Pedophilia Is Normal, Because Otherwise It's Abnormal
Hebephilia-- the sexual attraction to post-pubescent children, is currently being proposed for inclusion into the DSM-V. Should it be considered a mental disorder? (This is different than asking if it should be a crime.)
Allen Frances writes that hebephilia shouldn't be in the DSM because hebephilia is normal.
The basic issue is that sexual attraction to pubescent youngsters is not the slightest bit abnormal or unusual. Until recently, the age of consent was age 13 years in most parts of the world (including the United States) and it remains 14 in many places. Evolution has programmed humans to lust for pubescent youngsters--our ancestors did not get to live long enough to have the luxury of delaying reproduction. For hundreds of thousands of years, sex followed closely behind puberty. Only recently has society chosen to protect the moratorium of adolescence and to declare as inappropriate and illegal a sexual interest in the pubescent.
He agrees it should still be a crime:
It is natural and no sign of mental illness to feel sexual attraction to pubescent youngsters. But to act on such impulses is, in our society, a reprehensible crime that deserves severe punishment.
II.
If you're surrounded by carpenters, everything becomes about hammers.
Frances and the debate teams are mostly forensic guys, which means their reading of the true purpose of hebephilia's inclusion in the DSM is for involuntary commitment. If hebephilia is in the DSM, it earns the status of a scientifically accepted diagnosis even if it isn't, and can then be used to justify indefinite commitment.
He's probably right about that.
He's wrong about everything else.
III.
The problem with media is that it tricks you into debating the conclusions while accepting the form of the argument. So you get to ask, "is hebephilia a pathological disorder or is it normal?" so that no one asks the question, why do we now, today, want to have this debate?
Pedophilia and hebephilia have always been considered maybe pathological and maybe not; Psychopathia Sexualis makes clear the distinction of the pedophile who has grown weak of moral character vs. those whose urge towards children is a "pathological perversion" that to him is "quite natural" and is thus "not a criminal, but an irresponsible insane person." The distinction between criminality and pathology has to this point been decided on a case by case basis: "To examine not merely the deed, but the mental condition of the perpetrator."
So why now? The answer is there in Frances's article, the mistake that is in his article: "sexual attraction to pubescent youngsters is not the slightest bit abnormal or unusual." Boy oh boy did you walk into that one.
If you look closely at your calendar, right after the year you will see, in tiny font, that interest in pubescent girls may be normal; but interest in pubescent boys is always and seriously whacked.
Once you "normalize" sexual interest in 14 year old girls, you either normalize the interest in boys or you quietly suggest homosexuality in general is slightly pathological. You can only pick one, and the rest of us have to live with the consequences.
If hebephilia-- all of it-- is pathology, however, you avoid having to make that dicey distinction. Phew. America is safe.
I am not here making a case for what is normal or not; I'm pointing out the very specific societal approval that allows me to keep drooling as long as I say out loud, "son of a gun, Ali Lohan's only 14? She looks so much older!" but forbids me from even putting up a picture of a boy and making any comment-- even if I am gay; even if I am a woman. Go ahead and try it. And what does it mean that society permits a 14 year old boy to choose to be a girl who is [her]self attracted to males, but in theory lacks the maturity/intellect/right to seduce a grown man? It means put a sock in it, wiseguy. We have a society to run.
As evidence for this, Ray Blanchard, the Chair of the Paraphilias Workgroup at the DSM, wrote a 2800 word justification for hebephilia's inclusion in the DSM in which the words "boy" and "girl" appear only once:
In the third place, a distinction between pedophilia and hebephilia on the grounds of reproduction makes no sense when applied to homosexual pedophilia and hebephilia, since neither pubescent nor prepubescent boys can become pregnant. Lastly, there is no evidence that the arrival of menarche abruptly demarcates girls' attractiveness to heterosexual pedophiles vs. hebephiles
How can you have a debate about what is normal and what is pathology and never discuss the gender? He pulls it off. The point here is not science; neither is the point involuntary commitment. The point is to limit the scope of the debate to manageable, politically expedient constructs. Allow the belief that there is something biological behind all this (what the term "pathology" should be understood to connote); while at the same time preserving an illusion of free choice.
In this way, Frances and the DSM workgroup he opposes are actually on the same side: using psychiatry as the battleground for difficult social questions.
IV.
There's a third level to understanding this debate. (But you'll have to wait.)
Score: 31 (53 votes cast)
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February 7, 2012 12:06 PM | Posted by : | Reply
You're comparing apples and chainsaws.
Sperm is very cheap, and womb space is very expensive; our reproductive strategies and preferences are built around that.
What a male wants from a female: the ability to give birth to a healthy child. The younger the better.
What a female wants from a male: the ability to provide for her child.
Most 14 year old males can't "provide" anything except lots of sperm.
Score: -5 (87 votes cast)
February 7, 2012 12:19 PM | Posted by : | Reply
I do remember seeing a number of women saying some variant of "damn, Daniel Radcliffe is getting sexy" a few films into the Harry Potter franchise, which I guess would have put him in the 14-15 bracket at the time.
I don't remember seeing any backlash against said comments, but I'll freely admit I wasn't paying close attention.
Score: 23 (25 votes cast)
February 7, 2012 12:21 PM | Posted by : | Reply
Scalia was right in Lawrence.
Score: -4 (16 votes cast)
February 7, 2012 12:22 PM | Posted by : | Reply
"I'm pointing out the very specific societal approval that allows me to keep drooling as long as I say out loud, "son of a gun, Ali Lohan's only 14? She looks so much older!" but forbids me from even putting up a picture of a boy and making any comment-- even if I am gay"
Is that really the case? I mean, most of the gay guys I know are into bears, but the ones that are into twinks (like myself) are willing to lust after post-pubescent 14 year olds. It's not clear to be that the "jailbait!" sensation is all that much higher.
Score: 8 (20 votes cast)
February 7, 2012 12:35 PM | Posted by : | Reply
"I am not here making a case for what is normal or not-"
The psychiatrist doth protest too much, methinks.
Score: -1 (27 votes cast)
February 7, 2012 12:38 PM | Posted by : | Reply
"Once you "normalize" sexual interest in 14 year old girls, you either normalize it for boys or you quietly suggest homosexuality in general is slightly pathological. You can only pick one"
That's an easy choice: the latter. Too bad the mental health community started painting itself into this corner in the early 70's...
Next stop: bestiality for everyone!
Score: -24 (72 votes cast)
February 7, 2012 1:03 PM | Posted by : | Reply
The proof that hebephilia is not normal lies in its one sidedness. If hebephilia were a natural state rooted in biology, then it would also hold true that 14 year old girls are, without provacation, attracted to much older men. Until 8th graders replace their Justin Bieber posters with those of George Clooney, I can't see this becoming an acceptable premise.
