant higher education and probably a higher social status and with it a higher survival rate of children. This type of relationship usually ended when the younger part became too old and was supposed to move on. When did the younger partner became too old? Presumably when the secondary sexual characteristics became visible. Another reason for this close relationship to end is the fact that a mature same sex partner represents sexual competition. Exclusive pedophilia seemed to have been quite rare. Often the men in those relationships were married or moved on to marry a woman after breakup.

One evidence pointing in that direction is the fact that onset of puberty in boys is later than in girls. Moreover, the onset of puberty is earlier today than some hundred years ago. The decline started about the same time when public schools were introduced and the apprenticeship system was replaced by more institutionalized education systems like university or unskilled labour in factories. Following that explanation, the current decline is not caused by some environmental conditions, but is the normal return to the state without an evolutionary pressure. The survival rate of offspring no longer depends on the length of the apprenticeship with a mentor. The evolutionary pressure also disappeared due to the reduced child mortality.

In this post i focus on the man-boy relationship, but one might argue that the same must be valid for woman-girl relationships in the past. But there are some major differences. It's not without reason that men are from mars while women descent from venus. First, women are child bearing and therefore considered to be too precious to be subjected to danger. The sexual division of labour might have placed a heavy burden on women, but quick decisions were only required from men. Usually women and children are protected by men who have to defend the village. This can also be noticed today. Women are comfortable in positions where few final decisions are made. Typical women areas are places where decision can be overthrown or remade, or when it is possible to base decision on a time consuming consent building process. Boys have to be teached to make the right decision the first time, while girls are imitating women and have the opportunity to adjust their decisions. Hence, the evolutionary pressure was heavier on boys than on girls. That girls mature later than the mammal model predicts can be due to the little pressure put on them and/or due to the genetical linkage between females and males.

Natural selection works in many ways. In ancient Greece stigma was attached to those who didn't got an erômenos. Hence, it was not only men selecting boys and therefore deciding which boy genes moved on, but also boys deciding over the social standing of young men. Every master of a craftsmanship was required to have apprentices.  The failure to attract candidates was a professional failure and lead to exclusion from the profession and loss of income. Therefore one can assume a co-evolution: boys getting attractive to men, and men becoming accommodating to the needs of boys. The former denotes the eagerness and willingness to learn while the latter means caretaking, teaching and mentoring in all aspects of life.

Q: Why don't humans have a baculum?
A: Because pedophiles are a pain in the ass.  

Modern reminiscents

Even today, children are fanatic about superheros and heros. The majority of boys idolizes football players. Variants of football can be found in native cultures, where an object is kicked around, intercepted and driven towards a goal. Sometimes the ball is decorated with feathers or skin. Young boys are eager to participate in games with older boys. Not only that, but emotions are set into high gear. Imagine now that boys were free to roam society without being bound to their families.

Men shave their beards, while women apply makeup. The result in both cases is that the person looks younger. Why is that? It is an unconscious signal to others that we are willing to accommodate them. We signal that we are agreeable and desire an honest conversation. The opposite in men are those with long beards. In many cultures long beards are reserved for scholarly persons, who can dispense knowledge. The opposite appearance signals an openness to acquire knowledge or listening skills necessary for agreements. Salesmen tend to be shaved for that reason.

Sometimes, one can read that this behavior is paedomorphic and has something to do with the Kindchenschema - the one which is supposed to elicit help. Some even reason that this kind of behavior might have turned some into pedophiles - which is utterly nonsense. The kindchenschema does not elicit help, but lowers aggression thresholds. The absence of a beard makes also hiding of emotions more difficult. Hence, a shaved man appears to be more honest and more trustworthy if the social standing is unknown.

Conclusion

Same-sex pedophilic behavior has been with us for 800,000 years, the time when the last brain size increase happened. It is probably related to the transfer of knowledge and masculinity to the next generation, which is the main theme of the ancient greek pederasty and semen-culture reported in cross-cultural studies.

If this were true, all men should feel some erotic attraction towards boys, since it has been a necessity for the transfer of knowledge in the past. Current behavior like men shaving beards, and the particularities with the onset of puberty in girls and boys nowadays and in the past, indicates this to be true. 

