Medicus, Gerhard, & Hopf Sigrid; The Phylogeny of Malel/Female Differences in Sexual Behavior; pp 122 - 149
This chapter offered a biology-based contribution toward a better understanding of the male/female dimorphism of human sexual behavior.
This dimorphism helps in explaining why adult human sexual behavior with children and adolescents is almost exclusively an adult male phenomenon.
However, the views elucidated in this chapter should by no means be misused to excuse or justify socially insensitive behavior toward any adult female, any child, or any adolescent or to reinforce socially unjust male dominance.
Rather, biological knowledge that clarifies human behavioral predispositions should encourage the prevention of negative behavior and enhance the personal and social aspects of human relationships.
Eibl-Eibesfeldt, Irenaus; Dominance, Submission, and Love: Sexual Pathologies from the Perspective of Ethology; 150 - 175
In human sexual behavior, strata of different phylogenetic origins can be distinguished. Sexuality based upon the mechanisms of male dominance and female submission, which characterizes the reptiles, also constitutes the basic layer of human sexuality. This reptilian heritage is superimposed, however, by a more recently acquired sexuality characterized by affiliation and love. The new potentiality to act in a friendly manner evolved with the development of parental care independently in birds and in mammals.
In normal human sexual behavior, the archaic agonal sexuality is controlled by affiliative sexuality and, therefore, is characterized by love. Agonal sexuality is still with us, however, as indicated, among other features, by the phallic male-dominance displays, by a male hormonal response linked to dominance achievement, and by the sexual fantasies of submission that are experienced by females. Agonal sexuality normally is under the control of affiliative sexuality, and therefore, humans correctly associate sex with love. Certain forms of sexuality, such as sadomasochism and a particular form of male homosexuality, are explained as being a regression to the archaic agonal sexuality.
Pedophilia and pedosexual behavior are explained within the regression context, too. Children have characteristics, such as small size, that facilitate adult males' feeling dominant to them, as occurs in pedosexual behavior.
Since human adult/adult romantic love is derived by phylogeny from parental caregiving behavior, it is easily seen how, in some adult humans, the feeling of love toward children has been retained and eroticized, which is the true meaning of the term "pedophilia."
Garland, Randall J., & Dougher Michael J.; The Abused/Abuser Hypothesis of Child Sexual Abuse: A Critical Review of Theory and Research; 488-509
A widespread belief among the general public and professionals alike is that “sexual abuse causes sexual abuse”. That is, sexually abused children and adolescents who have engaged in sexual behavior with an adult (or a significantly older adolescent) are commonly thought to be at risk in later years of themselves becoming sexually involved with children and adolescents. This belief is referred to here as the “abused/abuser hypothesis of child and adolescent sexual abuse.”
Given the popularity of the abused/abuser hypothesis, it is perhaps surprising to find that there is a dearth of evidence supporting it. This is not to say that there is a substantial body of contradictory evidence. Rather, only a handful of studies have actually investigated the presumed association, and the designs and methods of these studies have been less than ideal. Most of the relevant data come from retrospective studies of adults that do not allow for direct causal analysis.
"The conclusion that seems warranted from the review is that childhood and adolescent sexual contact with adults is neither a necessary nor a sufficient cause for becoming an adjudicated sex offender of children or adolescents."
"Thus, sexual contact with an adult during childhood or adolescence is not a necessary cause for becoming an adjudicated adult sex offender of children and adolescents. Sexual contact with an adult during childhood or adolescence also does not appear to be a sufficient cause for becoming an adjudicated sex offender of children and adolescents."
"In summary, the abused/abuser hypothesis — the belief that sexual behavior between adults and children or adolescents causes those children and adolescents, as adults, to become sexually involved with other children and adolescents — is inadequate and incorrect."
"The belief that sexual abuse causes sexual abuse, the so-called “abused/abuser hypothesis,” is simplistic and misleading."
"The conclusion reached is that sexual contact with an adult during childhood or adolescence is neither a necessary nor a sufficient cause of adult sexual interest in children or adolescents."
Money, John; Pedophilia: A Specific Instance of New Phylism Theory ...; 18 pp
In society and in the criminal justice system, there are the prevalent assumptions that pedophilia is a voluntary orientation and a product of jaded depravity and that the next step will be sadistic assault and molestation ending up in lust murder. These assumptions are faulty and are based on rare and sporadic cases in which there is an overlapping of pedophilia, which is a paraphilia of the eligibilic/stigmatic type, with a paraphilia of the sacrificial/expiatory type. Pedophilia, both androphilic and gynephilic, is its own syndrome, unaccompanied by sacrificial or expiatory cruelty.
. . .
The pedophile's attachment to a child represents a merger of parental and erotic love.
. . .
Based on its roots in the Greek language, "pedophilia" means "child love." Two meanings of love are telescoped into the one word. One meaning is love as in parental love and pairbonding between parent and child. The other meaning is love as in making love and the sexual bonding of two partners, one of which is a juvenile. The two meanings share in common the reciprocality of bonding between two people.
(ed.), Jay Feierman R.; Pedophilia: Biosocial Dimensions; 600 pp
Most of the lay and professional literature although voluminous, reflect a narrow anthropo-, ethno-, and chrono-centrism that precludes any real understanding of the topic with anything more than the preconceptions of our times. [...]
[...] This volume adds to this data base by including new, biosocial contribution from the perspectives of history, political science, sexology, biology, primatology, anthropology, experimental and developmental psychology, and psychiatry. What results is a transspecies, transcultural, and transhistorical perspective that gives new biosocial insights into the roots of pedophilia as the phenomenon is found in contemporary industrialized societies.
Diamond, Milton, & (Ed.) Feierman J.; Selected Cross-Generational Sexual Behavior in Traditional Hawai’i: A Sexological Ethnography
Published in: J. Feierman (Ed.), Pedophilia: Biosocial Dimensions (pp. 422-443)
Introduction