Score: -39 (95 votes cast)
February 7, 2012 1:17 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
doesn't make any sense, wisegirl. It's like saying that an average chump attraction for a 10/10 girl is unnatural because the girl doesn't find him attractive. Also what the hell does "without provocation" means.
Anyway, you made a bad post so it holds that I had to downvote it, sorry
Score: 22 (64 votes cast)
February 7, 2012 1:18 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
@wisegirl: It's positively stereotypical that women are interested in older men, though. Anecdotally, I've certainly seen it incredibly commonly on dating sites which allow people to enter an age range of interest; women tend to be looking for their age and up, while men tend to be looking for their age and down.
Can't really comment on how much that applies to 14 year old girls, because I have minimal experience with their desires. :P
Score: 11 (23 votes cast)
February 7, 2012 1:26 PM | Posted by : | Reply
Third level? There's probably a fourth and fifth and sixth level!
What about incest?
Is it abnormal to look at your 14-year-old kid (or even younger) and say, "Wow, my kid is a real looker who's going to break a lot of hearts!" Many parents say this about their kid(s), regardless of gender. Sometimes they even post pics and comments like that on Facebook for everyone to see! At what point is it considered wrong when it's your own kid? What if your kid is adopted?
But there are also a lot of adult women out there that I would describe as beautiful, but I don't necessarily want to have sex with. Is it just a matter of degrees? I don't think so. Courtney Cox is beautiful, but I wouldn't do her. I'd totally do Jennifer Aniston, though.
Again.
What about those parents who made out with their teenage kids as a high school prank? That would have made a good blog post.
But I tend to believe that not nearly as many things are pathological in the biological sense as society currently allows psychiatry to include. Just because something is wrong doesn't mean it's biological in origin.
Score: 1 (15 votes cast)
February 7, 2012 2:00 PM | Posted by : | Reply
I was actually going to bring Harry Potter into it too, but someone beat me to it.
Seriously though, consider the public perception of attraction to Daniel Radcliffe. Based on a quick mental survey of parties I attended with many geeks present, writing HP slash-fiction is something women consider themselves able to talk about in mixed company.
Also, when it comes to "putting up a picture and making a comment," you might want to check out LiveJournal sometime. There are all sorts of HP slash fiction icons going around the geeky circles, including one for Potter/Malfoy shipping where they've been shopped so it looks like one is spooning the other, with the words, "Opposites attract" on it. It's basically a signal that says, "I prefer stories where people ship these two kids together in a gay relationship." Probably these icons are less popular by now, because the series is over and many have moved on to other things, but I'm sure you can still find a few.
Another: I guess it's not quite the same because Robert Pattinson became famous as an adult, but remember the Twilight moms? Women in their 40s and 50s with signs, openly lusting after a dude who was 22 when the first movie came out? This was mostly considered a sign of the incredible success of the series, rather than a sign of any pathos in the women.
Those few people I can think of who DID remark on the women did it by way of pointing out that this wouldn't be treated the same way if men did the same thing. So, they weren't so much saying that the women were wrong; they were saying this should be considered as wrong in women as it is in men.
One last thing: remember Debra LaFave? I remember tons of I'm-so-funny responses to the situation that went, "Well she MUST be crazy, because look how hot she is! She could have any man she wants, and she chooses a 14-year-old boy?" and some, "Where was SHE when I was that age?" If you wanted serious discussion on whether the boy was some kind of a victim or not, and what would happen to him, you had to go out and look for it.
So, attraction to teenage boys by women certainly seems like it's accepted, but maybe I'm missing a whole ton of counter-examples somehow. Perhaps I just was not alive, or old enough to be socially aware, when they happened?
Score: 21 (31 votes cast)
February 7, 2012 2:05 PM | Posted by : | Reply
"The proof that hebephilia is not normal lies in its one sidedness. If hebephilia were a natural state rooted in biology, then it would also hold true that 14 year old girls are, without provacation, attracted to much older men. Until 8th graders replace their Justin Bieber posters with those of George Clooney, I can't see this becoming an acceptable premise. "
Rape?
Score: -14 (18 votes cast)
February 7, 2012 2:27 PM | Posted by : | Reply
"In this way, Frances and the DSM workgroup he opposes are actually on the same side: using psychiatry as the battleground for difficult social questions."
so the difficult social question is whether or not to bang kids and the search for either a justification?
this post isnt very clear.
Score: 2 (14 votes cast)
February 7, 2012 2:51 PM | Posted by : | Reply
Since when is scientific criterion used for labeling sexual preference as a pathology? Its ultimately a couple of MDs as mouthpieces for changing societal norms. Sure they'll window-dress with a little evolutionary biology for good measure. But what they say ultimately hinges on whether they read WSJ or NYT.
After all, how does evolutionary biology support homosexual preference?
Score: 7 (21 votes cast)
February 7, 2012 3:27 PM | Posted by : | Reply
I literally didn't understand this sentence:
And what does it mean that society permits a 14 year old boy to choose to be a girl who is [her]self attracted to males, but lacks the maturity/intellect/right to seduce a man? It means put a sock in it, wiseguy.
Is there a typo or am I reading it incorrectly? Could someone explain it to me?
Score: 18 (20 votes cast)
February 7, 2012 3:56 PM | Posted by : | Reply
I think he was trying to make the point that we live in a society which would support a young teen boy choosing to have a sex change operation under the guise of tolerance for his sexual preference; yet that same boy, once a girl would not be considered mature enough to make decisions about his sexuality according to the rules society has for girls. Or something like that.
Score: 20 (22 votes cast)
February 7, 2012 3:56 PM | Posted by : | Reply
I think it is good to protect people under 18- even from themselves. It is enough that girls get pregnant from boys around their same age. Most rapes and pregnancy are under age 21.
I would like it to be illegal for people under 21 to do any porn. I think they need financial support to go to college/voc school/military. I do not want them to be kept children- just have plenty of room to grow, get an education, not have to live at home, and not need the money.
I would rather no one over 21 get any needs met from anyone under 21. This wont work for military- but that one will stand.
As fer as the dsm inclusion- what's the point? We all know the frontal lobe is not fully developed until age 25. Leave them alone.
Score: -21 (31 votes cast)
February 7, 2012 4:34 PM | Posted by : | Reply
"After all, how does evolutionary biology support homosexual preference? "
There is often more homosexuals if it gets crowded and stressful (stress --> differences in hormones in the womb). Maybe that is how less children are born, when they would not survive?
