The size of a boy’s testicles, according to Dr. Laura Bachrach, is the gold standard for assessing the arrival of male puberty. What you do – for strictly scientific purposes, of course – is use an orchidometer, a string of oval wooden or plastic beads of increasing size. To use the device, you gently pull the testicle to the bottom of a boy’s scrotum and use touch and sight to find the bead that matches it in volume. Be careful not to squeeze*!
Pubic hair, by contrast is “very very misleading” because it is a later, less predictable indicator. You can try urine analysis (testing for the presence of sperm in urine), but that’s expensive. And you can just ask boys whether they ejaculate, but researchers understandably tend to be nervous about that these days, especially in the US, where a recent study confirmed a trend in recent times, long noted in girls, towards earlier puberty. It seems you can still just about get away with measuring testicles, though, if you slip the procedure into scheduled “well-child” health examinations.
What you definitely can’t do, if you want to determine the age of puberty hundreds of years ago, is jump aboard your Time Machine to go back in history and measure the testicles of boys in the Olden Days.
We can read about what ancient scholars thought, but it’s hardly science. Aristotle, well over two millennia ago had this to say on the subject:
When twice seven years old, in the most of cases, the male begins to engender seed; and at the same time hair appears upon the pubes, in like manner, so Alcmaeon of Croton remarks, as plants first blossom and then seed. About the same time, the voice begins to alter, getting harsher and more uneven, neither shrill as formerly nor deep as afterward, nor yet of any even tone, but like an instrument whose strings are frayed and out of tune; and it is called, by way of by-word, the bleat of the billy-goat. Now this breaking of the voice is the more apparent in those who are making trial of their sexual powers; for in those who are prone to lustfulness the voice turns into the voice of a man, but not so in the continent. [The History of Animals, Book VII, Part 1]
Armed with the modern knowledge that pubic hair is prone to give dodgy data, we need not be overly respectful of the great sage’s opinion, although we might be more so if his Method had been written up – especially on how he could tell the “lustful” boys from the “continent” ones, and what his sample size was.
My theory is that Aristotle and some medical authorities of classical times put the age of male puberty in those days too low. Only the wealthiest class could afford the services of a doctor: these boys would have been exceptionally well fed, and it is now known that a rich diet leads to puberty several years earlier than typically experienced by impoverished children of either sex. Likewise, Aristotle would surely have known less about the bodies of street ragamuffins than those of the athletic young lads whose naked bodies he saw regularly at the gymnasium – boys from prosperous families, whose fathers could afford to send them for training.
But we can do better than Aristotle. An ingenious recent study by Dr Joshua R. Goldstein gives us evidence of a steady long-term decline in age of male sexual maturity since at least the mid-eighteenth century using, believe it or not, mortality data from meticulous records kept in several countries.
In girls, the so-called “secular trend” toward younger menarche can be documented because individual health records recording first menstruation can be compared over time. For males, no comparable medical evidence exists. Goldstein’s study takes an indirect approach making use of the fact that all human populations studied show a rise in mortality among males toward the end of adolescence. This rise, caused by increases in violent, accidental, and disease mortality, is known as the “accident hump” and it coincides broadly with peak male hormone production. So if you can show a change in the age of the accident hump you have a strong indication of a changing age of sexual maturity. Clever, no?
The records for this purpose go back to 1751 in Sweden and the mid-nineteenth century in Denmark, Norway, the United Kingdom, and Italy.
For all countries, the timing of the accident hump fell steadily downward from the mid-eighteenth century to the mid-twentieth century. “Improved nutrition and disease environments, both of which have been shown to influence the production of testosterone, appear more plausible explanations for such long-term secular change than changing risk environment,” wrote Goldstein.
Goldstein and Aristotle appear to agree on one point: the significance of voice change. As Goldstein wrote:
An additional piece of evidence in favour of a biological explanation for the secular trend in the accident hump is that another correlate of male sexual maturity, age at voice change, has also shown secular change. Daw reports that age at voice change in the boys’ choir lead by J.S. Bach in Leipzig in the mid-eighteenth century averaged around 18 years, but that in twentieth century London age at voice change was closer to 13 years.
Now that is a whopping change, is it not? And this brings me to a key reason for Heretic TOC’s deliberations on the matter: there is a huge irony in the fact that the sexuality of the young is being ever more drastically denied and suppressed at a time when they have never been more sexually mature in physical terms.
Formal research confirms the picture. Studies give a range of outcomes depending on the method and the population surveyed, with racial differences being a factor. To take just one set of results over a lengthy time period up to the present in a single country, German researchers found that in 1860, the average age of the onset of puberty in girls was 16.6 years. In 1920, it was 14.6; in 1950, 13.1; 1980, 12.5; and in 2010, it had dropped to 10.5. A similarly declining age been reported for boys, albeit with their puberty occurring about one year later in each set of investigations.
It might have been expected that the trend to earlier puberty would have halted half a century ago in the developed countries, once children reliably began to experience the relative rich diet of modern times. But that has not happened, and ever-earlier puberty is now being linked to growing levels of childhood obesity.
Obesity is bad news for kids, of course, and ever-earlier puberty is terrible news for paedophiles too. As if things were not already bad enough for us, we now face the alarming possibility that real kids will disappear altogether. As soon as they stop being babies we’ll just be left with fat adolescents! Aaarrrgh! It’s every paedo’s worst nightmare! Maybe, with no children around, true paedos as opposed to hebephiles will also become extinct, thereby presenting the world with a fortuitously bloodless Final Solution to the paedo problem. But at what a price: grotesquely ugly fat kids, largely housebound, barely able to waddle around, and many of them suffering from obesity-related diseases such as diabetes. O brave new world!
Keep calm, though, we aren’t there yet. Unlike climate change, the problem is undeniable and there is a strong motivation to tackle it.
So let’s consider what puberty means in terms of a child’s awakening sexuality. The first point to note is vital and often overlooked: while there is certainly a correlation between the approach of puberty and increasing libido, it is nowhere near a one-to-one match. Some kids, for whatever reason, become highly sexual in early childhood, many years before puberty. Any number of examples could be given from sexual episodes observed between kindergarten kids (see Mickey and Maria make out in kindergarten) but my favourite of recent times is “queer kid” Noah Michelson’s personal account of his childhood lusts and longings in “Dancing In His Underwear for the Garbage Man”.
As for what is more “normal”, or usual, too little research has been undertaken. One recent study (Ostovich & Sabini) puts first recalled sexual arousal in men on average at 1.9 years before puberty. This study relies, unreliably, on asking men to think backwards from when they first noticed having pubic hair. Even allowing for inaccuracy, though, it is plain there is usually a substantial period of around two years during which boys are significantly sexual not just as preteens but even before they hit double figures. Thus they will typically still be prepubescent (Stage 1 on the Tanner Scale: small genitals and no pubic hair at all) at the age when typically they have already experienced sexual arousal. In my case it was definitely three years. How about you?
It is often incorrectly assumed that all the major developments of sexual maturation take place during pubescence (typically from 11-14): enlargement of the genitals, pubic hair, breast growth and menstruation in girls, sperm secretion and ejaculation in boys. But there are major changes going on beforehand, beginning with a “mini-puberty” known as adrenarche around ages 6-8, as Heretic TOC noted last year in The magical age of 10?
In that blog I was reporting on a paper published in 2000. Another study, just out, is “Middle childhood: An evolutionary-developmental synthesis”, by Marco del Giudice, a researcher known to me through Sexnet. Free full-text download. Those with a particular interest in the evolutionary aspect can read about it from the man himself.
Briefly, adrenarche is when the adrenal glands begin to secrete increasing amounts of androgens. These can convert to the sex hormones oestrogen or testosterone in the brain, where they have powerful effects on sexual brain development and functioning. Adrenarche provides the brain’s framework for the different sexual psychology of boys and girls, which is then followed by gonadarche, when boys’ testes and girls’ ovaries are awakened at the beginning of puberty.
Thus there is lots going on inside sexually before it becomes visibly apparent outside.
“It is no coincidence,” we are told, “that the first sexual and romantic attractions typically develop in middle childhood, in tandem with the intensification of sexual play.”
Now, here’s a thing no one seems to have focused on: if the age of puberty is falling, then presumably so is the age of adrenarche that leads to it. If so, then the “sexual and romantic attractions” of prepubertal children are being experienced and undergoing “intensification” earlier.
I leave heretics here to ponder the implications.
*Legal disclaimer: this is a JOKE. Heretic TOC is not advocating unauthorized examinations.
[…] our ancestors did not get to live long enough to have the luxury of delaying reproduction.”And as Filip noted here, the age of puberty is steadily getting lower, so the age to which adult males are attracted may […]
Digging up more data as exhaustively as I can:
Here 1868-skirt-lengths-girl-ages-Harpers-Bazar.gif is a US chart from 1868 showing the recommended length for little girls’ skirts at various ages. The skirts hit full length when the girl hits sixteen. Was that the age at which significant growth was expected to stop? Today’s girls usually don’t grow much after they get to be about fourteen. Anne of Green Gables (1908, but set in the 1870s I think) had a big growth spurt at fourteen, whereupon Mrs Lynde told her that if she kept growing as much the next year she’d be “all running to legs and eyes” and would have to put on long skirts; Anne felt that this would mark the end of her being a little girl. On the other hand, if in that chart skirt length were correlated with growth rate, we’d expect the difference between skirt length at fourteen and at sixteen or at twelve and at fourteen (pubertal growth spurt) to be greater than the difference between skirt length at eight and at ten (steady pre-pubertal growth). But the skirt lengthens by the same amount over each of those two-year periods. And today’s girls tend to keep looking quite childish in the face for a couple of years after they reach full size…which brings us to about sixteen.