Anthropological studies of human sexual behavior traditionally are difficult to conduct and to interpret because so much of any sexual behavior is private and must be understood through reporting by others rather than through direct observation. Sexual behavior between adults and nonadults is especially difficult to study, but an understanding can be facilitated if one looks at that behavior across time, species, and societies. Hawai’i1 has several characteristics that make it a useful society in which to view such behavior.

Hawai’i was one of the first South Pacific societies to be visited and written about by Westerners (Cook, 1773). What it currently lacks in cultural purity, as a consequence of long association with foreigners, is partly compensated for by 200 years of contact and observation. Furthermore, over the years since Cook’s visit, published comparisons have been drawn between Hawai’i and lesser known societies in other parts of Oceania and Polynesia (e.g., Marshall and Suggs, 1971).

This author has spent more than 20 years living and working in Hawai’i as an academic sexologist. This chapter is written mainly for readers who will benefit from seeing aspects of selected cross-generational sexual behavior in the context of a non-Judeo-Christian and non-Western society.
Ames, Ashley M., & Houston David A.; Legal, Social, and Biological Definitions of Pedophilia; Archives of sexual behavior; 19(4), 333-341
Although there is substantial evidence in the historical and anthropological record of the sexual use of children by adults, surprisingly little is known about the etiology of pedophilia or its relation to other forms of sexual aggression. After briefly reviewing the research on pedophilia, we argue that one major difficulty in conducting or interpreting such research lies in the different definitions “pedophilia” has received. Most important, much of the research has accepted a legal definition of pedophilia, treating all offenders convicted of “child molestation” as pedophiles, regardless of the age or appearance of the victim. We argue that a distinction should be made between biological children and socio-legal children. Laws governing child molestation reflect sociolegal childhood, regardless of its discrepancy with biological childhood.“True” pedophiles should be identified by their preference for biological children. [A]

By using legal classifications, researchers may well be confusing two distinct types of offenders, child molesters and rapists, and confounding attempts to understand pedophilia.