Score: 3 (13 votes cast)
February 7, 2012 5:05 PM | Posted by : | Reply
A 14 year-old boy CAN get a woman pregnant, so the reproduction argument is perfectly valid in both ways.
Score: 8 (8 votes cast)
February 7, 2012 5:08 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
After all, how does evolutionary biology support homosexual preference?
One could solve that easily if they really wanted... say, with an answer such as 'population control'. I'm sure someone could come up with alternate answers as well, depending on what their goal is in doing so.
It's easy to come up with answer for everything, evolutionary speaking. Whether it's right or not is another question. This is why so-called 'biological imperatives' are not enough to make a case for anything.
If you want something to be true, it's easy enough to find the 'logic' and 'science' to back it up. See: racism, sexism...
((((Godwin's law))))
Score: 7 (21 votes cast)
February 7, 2012 5:43 PM | Posted by : | Reply
Several commenters brought up grown women having lust in their hearts for Harry Potter/Daniel Radcliffe. What about Zac Efron? I thought he was hot, but never said it out loud.
Score: -1 (7 votes cast)
February 7, 2012 6:01 PM | Posted by : | Reply
The thing about Daniel Radcliffe is that he actually looks old. Super-heavy brows, prominent jaw, angular bone structure, very wrinkled/non-elastic skin for such a young guy. It's not so much that people find him 'sexy' because he looks young, or like jailbait, it's exactly that he doesn't.
Unlike Zach Efron. His appeal is his youth. Radcliffe's appeal is in his apparent non-youth as it contrasts with his actual youth. I don't think Demi Moore would be going after Radcliffe the way she is rumored to have been going after Efron, at least in an abstract sense. (Anyone want to bet Demi gets referenced in the next installment?)
And lets not forget Radcliffe starred in Equus and is very open about his sexuality. He helps/wants/is open to making himself into a sexual being to some extent, and doesn't try to hide his 'coming of age'.
Score: 3 (5 votes cast)
February 7, 2012 7:01 PM | Posted by : | Reply
The starting point here is the difference between "abnormality" and "anomaly". According to Deleuze, "abnormal" is defined in terms of the "normal" and the "norm", while an "anomaly" is an anomaly by itself.
If I catch your drift, you're saying attraction to adolescent girls is abnormal, as evidenced by times/cultures where teenage marriage has been normal, while attraction to adolescent boys is an anomaly, because it's a variant on the "regressed" type of pedophilia.
Score: -2 (4 votes cast)
February 7, 2012 8:57 PM | Posted by : | Reply
It is inevitable that in discussing hebephilia, social and psychiatric questions overlap. The reasons are that:
(a) Adults whose sexual interest is persistently and exclusively directed towards 13 or 14 year olds are not only sex offenders but have a psychiatric disorder.
(b) 13 and 14 year olds sometimes have sex with each other, or with people who are slightly older, without either party having a psychiatric disorder.
(c) There cannot be a sudden change, with increasing age of the patient, from "no psychiatric disorder" to "psychiatric disorder". Yet this is precisely what the DSM pretends.
The DSM-5 "consensus" on paraphilias gives the clinician the option to decide that the paraphile patient who otherwise fits the diagnostic criteria has a psychiatric disorder only if it "causes distress or impairment to the individual or harm to others". This appears to give the clinician the discretion not to diagnose cases on the borderline of age-appropriate relationships, if he/she judges that no harm is being done. Of course, it is not clear how clinicians will use this "consensus" clause. They might ignore it, particularly since it appears not to be printed on each page as part of the diagnostic criteria.
This part of the DSM is presumably written by professionals who routinely deal with sex offenders. That is where their attention is. Their attention is not focussed on how their criteria might impact on "normal" behaviour. Yet the attitudes of psychiatrists and law enforcers certainly impact "normal" people.
Consider the opprobium attached to pedo/hebephilia, the stupidity of the criminal law system, and the common perception that a man is guilty even after being proved innocent. These facts terrify decent, law-abiding people to the extent that even TLP does not feel able to post a picture of a clothed 14 year old boy (think young Justin Bieber or Donny Osmond), although he is comfortable with a picture of a clothed 14 year old girl. There is clearly some personal fear and bias going on here: the trouble is that it is not entirely unjustified.
Score: 18 (18 votes cast)
February 7, 2012 10:12 PM | Posted by : | Reply
Once again, you are one of the precious few in the field willing to address the issue of offloading societal debates as pathology...and on the topic of hebephilia, on top of that!
Keep it up, can't wait for Part 2. Dare I say also can't wait for Part 3?
Score: 5 (5 votes cast)
February 7, 2012 10:58 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
It's amazing how, when people try to give counterexamples to an argument, they reinforce the original point. Yes, 40 year old moms did lust after Robert Pattison, but he was in his twenties, he wasn't 14. The argument here is not, "are wide age gaps normal?" but is interest in 14 year olds normal. Zac Efron is 24, he was 18 when he made High School Musical and he was 21 when he made 17 Again. And Harry Potter was never a sexual object, he was more of a fantasy of purity, but regardless he was over 17 for the last 4 movies.
Score: 7 (9 votes cast)
February 8, 2012 1:24 AM | Posted by : | Reply
Evolution has programmed humans to lust for pubescent youngsters--our ancestors did not get to live long enough to have the luxury of delaying reproduction.
I'd love to see the science behind that claim; it sounds like bullshit. Or at least "stuff I can't actually prove but sure sounds right to me."
Score: -10 (22 votes cast)
February 8, 2012 4:24 AM | Posted by : | Reply
While this is an important topic presented well, let's not forget that there may be kids in the room right now. It seems that men are attracted to certain features in women, and many of those are just correlated with youth (e.g. smooth skin, elasticity in hair and cetera, right proportion of body fat, etc. - as for women's tastes, I'm simply not qualified to say). Men are looking for those attributes, not necessarily at the D.O.B., which is more of an afterthought. Just ask Berlusconi. It's a safe bet that it's always been that way, and we adults have always found means to protect kids from ourselves, except in some cases where we fail and know it's wrong, and then we at least ritually lynch the perp. Historically, it's been largely an unspoken social agreement, and the 'unspoken' aspect might be really important. For the kids' sake, it's probably better to tell them "if an adult makes you feel uncomfortable by staring at (ed. NOT 'leering') or touching you or giving you weird attention, leave and tell somebody" than to open a Pandora's box of intergenerational sexuality in a post-modern society. How do you make that discussion age appropriate?
You don't know who's listening, so everybody be careful what you're tossing into this discourse.