A twelve-year-old decides she’s too old for dolls in Rachel Field’s Hitty, Her First Hundred Years (published 1929, this part set in the 1860s. It was my favourite book when I was eight). In Frances Hodgson Burnett’s A Little Princess (1905), Sara Crewe is given a doll for her eleventh birthday, and knows that this’ll be her last doll, since soon she’ll be too old for them; however, she also comments that all of her schoolmates like dolls, though “some of the big ones — the almost fifteen ones — pretend they are too grown up”. The girls in Susan Coolidge’s Katy and Clover books (1872-1890) hit what we would recognise as adolescence at perhaps fourteen. The insufferable cousin in E. Nesbit’s Return of the Treasure Seekers (1904) is always feeling to see if his moustache has begun growing in, though he’s only fourteen. There’s a US poet of the early- to mid-1800s whose name I have forgotten but whose charming verse about ten-year-old girls I remember. His poem ‘The Seven Ages of Girlhood’ lists those seven ages as two, four, eight, twelve, fifteen, sixteen and eighteen. At twelve, the girl is “a saucy teaze/who knows full well her glances rankle” but is still wearing knee-length skirts; at fifteen, she is what we would recognise as a dreamy adolescent; at eighteen, she is ready to “either sell her heart for gold/Or give it for a golden fetter!”
Which reminds me of Sweet Sixteen parties for US girls and the Latin American equivalent for a girl’s fifteenth birthday. There is no equivalent party for boys; the point of the celebration is clearly to signal that a girl is now available for sexual advances, including from considerably older men. In times past people admitted this more openly: take Neil Sedaka’s 1961 song ‘Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen’, the lyrics of which give me the heebie-jeebies: “My little tomboy now wears satin and lace…/Since you’re all grown up, your future is sewn up/From now on you’re going to be mine…” It’s no coincidence that birthday bashes of this sort are dying out in much of the US but still going strong in Latin America, where the culture is much more patriarchal. Funny but infuriating: a Latina friend told me that the year her friends were having their fifteenth birthday dos, her father made her brother accompany her to every one in order to chaperone her and make sure she didn’t do anything awful like kiss a boy. Her brother was ten at the time! She, however, asked her father not to spend all that money on a party, but save it and buy her a car (where they live it’s hard and dangerous to get around without one) when she started university. She’s now an engineer and married. Anyway, the point of this whole digression: back when the custom started, the girls being presented as newly-minted objects of sexual desire would probably have been in an earlier stage of puberty than they are now.
More evidence from the 1990 Lautmann book: one man interviewed recalled an encounter with some girls at a swimming pool when he’d grabbed a twelve-year-old’s breasts, then run across a thirteen-year-old who didn’t yet have breasts or pubic hair, but was saying, “Oh, I already have breasts, I already have hair.”
Walter de la Mare was still a St Paul’s choirboy at sixteen in 1889, while Laurence Oates apparently impregnated an eleven-year-old right around the turn of the twentieth century. Ralph Chubb, boy-loving poet and engraver, recalled his puberty as starting at around age twelve (1904). Of course, all three could have been outliers. The personal accounts in Havelock Ellis’s Sexual Inversion (1896) are as good a source as any. Boys: three could ejaculate and had pubic hair at twelve, but this is considered very early puberty; two began to ejaculate at fourteen; one began to ejaculate at fifteen, one first grew pubic hair at fifteen, and one, as he neared fifteen, was nearing puberty. Additionally, one man explained that in his youth he was attracted to young boys and very old men and that boys after the age of fourteen or fifteen ceased to attract him, particularly when they began growing pubic hair. Girls: one first menstruated at twelve, another at thirteen. This may support the idea that middle-class children were hitting puberty earlier than working-class ones, due to a better diet and less physical labour.
A wider data pool is provided by boy-loving journalist Michael Davidson, who’d had sex in more countries than most people ever will, in his 1970 memoir Some Boys. The onset of male puberty, he says, occurred at 12-15 in all the countries he visited. Boy-loving teacher Peter Gamble bears this out in his The More We Are Together: Memoirs of a Wayward Life, with descriptions of fourteen- and fifteen-year-olds he met during the Second World War still being high-voiced and smooth-cheeked.
Despite Davidson’s conviction to the contrary, is there any evidence that puberty occurs earlier in hotter climates? If I recall correctly, the current average age of menarche is about 13.0 in Iceland and the Netherlands but about 12.5 in the southern US. Of course, in the southern US almost any samply is going to include a far higher proportion of black girls, and we do know for sure that black girls on average reach puberty about six months earlier than white girls, with Latina girls being intermediate between black and white.
And to end on a sentimental note: One of Francis Edwin Murray’s ‘Rondeaux of Boyhood’ (1923), mourns over a beloved boy’s fifteenth birthday. It begins, “The passing-bell for your dead years/Is tolling…” and ends with the poet anticipating the imminent arrival of a day when “my boy’s love no longer cheers/My life. His eyes will one day see/Some one to love far more than me./Who is it, guess, that my pitch queers?/The passing belle!”
More quick thoughts:
I’m wondering where these German researchers got their data. I doubt there were any systematic studies such as Tanner’s being done in the 1860s, and relying on anecdotal reports has its perils. The age of menarche in 1600s England is generally agreed to have been 15-17, but a contemporary midwife, Jane Sharp, said it was about fourteen, and she may have been the likeliest person to know. Also, while France is not Germany, this bears mentioning: In David Sweetman’s compendious biography of Gauguin, we read that in the 1890s, Gauguin’s landlady’s little daughter, just turned thirteen, fell head over heels in love with the forty-something painter. Recalling the episode as an adult, she wrote that at that point she had “newborn breasts” which the hebephilic Gauguin liked to fondle.
Data from immediately after the Second World War in Germany have to be taken with a grain of salt, because everyone was so malnourished (as were many in the 1800s, of course), and that delays puberty — girls have to hit a certain weight and stay there before they can start menstruating, and today young female gymnasts, whose sport requires an extremely high strength-to-weight ratio, tend to go through puberty late (just have a look at the Youtube videos of fourteen-year-old Nadia Comaneci). 12.5 as the average age of onset of puberty in 1980s Germany does raise my eyebrows slightly, and seems to contradict the expert testimony of a German paedophile quoted in Lautmann’s Attraction to Children, which was published in 1990. He was most attracted to a girl, he said, when “I can fully see what’s what. Her most beautiful spot has not yet fully sprouted. Of course, it begins to at thirteen or fourteen; at eleven it’s sparse, at twelve you can really see something. Fine, a few pubic hairs, that doesn’t bother me; but what I like most is, as they say in the vernacular, naked pussy. Thus with a fourteen-year-old I can no longer get it up.” Bear in mind that pubic hair growth is typically, though not always, the second stage in female puberty, following breast budding. Then, a quick look at some films from the 1970s — e.g. Melody, La Drôlesse and Cría Cuervos, which are English, French and Spanish respectively — shows us eleven-year-old actresses with quite a lot of breast development already, while on the other hand the star of the 2011 French film Tomboy was still prepubescent at eleven. To confuse matters yet further, I read recently that some paediatricians are having trouble distinguishing kids with breast budding from plain old fat prepubescent kids!
Still, it’s clear that the age of puberty has fallen. Frits Bernard’s 1975-1977 research on the Dutch little-girl mag Lolita revealed that even those men attracted exclusively to prepubescent girls in no case listed a ceiling age for their attraction of less than eleven. You wouldn’t see that now, I don’t think: recently I came across a comment by a girl-lover who remarked sadly that he used to be attracted to girls 6-12, but now, because of the drop in the onset of puberty, it’s more like 5-10. Somebody’s posted the second instalment of Michael Apted’s 7 Up series, 7 Plus Seven, on Youtube. Forty-four years after it was first released, it makes very striking watching: while the fourteen-year-old girls look as big and busty as those of today, the fourteen-year-old boys look and sound like today’s thirteen- or even twelve-year-old boys.
There’s much debate among musicologists as to just who Bach’s boy sopranos were, with some maintaining that he had plenty of sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds with unbroken voices, while others maintain, based on a careful study of church records, that the typical age of voice break at that time was around fifteen or even fourteen. Boys’ choirs these days, however, are definitely having trouble. The choristers of St Thomas’s Church Fifth Avenue in New York City used to be 10-14. Then the age of admission to the choir school was lowered and they were 9-14. Now, because voices are breaking earlier, the age of admission has had to be lowered again, and the boys are 8-14. The Escolanía de Montserrat in Catalonia and the American Boychoir in Princeton, New Jersey still seem to be managing all right with the 10-14 age group, but Edward Higginbottom, who directs the Choir of New College, Oxford, is in no doubt that the age of voice break has fallen. Boys leave the choir at the end of the school year in which they are turning thirteen, and he estimates that at that point about a quarter of them are showing signs of voice change. Research on the boys of the Copenhagen Royal Chapel Choir, which boys join at age eight, found that for boys joining in 1990-1992, the average age of the first signs of voice change observed at weekly voice assessments was 14.0; for the 1993-1994 cohort, the average age was 14.2; for 1995-1996, it was 14.2 as well; for 1995-1997, it was 13.7. That’s a statistically significant downward trend, but admittedly the sample size is small and we’re only looking at a seven-year period.
Things may not be as bleak as all that, however: some researchers apparently feel that the age of menarche, at least, has gone as low as it can, and will get no lower. That remains to be seen…
Fantastic info, A. Any idea about age of puberty in ancient Greece?. We had a little tussle over whether Aristotle was right (as you will see if you search the comments for his name).