Moreover, boylovers should not be ashamed of their attraction towards boys. It it nothing abnormal, but part of the essence of humanity. The idolization of youth was common in ancient Greece and there is a heavy weighting reason for that.

Disclaimer

This is amateur peodphilia research, which means there is no study to back up the claims. This post presents a hypothesis with the attempt to explain pedophilia related phenomena.

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.

Sexual orientation or what is wrong with dogs?

Brain teaser

Dogs greet their owners by wagging their tails, whimpering to attract attention, sniffing and licking. What do dogs do when they encounter a bitch in heat? Do they wag tails, sniff behinds, lick? Yes they do. That begs the question, are dogs sexually attracted to their owners?

What have dogs to do with the sexual orientation of humans?

In some sense dogs are domesticated wolves. Humans have gone through a process called self-domestication; probably during the time as homo habilis. The result in both cases is neoteny, the retainment of juvenile features. Neoteny seems to have a bigger impact on human behavior than acknowledged so far.

Neoteny

The famous russian silver fox experiment was aimed at finding out how domestication turned wolves into dogs. The selection in this silver fox experiment was based on the behavior as the sole criterium. However, the changes in behavior were accompanied by physiological changes, which show signs of neoteny. Neoteny denotes the retainment of both physiological and behavioral traits. The physiological traits can be characterized as Kindchenschema. Those silver foxes started to look cute. Is this a coincidence?

Not only did the foxes became more tame, but also showed smarter behavior. Smart in this case means social intelligence. The foxes attracted attention and wanted to play, something that reminds us of dogs. Playing in the animal kingdom is an act mostly juveniles do. Cubs and pups play with each other and test their strength. Playing as a pup meant learning how to subdue prey. Sometimes the parents get involved and "teach" them a lesson or two. This playing with each other can be considered the earliest of teaching.

The selection of juvenile playful non-aggressive behavior in those silver foxes is a possible explanation for the emerging neoteny. That pups in general are not aggressive towards siblings is another result of evolution.

Pups do not have a dominance hierarchy, which is retained in dogs, see Alexandra Semyonova. Pups and dogs live in groups that are defined by one-to-one relationships. It is often said that dogs consider their owners as a parent, much like the imprinting of wild gooses, which are raised by humans. But this would render any sale of older dogs to a different owner as problematic. Hence, it is not imprinting that bonds dogs to their owners. Cattle, which is another domesticated animal, also reacts on human presence. This however, seems to be more like a Pavlov's dog reflex. Any human is regarded as a signal for feeding time or milking.

Dogs must consider humans as another element of their social group. The learn the verbal and nonverbal communication anew like they did with their siblings. In order to function in a domestic setting, they had to develop social intelligence, pretty much like homo habilis did in the human evolution.

Attachments

The first pair-bonding of pups is to its parent. This mother-young bonding ensures nurture and a successful reproduction. This and the non-aggressive rivalry with siblings gets transformed into one-to-one relationships, which are attachments. This is the reason, why dogs greet their owners in the same way they are courting a bitch. The mating aspect gets overshadowed by the neotenous attachment, at least there is an overlap of juvenile attachment and sexual behavior. 

Hence: No, the dogs are not sexually attracted to their human owners. They don't seek a mate in humans, but a play partner.

Sexual orientation

The wikipedia entry on sexual orientation focuses a lot on the sexual aspect, while I in my previous post started to question the sexual nature of the desire part. The arousal is without any doubt of a sexual nature, the body responds to clues in a sexual way. The arousal part could be some kind of learned response to clues. John Money considers lovemaps and phylisms in his theory of paraphilias. Somehow one learns what the desired partner looks like and starts responding to clues in a more reflex like manner. Bem's disputed theory  "exotic becomes erotic" could be reformulated as "attracted becomes erotic". During a certain stage in childhood humans acquire a lovemap, which  might be nothing else than a preference for certain types of attachments. 

Since humans live in social groups, the sought after attachment has to fit in. As such it is not really a one-to-one relationship, but a complex system. As it seems to me, the development of a lovemap is a fragile process, which can be easily distorted. The attachment, one has a toddler, has to change. It seems that lovemaps or attachment search develops along certain paths, not all paths leading to a heterosexual orientation. 

