Study, Prevention and Treatment of Sexual Trauma,

The spectrum of human sexuality is diverse. Thus, a visitor from a distant planet could easily observe that there are some adults here on earth who are strongly, and perhaps exclusively, attracted to other adults of the oppo-site gender. Such persons are said to have a heterosexual orientation. That visitor would also be able to note that there are others who are strongly attracted to adults of the same gender, and who are therefore said to have a homo-sexual orientation. Finally, he could observe that there are those who are strongly attracted to children, and who are therefore said to have a pedophilic orientation. Each of the above-noted categories constitutes a dif-ferent sexual phenomenology (i.e., a difference in sexual makeup). The label used to define each category conveys descriptive information about such differences, presum