Most men, myself included, prefer fully developed girls (as young as possible), but that doesn't make sex with a 12-year-old "rape" or "abuse" and the desire for them isn't any more depraved than lusting after 40-year-old women, for example. It is slightly deviant to be a hebephile, if that means a clear preference for pubescent girls over fully developed ones, but you need better arguments than that to criminalize it. I think most men are at least somewhat attracted to pubescent girls, and there is no reason to demonize this desire or pretend these girls are damaged by sex. I myself find 12-year-old girls about as attractive as women at the end of their reproductive lives (around 40). Not optimal, but so what? Less than peak attractiveness means just that; it doesn't mean some horrible crime. The oldest mothers also have worse health outcomes from their pregnancies; does that make sex rape?

There are good reasons to prefer females slightly older than the age of menarche as an optimal strategy, but that doesn't make attraction to subfecund females pathological. Kate Clancy makes some valid points, but then she ignores some elephants in the room -- all the reproductive opportunities which actually result from hebephilic desires -- and implies more than is warranted by the evidence.

Whenever there is a reproductive opportunity, it would be very strange if men weren't evolved to want to take advantage of it, and pubescent girls do represent such an opportunity. Men are sexual opportunists, obviously, sperm being cheap -- they don't tend to bet their reproductive success on one partner age or one partner and ignore the rest.

But let's be clear about what we are talking about here, since it is kind of off-topic: "Let’s first be clear on definitions: hebephilia is the sexual preference for pubescent children. Not teenagers, but pubescent children. In industrial and post-industrial populations, that means a sexual preference for ten to twelve year olds."

I didn't really argue that the age of consent should be lower than 12, and Øygard was only accused of having sex with a 13-year-old. Hebephilia is not a big concern of mine, except to state that it doesn't deserve anywhere near the demonization it gets.