I've never seen 'chan' used in any of the anime fandoms. Or, to put it simply:

What Nutty said.

If someone has breasts and hips and is menstruating? (Or male of equivalent sexual maturity?) Not a child any more.

It isn't at all unusual for 12-year-olds to menstruate. IMHO they're too young to have sex, and any adult who has sex with them should be prosecuted.

We do have to accept that someone we legally title a "child" may not consider themselves a child.

Yeah, I'll happily accept this - thus the thing I said earlier about not referring to sexually mature teenagers of the Britney Spears variety. If someone has breasts and hips and is menstruating? (Or male of equivalent sexual maturity?) Not a child any more. There may be a whole heap of moral issues still in place wrt older people in positions of power having sexual relations with them, because of the relative power yada yada yada - but still, they're not children, imho.

This is an interesting issue in comics fic, specifically Batman and his Robins. The Robins have all been under the age of majority (yes, Dick [Robin I, for the non-Batfans] made it to 18, but he became Robin at the age of -- was it 13? 12?), so most Batman/Robin fic crosses that adult/child line.

But the Robins are most definitely not "children," in the common sense of the word. It's a lot like pre-18 Buffy, really. Who they are and what they do (the Robins) put them right out of the category of "children," just like pre-18 Buffy.

I admit I just blithely ignore the age issues, instead of thinking "How old *is* Bruce, anyway, and should he really be doing that with a 16-year-old boy?"

It isn't at all unusual for 12-year-olds to menstruate.

Nutrition being what it is these days, 10 is not altogether unusual any more. Secondary sex characteristics do not indicate the ability to make adult decisions, which is why the age of consent is closer to the age of voting than to the average age of menarche.

One could say that the presence of secondary sex characteristics takes attraction to the person in question out of the realm of obvious pedophilia. Which is not a condemnation, but taken as a general rule, not a ringing endorsement either.

There's a different technical term, 'hebephilia', for people who prefer adolescents. The ancient Greeks were technically hebephiles, not pedophiles.

Secondary sex characteristics do not indicate the ability to make adult decisions,

Nor does old age, of course. I had a cogent followup talking about the connection of legality of act to legality of depiction, but I got distracted by that Mentos commercial with the birds.

'hebephilia'

How do you pronounce that, Betsy? Not that it's likely to come up, just that I read aloud in my head. If that isn't contradictory.

I believe both e's are pronounced long. Heeeebeeeephilia.

Now Betsy will come along and prove that I'm a dork.

Nah. That's the way I pronounce it, too. Unfortunately, it isn't in the Shorter Oxford or the American Heritage, so maybe I made it up. Which would suck. Neither of them has 'ephebephilia' either.

The American Heritage has hebephrenia: a schizophrenia characterized by foolish mannerisms, delusions, hallucinations and regressive behavior. It also goes on to break the word down as 'hebe' being the Greek for youth, youthful. I'm willing to go with Betsy's definition for hebephilia. It must just be too arcane medically for the more traditional dictionaries.