Score: -2 (12 votes cast)
February 8, 2012 8:14 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Actually, it is not that easy. Especially if one tries to make an argument that is consistent with the evolutionary theory and the vast literature on the processes of natural and sexual selection. It is fairly obvious that any particular genetic variation that only causes "exclusive same-sex attraction" would be rather quickly eliminated, because the carriers of this "variation" would not be able to pass it on to the next generation, regardless of the potentially positive impact of their sterility on the population at large. Therefore, whatever genetic variation involved in increasing the probability of a homosexual phenotype likely confers some sort of advantage (survival and/or mate attraction) to those who do not become homosexuals. To make it more concrete: Imagine having Gene A and exposure to Environmental Factor I (say being being raised by "a distant father and an overbearing mother") predicts exclusive same sex attraction in adulthood. It is possible that the same Gene A in the absence of exposure to the Environmental Factor I or in the presence of an Environmental Factor II may lead to a personality trait that increases the person's chances for survival or mating (say increased sex drive or aggressiveness or bonding with the offspring, etc...). The twin studies indicate that homosexuality is only partially genetic (the most reliable study on the subject found 35% heritability), which is consistent with the idea that there is no "gay" gene that causes homosexuality.
Score: 6 (8 votes cast)
February 8, 2012 8:39 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
"Once you "normalize" sexual interest in 14 year old girls, you either normalize it for boys or you quietly suggest homosexuality in general is slightly pathological. You can only pick one"
That's an easy choice: the latter. Too bad the mental health community started painting itself into this corner in the early 70's..."
Next stop: bestiality for everyone!
Too bad psychiatry has not invented an illness category for the likes of you, whose self-righteous comparison of my love for my boyfriend to bestiality is not only misleading and plain stupid, but also hurtful. But know this: if the history of civilization is to be trusted in predicting what is to come, then people like you are bound to take their place next to those who defended slavery, condemned the "unnatural" marriages of black and white couples, and murdered millions of Jews for being "vermin."
Score: 4 (22 votes cast)
February 8, 2012 10:30 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
And what does it mean that society permits a 14 year old boy to choose to be a girl who is [her]self attracted to males, but lacks the maturity/intellect/right to seduce a man? It means put a sock in it, wiseguy.It took me a while to parse as well, but I believe Alone means that society has no problem, in prinsciple, with a 14 year old (ie pubescent) boy identifying as homosexual (or even transgendered) and wanting to sleep with a man, but we (ie society) would/could not accept this as normal if/when it actually happens. We're uncomfortable with it. (Hence "put a sock in it").
Whereas if a pubescent girl sleeps with a mature guy, it is seen as wrong, but not pathologically so.
Score: 3 (3 votes cast)
February 8, 2012 4:36 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
I agree that a personally held aversion to sexualizing pubescent boys is behind the rationalizations of researchers who accept sexualizing pubescent girls as normal. However, on the question of whether a condition can be a disorder if the behavior that signifies the condition is unchanged, I don't agree with your reasoning. Normal people have different kinds of relationships with people within and outside of their age group. So it doesn't stand to reason that being attracted to 14 year olds is necessarily still normal when the subject is age 47. To me (and I am not an expert) it suggests arrested development to continue that attraction when "normal" people have aged out of crushes on 14 year olds by the time they're 16 or so.
Score: 1 (3 votes cast)
February 8, 2012 6:18 PM | Posted by : | Reply
Evolution has programmed humans to lust for pubescent youngsters--our ancestors did not get to live long enough to have the luxury of delaying reproduction.
And yet young girls who get pregnant are far more likely to have a risky pregnancy (pregnancy-induced hypertension, preeclampsia) than their slightly older (18 and over) cohorts.
If you're going to make the argument "it's natural" you have to be prepared for the argument in the other direction that it's clearly not because otherwise you wouldn't see such a high complication rate. Just because something is possible doesn't make it natural.
Score: 12 (12 votes cast)
February 8, 2012 7:32 PM | Posted by : | Reply
This guy is an idiot.
#1) "Humans" are not attracted to pubescent (hebephiliacs). MALES ARE.
The fact that this behavior is ONLY found in males (of either orientation) suggests something about being attracted to pubescents particularly benefits male genetic spread (and may antagonize female genetic spread, thus why it is almost never expressed by females). Hmmm I wonder what that could be?
#2) The obvious utility of male preference for children (barely past puberty) is that the youngest age of sexual maturity is the most likely to be both fertile and a virigin. A 28 year old has had lots of sex and children and may be already pregnant right at the time of your encounter. A 13 year old? Far more likely to be virginal making sex with her more productive, genetically speaking.
As a result of this, we see an agregation of traits where many, if not most males prefer children for sexual partners (13-17) over women in their mid 20s, even though women in their mid 20s are far more fertile and have healthier babies. The reason why is males genetically benefit from virginal (but minimally fertile) partners, even though very young females are not very fertile the odds are so much better that if she does get pregnant it will be your offspring because 13 year olds only have sex when they are bought/sold/traded off by parents/raped.
This also probably explains the disproportionate prevelance of pedophilia in males. Pedophilia is just a hop and a skip away from normal male sexuality (to be attracted to barely pubescent children), and probably represents a sort of "extreme male brain" defect similar to autism. Meaning, normal male brain development went wrong, and woops, now you want to screw on 10 year olds (instead of 14 year olds, like a normal man). The reason we have such common occurances of pedophilia and not gerontophilia, is because pedophilia is a defunctional expression of an otherwise adaptive sexual drive. Gerotophilia on the other hand, is completely unrelated to any sort of normal sexual behavior. Similar to homosexuality (an abnormal expression of normal sexual behavior - preferring the same sex instead of opposite) pedophilia is an abnormal manifestation of otherwise normal male sexual drive and instinct, to go seek out virgins.
The incredible genetic benefit to male genetic spread via mating with virgins also explains why throughout human history in every single culture, female virginity is protected prized and bought and sold like commodity.
This of course is all very much common sense to anyone with a brain, but brains are apparently verboten if you want to be a successful social sciencey bullshitter such as Allen Frances, MD, prominent duke psychiartist.
Score: 2 (28 votes cast)
February 8, 2012 7:39 PM | Posted by : | Reply
PS before a horde of angry 18 year old basement dwellers calls me a man hater: please get a basic life science education first.
At nowhere in no point in time is nature kind or nice or beneficent or egalitarian. You might want to read about the mating habits of other animals before making any kind of judgement about what is or is not "normal and natural" to humanity. IN pretty much all species, sex and reproduction is as not-nice vile and aggressive as an animal hunting and killing prey for food... not surprising as both are expressions of a fight to survive. Many species rape as routine method of reproduction, this idea that a man and a woman find each other and exchange vows and live in holy matrimony and that's the way humans have babies is a myth and fairy tale for adults, as big of a bullshit lie as any other religious myth such as the father/son/holy spirit AMEN.