No idea, I’m afraid, except what we can infer from the knowledge that the ideal homoerotic relationship was supposed to be with an adolescent boy, and I can find no poems written about boys younger than twelve. Even that old reprobate Strato of Sardis considered a twelve-year-old “green grapes”, albeit sexually provocative and sexually experienced. I did once see a study (will try to find it again) which claimed, from a careful study of the ancient writers, that the average age of voice change in the ancient world was 14.5. However, as the authors themselves admitted, “the ancient world” covers a massive range in time and space. James points out that diets differed between East and West Germany: they probably differed between the Greek city-states as well. Then again, the age at which a boy can no longer sing treble or alto may depend partly on how he is trained. The big champion of this view is a guy named Stephen Beet, who maintains that German-style voice training leads to an earlier voice break, whereas the mid-teen British trebles of the early and middle 20th century were taught to sing in a “floating head tone” that preserved the upper singing register for longer, even after the change of the speaking voice.
About Germany in the 1860s: surely, if girls were indeed being examined for pubertal characteristics, they would have been working-class girls, accustomed to a relatively poor diet and relatively heavy physical labour. Nobody would have dared to conduct such an indelicate examination with a middle-class girl, who, with her better diet and less physical work, might well have reached puberty earlier.
Which leads me to a third line of inquiry. In Oscar Wilde and Sherlock Holmes, fourteen-year-olds are referred to as “little girls”. John Ruskin called a fifteen-year-old a “little girl” and a thirteen-year-old a “little child” and wrote to Rose La Touche complaining that when she was eleven, twelve and thirteen she’d kissed him whenever he wanted, “and it was so nice you can’t think”, but when she was fourteen she’d begun kissing him less and now, aged fifteen, she hardly kissed him at all. Lewis Carroll photographed one of his favourite girl models over a span of more than twelve years, beginning when she was four and ending when she was sixteen. It seems that kids stayed in the social category of “little girl”, which permitted them to have affectionate relationships with much older men, for quite a bit longer than they do today.
Did this have something to do with earlier puberty? How much earlier, though, was the puberty of these upper-middle-class girls, with their rich diet and fairly sedentary existence? The girl-loving Victorian vicar and diarist Francis Kilvert was very struck by the beauty of a child he saw lying naked on the beach, describing her as aged ten or twelve with “budding breasts”. He did have a weakness for plump little girls, though. Could you just not see those budding breasts under all those petticoats? At the time there was quite a strict sartorial separation between girls and women, with the former wearing shorter skirts and their hair down. Did those clear visual markers of childhood, which may have been worn simply for a fixed number of years, trump whatever womanly figure may have been developing under them? Or did all this have little to do with puberty and much more to do with the Victorians’ lack of our concept of adolescence? Mark Twain decided that schoolgirls would age out of his “angelfish club” either when they turned sixteen or when they were no longer schoolgirls. The social status of schoolgirl, which clearly delineated what was and wasn’t permissible, was more important to him than age.
LATER puberty, I meant, of course…!
Sounds interesting, although I guess they had to scour the entire “ancient world” to get a decent sample size, albeit with the downside you have mentioned.
“Even that old reprobate Strato of Sardis considered a twelve-year-old “green grapes”, albeit sexually provocative and sexually experienced.”
Actually this statement is based on a sloppy translation in the Loeb classics. The opening line in this one of his poems (number 4 of his Musa Puerilis) should read “I delight in the prime of a boy in his twelfth year”, ie. eleven. The operative word is d?de??t???, which means twelfth, not twelve. If you read further down the Loeb mistranslation, “thirteen” [should be thirteenth] is followed by “fourteen” [should be fourteenth], followed by “one who is just beginning his fifteenth year”, ie. only just fourteen, which doesn’t make sense as translated.
Edmund Marlowe, author of Alexander’s Choice, a novel.
Thanks for the correction. I can’t read Greek, so I’d never have known.
I was thinking of a poem about the boy next door, which, in the translation I’m familiar with, goes something like “He’s not more than twelve years old…Now, the green grapes are unguarded/When they ripen, there’ll be fences…” Do you know the one I mean, and is that translation more or less correct?
Sorry I misunderstood which poem you meant. The one I now think you must mean is number 205 translated by Loeb as:
“My neighbour’s quite tender young boy provokes me not a little, and laughs in no novice manner to show me that he is willing. But he is not more than twelve years old. Now the unripe grapes are unguarded; when he ripens there will be watchmen and stakes.”
In this case the “he is not more than twelve years old” is a literal translation.
Taken together, the two poems suggest to me that boys of 11-12 were just old enough to attract Strato, but were not quite old enough to be a generally expected subject of amorous attention. Would you agree with that?
Seems like a reasonable interpretation. Maybe Strato’s preferences were a bit uncommon even for the time 🙂
Yup, sounds about right. Thank you.
You have an amazingly detailed knowledge of pedophilic literature – poems and letters from centuries ago! Is there some general archive you’re getting this from or have you just read every single book?
Thanks, but though I have an absorbing interest in the whole history of pederasty (not really pedophilia as such), my specialist knowledge is confined to Greek and Roman. I’ve only read a tiny amount of comparable Japanese, Chinese, Persian and Arabic literature, and am ignorant of these languages. Fortunately, most Greek and Latin texts are accessible online.
I’d originally been responding to A but I’d say the compliment is also quite true of you 🙂
Besides the Classical ones, how many languages do you know?
Two others besides English. Sorry, it can be hard to know what is a reply to which comment.
Forgot Dostoyevsky: someone of fifteen, rising sixteen, is still a “little girl”, albeit old enough to be betrothed to Svidrigailov, whose desire for her is portrayed as disgusting.
It’s not just the girls, either: in the last of the Tom Sawyer books, Tom Sawyer, Detective, Tom is fourteen, almost fifteen, but still playing pretend games. Huck Finn is thirteen or fourteen in the novel bearing his name, and I recently overheard a group of teenagers, who were reading the book in school, exclaim in surrpise on finding this out: they’d thought Huck must be twelve. E. Nesbit’s boys and girls are still playing pretend at twelve and thirteen, and this at a time when less-privileged children left school at thirteen. Compare with the late-90s comic-book-based Swedish TV series Eva och Adam, about the love affair, friendships and activities of an eleven-year-old boy and girl. The two don’t play as such any longer: instead their time is filled with structured activities such as drama group, music lessons, football, choir, trips to the beach and the swimming pool. Adolescence is swallowing up childhood in more ways than the purely physical.
Another Swedish TV series from the early nineties on the same theme is “Ebba and Didrik”, about the friendship between nine year old Ebba and twelve year old Didrik, and Didrik’s love-affair with twenty-three year old Yrla. My impression was that “Eva and Adam” was quite tame in comparison! One of the characters (Philip, unhappily in love with Ebba) was played by Malik Bendjelloul. He went on to write and direct the Oscar-winning documentary “Searching for Sugar Man”. Tragically (and messily), he died last year by jumping in front of a metro train in Stockholm.
Oh gosh, I loved the series but never knew that about Bendjelloul. How sad.
Yes it is terribly sad. I used to identify so much with the 11-year old Philip in that series. He was the outsider, he tried so hard but never quite found what he was looking for. Have you seen “Sugar Man”?
By the way, I was wrong about Ebba and Didrik being friends, they were brother and sister.
No, never seen it, but I will now.
Hope you enjoy it.
On the theme of things to watch:
“Friday Night Dinner”. Always a favourite, but this summer’s episode “The girlfriend” (8 year old girl flirts very blatantly with Adam) made me almost forgive the BBC for its recent political correctness: Till I noticed this was in fact Channel 4!
“Äkta människor” (Real people). Don’t know how widely known this TV-series is outside Scandinavia. Set in the present day or near future, the story is about robots “hubots” almost indistinguishable from people, widely available as home-helps, and their struggle for recognition as people with rights. The idea of relationships/sex with hubots is never far away, there is a hubot-brothel, and there was at least a suggestion of a black-market for child “hubots”.
Cool! Sci-fi certainly tickles my fancy, as implied by which author I previously recommended 🙂
It occurs to me now that many of the questions raised in that sci-fi series must be part of every-day life in parts of the world where it is common to employ servants in private homes. They may not be robots without rights but they are perhaps treated as such, some times. And the idea of little hubots catering to the needs of paedos, well, the mind boggles….. The current manga debate would be rather tame in comparison.
>The current manga debate would be rather tame in comparison.
Indeed! See Forbes article below, which is interesting although dodgy on US law.
Are Child Sex-Robots Inevitable?
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/07/14/are-child-sex-robots-inevitable/
Extract:
Ron Arkin, Georgia Tech’s Mobile Robot Lab director, while speaking on a robot ethics panel at Berkeley on Friday. “But how will we deal with robot intimacy? Will we consider it beastiality? Could we use it to treat sex offenders?”
Arkin said that while he doesn’t approve of child sex bots for recreational use, he’d like to see them used for research purposes. “Child-like robots could be used for pedophiles the way methadone is used to treat drug addicts,” said Arkin.
“Child-like robots could be used for pedophiles the way methadone is used to treat drug addicts”
Sign me up please 🙂
Machine-ethicists are so wierd. If it’s not sentient what, exactly, is the issue? If it’s ok for sex-offenders to use, what’s the problem with recreational use? It’s all so ridiculous.
Slightly tongue in cheek: If human kids saw what fun hubot kids were having, they might migrate towards the same behaviour. This might be considered a potential destabiliser. So outlaw child hubots to be on the safe side.
“If human kids saw what fun hubot kids were having, they might migrate towards the same behaviour.”
This could have several meanings:
1: Kids see sex happening, realize sex is great, and try it out.
Don’t think we need hubots for this.
2: Hubots display all the behavioural signs a human would associate with pleasure so kids decide this must actually be pleasurable.
Can’t fault the conclusion but the logic is shaky. The behaviours displayed by the hubots would be pre-programmed and there’s no reason to assume that the apparent enjoyment would hold for humans. After all, it’s not like they’re sentient… right?
3: Ha ha! Just kidding! Hubots are actually self-aware beings with moral value!
OH MY GOD, NO NO NO NO!!!
