Age of attraction
Age of attraction (AoA) is the age range typical for the people you are attracted to.
Usage of the Term
People may establish their age of attraction in very different ways. The following three are most common:
- Naming the age range you find most attractive on average
- Naming the ages of your youngest and your oldest interests
- Using the age range, typically assigned to your chronophilias (e.g. 11-14 for hebephilia).
This is why someone with a declared AoA of 5-12 is not necessarily exclusive and someone with a declared aoa of 6-30 is not necessarily attracted to all these age groups equally. Some people also don’t apply the term “AoA” to their adult attractions, even though being attracted to a particular adult age range is an example of having an age preference.
The terms "preferred", "peak" or "primary AoA" are sometimes used to denote the age one finds the most attractive.
History
An earlier definition of the age of attraction can be found on a Boywiki entry from 2008: “Age of attraction, or AoA, refers to the age range of boys to whom a boylover is most attracted”[1]. This page also affirms that AoA as a term is applied to sexual and physical attraction, as well as romantic and emotional attraction. GirlWiki[2] gives a slightly different definition in 2005: ""Age of Attraction" is used usually in the form of a question to define roughly, the minimum and maximum ages to which someone can be attracted".
The GirlWiki definition indicates that the term might have first appeared as a standard question on anonymous chat sites, similar to "ASL" (age, sex, location). Listing your age of attraction in your blog’s bio used to be a common thing to do in the Tumblr MAP community. After integration with Twitter, this behavior became more rare due to being unfairly stereotyped as predatory.
Chronophilias
Chronophilias are distinct categories of age preferences.
- Infantophilia, an attraction to babies under one year old;
- Nepiophilia, an attraction to toddlers, typically under the age of 5;
- Pedophilia, an attraction to prepubescent children, typically aged between 5 and 10;
- Hebephilia, an attraction to pubescent teenagers, 11-14;
- Ephebophilia, an attraction to postpubescent young people, 15-19;
- Teleiophilia, an attraction to young mature adults, 20-35;
- Mesophilia, an attraction to middle-aged adults, 36-60;
- Gerontophilia, an attraction to the elderly, people over 60.
References
- ↑ Age of attraction (dictionary) via BoyWiki as of 22:54, 22 September, 2008.
- ↑ GirlWiki via Archive Today. GirlWiki (childlover.org), despite not containing any illegal content, was removed from Wayback Machine, and now exists only as a zip archive in several places, including here https://faraday.quest/static/box/activism-archive/.
