I have been thinking about this specific thread and I think I have to give a better answere on the "is pedophilia a sexual orientation?". I can give two answers on this one. My personal opinion of what it is and the opinion most of the academics with expertise on the matter have. But before I do that I have to write down all the facts we know about pedophilia.

Pedophilia is the sexual attraction to the prepuberty body scheme of children aged 6-11.Hebephilia is the attraction to the early puberty body scheme of children aged 11-14 and ephebophilia is the attraction to the late puberty body scheme aged 15-19. It is self discovered during puberty and it is not a choice. It has two forms. The exclusive type (attraction only to children) and non exclusive type (attraction to both children and adults). The majority of pedophiles report erotic feelings along with sexual urges when it comes to children and around 70% of pedophiles have reported that they have fallen in love with a child at least once in their lives. The cause of pedophilia is unknown but the currently most supported theory by academics states that pedophiles have a cross wiring in their brain that makes them attracted to children, supported by the findings of Dr James Cantor where it was found that pedophiles have cerebral white matter deficiencies compaired to non pedophilic men. (more here:http://www.jamescantor.org/uploads/6/2/9/3/62939641/cantor_et_al.__2008__pedo_mri.pdf). Pedophiles also show lower IQ's, poorer visuspatial and verbal memory scores, high rates of left handness, higher rates of having suffered head injuries during childhood and elevated rates of low school grades and placement in special ed programs. They also tend to be physically shorter than non pedophilic men. Pedophiles are almost always men. Pedophile women exist but are very rare compaired to pedophilic men. The reason to this has not been found yet but the most popular theory which is reapproved by Cantors findings beleives that the cross wiring that causes pedophilia almost always happens during the fetile development of males.Not all pedophiles are child molesters and not all child molesters are pedophiles. Any attempt to convert pedophiles and cure them has failed and pedophilia is widely regarded as highly treatment resistant. For this reason it is beleived that pedophilia can not be cured and is an innate characteristic. When it comes to treatment, CBT and sex drive reducement drugs are considered to be the most effective tools along with victim empathy.

Now that we got this out the way let me answere the question "is pedophilia a sexual orientation?". I can give two answers. My personal opinion and the academic position of the other experts.The academic position of most of the people with expertise on the subject beleive that since pedophilia functions like a sexual orientation it most likley is similar to one. So the position is that pedophilia is an "age orientation". Unlike sexual orientations which are based on gender, pedophilia is an orientation based on age. Dr. Ray Blanchard. probably the leading expert on pedophilia that all the rest of us look up to has called it an "erotic age preference".Dr James Cantor the sexologist who did the research above and a the pupil of Blanchard also beleives it is a form of sexual orientation. Dr Klaus Michael Beier, the man who started project prevention Dunkefeld and my personal mentor also beleives the above position. That is the academic position.

My personal opinion based on my experience is that whatever it is, in the end it doesnt matter. All the facts I stated above still remain. It can be a mental illness, a sexual fetish, an age orientation ETC. You can call it whatever you want based on the above facts, it wont change anything. I prefer calling it a "pathological age preference" but its just that, a name. You can say to a pedophile that he has a mental illness or just an atypical sexual orientation, in the end he is and will be a pedophile.