Psychopathy is characterized by impaired empathy and resistance to external influence, pedophilia is not. It is a common perception that pedophilia just turns a person into an animal preying on children, but it has nothing to do with scientific consensus on the matter.

Biologically, pedophilia is no different than any other sexuality. You wouldn’t fuck a drunk woman in the club, no matter how hot she is, because you know in this condition she’s incapable of giving valid conscious consent. Similarly, most pedophiles would not fuck kids because they know children in any condition cannot give it, either.

Association of pedophilia and preying on children is not only wrong, but also harmful. It contributes to stigmatization of pedophilia, and thereby makes it harder for people with pedophilic disorder (i.e. those particular pedophiles who are at risk of abusing a child, or experiencing mental health issues and distress due to pedophilia) to seek professional help, because they are afraid to be outed to their community. Left untreated, pedophilic disorder in particular can lead to child sexual abuse, suicide, substance abuse, and a plethora of other negative consequences. On a personal note, this is the primary reason I advocate for all of this - academic literature suggests that increased understanding of pedophilia in society may help reduce the incidence of child sexual abuse, not increase it. This is crucial to understand if we want to actually protect children instead of catering to political interests framed as such.

(Pedophilic disorder is a clinical term you’ll find in ICD-11 globally, and in various national systems like DSM-V. It is a current consensus that pedophilia itself is not a disorder, but a variation of human sexuality, so current editions of medical classifications do not include pedophilia itself)

And yes, most psychopaths are, in fact, not serial killers, either. But the effect of stigmatization there is significantly lower, because psychopaths are typically less sensitive to it and less inclined to seek help by themselves in the first place. Still, if we want to develop as a society, we need to resort to evidence-based policies and perceptions around this matter as well.