To flog this thread even more thoroughly to death:
The hubots would have to be made available on the National Health, but only the entry level model. Add-ons available with private health insurance would include Girl Friend Experience modules enabling the patient to enjoy hikes, philosophical discussions etc. with his little friend. Hubots would be programmed to be not too eager, a certain reticence being an important element of therapy. However, as with mopeds, a simple tweak would enable the hubot’s latent resources to the full.
To continue this thread-abuse:
If this is under NHS, that implies it’s medicine. I was thinking more along the lines of entertainment. Is there entertainment insurance?
Also: Girlfriend Experience comes with philosophical discussions? Cool! However, I have to wonder whether this is something you’d expect of, y’know, an actual girlfriend. Most people aren’t all that into philosophical discussions. (Thankfully, my GF is the exceptional 1%!)
“If this is under NHS, that implies it’s medicine
Well the idea was likened to methadone for treating heroin addiction earlier in the thread…
“Girlfriend Experience comes with philosophical discussions?”
In my experience yes! And thankfully I can generally keep up (note my AoA) unlike here where I’m often well out of the loop 🙂
unlike here where I’m often well out of the loop
Me, too, especially with young James around 🙂
@TOC
LOL. Let’s remember that only one of us has a degree in philosophy, and it ain’t me!
A., you make it all sound such fun. If you were my teacher I promise I wouldn’t skip a single class.
Where I live paedos of my AoA proudly (but admittedly not so publicly) announce themselves as Seven Elevens. To the relief of the convenience stores in question I suppose we might have to rebrand.
Thank you! 🙂
Rebrand as…Seven Tens? Seven Nines? Doesn’t quite have the same ring, does it, and if pubertal onset keeps dropping you’ll soon be Seven Sevens!
Might I suggest you trouble another franchise by re-branding as the Secret Seven?
James, full of surprises as usual. You mean, apart from all your other merits, you are into Enid Blyton? Is Enid Blyton popular in your part of the world? I remember avidly devouring the Famous Five books, but you are right, the Secret Seven could be just the brand I need. I will cycle straight down to the local library and ask the friendly librarian what she has. Will report back:)
Love Enid Blyton! When I was much younger I received a set of her books (physical and audio CDs) from my British relatives and they were wonderful 🙂
At my school (the British period of my life, sigh!) her books were banned for having no literary merit, so the younger kids would devour them in secret. Older kids wanting to improve their political and sexual awareness would turn instead to pornography. The more thoughtful of us would scour the school for illicit copies of The Little Red Schoolbook. Thank you Denmark! But hang on… Enid Blyton, racist, elitist, sexist… as in Dick to George: “it’s really time you gave up thinking you’re as good as a boy”? Your UK relatives sent you the complete works? They were trying to tell you something?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Red_Schoolbook
My local library has only one Enid Blyton in English, Five on a Treasure Island. I will enjoy.
I didn’t get the complete works. I just got a couple Secret Seven books. I never noticed any racism or sexism, though the classism was obvious. Of course, being in a family full of Marxists, I doubt that could have affected me much.
(It’s quite possible the racism/sexism just flew over my head…)
Ok, my comment wasn’t very seriously meant, hope you didn’t take offence. Young kids don’t read these books in the same way as adults. But it’s true, Blyton’s work was actually banned in some schools and libraries. She managed to annoy people just about everywhere on the political spectrum.
“She managed to annoy people just about everywhere on the political spectrum.”
I usually take that to be a point in someone’s favour!
Good point!
Last word, string is becoming too narrow: I have unexpectedly found a paedo-friendly quote in “Five on a Treasure Island”.
“When Anne awoke she couldn’t at first think where she was. She lay in her little bed and looked up at the slanting ceiling, and at the red roses that nodded at the open window – and suddenly remembered all in a rush where she was! ‘I’m at Kirrin Bay- and it’s the holidays!’ she said to herself, and screwed up her legs in joy.”
Indeed!
BTW: Your email hasn’t arrived for some reason. Maybe you could try re-submitting your comment on LoaP with extra white-space to fool the spam-filter into thinking it’s original. If the filter is smarter than that, you could change some of the wording.
Spooky! Maybe it got cought up in junkmail? Sender is a different name but subject would have given a clue. But silly me, of course I could try to repost at loap, now you mention it. Later today.
“12.5 as the average age of onset of puberty in 1980s Germany”
East or West? They had noticeably different diets.
“2011 French film Tomboy”
Completely unrelated to anything: I really loved that movie! Particularly the scene where they craft a fake penis/bulge to go swimming. Reminds me of myself in reverse.
“I read recently that some paediatricians are having trouble distinguishing kids with breast budding from plain old fat prepubescent kids!”
If they’re having trouble, couldn’t they directly assess the level of sex hormones with a blood test?
Anyway, hope it’s not too tangential/personal: what’s your age-of-attraction range?
Data on puberty are commonly gathered from routine checkups, I think, and I doubt they do routine blood tests for sex hormones. They probably only do them if precocious or delayed puberty is suspected.
So glad you liked Tomboy! Sciamma’s first film Naissance des Pieuvres (Water Lilies) is well worth seeing too.
I’m typically most attracted to boys and girls aged around 7-14/15. I take puberty in my stride! You?
I prefer 20s, thank you 🙂
I’m an adult-attracted-minor.
Nice to have you here. 🙂
Thanks 🙂
Same to you!
(Hello, I’m back…) A few quick thoughts:
— Puberty is actually rather a long process, or rather, it has a long tail, so to speak: while the main events are indeed over rather quickly, there is an extensive period in the middle and later teens during which the finishing touches are still being added: girls’ cervixes are maturing, for example, boys’ facial hair is beginning to grow, and both sexes are filling and broadening out a bit and acquiring extra bits of body hair — boys, of course, to a greater extent than girls.
— Women are most fertile in their early twenties. I’m not very informed about these things, but I wonder if this was also the case for the earliest of our species, and if so, what it means in evo-psych terms. Is it some sort of bonus to make up for the injuries and illnesses someone who survived that long would probably have acquired by then?
— As to the rare “affliction” of being attracted to four-year-old girls, I’m not convinced it’s all that rare. It appears that, for whatever reason, attraction to very young children is more common among girl-loving men than among boy-loving men. Sure, pretty much any reasonable person anywhere would never condone sexual intercourse between a man and a four-year-old, but fortunately there are many other ways of having sex.
— I strongly agree with Tom’s main point that sexual desire and sexual activity can and do start happening well before puberty. There are certainly reports of prepubescent children of seven and eight consenting to and enjoying sexual contact with adults. I also feel that puberty is no kind of measure of cognitive or psychological maturity at all. These days, there are nine-year-old girls who have breasts, lots of body hair, rounded hips and a regular period: not many, to be sure, but enough so that it’s considered within the normal range. These kids are no more mentally or emotionally mature than their prepubescent coevals. Likewise, those fourteen-year-old girls who are still in the early stages of puberty are no less mentally or emotionally mature than their well-developed agemates. We really can’t rely on puberty to tell us much at all about what a kid is or isn’t ready for.
— This all presents a bit of a practical problem, doesn’t it? It appears, e.g. from Rüdiger Lautmann’s book Attraction to Children and Bruce Rind’s recent reanalysis of the Kinsey reports, that it is possible, and not vanishingly uncommon, for girls of twelve and thirteen to enjoy intercourse with men. I’ve seen no reports of girls any younger than twelve enjoying it. I have also seen two studies, one British and one American, which separately found that girls tend to become consistent and correct in their contraceptive use to the same extent as adult women at about the age of fifteen. (Seems nobody bothered to study the boys who are the other half of the equation. The other thing is that this is about all types of contraception: older teenaged girls on contraceptive pills, specifically, tend to keep on forgetting to take them at higher rates than do adult women. So would you in their shoes.) Some of this could well be due to poor sex ed., but my hunch is that a lot of it’s down to mental maturation processes that simply can’t be sped up.
So what do we do, in an ideal world, about that alarming and relatively new phenomenon, the Fertile Gap? In the interests of sexual self-determination, I would not want to forbid sexual intercourse to the under-fifteens. Simply giving young teen girls a contraceptive injection or implant and sending them on their merry is no kind of a solution, since while those methods work well for some people, they can have unpleasant and unpredictable side-effects. Part of sexual self-determination is getting access to and information about all contraceptive methods and being allowed to pick whichever one(s) work(s) best for you at the moment. I’ve wondered about a set of laws that’d look roughly like this: As a general rule, no sexual intercourse between anyone sixteen or over and anyone under twelve, but examine cases on their own merits, so that if a sixteen-year-old boy had intercourse with an eleven-year-old girl that they both maintained was consensual, he wouldn’t be in any serious trouble. Anyone at least twelve but less than sixteen (rather than fifteen, to allow for later mental bloomers) may have intercourse with anyone they choose, but there is a presumption that in the last count the responsibility for contraception and STI prevention falls entirely on the shoulders of their partner if that partner is four or more years older. E.g., if a thirteen-year-old boy and a seventeen-year-old girl decide to go at it, and he doesn’t want to use a condom, it’s up to her to insist. (They make “female” [inside] condoms nowadays.) If she doesn’t insist, she can get into hot water. From sixteen you get to make your own decisions about reproduction and about STI risks. Bear in mind that I have no legal knowledge at all and thus no idea if such a system would be practicable.
— On puberty in the ancient world: there’s a long Roman poem (can’t find the dadburned thing) about a master’s lament for his beloved boy slave, who, at fifteen, was beginning to fill out and look more manly. For what it’s worth, a poem by Abu Nuwas and one from Britain in the early middle ages both describe boys of fifteen and sixteen as just beginning to grow facial hair.
Welcome back, A! Hope you had an interesting and fruitful time away. Thanks for this very typically informative and thought-provoking contribution.
“Welcome back, A!”
Seconded!
And thank you too!
Thank you! I did indeed.
Welcome back! How was your trip?
