Non-preferential attraction

Most men have some feelings of attraction for minors, but not preferential feelings.

• One researcher at the University of Toronto found that on average, homosexual men attracted to adults showed an arousal response to adolescent boys that was 62% of their response to men, and arousal response to pre-pubescent boys that was 19% of their arousal level to men. (Heterosexual men showed similar patterns of attraction toward females.)¹
• Researchers at California State University and the University of Southern California asked 99 male college students about their sexual feelings and fantasies. Twenty-two percent of them admitted some attraction to children, and 4% admitted to masturbating to a sexual fantasy involving a child. Subjects were not asked about preferential attraction, or whether the children were boys or girls.²
• Clinical and forensic psychologist Jack S. Annon writes that almost every male has some kind of arousal to paraphilic stimuli. (Paraphilic sexual feelings and activities include voyeurism, frotteurism, pedophilia, exhibitionism, and rape, among others.) Annon cites studies which have found anywhere between 17% and 53% of normal men exhibit paraphilic sexual arousal patterns.³