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.

I suspect "Hebe" in hebephilia probably refers to the Greek goddess of youth, who served as a cupbearer to the gods. She's a daughter of Zeus and Hera, IIRC. M-W pronounces "Hebe" as heeebeee as Dana said.

Does it really? I had no idea. I assumed it was imported from anime/manga.

I believe anime/manga fandom would be more likely to use the terms shotacon and lolicon.

By the bye, there's a short article in the Boston Globe today about yaoi -- the standard OMG! Look what those people do! article. Neither particularly obnoxious nor laudatory. I gather there was a local anime con recently.

hebephrenia

For the record, this word isn't in common use any more. A bunch of head-shrinkers got together and changed the way we describe schizophrenia, so it's not quite so "Well you're just immature, you crazy person" any more.