If it genetically benefits an organism to rape a minimally fertile target barely past childhood, don't be surprised when a preference for 13 year olds exists in many men.
Hey, no one ever said nature was nice...except the social science morons and the religiously brainwashed, but those people are pretty much irrelevant anyway.
Score: 13 (19 votes cast)
February 8, 2012 7:53 PM | Posted by : | Reply
The fact that men are infatuated with childhood/children also explains why much older women dye their hair lighter colors and starve themselves. Thinness implies lack of having completed puberty, and it implies nulligravida status (progesterone packs on body fat; the longer a female is past puberty and the more children she has had typically the more body fat she has: this is why men are infatuated with thinness). Blonde hair also implies youth as hair darkens with age. And of course, cosmetics alter the features to augment (or mimic) youth, such as making the skin smooth and full and fair, making the eyes and lips larger and the cheeks ruddy all signs of youth.
Regarding body weight, it's become a popular myth to say that preference for thin women among men is a reflection of social status, because obesity is associated with poverty and low status in our culture but in opposite cultures there is a preference for obesity. To a point this is true, that status affects body weight preferences, but there is clearly an innate preference of men to seek small waists, which are really only found in thinness.
As females age, have children, the waist expands due to progressive accumulation of body fat from reproductive hormones and pregnancies. This is why a 35 year old woman doesn't have the same figure she did at 21. A female with a high body fat level looks older specifically because our primitive brain associates body fat accumulation with prior pregnancies and age.
Now, women intuitively know all of this is true, that this appearance is ideal, and so they do everything they can to manipulate their appearance to conform to this standard of mimicking a barely pubertal 14 year old. Thus the diet and cosmetics industry. It benefits female reproduction to choose the fittest partner, so women are driven to improve their reproductive value. This is why you have females freaking out about who is hotter among any group of females, but men don't give a fuck who is hotter. Men are not driven to quality, they are driven to quantity, and the only choosiness a man exhibits is that he will first have sex with the most attractive female (typically the youngest) and then only later with the less attractive ones (typically the oldest).
Score: 4 (14 votes cast)
February 8, 2012 8:03 PM | Posted by : | Reply
PS, one last point.
All evidence suggests that pedophilia is a sexual preference, like homosexuality.
The fact this makes us uncomfortable doesn't make it untrue. Most likely pedophilia is, like exclusive homosexuality, an abnormal expression of otherwise functional sexual drive (for men to prefer virgins). It just so happens that something went wrong and the person now prefers children just below the age of puberty. Woops.
Similar to how it is entirely adaptive for females to prefer virility, it's not adaptive anymore if that preference exists in a male organism. Woops. Brain development boo boo!
Whereas homosexuality is morally neutral and benign therefore easy to accept, it is merely unfortunate that in society preferring sex with children is so antisocial and horrific and the person is basically born a monster... sort of like a psychopath who's brain by function has no empathy and no fear responses (and psychopathy is another brain development defect that is overwhelmingly prevalent in males, again for obvious reasons).
Score: -4 (12 votes cast)
February 8, 2012 8:13 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
It is a common mistake that men make (to justify their preference in 14 year olds) to conclude that the youngest females are the most fertile. This is a myth. Peak female fertility is the early 20s... but yet if I were to look up male pornography every title would say "teen slut" or "teen blowjobs" or "teen gangbang" and so fourth. The most commonly used worn in porn is probably teen.
The preference males exhibit toward young teens is not because these are the most fertile years, but these are the years she is most likely to be a virgin.
Who cares if the baby is healthy if it isn't yours? 3 miscarriages and 1 successful birth is worth eternity, than 1 successful healthy pregnancy that was cuckolded.
Score: 0 (8 votes cast)
February 8, 2012 8:17 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
It is very uncommon for females to lust after 14 year old boys.
IT is extremely common for males to lust after 14 year old girls.
Citing examples of the contrary which are obviously extreme exceptions is pointless. That would be like me saying "well neil patrick harris likes men, so obviously men do not prefer hips and ass and boobs!" The fact that sometimes men prefer men does not invalidate the general trend that men prefer women, at least 95% or more of the time. Similarly the fact one or two women thought Daniel Radcliffe was attractive doesn't invalidate the general truth that women seek male partners who are older than they are, and almost never prefer male partners who are in their teens.
Score: -3 (7 votes cast)
February 8, 2012 8:17 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Among bronze age Israelites, boys and girls came of age at 13. Modern Jews still have the bar and bat mitzvahs for their kids, but the kid's claims to being mature are understood more as ancient ritual than realistic fact these days.
re: evolutionary biology and homosexuality: Buggery has always been with us, but the modern category of "homosexuals" as people who do not marry and raise children is an invention of the last three generations or so. Prior to that, homosexuals reproduced much like everyone else, if somewhat less enthusiastically. The anecdotal evidence that homosexuality is correlated with traits that women like (attention to grooming, decorating, and all that Queer Eye for the Straight Guy stuff) may also be relevant.
Score: 3 (3 votes cast)
February 8, 2012 8:22 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Your examples of harry potter and twilight involve women fantasizing that they are much younger than they are in reality.
Women prefer partners who are about their age or older; no woman prefers a younger partner. The real fantasy for a twilight mom is not just pattison; the fantasy is that she is as young and beautiful and desirable as stewart. Twilight moms are reliving their youth, and youth is what women covet more than anything, almost as much as men do, just in a different format (women covet youth as identity, men covet youth as sexual conquest).
Score: -1 (9 votes cast)
February 9, 2012 4:01 AM | Posted by : | Reply
To those wondering how homosexuality fits in:
Homosexuality fits in like mental retardation or cleft palate or any other congenital defect "fits in". It is atypical brain development that is not adaptive.
I don't know why people take this extreme "either or" position: Either homosexuality is real and serves a purpose OR it is a figment of those dirty fag's will do disobey god and they are sick in the head! Why is one defaulted to these two irrational positions? It seems the most likely answer is that homosexuality is a biological phenomenon and represents atypical, maladaptive brain development, sort of like an intersex condition, or being born a conjoined twin... the brain is not fully male or female, the sexuality is incongruent with the physical sex.
There certainly are worse congenital defects to have than homosexuality (the conjoined twin example, yikes) but it doesn't change the fact that, ultimately, it is just a birth defect.