One explanation for homosexuality is the fraternal birth order effect, which also has been observed in pedophiles and male-to-female transsexuals. However, having many older brothers changes the family climate and might lead to a different attachment to the primary caregiver for the youngest than the older brothers had. 

If sexual orientation are basically lovemaps based on attachment patterns, then childhood attachment(s) are relevant for their development. Moreover, the glorified target is influenced by culture, like romantic and love.

Conclusion

The discussion of sexual orientation must include neoteny. Humans do not simply look for a mating partner, but for one to establish a relationship to. This relationship includes many other aspects besides a sexual component. Why do we still call it "sexual orientation" if only the arousal is sexual?

Missing white matter matters

Summary

The missing white matter finding might indicate a psychological disorder, in this case Asperger's syndrome. This posts contains an alternative explanation of the findings by James Cantor & Co.

Lying with statistics

Many decades ago the consensus bureau in Germany found statistical support for something that have been told to small children for a long time. The first number they obtained was the number of children per woman. The did it with german precision getting numbers for each district. Using the same approach, they registered the number of storks. When they compared the numbers, they found an enormous support for the European folklore that the stork is responsible for bringing babies to new parents. This example is teached to student so they look out for the undiscovered unknown factor. In the mentioned statistics, the division into rural and urban districts is the explaining variable. In rural areas mothers tend to give birth to more children - the storks nesting in those areas have nothing to do with it. It is just an unrelated coincidence.

Asperger's syndrome in pedophiles

One thing that comes up very often in child love chat boards is the discussion of psychology. Since Pedophiles are seen as mentally ill persons (which by the way is much better than to be considered sub-human scum), several disorders are discussed. There are some conditions that seem to have a very high correlation with pedophilia. There is a remark from a police officer that it is almost a cliche to find Star-Trek memorabilia during a home search. Being a Star-Trek fan is not qualified as an illness, but Asperger's Syndrome is. During psychological evaluations, a test on the Aspergers/Autistic scale seem to be standard. This gets reported many times on chat boards.

Participation on an internet chat forum might restrict the discussion to those who are technically savvy and with a higher than normal intelligence. It might be that the sample of pedophiles on those chat forums is biased towards Aspergers and highly intelligent people. Nevertheless, it is remarked that there are many members with Asperger's (short Aspies).


Asperger's syndrome mainly presents itself with communication deficits. Affected children have difficulties relating to age peers, but are excellent with adults or younger children. Adults often refer to them as "little professors". Everyone know those geeky boys, who have no chance with same-aged girls. This is actually a very simple explanation for some pedophiles.


Recent research has challenged the notion of missing empathy i autistic children. In fact they experience some kind of overload, they can't deal with the simultaneous onslaught of verbal and nonverbal communication signals. Hence autistic children tend to blend humans out. People scoring high on the autistic scale, but on the side of Asperger's disorder don't blend people out, but focus on one kind of input at a time. Often they are very logical and show a left brain dominance.

Circuitry

The polyvagal theory describes some neural circuitry issues. Stephen Porges links misfiring of the polyvagal system to attention disorders and autism. The missing engagement of the social muscles in the inner ear and of the face makes listening and nonverbal communication a challenge to those affected. When I say circuitry, I actually mean two different systems. One system are neural connections, like white brain matter. The other system comprises hormonal releases by endocrine glands. The hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis is related to stress. The first two glands in this axis are also part of the hypothalamic–pituitary–gonadal axis which might be dysfunctional in pedophiles according to Gaffney and Berlin. This means that stress could have influenced the development of pedophilia. Moreover, released hormones work like switches putting the brain into different modes. The neurons on the other hand direct releases of hormones. Hence, the circuitry of the brain comprises many loops.


The brain works like a massive parallel system. Simplified, humans have a paleomammal system comprising the amygdala among others, a frontal cortex, and many other systems. The paleomammal system is responsible for gut feelings while the frontal cortex is home to our consciousness. During puberty a myelination process happens in the brain and we change from a child like personality to an adult personality. This puberty time has been pinpointed as the assumed time frame when pedophilia manifests. Others pinpoint the event to prenatal changes, that means while the fetus is in the womb, leading to "born-this-way" arguments. However, at some time during the development, a certain establishment of circuitry is supposed to happen.


