Danger and Difference: The Stakes of Hebephilia

Abstract

The diagnostic category of “hebephilia” (the erotic preference for pubescent children) was suggested in 2008 for inclusion in the DSM-5. Immediately, a violent debate took place about whether this condition should be considered a disease or not, and the proposal to include hebephilia in the DSM-5 was rejected in 2012. In this paper I argue that the debate about the diagnostic validity of hebephilia was profoundly misguided. I first describe how the diagnosis of hebephilia plays a role in “sexually violent predator” (SVP) laws, which can preventively deprive “dangerous” people of their liberty if they are deemed mentally ill (for instance by suffering from hebephilia). I show that the legal requirement of mental illness for the application of SVP laws is supposed to serve two functions: to identify the most dangerous people, and to define them out of humanity by transforming them into quasi animals, thus safeguarding the constitutionality of SVP laws in a liberal context. I then argue that it fails to accomplish both tasks, and that the debate about hebephilia should have targeted this unsound legal requirement itself. Instead, because it was centered around the issue of diagnostic validity, the hebephilia debate rested on an implicit acceptance of the requirement of mental illness for the application of SVP laws.