Ephebophile

The hebephile sees the female adolescent as having adult development but vulnerability. There may also be a sense of safety from rejection because the hebephile may have had actual or perceived poor sexual performance with adult partners. The ephebophile is even more likely to reflect the emphasis on youth in society; in this case, the gay culture's emphasis on youthful appearance.

According to the age of the attracting person homosexuals are divisible into ephebophiles (lovers of youths, 14-21), androphiles (grown men up to the period of old age), gerontophiles (lovers of the aged) and pedophiles (lovers of small boys). The two latter are not as conspicuous as the two former, which compromise 45 per cent of the whole. The corresponding divisions in women are parthenophiles (lovers of young women, virgins), gynecophiles (lovers of adult women), grasphiles (lovers of old women), and korophiles (lovers of undeveloped girls).

The term ephebophilia seems to have been coined by Magnus Hirschfeld in his Wesen der Liebe (1906), where he applied to sexually mature youths from puberty up to the age of 20; in his 1914 magnum opus, Die Homosexualitat des Mannes und des Weibes, Hirschfeld specified the range of love objects as from "the beginning to the completion of maturity, so approximately ages 14-21." The German research estimated that 45 of all homosexuals were ephebophiles. For women, he used the term "parthenophiles."