Many pedophiles are curious about the source of pedophilia, which is pretty understandable considering how much this sexual orientation affects us and our lives in various ways.
 
Unfortunately however, the source of pedophilia is currently a scientific mystery. No scientist is able to tell what causes pedophilia with any certainties; and no current theory can be scientifically proven. Neither can it be measured or detected in any way by using any scientific procedure or instrument. Pedophilia just exists within a minority of the human population, and is just one of many mysteries in the universe.
 
Thanks, that was very helpful! Right?
 
Well, one thing that really frightened me when I began my psychology study, is the fact that we know very little about the human brain and how it really works. Most of today's official science within human psychology is actually more based on pure theories and ideas rather than pure facts.
 
Pedophilia is also a very difficult subject and phenomena to investigate scientifically because of taboo and subjectivity:
 
Many potential scientists with superb skills do not want to touch this subject nor be associated with it, causing a lot of great minds to be excluded from its research.
 
Many of those who do research it may be considered as subjective, as in affected by the society's general and negative view on pedophilia, causing their work to end up in the favour of the average society.
 
Those very few and brave ones, like Bruce Rind, who actually release findings in the pedophile's favour, may actually be subjective themselves; they anyway meet lots of resistance and disapproval from the scientific community.
 
A friend of mine was researching the earliest stage of Homo Sapience, meaning that he was studying how the earliest human beings where living. His studies showed that sex between adults and children, even incest, was a common phenomena back then. And, he had lots of evidence to actually support that. But, he had to leave that part out, simply to keep his job, science fundings and family intact.
 
And, all the rest consist mostly of average dullness and jargon that is less interesting to read for those who really want to know what pedophilia really is and really comes from.
 
The 3 Main Theories
 
There are actually just 3 main theories today for the source of pedophilia, which we will now take a closer look at:
 
The Common Theory
 
A very common and popular theory for pedophilia has always been 'the effect of sexual abuse'; which means that pedophiles become pedophiles because they've been sexually abused as children, and thus gotten their sexuality screwed up during childhood.
 
The basis for this theory is the fact that several pedophiles who have been caught by the law for 'sexual child abuse', have claimed that they where abused sexually themselves when they where children; which has created this common link within the scientific study of pedophiles.
 
But, there are a couple of problems with this theory:
 
Even though all these interrogation reports can be proven by police and court documents, they are still subjective. There's just a guy or gal who claims that he or she has been molested as a child, which actually is recommended to do by most lawyers in such cases, to obtain a judge's or jury's sympathy, thus get the lowest sentence possible. So, there's an important motive for such claims.
 
Of course, some of these caught pedophiles may actually have been abused sexually as children. But we still can't escape the fact that most victims of sexual abuse do not turn into pedophiles when they grow up. And, there are lots pedophiles out there who've never been in any sexual contact with any adult as children. So, this isn't really science.
 
This popular theory does also fit within the average society's idealism pretty well, because it is way more ideal and convenient for the society if human behavior is responsible for pedophilia, instead of mother nature herself.
 
This theory is anyway being increasingly considered as depreciated within the scientific community, simply because of the latter flaws and the lack of any real scientific evidence.
 
Cutting Edge Science
 
The latest and greatest scientific studies of pedophilia have been done in way more scientifically correct ways, with a main focus on human biology, including MR scans of brains.
 
These studies have shown that genuine pedophiles seem to have a different biological function and/or brain structure from average and non-pedophile humans, in various ways.
 
Because we're now talking about human biology and the wiring of our brains, we're also talking about genes; which suggest that pedophilia can be related to our genes, and thus be present already at birth. It may be a genetic abnormality inherited from parents or grandparents, or it may be something that happens during the fetal development.
 
But, this study has its fair share of problems too:
 
These researchers are usually limited to only studying sentenced pedophiles who have been caught by the law for various child sexual abuse charges. And, many of those who are caught for such, aren't even genuine pedophiles.
 
They are limited to sentenced pedophiles, because they obviously cannot create an ad in the paper that asks all genuine pedophiles to show up at a research facility to do some volunteer testing. I mean, would you have done that?
 
So, there's a huge amount of hidden pedophiles out there who've not (yet) been caught, and thereby are not known to these researches at all, thus not parts of their research.
 
Another limitation that further complicates researches like these ones, is that whatever static pattern the scientists find in their researches, there are always some people who don't fit within those patterns; which is the case with these researches particularly, making them less certain and less trustworthy at the end of the day.
 
Halted Emotional Development
 
Within human psychology, the very latest theory, but not yet published, is the theory of halted emotional development, also known as the HED theory, which is a theory that seems very credible and makes much sense for both the researches and the genuine pedophiles themselves.
 
All human beings develop from birth to adulthood, and we develop both mentally and physically as we grow.
 
This theory for genuine pedophilia suggests that a special part of the brain, a part that controls our sexual and social emotions, has stopped developing within the pedophiles at different stages during their childhood. If it stops developing at a very early stage, a pedophile will feel a sexual attraction to very young children. If it stops at a later stage, a pedophile will feel a sexual attraction to older children.
 
This special part of the brain can stop developing at any stage for that matter, even at age 21; so a 50 year old will be mostly attracted to young adults instead of similarly aged.
 
This also affects the pedophile's social behavior, making us more comfortable among children at our preferred age, rather than adults around our own age, which many genuine pedophiles acknowledge.
 
This halted development may be a part of our genes, a part of our environment, or a part of both.
 
You may look at it as being emotionally retarded.
 
I know, it doesn't have a nice ring to it. But, it does not affect the pedophile's intelligence. Our intelligence and all other functions develop as normal, so this is not related to general retarding. It's just that our sexual and social emotions don't develop as normal; all according to a theory that hasn't yet been scientifically verified in any way, but is currently under research, and is a very sensible and plausible theory IMHO.
 
The Bottom Line
 
Now you see how little we presently and actually know about pedophilia and its origin, and how little we actually know about human psychology and our brains in general.
 
These are the actual and relevant theories about pedophilia, simplified to a more understandable format from scientific literature. You may want to dig deeper into this subject by using formal education books, if you feel that this subject is interesting; but they're all bloated with lots of scientific jargon that is difficult and boring for an untrained to study, while you won't end up anymore enlightened than you are at this point.
 
Unless you're planning to study pedophilia as a scientist; the best thing for you to do is to focus your time and energy towards learning how to live with and handle your sexual orientation, optionally how to exploit it for insane pleasures and rushes, rather than chasing a diffuse origin and ghost, in an unfamiliar territory, and concerning yourself about it.
 
This is probably not the most satisfying answer to this question, but still the most logical advice I can share.
 
At the end of the day, we are what we are; we are attracted to children, and we'll just have to deal with it.
 
And the latter leads us further and deeper into this handbook for pedophiles ...