“Puberty is actually rather a long process”
Very true! Do we know much about how the age at which puberty ends has changed? Is puberty getting longer or shorter? Tom joked about a pedophile’s nightmare where adolescence starts extremely early; is there a hebephile’s paradise where it never ends? 🙂
” I wonder if this was also the case for the earliest of our species, and if so, what it means in evo-psych terms. Is it some sort of bonus to make up for the injuries and illnesses someone who survived that long would probably have acquired by then?”
My guess is that it would take a long time for everything to develop and that, at the end of this, the body’s resources can be primarily devoted to fertility. Then, after the peak, it starts caring more and more about maintenance for what’s been built. This is just a hypothesis, of course, and bears investigation.
“These kids are no more mentally or emotionally mature than their prepubescent coevals.”
Are you sure? I wouldn’t expect much of a difference (or which direction it would point in) but, in social science, everything seems to correlate with everything else. We already know that varying hormone patterns are linked to intelligence (eg: people with high IQs have more androgynous digit ratios). Has any research been done on this in particular?
“but my hunch is that a lot of it’s down to mental maturation processes that simply can’t be sped up.”
My inner bio-determinist desperately wants to throw chemical cocktails at teens and see if it makes them more consistent. Damn medical ethics 😛
Very good trip, thanks!
Some great questions and thoughts. I’ve no idea if the process of puberty is getting longer or shorter, and I like your peak-fertility hypothesis. The closest thing I’m aware of to research on the cognitive effects of pubertal timing is a recent British study which found that girls who started menstruating more than one standard deviation earlier than average, that is before age eleven years six months, were more likely than the average of all their cohort to be depressed at age fourteenish. Nobody knows whether this is due to longer hormone exposure or to the sometimes serious social fallout of early female puberty or to some combination of both.
“study which found that girls who started menstruating more than one standard deviation earlier than average … were more likely than the average of all their cohort to be depressed at age fourteenish.”
My first reaction would be to point at the abnormal hormone pattern (or genes that might be causing both) but that’s just my bio-determinism speaking. I wouldn’t rule out social causes.
About attraction to four-year-olds: I’ve just read a post on the Paraphilias Forums in which somebody mentions Japanese “gravure idols” or “junior idols”, a flourishing, legal, largely socially acceptable category of photos and videos which, so I’m told, show girls and occasionally boys wearing skimpy clothes and striking sexy poses. According to the poster, they are listed in four age groups: 15-17, 10-14, 6-9…and under 6. According to Wikipedia, one such child “started her modeling career at age two and many other idols have starred in image DVDs at the ages of three, four and five.”
Just checked online and came up with study by researchers from Bristol Royal Infirmary which totally bears out Edmund’s claim that evidence from skeletons shows 10th century people were as tall as us.
Ironically, though, it also supports late puberty, which the skeleton evidence was supposed to refute!
See here:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-457506/Myth-debunked-Our-medieval-ancestors-just-tall-says-new-study.html#ixzz3EnpoUiML
(Myth debunked: Our medieval ancestors were just as tall as us says a new study)
Quote:
Ten-year-olds measured on average 18cm or 7in shorter than today. Puberty was delayed beyond 15 and they continued to grow later than today’s teenagers.
NB This is a reply to James, about Edmund. Thread was too thin. Also, this research may be of interest to others, besides James & Edmund.
Thank you! However, a thousand curses on the Mail for not citing the damn study! I hate it when news outlets do this! My ‘standard procedure’ is to examine the study directly (or, if paywalled, the abstract) to figure out for sure what the study says. Media reports on science are so unreliable. I tried finding the actual study myself and, although I was able to find some studies on the skeletons (like this one), I was unable to locate anything on height. Luckily, I was able to find another study which seems to take this premise as given and even states that its estimate is “[b]ased on a modest sample of skeletons from northern Europe”. This seems to mesh well with the claims in the article but this study is paywalled so I can’t get at its citation section.
Anyway, working on what little information was in the article, my inner statistics nerd was able identify two possible confounders:
1) The sample was geographically limited. I can’t say for sure what this will correlate with since I don’t know much about what Barton upon Humber was like during Anglo-Saxon times. However, I’d be a bit cautious about generalising across all of Britain.
2) They were only able to examine the skeletons that didn’t decay during the intervening centuries. This would have likely selected for people buried in hardwood coffins which, in turn, would have selected for the relatively wealthy. It’s possible that they controlled for this (though I can’t guess how) but I’ll never know because the Daily Mail couldn’t list one bloody citation!
*Rage*
Regardless, I’ll be updating my priors in favor of Edmund’s claim.
Some further info. can be gleaned from Google Books, where a detailed report on the skeletons appears as a chapter in a book by Drinkall & Foreman on the entire archaeological project at the site. Unfortunately, not all pages are available to read at this URL.
See here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Peter%27s_Church,_Barton-upon-Humber
Barton-upon-Humber, St Peter’s dig
and here:
books.google.co.uk/books?isbn=1850756430
Search inside for:
3.3 Human Skeletal remains
Boylston, Wiggins & Roberts
(p221 onwards)
The only other report appears to be this one:
Wiggins R, and Boylston A (Not dated) Castledyke, Barton-on-Humber: Human skeletal report. Unpublished manuscript, Calvin Wells Laboratory, Department ofArchaeological Sciences, University of Bradford.
But there is also this, which ranges far more widely (more sites, more skeletons, other historical periods):
http://dro.dur.ac.uk/6260/1/6260.pdf
Health and Welfare in Medieval England: The Human Skeletal Remains Contextualized by Charlotte Roberts
Cool. This looks pretty good. While it’s possible that I missed something or I’m being Eulered, I don’t think so. This is my new default position for early-medieval England (P = .65) but I’m not sure how far to generalise. I suspect this might hold for Northern Europe during this time period (P = .5), but I don’t know what this says about the Classical period or Southern Europe (P = “not willing to give a probability estimate”). It’s worth remembering that the second study claimed most of the decline in health in England was due to urbanisation, since the Ancient Greek ‘polis’ revolved around a city.
I find this continuing determination to grasp for reasons to reject the evidence that ancient Greeks or early mediaeval Englishmen were more like us in physical development than like those brought up in the appalling conditions of the nineteenth century poor, misplaced and odd, as if somehow or other we must cling to the unique superiority of our present society, even here where its atrociously barbaric attitudes to sexuality receive frequent acknowledgement.
Certainly it’s an astute observation, James , that skeletons in hardwood coffins were more likely to survive and to be of richer people, but do you really imagine the trained bioarchaeologists who found the evidence and compiled the study based on it were unaware of this when drawing the conclusions they did?
As for jumping to the conclusion that the Greek polis must by its urban nature have suffered from the appalling hygiene of the late mediaeval or 19th century city, there are endless basic differences, some directly relevant and others merely indicative of the Greeks being, to put it bluntly, more civilised. As an example of the latter, the poorest and dullest Athenian citizens were expected to be able to read at least a bit (see Aristophanes’s Knights. II.188-89, for example), whereas most poor people in early 19th century England couldn’t even sign their names. As examples of the former, the Greeks spent most of their time out-of doors (“I never spend my time indoors” said the model Athenian in Xenophon’s Economics.VII.3), they bathed and swam, and in the biggest city, Athens, they drew their water from fountains. Most people in late mediaeval and early 19th century England passed much of their time in smoke-infested houses with open fires and rarely bathed if at all; their water supply was often not much better than a sewer.
To return to the original point, I still don’t think you’ve come up with anything that outweighs the word of Aristotle.
Edmund, author of Alexander’s Choice
“I find this continuing determination to grasp for reasons to reject the evidence…”
This is not me trying to ‘grasp for reasons to reject the evidence’. This is me being cautious about shifting my priors. It’s always good form to investigate exactly how much evidence a given piece of information provides. That isn’t unusual scepticism – this is the usual amount of scepticism with which I greet all claims, including those by my political allies (though I consider this particular issue to be apolitical). Shouldn’t it count in our favour that Tom and I went out of our way to look for the evidence that supported your case?
“do you really imagine the trained bioarchaeologists who found the evidence and compiled the study based on it were unaware of this when drawing the conclusions they did?”
This was just what I thought of on the spot. Undoubtedly there are a thousand and one confounders. With regard to the coffins, I really can’t tell if they adjusted for it because I couldn’t see the preview on Google Books. (I think Tom’s seen it since he talked about which pages to look at.) It’s not unlikely that they figured out a way to control for this but I wouldn’t leave it up to trust. I read too much Social Science to have any faith left in the process of controlling for confounders. I mean, I don’t know how statistically sophisticated bioarchaeology is but I know social scientist can’t be trusted to get this right even though you’d expect them to know better! You said you read the study; would you happen to remember what statistical methods they used?
“As for jumping to the conclusion that the Greek polis must by its urban nature have suffered from the appalling hygiene of the late mediaeval or 19th century city”
This isn’t my position at all. This was just meant as an example of the ways the Greeks lived differently to the English. It was the first thing to come to mind, so I’m sorry if it looked like its purpose was to attack your position. All I’m trying to say is that different people are different and I don’t want to generalise from one place and era onto another. It’s not like I ever thought the Greeks were dwarves or something and I’ve long been aware of the early-industrial decline in health. I just saying that this study may not generalise far.
“I still don’t think you’ve come up with anything that outweighs the word of Aristotle.”
I don’t know about ‘outweighs’ but I find it curious that the same study you desperately want to generalise onto Ancient Greece claims that puberty started later among the individuals examined. I can accept that their puberty findings might not generalise, but only to the extent that I’ll accept their height findings might not generalise. It would be intellectually dishonest for me to privileged one result over the other.
Allen Frances (best known for producing DSM-IV) wrote in a text about Hebephilia (desiring pubescents generally 11- to 14-years old): “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.” If the age of the beginning of puberty goes down and down maybe more and more adults desire youngsters.
