Preferential attraction

No study has specifically addressed preferential attraction to prepubescent boys, or to adolescents of either gender, among non-criminal samples.

• A British study found that of men born in 1953, by the time they were 40, 0.1% had been convicted for a sexual offense involving a boy under 16.⁴ However, it is known that many offenders are not preferentially attracted to minors. In addition, an unknown number of men who are preferentially attracted to minors do not act on their feelings or are not reported.⁵
• Other prison studies have suggested that 0.5% of men are preferentially attracted to underage boys.⁶ This would translate to roughly 500,000 men in the U.S. Again, however, prison studies are unreliable.
• Gordon Hall and colleagues studied 80 adult heterosexual male volunteers from the community and found that over 25% of them were sexually aroused by pre-pubescent girls at least as much as they were by adult women.⁷
• Based on his theory that attraction to minor males has a hormonal basis, a University of New Mexico researcher predicts that 7% to 10% of men are preferentially attracted to underage boys. If correct, this would mean that there are 7 to 10 million such men in the U.S. However, many of them may be able to suppress their feelings in favor of those toward adults.⁸