There are many theories concerning why some people are pedophiles, from how I understand, most doctors agree that it's either inborn or a result of early childhood trauma. Older studies found gray and white matter differences between pedophiles and teleiophiles, but newer research, conducted on non offending pedophiles, discredited these findings. To be objective, I'll cite both.
Here are the old studies: “Within the pedophilic group, pedosexual interest and sexual recidivism were correlated with gray matter decrease in the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (r = −.64) and insular cortex (r = −.45).» (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022395613000095 ) “Automated parcellation of the MRIs revealed significant negative associations between pedophilia and white matter volumes of the temporal and parietal lobes bilaterally. Voxel-based morphometry corroborated the associations and indicated that the regions of lower white matter volumes followed, and were limited to, two major fiber bundles: the superior fronto-occipital fasciculus and the right arcuate fasciculus. No significant differences were found in grey matter or in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF).” (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18039544)
And here is something newer:
“there were no significant differences between the GM volumes of the non-offending pedophiles and the teleiophilic controls. In contrast, the pedophiles who had engaged in CSO showed a significantly reduced relative GM volume in the right TP compared with pedophiles who did not.” (https://www.nature.com/articles/tp201796)
Other studies, also using only offending samples, link pedophilia to
brain injusry (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4941581/ )
mental disorsers (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21235721 )
atypical handedness (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4151814/ )
sexual abuse history (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0145213409000374 )
genetics (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4393782/ )
However sad this is, I need to admit we can't use these studies to prove pedophilia in general, not only existence of offending pedophiles, and we need to look further. This article doesn't actually give any definite answers, but instead gives a summary of all existing opinions and notes the value of missing information about non-offending pedophiles:
“Research regarding the etiology of pedophilia suggests the view of a complex and multifactorial phenomenon in which the influences of genetics (Blanchard et al., 2007), stressful life events, specific learning processes (Jespersen et al., 2009a), as well as perturbations in the structural integrity of ‘pedophilic’ brains may generate this specific phenotype of a sexual preference (Schiffer et al., 2007; Schiltz et al., 2007; Cantor et al., 2008). Initial theories relied mainly upon psychological mechanisms to account for a pedophilic preference, including classical and operant conditioning, as the behavioral mechanism through which the ‘abused-abuser’ theory by Freund et al. (1990) and Freund and Kuban (1994) could be explained as well as attachment style in childhood as a marker for dysfunctional cognitive sexual schemas in adulthood (Beech and Mitchell, 2005).” (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4478390/ )
I found this interesting study (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5778266/ ) that suggests pedophilia may be a result a wrong procession of nurturing stimuli, or, basically, that pedophiles have an inherently stronger reaction to things perceived as cute, and sometimes this increased reaction triggers sexual arousal. This aligns with my personal observations, cute things, such as kitten photos, cartoons, moodboards, mobile games like Pastel Girl, are extremely popular in online pedophile communities, both among teenagers and adult members.
Besides all this, there's not much info and not much to write about. I think the genetic route is more promising, after all, gender preferences were proven to be influenced by genes, so why not age? But I'm not a doctor, and input from people who work in this field professionally is very welcome!