The reason it "still exists" is because well, all sorts of birth defects "still exist". Babies are born all the time with imperfections that hinder their survival and function, some more serious , some mild.
I know this isn't politically correct, but it doesn't make it untrue.
Score: -4 (10 votes cast)
February 9, 2012 4:11 AM | Posted by : | Reply
The reason homosexuality is so prevalent compared to many other birth defects is because it is quite mild, and does not hinder survival or reproduction that much. Most homosexuals are fertile and can still have children, they merely lack desire/eagerness to have sex (with a fertile partner).
Note there are many heterosexual people with very low sex drives as well, homosexuality is sort of like having the lowest sex drive possible, lol... but traditionally homosexuals would have children due to social pressure to hide homosexuality. I suppose the reason it is prevalent is precisely because male and female social roles, which homosexuals were traditionally defaulted into, meant they would be having sex and children whether or not they ever felt genuine attraction/interest in the first place.
I also suspect that the genes that predispose to developing homosexual orientations are otherwise adaptive in certain circumstances, as mrboogieman stated. For example, congenital adrenal hyperplasia is caused by a nonfunctional cortisol synthesis gene, and results in high levels of androgens prentally; this genetic defect greatly raises the risk of lesbian orientation in females. The function of the genetic trait (altering cortisol synthesis) was hypothesized that a single copy of the gene makes for a hyperresponsive adrenal gland, which grows larger and produces more hormones. THe problem is only when there are two copies present (very rare) and the affected individual is also female (even more rare). Males are not as adversely affected as they are exposed to high androgens prenatally anyway.
I suppose most instances of homosexuality are like this; not a gene causing it per say, but genes that do other things ending up incidentally creating homosexuals under certain circumstances. Which of course would be a simple birth defect, like sickle cell anemia or tay sachs or cystic fibrosis... genes that do other things that are only causing disease incidentally.
Score: -2 (8 votes cast)
February 9, 2012 7:39 AM | Posted by : | Reply
The comments are full of the error TLP talks about in his Decline Effect post, in which people mistake circumstances of their particular culture at their particular moment in history for fundamental and immutable facts of human nature. I see arguments about what is biologically imperative and what is not, which use as their ground for argument RPattz, DanRad, Twihards, slashfic, OKCupid profiles, and on and on. Guys, Twilight was written by Stephenie Meyer; it wasn't inscribed into our genetic code by the wrathful hand of God.
If we're trying to figure out why we might regard sexual interest in post-pubescent girls differently from similarly aged boys,[1] it seems relevant that our society generally regards expressions of sexual interest with greater acceptance when they come from hetero dudes than when they come from gays or women. And insofar as women are attracted to social status, it's relevant that our society accords minors the status of second class citizens. (I haven't checked the ancient Macedonian fansites, but I'd bet drachma to dollars that 16-year-old Alexander the Great was considered a hottie at the time.) And back in the day, Western culture actually thought that sex with boys was p. cool, to the extent that Plato wrote about how great it was in his Symposium. And on and on.
You can argue that all of the above variables have seen the most natural and most normal configuration in our current society, and that they thus can be safely discounted, but that is one hell of an argument to make.
__
[1] Is that what we're trying to do? It's hard for me to tell at this point.
Score: 8 (8 votes cast)
February 9, 2012 8:10 AM | Posted by : | Reply
Guys, Twilight was written by Stephenie Meyer; it wasn't inscribed into our genetic code by the wrathful hand of God.
Are you sure about that?
Score: -2 (4 votes cast)
February 9, 2012 10:24 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
our society generally regards expressions of sexual interest with greater acceptance when they come from hetero dudes than when they come from gays or women.
While I mostly agree with your post, it seems to me that most men, including myself, are extremely accepting of expressions of sexual interest from women. Our disproportionately enthusiastic response to such gestures is actually kind of a problem for attractive women.
Score: 2 (4 votes cast)
February 9, 2012 3:04 PM | Posted by : | Reply
"it would also hold true that 14 year old girls are, without provacation, attracted to much older men."
They are.
Score: 2 (12 votes cast)
February 9, 2012 3:04 PM | Posted by : | Reply
"it would also hold true that 14 year old girls are, without provacation, attracted to much older men."
They are.
Score: -3 (7 votes cast)
February 9, 2012 3:18 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Warren Jeffs is that you?
Score: 0 (2 votes cast)
February 9, 2012 4:34 PM | Posted by : | Reply
"Once you "normalize" sexual interest in 14 year old girls, you either normalize it for boys or you quietly suggest homosexuality in general is slightly pathological. You can only pick one, and the rest of us have to live with the consequences."
There's a pretty long way to go before the idea of sexual interest in 14 year old girls has been normalized. Who among us is ready to come out of the closet and admit, "Yeah I find that 15 or 16 year old school girl / niece / granddaughter of yours hot." If that ever happens we can start worrying about how uncomfortable some old chicken hawk feels admitting that he finds teenage boys hot.
Dirty old men..
America's last oppressed sexual minority...
Even the gays are more tolerated. But they were all born that way (except for the wrinkles and pot bellies.)
Score: 2 (8 votes cast)
February 9, 2012 6:29 PM | Posted by : | Reply
"We have a society to run."
It's always been about that. That was the point of everything. It was the smartypants materialists that started picking away at the edifice..now with so much liberalization of mores, the remaining rules and taboos look all the more absurd.
Score: 1 (1 votes cast)
February 9, 2012 7:28 PM | Posted by : | Reply
Did someone say that middle-aged women are never interested in 11-14 year old boys? That this kind of deviancy only occurs in men?
Today's news says otherwise.
Score: 0 (4 votes cast)
February 10, 2012 1:04 AM | Posted by : | Reply
I gotta say, I am flat-out amazed at the anti-gay bigotry and nonsense being spouted by some of the commenters. Some of these comments simply have to be fake.
Score: -1 (11 votes cast)
February 10, 2012 1:42 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
I don't see how it makes me bigoted to say (admit) that homosexuality is very likely a sort of birth defect.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_defect
The reason homosexuality is not normal variation is because it inhibits the functionality of the organism. Homosexuality is a condition where an individual has almost no desire to reproduce. That is abnormal mental development as the whole point of any organism existing is to eventually spread genes. Much like being born infertile, being born exclusively homosexual is abnormal development and can be considered a birth defect as homosexuals are, to quote lady gaga, "born this way".
Homosexuality is often found with other defects of biological functioning; again to refer back to my example of female children with CAH, these girls are unable to make normal cortisol. There are a myriad of disorders which can produce disturbances in sexual identity and orientation (via abnormal levels of sex steroids before birth), that affect vital body systems other than reproduction (CAH is the example that springs to mind readily but there are others).
