About Boylove
Boylove is the orientation of emotional attraction to boys, and is often accompanied with a physical attraction to those same boys. The feelings and desires of this orientation are no more wrong than those of other traditional orientations such as heterosexuality or homosexuality, and often the emotional attractions nurture a boylover to become a person well-suited to caring for children. As an orientation, it is as normal as any other and poses no inherent risk to anyone.
Though as normal as other orientations, society tends to target boylovers with continued rejection. Society focuses itself on attempting to repress a boylover's right to peace and freedom of thought and speech due to the physical attractions many boylovers feel. This takes the form of censorship, most notably by ruling fictional literature or artwork illegal and forceful opposition and shutdown of viewpoints not conforming to widely-accepted beliefs regarding children and sex.
Like people with more accepted orientations, not every boylover feels an attraction to every boy. Each boylover has a unique set of preferences that vary as much as they would for other orientations. Some like boys who are blond, while others like boys who are highly emphatic with strong emotional output. The number of variances this encapsulates is as innumerable as grains of sand. It can include physical aspects such as a boy's age, height, weight, skin colour, hair colour, and others. Often, personality traits influence how attracted a boylover may feel to a particular boy. Some common influential traits are a boy's curiosity, creativity, emotional maturity, sociability, intellectual ability, excitability, manners, passion, and their dominance or submissiveness.
Boylovers may act on their emotional attractions, forming meaningful connections with boys in their lives and helping nurture those boys into confident and functional adults. Some take on mentoring roles with local volunteering programs while others train to become part of the education system responsible for teaching the world's future generations.
Most boylovers who feel sexually attracted to boys do not act on their feelings; they're painfully aware of the legal and social consequences if they do. Instead, they resort themselves to a life without full sexual satisfaction by handling their desires through masturbation or by expressing the sexual feelings they have for children with legal-age persons. Some may choose to live in celibacy and abstinence, though this should not be confused with asexuality in boylovers (where a person has no sexual desires at all, thus nothing to abstain from).
There are a variety of ways for a boylover to identify. You do not have to choose a label to identify as. Some people believe labels to be too restrictive and only select a term if they are pressured into it. As most boylovers do also have sexual attractions to children, many of the labels used relate to those sexual interests in some form. This doesn't mean that all labels indicate a sexual attraction, however.
Some labels used by people in the boylove community are as follows:
- Boylover
- Childlover
- Girllover
- Minor-Attracted Person
- Minor-Attracted Adult
- Paedosexual1
- Nepiophile2
- Paedophile2
- Hebephile2
- Ephebophile2
1. Paedosexual is a term that has been used to denote paedophilia as a sexuality or sexual orientation, however it is not officially recognised as either. Paedo may be substituted with nepio, pedo (American spelling), hebe, or ephebo, but this is rare to see.
2. These terms focus on the relevant chronophilias, detailed in our glossary.
A person may choose to identify as multiple of the listed terms, as there is some overlap, or a term that hasn't been listed. It doesn't matter if you identify yourself using a label or not, as what's important is being comfortable. You can choose not to identify with any label if that makes you comfortable. A label does not define you, nor does it restrict you. But, only you can apply a label to you. Other people cannot do it for you. It is your identity, not theirs.
This is not for us to say, as we do not know you personally. Only a trained medical professional can tell you for certain whether you have a disorder or mental health problem.
Boylove is not a disorder on its own. It is an attraction, and nothing else. On its own, it will not inhibit your ability to function in daily life. This doesn't mean that it cannot cause a disorder, however. Attempting to repress natural sexual desire has been proven to be harmful by the many gay conversion camps from decades ago. The practice of conversion therapy has since been prohibited. As our attraction is to children, we cannot act on our desires. We are forced to repress them, similar to how gay persons were forced to repress their desires in conversion camps. This repression often causes problems.
There is only one officially recognised disorder associated with boylove, and it has specific diagnostic criteria: paedophilic disorder. As such, there are no officially recognised disorders associated with the repression or improper handling of hebephilic or ephebophilic attractions. Hebephilia is considered too rare, due to the massive social focus on paedophilia, and ephebophilia is largely legal as persons within that range are typically above a jurisdiction's age of consent.
Paedophilic disorder is not the same as paedophilia. While paedophilia is required to be diagnosed with paedophilic disorder (per DSM-V), they are distinct and different things. Specifically, paedophilia is only the sexual attraction in prepubescent children. On its own, like boylove, it is not a disorder.
For a person to be diagnosed with paedophilic disorder they must: have felt intense paedophilic attractions (fantasies, urges, behaviours, or any combination of these) for six months or more; have acted on these desires or be experiencing significant distress due to the desires; and be at least 16 years of age and at least five years older than the children they usually desire.
Beyond the above, repression of sexual desire can cause depression and loneliness. These feelings of depression and loneliness are often amplified by society's discriminatory and stigmatising attitudes towards boylovers, specifically paedophiles. As a result, boylovers may have problems trusting others. Most never talk about their attraction to boys and keep it hidden from everyone, guarding the secret knowing how much damage it can do if discovered. Alone, isolated, and unable to talk about how they really feel. This is how many boylovers feel.
Note: Paedophilic disorder is not to be confused with a form of OCD in which a person may experience persisting intrusive thoughts about children at inappropriate times or in a sexual manner. These intrusive thoughts are not part of a person's orientation and often do not reflect genuine desires that the person has.
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Not at all, though many are. The term boylover covers attractions with ages ranging from birth to 18. Describing all boylovers as paedophiles is inaccurate. Hebephilic and ephebophilic attractions both fall within the bounds of what is acceptable under the boylover label, and some boylovers are asexual and thus no chronophilia can apply.
Paedophilia, or pedophilia, is a specific term that indicates the sexual attraction of a person towards prepubescent children averaging between 0 and 13. The term inherently includes nepiophilia, which is the same but with an age range of 0 to 5.
This differs from hebephilia, which is a term covering the sexual attraction to pubescent boys. These average between 11 and 15 years of age. Ephebophilia focuses on adolescents, in the later stages of puberty, and these are often between 15 and 19.
Many boylovers fall roughly within paedohebephilia, which is a mix of paedophile and hebephile. The most common ages that these boylovers find themselves most attracted to are within the 9 to 14 range.
The attraction a boylover experiences is not always sexual. It may be an attraction to their physical form in a non-sexual way, the same as a person may appreciate a work of art, or it may be an emotional attraction. Paedophilia has no care for appreciation or emotional attraction, and focuses strictly on whether a person experiences sexual attraction.
For having thoughts? No. These thoughts are natural to you, and they do not colour your character any more than what food you like or the type of music you listen to. Your fantasies are your own, and no one can police your thoughts. You are allowed to think what you want. Your actions are what define you. You rule your desires; they do not rule you.
In a word, no. Your orientation does not come with a special set of rules. You must still live within the confines of everything that everyone else lives in. If you have sexual attraction to children, you will most likely have an unfulfilling sexual life due to the illegality of sex with children and young teens. Despite this, many boylovers are legal and live law-abiding lives.
Here are some resources that you can use to learn more about boylove. Please take your time reviewing these resources.
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