Understanding the brain as a massive parallel system assigns a moderating or controlling function to the frontal cortex. This means the frontal cortex influences the function of the paleomammal system via some connective tissue. Without a moderation that paleomammal part can either ran wild as in uncontrolled, or it is in a kind of stasis.

White matter

The flamboyant researcher James Cantor explains in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JB6zwvBtDK8 his research on pedophilia and some research results. Besides the low-IQ-findings, the major point is the missing white matter. He explains pedophilia as a kind of cross-wiring as in connective tissue -  instead of going from A to B it goes from A to C. But then the question arises, why does it have to go to C, why not D, E, F and so on. If it were a cross-wiring, should there be more white matter some place else? The last question takes this "cross-wiring" a bit too literally.

The missing white matter can explain two different scenarios. The first one is absence of any excitation. There are indeed persons who experience asexuality. Moreover, it would explain why autistic persons and persons with a severe attachment disorder do not react. Only the dorsal part is engaged.  The other explanation is more mundane. The paleomammal system does what it can do alone in the absence of moderation. It too is an example of phylogenetic hierarchy. When the more evolved structures fail, more primitive systems are activated. Normally a person will adapt to the culture. This requires a lot of social contacts and internalization of social values. Hence in normal humans, the paleomammal system is dominated. If one lacks white matter, it certainly has impact on the moderation. Hence ancient gut feelings will surface and adaptive behavior will show up.


The russian silver fox experiment has shown that behavior has strong biological roots. It was an experiment with the aim of explaining the taming of wolves and their transformation into dogs. Not only have they succeed in only 10 generations, they have also caused signs of neoteny in those foxes. This experiment has been repeated and even the opposite has been carried out. The researchers managed to breed vicious foxes. Hence a strong biological base for behavior can not be denied.


The consistent qualities of pedophilia might be due to evolution. It is know that boylovers appreciate boyish behavior more than beauty, while girllovers are attracted to the female equivalent to the bud of a flower. Feierman 1990 gives some examples of pedophilic behaviors with a strong evolutionary cause. Those behavioral traits might have been grown since the first brain increase happened some hundred thousand years ago.


Hence, it seems reasonable to assume that missing white matter reduces moderation of the affected parts. Reduced moderation means less suppression of biology based behavioral traits. Moreover, less moderation also means less damping on the social communication signal, which then might lead to an overload - exactly the symptoms of Asperger's syndrome. Could it be that James Cantor statistically found a higher share of Aspies among his sample? This could be true, if missing white matter had been identified as common in Aspies. But this hasn't happened - or more precisely "has not happened yet".


Brain imaging techniques have not yet identified a clear common pathology for Asperger's syndrome (mentioned on wikipedia) - which does not mean there isn't anything brain related to be found. Even the smart James Cantor looked first at grey matter, before it made click and he discovered the lack of white matter. Discovery might be the wrong word, since he didn't find anything on the sMRI pictures, he missed something. Hence, one has to pose the hypothesis that Aspies are lacking white matter, for professionals to do the studies and to find out.

Is Asperger's syndrome the missing link?

Cantor & Co theorize that some prenatal events may have had big influence on neurobiology and sexual orientation. The latest paper by 4 students and him tested a hypothesis by Michael C. Seto about a correlation of minor physical anomalies and pedophilia, indicating prenatal influences. A critique of that paper asks for a temporal linkage between those prenatal events and the establishment of pedophilia during puberty. The argument is: if at any time between birth and puberty the child is "normal" in any aspect, then there should be no correlation between prenatal condition and sexual orientation. This means, between birth and manifestation of pedophilia, something has to be different in those children. Something that is so heavy that it impacts the development of "normal" sexuality.

By the way, in order to show up on the statistics, only a few more Aspies are required on the pedophile group. The explanation in this post does not mean that every pedophile is affected by Asperger's syndrome, only that there is a higher percentage of those.

Disclaimer

This presents amateur research. As such it is not backed by any study carried out under supervision. Instead it is an attempt to explain certain facts, which i have been confronted with. Even though i am discussing Asperger's syndrome and missing white matter, this post does not imply anything about any person. Diagnosing people with mental illnesses is the business of mental health professionals, not mine. I'm in this matter a layman.