In the real world, which is explained by science, being gay happens when brain development takes a wrong turn before birth due to abnormalities of sex steroids in the womb. Since this is adverse to the thriving of the organism it can be considered a type of birth defect.
Score: 2 (18 votes cast)
February 10, 2012 3:49 AM | Posted by : | Reply
Too bad psychiatry has not invented an illness category for the likes of you, whose self-righteous comparison of my love for my boyfriend to bestiality is not only misleading and plain stupid, but also hurtful. But know this: if the history of civilization is to be trusted in predicting what is to come, then people like you are bound to take their place next to those who defended slavery, condemned the "unnatural" marriages of black and white couples, and murdered millions of Jews for being "vermin."
It takes tremendous chutzpah to complain about the hurtfulness of the comparison while lumping him in with Hitler. He's a dick, but you come across as a psychopath.
Score: 4 (12 votes cast)
February 10, 2012 6:07 AM | Posted by : | Reply
I actually am convinced that the disgust that society has for men who get turned on by 15 - 17 boys is less than that for men who are find the young women aged 15 - 17 to be hot despite all taboos.
Society still holds that girls need more protection than boys - see the sentencing discrepancy between adult women who have had consensual relations with minor boys compared to the stiffer punishments for adult men who have had consensual relations with minor girls.
Of course none of this defends breaking the taboo, but it makes the claims by gay rights spokesmen who claim that gay men have ZERO interest WHATSOEVER in young men (minors) and that they are exclusively interested in consensual relations with other adults.
Of course this is a blatant exaggeration aimed to defuse mainstream paranoia about leading the poor young men astray. But why would gay men be any less driven by the hebephilia instinct than their heterosexual brothers and cousins. Why would being gay innoculate certain men from becoming the sad development of turning into the sterotypical dirty old man?
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
February 10, 2012 3:28 PM | Posted by : | Reply
I've been asking this question for 20 years. I'm yet to receive an answer - or an attempt at an answer. Can you answer this question?
"Why are there no choirgirls?"
Is it because that when little girls sing, it sounds like demonic screaming, to God?
Score: 0 (6 votes cast)
February 10, 2012 3:28 PM | Posted by : | Reply
I've been asking this question for 20 years. I'm yet to receive an answer - or an attempt at an answer. Can you answer this question?
"Why are there no choirgirls?"
Is it because that when little girls sing, it sounds like demonic screaming, to God?
Score: 0 (6 votes cast)
February 10, 2012 5:06 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
"[Too bad psychiatry has not invented an illness category for the likes of you, whose self-righteous comparison of my love for my boyfriend to bestiality is not only misleading and plain stupid, but also hurtful. But know this: if the history of civilization is to be trusted in predicting what is to come, then people like you are bound to take their place next to those who defended slavery, condemned the "unnatural" marriages of black and white couples, and murdered millions of Jews for being "vermin."]
It takes tremendous chutzpah to complain about the hurtfulness of the comparison while lumping him in with Hitler. He's a dick, but you come across as a psychopath."
It is funny how comparing a gay man's love for his boyfriend to bestiality makes him a dick, but comparing homophobia to racism and antisemitism (the nazi ideology and its implementation was the most extreme and virulent expression of the latter, but it was antisemitism nonetheless) makes someone a psychopath. I would not go as far to argue that it is precisely this claim that is psychopathic but, it is important to remember that words do have consequences. A man who openly demonizes/condemns an entire group (gays, blacks, jews, etc...) shares the responsibility when the day comes and the said group comes under attack. Countless homosexual men have been discriminated against, oppressed, abused, mutilated, tortured, and murdered throughout the history because some people thought, among other things, our love was no different (in fact, perhaps worse) than bestiality. I am pretty sure Julius Streicher's lawyer argued that it would take "tremendous amount of chutzpah" -wait, he probably would not have liked this Semitic term, but I'm sure there's something similar in German- to allege that his client committed any war crimes, but the verdict suggests otherwise!
Score: 3 (11 votes cast)
February 10, 2012 6:04 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
"I don't see how it makes me bigoted to say (admit) that homosexuality is very likely a sort of birth defect.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_defect ... ..."
What makes you a bigot is not the biology underlying your arguments (although your claim "Homosexuality is often found with other defects of biological functioning-" is simply wrong). It is the value judgments you are making with regards to certain biological processes and their consequences in adulthood. There are no diseases, abnormal behaviors, brain malfunctions, etc... in mother nature. There are only viruses, enzymes, dna molecules, antibodies, so on and so forth. The former labels (disease, disorder, abnormal, defective) are human constructs that obviously depend on the latter, yet, can never be conceptualized without considering the language, culture, ideology, and other forces that affect the society. The moment you use the term "birth defect" to explain why homosexuality occurs, you are indicating that what we are facing is a phenomenon that humanity should strive to eliminate (if concentration camps and/or eugenics are not palatable, perhaps by medications or gene therapies in the future). That is demeaning, devaluing, and hurtful to millions of people and their loved ones. Yes, by definition homosexuality greatly reduces a person's capacity to reproduce, but, it is up to the society to determine whether this particular type of decreased likelihood of having children should be called a defect/disease or simply a variation. Since we are not living in a planet where homo sapiens sapiens is a threatened species, I do not think that there's any need to reclassify homosexuality as a disease/disorder/birth defect so that we can start thinking about finding ways to increase their reproductive capacity via enhancing their interest in heterosexual sex. So, long story short, yes, telling me that my gayness was caused by a "birth defect" as opposed to a "genetic variation" or "atypical brain development" is precisely what makes you a bigot. At the end of the day, this is not about genes, hormones, or brains, this is about whether my relationship with another man deserves the same basic respect as my sister's relationship with her boyfriend. I say it does. If one agrees with this value judgment then there is no need for any "birth defects" to explain why I love him.
Score: 0 (12 votes cast)
February 12, 2012 10:29 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
what the fuck is a chupa-chupaz or whatever?
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
February 13, 2012 8:04 AM | Posted by : | Reply
You see... Everybody are just saying A LOT OF FUCKING SHIT ABOUT SHIT FUCK YOU ALL. Okay. Now... Could we please start doing research on things before proceeding to insert on the DSM-V? Where does the fuck has society gone. What the fuck are you all. Can you stop thinking you are a bunch of stupid genious?
Score: -4 (4 votes cast)
February 13, 2012 5:13 PM | Posted by : | Reply
Just last night I was looking in chromosome disorders and ended up on wiki looking at ephebophilia. Today I got here looking into rates of doctor suicide. I love how strangely things are connected!
