Re: Law.com?

"To me it (pedophilia) describes an obsession and crimes that sometimes result from it."

But you are not the law, and the media will refer to the definitions they find or that is widely believed to be.

The legal definitions of pedophilia from the search I made below always refer to an abnormality, there's no room for interpretation of any kind on that one.

Only one definition, and not a legal one, was objective.

"But if you mean that the media often don't do proper research and consult information hubs like this, in all the glory of their misleading definitions, then I'd agree."

For sure they don't do research much anymore, but definitions like seen below will not have any other choice but to have an enormous influence on the people's view of that attraction, so that's why somehow I say the media refer to the legal construct of pedophilia, in legal anything can mean anything as long as it's defined, and these definitions surely lead to misunderstanding, as it's not just describing "an obsession and crimes that sometimes result from it", from these definitions it's ALWAYS the case.

My search:

Duhaime's definition:
http://www.duhaime.org/LegalDictionary/P/Pedophile.aspx
A person afflicted with "pedophilia", a sexual perversion in which children are preferred as sexual partner.

yourdictionary.com - pedophilia (not the legal definition):
http://www.yourdictionary.com/pedophilia
An abnormal condition in which an adult has a sexual desire for children

http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/pedophile
Same definition as law.com:
pedophilia n. an obsession with children as sex objects. Overt acts, including taking sexual explicit photographs, molesting children, and exposing one's genitalia to children are all crimes. The problem with these crimes is that pedophilia is also treated as a mental illness, and the pedophile is often released only to repeat the crimes or escalate the activity to the level of murder. (See: molestation, rape, pornography)

Babylon's definition of pedophilia:
http://www.babylon.com/define/56/Legal-Dictionary.html
n. sexual deviation characterized by an abnormal sexual attraction to young children (also paedophilia)

Also on that page, the medical definition:
Dictionary of Medicine (Shahram)
Pedophilia
Adult sexual activity with children. Considered a form of child abuse. Pedophilia literally means love of children.

And

WordNet 2.0
Noun
1. sexual activity of an adult with a child

Mosby's Medical Dictionary
http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/pedophilia
1 an abnormal interest in children.

McGraw-Hill Concise Dictionary of Modern Medicine
(Same URL as previous)
pedophilia
Psychiatry A paraphilia involving heterosexual or homosexual activity or intercourse between adults with children, especially prepubertal. See Child abuse...

The American Heritage® Medical Dictionary
(Same URL)
The act or fantasy on the part of an adult of engaging in sexual activity with a child or children.
(Here pedophilia refers to illegal actions)

Gale Encyclopedia of Medicine
(Same URL)
Pedophilia
Sex or sexual activity with children who have not reached puberty.
Mentioned in: Sexual Perversions

And the list goes on...

The only one that was objective was a non-legal definition from dictionary.com's:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pedophile
noun Psychiatry.
an adult who is sexually attracted to young children.

But even that one is biased, as it refers to psychiatry, so it's considered as an illness of a sort, otherwise why would it come from psychiatry?...

What is now generally refered as "pedophilia" is based on a construct of the legal and medical systems which themselves are based on mere beliefs based on some "facts", probably from legal cases, OF people for whom their attraction (and they were not necessarilly all attracted to children by the way) has become an obsession or translated into a crime.

Pedophilia has become that, so on the basis of that definition I am not a pedophile, and in court pedophilia IS a crime, and what the media refer to is surely the definition that results from the legal consensus, unless otherwise noted, as they now seem to have to make a note about it if it's not based on the consensus definition as it's too generally accepted as being what the legal and medical world has made of it.

So in that sense for sure I agree with Googlygoo that the literal definition of pedophilia is not a crime (pedophilia, love of children) and is what most of us live, but what the media refer to is one, that's what I wanted to point out.

And it's surely messing things up, the system doesn't seem to want to do anything about it and continues to use and feed the lies, and people prefer to stay in their cartoon world's beliefs.

Love2uall