Technically correct is best correct.
In the case of pedo and ephebo it's arguing over semantics. At the end of the day both seek out sex with partners who are too young. Every time it's brought up it feels more like an excuse trying to be pushed in as educated argument. I've never heard it brought up without an air of belittling it as a problem.
No need to get technical about awful behavior.
It's a slippery slope argument. These perverts basically want to normalize liking underaged girls. So they start breaking them off into categories. In their mind, liking a 15 year old is better than liking an 8 year old. So someone will agree to that. Then the next argument is "why should we treat ephebos like we would pedos? Shouldn't they get lighter sentences or maybe nothing at all?" and so on. The truth is that the consent laws are there for the 18 year old boyfriend with a 16 year old girlfriend, not for a 35 year old man and a 16 year old girl. I'd wager that the average age of a gaffer is somewhere in the early-mid 20s, far too old to be wondering about if it is okay to bang a 14 year old girl.
It's best to shut these arguments down right away by calling them a pedo sympathizer and let them sputter about as a response. These sick fucks don't deserve any more of anyone's time.
Honestly my theory on that group is that they are so universally rejected by people their age or older that they gravitate to those young enough that they feel they can control.
Shit is sad brehs
Most gaffers who would talk about ephebophilia likely spent their teen years in front of a computer monitor. The time when it was kosher to fuck a teenage girl, they were too busy spending their weekends on the internet. So the window of opportunity closed completely shut on them. They're likely in their 20s, unemployed or underemployed, no friends, probably never had a girlfriend, has an extensive porn and anime collection, and either living in some studio apartment or with their parents. Their lives are miserable failures so they want to revert back to when they were younger and life didn't seem so shitty for them. It's why they retreat further into anime, porn, video games, and so on. Liking teenage girls is just part of the overall package to try to recapture a lost part of their youth. Since they have no friends, there is nobody to really step in and tell these sad sacks that they're losing their grip on reality. They just hunker down in front of a monitor of some kind and escape reality a little more. Fortunately for society, these sad fucks are more likely to eat a bullet than to follow through on their urges.