But what I thought was odd on the Wiki page was this - "Researchers state that hebephilia, erotic interest which centers on pubescents, has not come into widespread use, even among professionals who work with sex offenders, and may have been confused with the term ephebophilia, "which denotes men who prefer adolescents around 15–19 years of age."[2] It is concluded that "few would want to label erotic interest in late — or even mid — adolescents as a psychopathology, so the term hebephilia may have been ignored along with ephebophilia."
Few would want to label erotic interest in mid to late adolescence as a psychopathology?? I actually agree that it isn't but was surprised to see it in a discussion over inclusion in DSM, where it seems like every behavior that doesn't involve being a docile sheep is a mental illness.
Score: 1 (1 votes cast)
February 15, 2012 10:18 PM | Posted by : | Reply
You left something out. Any homophilia is a perversion so age isn't the issue.
Score: -4 (6 votes cast)
February 16, 2012 1:03 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Don't put your pathology on all men. Just because you're a fucking pervert doesn't mean every man on the planet is. I sincerely hope you never come in contact with young girls.
Score: 0 (2 votes cast)
February 16, 2012 10:22 PM | Posted by : | Reply
Plenty of highschool age girls are to me, a queer identified but for the most part hetero behaving dude, hot as heck (as in like sexually attractive). Plus I don't really think I'd feel any more or less guilty sleeping with one than I would many of the totally-unprepared-for-adult-decision-making college-age girls that I have in actual fact slept with (and often felt guilty about). I've often expressed this thought in all-male company with little challenge except from like middle-age dads, which o.k. fair enough.
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
February 16, 2012 10:26 PM | Posted by : | Reply
I slept with highschool age girls when I was in highschool and it wasn't like because I just didn't have enough access to twenty-somethings or w/e.
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
February 17, 2012 2:28 AM | Posted by : | Reply
I think Psychology can help for the confusions and the behavior of everyone around us.
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
April 8, 2012 11:52 AM | Posted by : | Reply
Can't they just include it as a disorder and be very careful about what their criteria is for that disorder? This does not strike me as being rocket science.
It's not difficult usually to tell in real life who has a criminal problem and who has a psych problem and who is just trying to get off, is it? Just, life in theories is problematic. Well, of course it is.
Welcome to the wonderful world of the brain, the idiot monkey.
Which is one reason why yeah, it should stay in the DSM. People do need to be discouraged from committing sex acts with kids and that's one way to do it.
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
April 8, 2012 1:49 PM | Posted by : | Reply
" then the only thing you need to know about him is that after he dies, psychiatry goes full Foucault...."
Not a Foucault fan, but are you saying that after he dies nobody bothers with debate one way or another anymore because they're just so over it? So it isn't in the DSM?
Why can't it just be: does psychiatry have a legitimate concern with hebephilia, yes or no? Obviously yes. So leave it in the DSM. Clearly it can be a problematic behavior, someone should be able to bill for it, maybe include it for civil commitments, which hardly ever happen, or if they do happen all the time for stupid reasons, why not write about that? The thing is, also, if someone's sexual attraction for young men or women is becoming readily apparent to the point that is brought up as compelling evidence for civil commitment, isn't it likely the hebephiliac has bigger issues then "just" a sexual attraction to young people of any gender?
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
April 8, 2012 11:58 PM | Posted by : | Reply
I’m still waiting for some interesting thoughts from your side in your next post thanks
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
April 11, 2012 3:33 PM | Posted by : | Reply
Only serious and unbiased scientific research can determine wether pedophilia or hebephilia are "normal". As a man, I can admit that many times I had found teenage girls attractive, but only because they looked older, case of the character Hermione in HP, and vice versa, case of the actress Alicia Silverstone, I don´t remember the name of the movie where she portrays a voluptuous 13 year old attracted to her family´s older tenant. In my early twnties I dated girls as young as 15... I married at 24 to a 17 year old girl. Today, Im 37 and may find teenage girls attractive, only if they look older, say twentish. But then a problem arises here, the problem of intelectual maturuty... I may find a girl phisically attractive, but if she´s not intellectually mature I lose interest. Nowadays Im ok with dating women from 19 and older, but never older than I am, unless they are hot, but the best age range is 22 to 30... younger than that are too naive and immature, older than that are too greedy and bitter. Never had fantasies over males, but I tend to find myself more confortable in the company and friendship of older men than me.
Now for the pre-pubescent cases at hand, I agree that they must be protected... if we don´t let them vote, or drive, they they shouldn´t have sex... intelectual maturity is the measure I supose, and the law makes an important decision in assuming intelectual maturity at 16-18, with no proof in the contrary.
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
April 11, 2012 5:06 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Human brains mature very slowly, last I checked at 25 you're an adult brain-wise based on critical thinking potential. Which is by no means a measure of a person's actual critical thinking skills let alone where they're at emotionally or psychologically.
It sounds like what you are saying is that you're not as attracted to the younger set anymore because of their lack of intellect as if that is some kind of achievement. Maybe it is an achievement for you, but it's significance seems debatable in light of the fact that you're 37 and find it acceptable to date 19 year olds.
I think you need help from a professional for a substantial period of time. Not necessarily for the 19 year olds---although that's a perfectly fine reason--- but for yourself too.
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
April 22, 2012 6:40 PM | Posted by : | Reply
Amazing how so many of us seem to completely understand human evolutionary biology- all 2 million years worth- with such certainty. Perhaps some of these urges and behaviours serve a purpose some of us haven't figured out yet, and maybe never will. Also amazing at the number of blanket statements like "women want to..", and "men are..". Boards of Education definitely need to make probability and applied statistics (with emphasis on genetic traits and diversity) mandatory curriculum starting in 3rd grade :D
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
May 10, 2012 3:57 AM | Posted by : | Reply
Comical. The fact that 14-15 was a traditional marriage age for girls, but not for boys, fails to factor into this frankly laborious analysis.
Please try again.
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
May 11, 2012 3:02 PM | Posted by : | Reply
I'm a bit confused.
In the evolutionary sense, yes, a woman wants to find the best provider she can for her children. The physical attributes of this man are secondary to his ability to provide/assist/protect.
She simultaneously wants the best possible biological father(s) for her children, though. The father (or the fathers) of the children need not be the same as the man who fulfills the role of the provider.
At the very least, it may behoove her to have her children fathered by more than one man because the best set of alleles to tie one's own with under certain environmental conditions may not be be the best if the environmental conditions change at some point. Better not to put all your eggs in one basket... So an occasional dalliance with a promising teenage boy makes sense for her, even if many of his expected good qualities have been heretofore largely unproven.
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
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