Does anybody know if the decline of puberty age has influenced the praxis of the pedophilia-diagnosis of the APA-psychologists? Nearly half of the white 10-year-old US-boys are pubescent (Tanner-stage 2) and nearly 30 percent of the afro-american 8-year-old US-boys. The APA-pedophilia-definition is only about prepubescent children as Allen Frances wrote: “restricted to children at Tanner Stage 1, i.e., children with no evidence whatsoever of the development of primary or secondary sexual characteristics”. Allen Frances also wrote: “The diagnosis of pedophilia is based on the absence of puberty, not on any arbitrary age cutoff that could be misinterpreted to include pubescent individuals.”
Good question, Filip, which might also be worth asking on Sexnet. What I’d like to do, actually, is present this question on Sexnet, as you have posed it above, saying it comes from you. It will certainly be seen there by many researchers, including Blanchard, Seto, Rind and many others. This would also be a good opportunity to mention your work on the prevalence of paedophilia and hebephilia, which you kindly presented to me by email a couple of days ago. Of course, I should also introduce your work here at H-TOC: I feel I should work on providing a suitable fanfare rather than going further right at this minute!
What I don’t quite understand is why the mere puberty is used as a criterion for making this so-called diagnosis. If puberty means reproductive capacity, and if we assume that sexual desire may be present well before puberty, then homosexuality should be diagnosed as well because there is no reproductive potential.
@Tom: Go ahead!
@sugarboy: You don´t understand these views because they are mad. Another example: In his recent book “Saving Normal: An Insider’s Revolt Against Out-of-Control Psychiatric Diagnosis, DSM-5, Big Pharma, and the Medicalization of Ordinary Life” Frances Allen writes on one page that two hundred years ago the normal age to marry was worldwide somewhere in puberty. And just some pages later the same Frances Allen asks seriously if sex between minors and adults is just a crime or also a sign of madness (without answering the question). Frances can consider his ancestors mad, this could explain some of his views, but he should leave my ancestors out of it please!
Well you succeeded in interesting me. Is this research published anywhere or at least available as a PDF?
Yes, but you mustn’t open it until Christmas Day 🙂
Well, no, I’d prefer the announcement with fanfare, as I put it, but perhaps I can bring it forward. So, v. soon then!
LOL. Alright, I’ll look out for it!
Hi again Tom! A very interesting read, which asks what I have: why increase the Age of Consent as people mature earlier? Canada recently increased its. A country that now seems to be deliberately adopting the worst characteristics of its American neighbour.
The mid-19th Century comparison to nowadays is also true for average heights. Prior to the 18th Century, Europeans were not much shorter than we are now. Then the next century saw a steady decrease in stature (caused partly/wholly by over reliance on cereal crops and not proteins etc). And when the Industrial Revolution came about, heights much decreased due to the appalling conditions that most people endured. As portrayed in Dickens’ ‘Oliver Twist’. Then, as refrigeration, and other improvements started, heights much sprouted (particularly in Germany and Holland).
Now we have just about reached our maximum stature. Indeed, it is thought that the Dutch and Scandinavians already have. Therefore I suspect adolescence will be soon stablising, so the paedophile won’t go extinct.
As regards being sexual (inside) long before visible outside, this is literally inside: foetuses are known to masturbate.
I remember as a toddler, when urinating, I felt very aroused (even though no erection took place). It just felt “naughty” to pee. I was an early developer for my generation, hitting puberty by aged 11 (not 12-13 like most of my peers). Also, I have known of boys masturbating before they had semen, though I didn’t until my first wet dreams took place.
My only caveat is that maybe children’s mental maturity will not keep up with their physical. Therefore not to always believe an early developed child is ready for sex with someone else. This very much varies, from ready preteens to young adults still not ready.
I’d be interested to see any feedback on this.
As I think I wrote before, mental skills have very little to do with the ability to engage in and enjoy sexual intimacy – otherwise, entities such as turkeys, lobsters etc. would have a big problem performing their conjugal duties!
They had a documentary the other day about the famous james Bulger case
where a four year old boy was killed by two ten year old’s,they were happy to use those old laws where criminal responsibility is ten in this case.
Also watching the angry mob attacking the van in which they were travelling to
court,demonstrates the innate rage people have when children are harmed,then
we have the paedophile,the epitome of Evil! with, of course, the confusion that
adult sexual experiences=good..child experiences=bad!
p.s. very good link though nothing covering what ages there should be penetration,true most pedos know where to draw the line but not all.
You will often note, Mr. P, that the anti-pedo and anti-youth sexuality laws that are fueled by the sex abuse hysteria and anti-youth attitudes are a cesspool of double standards. Youths are legally considered inherently “responsible” and “mature” – or not – depending on whether or not it’s convenient to the legal system. As mentioned, they can be judged competent to be subjected to “adult” penalties when they commit heinous crimes, but then judged incompetent and penalized in the opposite way when they make a decision regarding their sexuality. Both are about control and suppression, and as such, they go in opposite directions as is convenient for the penal code of the state.
Western culture and the laws springing from it are awash with such double standards: Sexual behavior is officially considered emotionally healthy and conducive to personal growth when practiced by anyone over 18; but it’s considered indicative of emotional problems and lack of self-esteem if practiced by anyone under 18. Women are officially told that a desire for sexual activity and the healthy practice thereof is just as normal and beneficial for them as men; yet, they are subject to incessant “slut-shaming” by the culture at large if they practice it openly. Men are usually harshly criticized and penalized if they engage in some type of negative behavior, real or perceived; women receive sympathy and forgiveness for any number of contrived PC reasons for committing any of the same acts (e.g., adultery, emotional or physical spousal abuse, failure to hold onto a job, and even infanticide).
Hi james not sure exactly what country they were originally from,but this was in the UK on a radio discussion on LBC London.the usual PC tossers there to name but a few,There was a Muslim scholar explaining to the female presenter
that girls should wear a veil from nine,average age of the onset of puberty in the
opinion of the scholar,what Arab country he got that info from I’m not sure,but
reading above he seems about right
they’re meant to wear a veil to stop men from raping them,because somehow they cant control their urges,so maybe by making them wear a veil they’re
playing it safe? The presenter replied yes but unless your jimmy savile etc
That itself highlights ignorance in past practices,implying they used the same PC bullshit with girls in puberty is absurd.
As far as I know the idea that it prevents rape is relatively recent. In the past it was simply a modesty custom like any other in any part of the world. The covering of the hair in particular is an Abrahamic thing and until the Renaissance it was common among Christian and Jewish women.
Now, in the modern world, people have been making up excuses for their random traditions. The girls I know talk about it being a show of piety similar to the wearing of the Crucifix. (Around here the Catholics are really Catholic.) I’ve also heard that some foreign scholars claim it prevents rape but I’m not aware of any evidence to suggest that.
I don’t think you can make arguments about the age of puberty in the ancient world from what we know about its decline since the mid-nineteenth century, when the nutrition and general standard of living of the poor was worse than it had ever been. Average height has also increased dramatically since then for the same reasons. I cannot find an online reference to it but I have read a study which showed from skeletons that average height in 10th to11th century century England was the same as in mid-20th century England. Here http://www.digitalis.uni-koeln.de/JWG/jwg_149_77-85.pdf and here http://econhist.userweb.mwn.de/jeh.pdf are papers showing in detail how height declined between 1750 and 1850.
I would also be very reticent about assuming without evidence that Aristotle’s observations were biased towards the rich. Very similar attempts are frequently made to dismiss pederasty as a pastime of the rich rather than the majority in the societies where it flourished most, also without evidence, but Rocke has proven for Florence in his Forbidden Friendships that it was ubiquitous in every class. And if Aristotle was not a scientist as well as a scholar, I don’t know what one is.
Edmund, author of Alexander’s Choice, a boy’s love story.
Very strong point if true.
“average height in 10th to11th century century England was the same as in mid-20th century England”
Given the frequent famines, poor sanitation, rampant illness and abundance of parasites, I’d be quite surprised if this were so. Of course, I defer to science and if you can locate the study I’d like to read it.
“And if Aristotle was not a scientist as well as a scholar, I don’t know what one is.”
If we’re defining it by use of the scientific method then no, he wasn’t. This isn’t an attack on his credibility – Science simply didn’t exist at the time.
My goodness! Much as I would like to be able to contribute, I don’t comment here as often as I would aspire to because there are too many subjects I am quite out of my depth in. Rashly I thought early mediaeval England might afford an exception, little imagining that you were a child prodigy in knowledge of this, as well as everything else. I must be going senile, for these famines that inflicted pre-Conquest England had quite escaped my memory. Could you please remind me of the source? Presumably it must have been one of the more detailed accounts. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle? William of Malmesbury? And how exactly was the sanitation in the average village of Edward the Confessor’s reign inferior to that which prevailed in the industrial slums of the big cities in which most of the poor lived when Victoria ascended the throne?
As for Aristotle, of whom the poor deluded Encyclopaedia Britannica (2008) says he ” was the first genuine scientist in history … [and] every scientist is in his debt,” I won’t trouble you. I am content to live in the belief that 21st century condescension towards the Greeks is severely misplaced arrogance.
If doubt is to be cast on what I report about the period 1750-1850 without anyone bothering to read the academic studies on which it is based and which I’ve provided easy links to, then I don”t know what is the point of being here.
Edmund, author of Alexander’s Choice, a novel
This petulance beneath you. You do not often disappoint, Edmund, but you do on this occasion. Any factual reports are legitimately open to questioning and doubt. The inference that I have doubted your accurate reporting of what you have read is quite unwarranted. It is only a matter of hours since you gave these links. I simply haven’t had time to read them. You seem very uncharitably to have utterly overlooked that I conceded you might have a strong point.
I would reverse that argument. However time may be restricted for any of us, it’s surely not unreasonable to expect that doubt should be expressed after reading the evidence, not before. I suggest this unfairness is beneath you.
