Based on some recent off-board discussion I have had with a few fellow MAAs [Minor Attracted Adults] whom I greatly respect, it has become all the more clear that we must again attempt something we have done a few times over the past decade I have been here: look to the classic Greek language to find a suitable prefix that will enable us to create a term for a younger person who has a sexual, emotional, and social preference--or strong regular attraction to--people who are significantly older than they are, but not necessarily elderly; in other words, people who are routinely over ten years older than they are, and more likely to be approaching or just several years past the age of their parents, as opposed to actually being senior citizens. Attraction oriented towards the elderly does exist, but it appears to be much less common than a preferred attraction amongst younger people for significantly older adults who tend to average 15 years older to late middle age as opposed to elderly. Because of this, many in the community believe that the term I and some others have been using, "gerontophile," doesn't fit the bill, because they see the term as meaning a preferential attraction for specifically elderly people. And yes, I am well aware that Wikipedia, amongst other sources, defines "gerontophile" that way (to save respondents the time and effort of mentioning it and linking to those respective sources in this thread to show me).

Yet I think it's both ironic and unfortunate that there is a more or less established term for a preferential attraction to the elderly, yet there is no recognized term whatsoever for younger people--be they underage or of legal age--who have a preference or strong regular attraction on all levels for significantly older adults who tend to be equivalent in age to their parents (or somewhat younger or older) rather than their grandparents or great-grandparents. And based on my observations, this type of preference tends to be much more common than a preference for the elderly. As such, it deserves a term of its own that is accurate, and preferentially taken from the classic Greek lexicon, as is traditional when it comes to nomenclature of this type.

First, let me say why I initially picked "gerontophile" for such individuals. Very simply, based on my knowledge of the Greek lexicon (which is admittedly quite limited), the prefix "geronto" meant simply "older" and not actually what we today deem elderly. But frequent use of that prefix in the English language, particularly in the realm of the medical industry and social sciences, have created a different impression in the minds of those of us in the Western and Northern world, as the prefix has continuously been used to allude and refer to the elderly, an example being the word geriatrics. As such, several MAAs have proclaimed that they will refuse to use the term "gerontophile" to apply to younger people with a preference for significantly older adults unless their preference truly focus mostly or exclusively on the elderly. This means that a new term must be developed and popularized, and it must be one that a large number of us can agree upon (no term is going to satisfy absolutely everybody in the community or the research world, of course, and there will always be a number of our community and researchers who will refuse to use any term the majority of us could possibly come up with and agree upon for various aesthetic reasons). I also think any prefix we may come up with needs to be relatively easy to pronounce, spell, and remember, otherwise large numbers of us will avoid using it for those reasons alone, regardless of how much we may agree on its viability. And I think it should meet the approval of those of at least some of us who have a great knowledge of many languages, including the historical Greek, so I particularly call upon Griffith, LGsinmyheart, and NFiH to participate in this thread.

Why is such a term so necessary? Because the preferential attraction base I have mentioned and previously referred to as "gerontophilia" exists, and it's not extraordinarily rare to the point of having little significance to the world, as some of our detractors (both in and outside of our community) would prefer to believe. As much of the community is aware, since I cannot date young adolescent girls for legal reasons, I routinely seek to date much younger women in the age range of 18-early 20s, and though it can be difficult to meet such young women (and presumably, young men for those who swing that way) if you do not specifically know where to look, I still continue to meet a good number of such young women amongst general groups of them who have a preference for, or at least strong interest in, significantly older men (and likely women in many cases) who are in the age range of late 30s to mid-50s, but who are not specifically or predominantly elderly. I have met enough of them both within and outside of the MAA community that it has become quite clear that they may constitute a significant minority of younger people who will turn out to be very important not only to the emancipation efforts of both ourselves and the youth community, and also of great interest to researchers in the social sciences and those who specialize in areas of the physical sciences like evolutionary biology, to enable our society to better understand the great diversity of attraction that exists among the human species. Greater understanding of this phenomena will likely have a strong impact on social policy in the future, if only such individuals had a term to apply to themselves so they could establish an actual identity that will enable them to view themselves as a minority who possess specific emotional needs, so that they can gather in groups to lawfully demand their rights along those lines. I am not just talking about sexual rights that may apply to underage people who have this attraction base (as I support youth rights on a broad basis, not just sexual rights alone), but also for those young people with this attraction base who are no longer underage that desire their attraction base to be respected and not openly derided, and for society to accept the fact that this attraction base is not a choice that someone makes because they have "issues." It has to be made clear that society is the one with the issues and lack of understanding in this case, not the other way around, and diversity of all types of attraction in the context of mutual consent need to be recognized and respected, not simply those that do not move "too far" towards violating this or that culturally created paradigm.

Yes, it would take a while for such a term to become popularized, which is why there is no better time to establish one than the present, especially since Dr. Ray Blanchard, despite what many of us may think of him personally, has at least acknowledged the existence of this attraction base in this writings, but has failed to give it a name. And yes, some of us are going to say, "Well, I dislike labels, so I rather not be involved with a project designed to come up with yet another one, because I see labels and terms of this nature to be inherently divisive and marginalizing." My response to such individuals has always been this: Yes, labels and social nomenclature can be divisive and marginalizing if used for the wrong purposes, but they are not inherently so; they can be useful for understanding the diversity that exists within the human species, and can also be used as a uniting, not divisive, force for individuals who do justifiably constitute a minority but who may never have thought of themselves as such in large numbers simply because an identity-conferring term was never developed for them. And people who have the attraction base and preferences I have mentioned clearly fit all of the criteria and characteristics of a bona fide sexual minority, but have largely been ignored, which is clearly a form of severe marginalization in and of itself. This marginalizing ignoring of the attraction base discussed in this essay has allowed stereotypes against even those of legal age who have a natural preference for significantly older people to have their relationships openly scoffed at even by liberals and progressives in an era when the latter tend to go out of their way to coddle romantic preferences centered around intragender or interracial pairings. And isn't it just odd that we can recognize a sexual preference of younger people that centers upon elderly individuals, yet not the clearly more common preference that centers upon significantly older individuals who are not elderly?

Let us not forget that our community coined the appellation nepiophile to distinguish those of us who are attracted to minors who are very young, i.e., infants and toddlers, since this particular preference is less common than standard pedophilia, which has given such individuals the impetus to speak out and discuss their unique form of attraction, thus resulting in a degree of better understanding. Hence we now need to come up with such a term for youths with a preference for significantly older people who are not necessarily elder, but more often of an age approaching or somewhat surpassing the age of their parents rather than their grandparents or great-grandparents. And we need to actually come up with one that will be accepted by a majority of our community just as the term "nepiophile" was, rather than see every suggestion shot down with nothing near a consensus being formed, as with past attempts.

Again, no term a majority of us agree upon will make everyone happy, and there will always be some who refuse to use any term a large number of us may agree upon for various aesthetic reasons, but this is to be expected, and all we need do is find one that the majority can agree upon.

Part 2, where we actually take a look at the classic Greek language based on some research I have done to formulate the philia term I am seeking the establishment of here, will be coming up between tonight and tomorrow.