I like to think of pedophilia as a deviant sexual preference and separately as a mental illness, with the sexual preference not necessarily being coupled with mental illness but with the mental illness being mutually inclusive with pedophilia. The mental illness of pedophilia is characterized by extremely delusional thinking. Many pedophiles realize that it is bad to have sex with children, and they entirely avoid it. I do not see them as particularly mentally ill, although they certainly are not normal. However, some pedophiles do not think anything is wrong with pedophilia. They think that children are better off being molested by them, and that there is a conspiracy to keep the act of sexual interaction with children illegal and demonized. Some of them are even more extremely delusional, and think that actually sexually hurting children is an expression of love. They are very convinced that they are the good guys and see themselves as freedom fighters, or mentors/teachers or as helping impoverished children by paying them for sex acts etc, while in reality they are viciously abusing children. I think that when there is this significant of a disconnect from reality, that it is much more characteristic of a mental illness than of a deviant sexual preference. However in some cases it is fairly consistent with psychopathy, so there is probably a distinction to be made between 'psychopathic pedophilia' and 'delusional pedophilia'. These two sorts of pedophile are the vast majority of actual child molesters but are not even a majority of those who consume child pornography.