You are not the only person in the world whose time has value. if you believe otherwise, please make it clear so that the rest of us may evaluate more accurately the value of trying to contribute.
Did I suggest that was the case? I don’t think so. Again, your reaction is uncharitable. Having said that, I suggest a period of silence from both of us may be in order for calm reflection. In my case I want to consider carefully, rather than reacting hastily, to the point in your previous comment: “it’s surely not unreasonable to expect that doubt should be expressed after reading the evidence, not before.”
“How about you?”
Before I started school I recall what I would later label sexual thoughts and feelings, therefore about age four.
You shouldn’t diss Aristotle or Linca will have your head!
But seriously, he was probably reasoning on anecdotes (as per usual among the classical scholars) and would have been affected by all the biases you mention. I was not aware that better nutrition was the cause of the gradual change in menarche since I never really looked it up. The only people I heard talking about it blamed it on Big Pharma and animal growth hormones. This is interesting.
“there is a huge irony in the fact that the sexuality of the young is being ever more drastically denied and suppressed at a time when they have never been more sexually mature in physical terms.”
Your opponents aren’t arguing on the basis of physical maturity. They’re argument rests on the the idea of psychological immaturity. However, even here I believe they’re mistaken. The bounty industrialisation has bestowed upon us (especially in nutrition and medicine) has been causing our intelligence to climb skyward. Hence the consistency of the Flint Effect. As such, I’ve no doubt that the average 13 year old today is smarter and able to make more reasonable decisions than the average 18 year old in 1800.
“As if things were not already bad enough for us, we now face the alarming possibility that real kids will disappear altogether.”
LOL. Fear not: as long as the Standards Of Care exist, transgender kids (who are lucky enough to get support early) will have to take puberty-blockers for quite a few years before they can get permission to go through puberty via opposite-sex hormone treatment.
“How about you?”
I’m iffy on when exactly I entered puberty but I remember my first erection (caused by thinking about a girl) happened when I was 8. I remember this clearly because around that age I was thinking about cutting off my penis and this new occurrence was not good for my piece of mind.
I bet!
In this context, I think it is appropriate to quote Thomas K. Hubbard, that in his review of James Davidson, “The Greeks and Greek Love”, writes:
“Another substantive contention is that Greek boys encountered puberty much
later than boys nowadays: to support this idea, Davidson must discredit the
testimony of the Aristotelian History of Animals, which clearly states that
male puberty hits at 14 (HA 581a13-17).”
[…]
“Davidson’s view that the Greeks must have experienced puberty at 18 contradicts not only what Solon tells us, but virtually every other ancient source until late Roman times. Davidson’s argument is based on accounts of puberty from the 18th century and anthropological estimates drawn from very early civilizations unconnected with Greece, but surely Aristotle and the ancient medical writers are better witnesses. Davidson also misses the mark when positing that the term meirakion refers only to 18-19 year olds; Hippocrates (ap. Philo, Opif. Mundi 36.105) and Aristophanes of Byzantium (frr. 42-54 Slater) both say that the term covered the entire 14 to 21 year age range. Both associate pais as a technical term not with under-18s, as Davidson does, but with children in the 7-14 year range.”
I have read Davidson’s book and Hubbard’s review. In nearly all respects I agree with Hubbard’s demolition job. Davidson is an erudite scholar but it seems to me he misused his talents in order to promote a PC view of Greek homoerotic culture that would sit well with modern, AOC-conscious, gays. That does not mean he is wrong in all of his claims, though, and as things stand I feel he has a strong point regarding the age of puberty.
Edmund has raised a very interesting counter-argument, however, which will oblige me to consider the evidence again. Although he did not go into detail, he provided a couple of links. I have not yet read the linked articles but I imagine they make a case regarding the perhaps exceptionally poor food experienced by migrants to the towns and cities during the Industrial Revolution and in its wake, which would have lengthened the years before puberty. The urban-dwellers began, for instance, to depend on mass-produced, highly refined white bread, which has much of the nutritional value squeezed out.
The cause of the change isn’t clear. For girls at least, there is substantial evidence it is related to estrogen mimics in the environment. It is a disruption from the pattern we evolved with. There is reason to think that it is not the entirety of puberty moving earlier as one happy unit. This study came from the top result in a google search http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21895953 (not selected for according to careful criteria) — and it shows that earlier menarche is associated with nearly twice the incidence of a problem when she gets pregnant later. Psychological factors may also not mature at the same rate. My hunch is that a 15-year-old who has not started puberty is in a better position to evaluate whether sexual activity is a good idea for her than a 10-year-old who is mostly done with puberty. I realize this wasn’t your point, but it is cautionary for those who think that menarche means a girl is ready to decide about sex.
The girls who move me most are around 4 years of age, so this trend won’t catch up to me for a while. Perhaps if fewer girls in real life (who you can’t have anyway) meet your attraction standards, it would be less frustrating?
“Perhaps if fewer girls in real life (who you can’t have anyway) meet your attraction standards, it would be less frustrating?”
LOL. I’ve never heard anyone suggest before that having exceptionally high standards made anyone less frustrated.
Almost all the MAPs I know believe there should be an age of consent, but they are often reluctant to say what they think it should be, even when it’s well below the age they are attracted to, because they are deeply sensitive to the implications of seeming to condemn those whom it would leave out in the cold. I am usually reluctant too, and I also don’t know whether it should be 8 or 12 or something in between. Nevertheless here it’s time to call a spade a spade.
I say Ethane is the classic fox that’s lost its tail. As he says, he is attracted to girls of 4, a very rare affliction. He also knows that to the best of our knowledge, every human society that has ever existed would look with horror and revulsion on men having sexual intercourse with 4-year-olds. Knowing also that millions (most MAPs), are attracted to children in or approaching puberty, he clings desperately to laws that are blinkered, stupid and cruel enough to put them in the same boat as him by equating his lust with a natural phenomenon that during the eras when it was most widely practised was responsible for much the highest civilisations. Being victims of these arbitrary laws is the only thing the many boylovers I have got to know have in common with him. They are otherwise in different moral worlds. He is too intelligent to believe sincerely in what he says, and I generally ignore his arguments simply because I feel sure they are pure humbug.
Edmund, author of Alexander’s Choice, a love story
For once, to my considerable surprise, I find myself moved to leap to Ethan’s defence. We do not need to throw him to the wolves merely because he is attracted to four-year-olds, even if some of us would be delighted to do so on other grounds!
I am confident that Ethan would behave honourably even if we had no AOC at all. I don’t think he would harm any four-year-old or any child. That is not to say he would shun all intimacy, though he is such a hair-shirt he might; but coerced behaviour, including anything painful or dangerous, would be out of the question.
For the “bad guys” we would still have the criminal law of sexual assault. As for the grey areas, the greatest Home Secretary (i.e. home affairs, including criminal justice) Britain ever had, Roy Jenkins, thought PIE had good proposals for dealing with this. J. pointed out that I could link to them. Here goes: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/44284820/PIE%20-%20Evidence%20to%20Home%20Office%20Criminal%20Law%20Revision%20Committee.docx
Thanks, Tom. I would not shun emotional intimacy or even physical intimacy, but I would shun sexual intimacy, because of my belief that the girl could well later feel betrayed. I also think Edmund should grant me enough abstract thinking ability to understand that older children are different from 4-year-olds.
Considerations I offer against sexual activity include:
Evidence that such relationships have been (more) accepted in the past do not move me. They tend to cherry-pick cases that turned out well. We also have developed in the past few decades much higher standards for children’s welfare, and appropriately so. Some may be misguided (see helicopter parenting) but the basic impetus is right. If childhood mortality is 25%, then regretted childhood sexual ativity just isn’t a top priority.
The role of future regret based on feeling betrayed looms larger in my thinking. We know adults (especially women) frequently regret relationships if the man suggested more emotional commitment or long-term intentions than he felt. There is every reason to think kids (especially girls) feel this too. You could take that to argue that since the danger of regret is always there it shouldn’t affect consent. I add the observation that although kids may tolerate or even enjoy sexual activity, it never has the central role it does for adults — where a good sexual relationship can mean the world is OK, and the prolonged absence of one means existence is miserable. That importance means potential regret is accepted, but for kids the potential benefits are far smaller.
The default position makes all the difference — if sex is assumed to be OK unless it can be proved it is OK, that is very different in effect from assuming adult-minor sex is not OK unless proven it is OK. Age of consent protects children from indisputable rape. I have often said that I would like society to change so that prosecutors don’t pursue cases where a minor continues to maintain that everything was OK — and no minors should be pressured in that regard. (There IS a lot of iatrogenic harm, and we should strive to reduce it.)
Consensual sexual activity between people close in age should not be a criminal matter. Partly that’s because if both are young it’s not clear who to punish, and also that as a matter of social policy it is the cases of wide age discrepancy that have a higher danger of exploitation and less hope of a long-term relationship.
Jeremy forest was sent to prison for five years for having a relationship with his 15yo girlfriend, I’m sure there is regret,but is the poor bloke really to blame?
This Is the damage these AOC laws are causing,maybe we could both benefit
from checking out the above link,drafted in the 1970s.or is forests case just collateral damage?
As for sex being the central role in an adult/minor relationship,how could you possibly know,how would It differ from adult relationships? Like holocaust i could happily see the AOC abolished,but acknowledge things happen In small steps,who knows how a future society would view sex,when Its too late for all of us! 12 seems a good start I think.
“We know adults (especially women) frequently regret relationships if the man suggested more emotional commitment or long-term intentions than he felt. “
It seems like the obvious solution is not to make promises you can’t keep. If you know you’re a pedophile, be upfront about the time limit. Kids understand the concept of time. Most of us expect to be under our parent’s care for about 18 years, in school for [varies between countries] years, etc. Just don’t promise to marry them or something and you’ll be fine.
“it never has the central role it does for adults”
*Cough*
And now that we’ve established that your universal claim has exceptions, I’d like to know on what basis you make it in the first place. Citation Needed
(Note: not saying you’re necessarily wrong. I just want to see the evidence.)
“less hope of a long-term relationship.”
You seem to be implying that ‘long-term relationship’ is the explicit goal or the marker of a successful relationship. I’d contend otherwise. Relationships should be judged less by their length and more by whether they’re mutually beneficial. Why can’t people just have fun?
(“higher danger of exploitation” is a different matter which is worthy of careful consideration if true.)
Part of the problem here, Ethan, is the attitude that all relationships have to be long-term, if not permanent, in order to be legitimate. In a world where youth had their civil rights and intergenerational relationships were legal and open, I think it’s unfair and unrealistic to expect them to follow the same patterns as the monoamorous norm expectations of the dominant adult culture today. Monogamous or long-term relationships are just one type of valid relationship, and may not be conducive to adult/youth relationships. Individual mileage will always vary.
The potential regret factor can be applied to just about any type of relationship one can possibly engage in, including platonic, business, etc. It’s hardly a foundation to place a full moratorium on certain types of relationships altogether, or to actually pass laws that effectively penalize certain people for taking certain risks, with the overall intention of prohibiting risk taking of a sort that is strictly of a personal nature.
As for the claim that looking to past cultures for examples of successful intergenerational relationships tend to cherry-pick those with favorable outcomes, I have to say that is a classic case of those in the anti-choice camp taking the role of the proverbial kettle that calls the pot black. That camp is notorious for such cherry-picking with the sole use of anecdotal claims without the benefit of any peer-reviewed, unbiased scientific studies, and attempt to take no type of consideration for the specific form of cultural and legal environment that such relationships may have taken place then in contrast to now.
Finally, saying that intergen relationships are more likely to be exploitative than same age relationships without taking the least bit of consideration of what type of cultural and legal power dynamics any given intergen relationship occurs within the context of is once again indicative of a strong moralizing bias. That bias shows through even more when deference is always shown for women and girls, i.e., the perceived “weaker” individual in any type of relationship or social dynamic, much as youths are often pigeon-holed into that role for emotional effect. This makes the moral bias very overtly glaring.
That seems quite uncharitable. I can understand disagreeing with what he says (and I do!) but I’d never disregard it just because he’s the one saying it and might have ulterior motives. That’s how antis dismiss pedo arguments and I just spent a whole thread telling Ethan that that was bull. On the other hand, it’s interesting to note how he reacts to having the same objection turned on him!
Good point, James, as so often from you, and I am pleased to see you have referenced the principle of charity as used in philosophical discussion.
My intention, though it may not have been wise or well-considered, was to take Edmund to task not on an ad hominem basis (“because he’s the one saying it and might have ulterior motives”), but in a sense quite the opposite. It is precisely because I have a high regard for Edmund that I was shocked to find my own motives subjected to what seemed to be an uncharitable attack in the philosophical sense i.e. it seemed the attacker failed (as a result, perhaps, of no more than an unfortunate misunderstanding) to interpret what the attacked person was saying in its best or strongest possible sense.
In the link you gave, Simon Blackburn is quoted as saying the principle of charity, “constrains the interpreter to maximize the truth or rationality in the subject’s sayings”.
This was my point. I would perhaps have done better to suggest diplomatically to Edmund that I had perhaps not chosen the right words, and that as a result he had inferred that which had not been implied, or not deliberately. To impute to him some sort of unworthiness that had occasioned disappointment on my part no doubt went too far.
I had been on the point of saying something of the sort directly to Edmund himself when your comment came in but it will perhaps be no bad thing for him and others to read it here.
So, Edmund, I’m sorry about that. I do think you “got me wrong” in a slightly hot-headed way (yes, this is ad hominem but I know you well enough, I think!) but the comment giving rise to your wrath was definitely clumsy and easily misinterpreted. I meant to support you but it seemed like an attack. The intention of taking your argument and linked evidence seriously was I believe very clearly demonstrated in my other comment: the one about (of all improbably bland topics to get heated about!) refined white bread.
I like Simon Blackburn BTW: did an interesting series on the Seven Deadly Sins, including Lust.
Please correct me if I’m mistaken, but it looks as though this in response to BOTH my comments, yes? That is to say, my comment on Ethane and my reply concerning James’s dismissal of the historical evidence I offered.
With respect to my reply to James, evidently I replied too much in haste, for which I apologise. I’m afraid I judged too much by my own procedure. That is to say that presented with academic evidence for a point being made, I would either decide it didn’t interest me enough to read and stay silent on the point being made, or I would read it and comment in the light of that. Faced with James dismissing my points outright and without reference to the evidence, and even you, Tom, saying “if true”, as if there was a serious risk I was misrepresenting it, and no indication at that point that either of you ever intended to look at it, I jumped to unjustified conclusions.
My lack of charity to Ethane is a different matter. It was certainly not my point to attack him for its own sake. I was not actually addressing him, but everyone else. It was my intention though to attack his credibility. Having heard his views extensively, tried my best to consider them conscientiously, and found them to be worthless, I think it is a worthwhile point to make that there are psychologically credible reasons for supposing he has personal, selfish motives to adhere to unreasonable views. Certainly he cannot reasonably complain about this, having, as James acutely observed, made a habit of insinuating that we who disagree with him are arguing purely from self-interest. And possible self-interest on both sides of the argument is a legitimate concern, isn’t it?
Thanks, hugely, Edmund for your considered response. For my own part I am more than content. As for Ethan, he is welcome to respond if he so wishes.
The VP site says “We believe that sexual activity between adults and children is wrong. Some pedophiles argue it should be accepted, but we disagree and think their arguments should be greeted skeptically due to the self-interest involved.” (http://www.virped.org/index.php/f-a-q)
This statement is trying in a very short space to answer a huge mystery: Why is it that a great many of the pedophiles in online communities think adult-child sex is fundamentally OK, and hardly anybody else in society does? That’s our best guess. (Since I am intimately involved with this issue, those same pro-contact arguments are ones I take seriously and respond to at length.) The FAQ doesn’t mean I imagine pro-contact pedophiles with an evil grin rubbing their hands together, contemplating how they’re going to spread this falsehood, persuade others, get laws changed, and thereby get into the pants of the kids of their choice. It is, however, a fundamental finding of psychology that people tend to marshal evidence to support a view they want to be true (see for instance Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman — a profound book). It is also true that people online who don’t think carefully about issues and evidence will gravitate to communities that share those same beliefs. Yet, in the past year, 440 pedophiles who fit the “man bites dog” category in this respect have joined Virtuous Pedophiles — in part because the facts as they perceive them are too persuasive to be dissipated by self-interest.
In contrast, your accusations against me assume active ill will and duplicity. You suggest that since I (with everyone else) see no way to happy sex with 4-year-old girls, I have made it my mission to make sure no other pedophile can have happy sex with their older kids? It seems an odd life choice, given that society’s views are already more draconian than my own. It’s the truth as I see it after careful and ongoing consideration. I also have a passionate commitment to see the lot of pedophiles improved in a host of other ways, and it’s a truth I emphasize because I see it as critical to achieving those other improvements.
I can assure you that (based on surveys) the age of attraction of the VP pedophiles matches that of other online pedophiles quite well.
The idea that you could only fit Edmund’s profiling if you had ill will clearly ignores the fact that you said these kinds of things are unconscious. There is no reason to believe this couldn’t happen without you realising it. (Not that I’m saying it is the case…)
No, I have not assumed active ill will and duplicity on your part. If I am right that you are emotionally wedded to maintenance of the current age of consent for the reason I suggested, then “the fundamental finding of psychology that people tend to marshal evidence to support a view they want to be true” is adequate explanation for your views without assuming anything worse about you.
I do not doubt this “fundamental finding” is right. However, it tells us nothing about whether the view they want to be true is in fact true or false. Rather than deluding themselves, it may be that what they want to be true has opened their eyes to a truth that no one else is motivated to consider fairly. I expect this is what happened to the American blacks who joined the civil rights movement and many others badly misunderstood by society. Hardly anyone in Europe thought gays should be tolerated a century and now hardly anyone there thinks they should be imprisoned. All this contradiction proves is what a poor guide popular opinion is to right and wrong.
I do not doubt you are deeply emotionally wedded to maintenance of the current age of consent because I believe it otherwise impossible that someone both as intelligent and as well-informed about the subject (that is, adult sexual affairs with pubescents, not 4-year-olds) could adhere to your views, though I cannot of course know why. My “fox that’s lost its tail” explanation is just a theory that makes sense.
I cannot possibly comment on the motives of other “VP pedophiles”. That would be like making assumptions about why every member of the National Socialist party joined it solely from having heard some speeches by Dr. Goebbels. I imagine they have a variety of different motives. I was only making observations about you.
“I have not assumed active ill will and duplicity on your part”
In the previous post we have: “He is too intelligent to believe sincerely in what he says”
Sorry, I can’t see any way to read that latter quote as allowing for an unconscious motivation. That’s calling me a liar, plain and simple.
I don’t mind speculations about unconscious influences on anyone’s actions. When applied to a particular individual, I think some humility is warranted. Some speculations are right and some are wrong. I’ve given some reasons why what you say about me is implausible. The beliefs and AoAs of other VP members are highly relevant.
Saying that an attraction to children makes pedophiles consider something other people aren’t motivated to consider is the right kind of argument, though I don’t find it at all persuasive.
I fear that here we are playing fruitlessly with words. Who can really draw the line at how far the individual is able to lay aside his preconceptions and emotional allegiances in pursuit of the truth? Believe it or not as you will, but I’m not intending to call you are liar, but merely someone who has not questioned his motives as deeply as I personally find humanly conceivable.
You may well believe “the beliefs and AoAs of other VP members are highly relevant”, but here I do not have the knowledge to comment.
“Saying that an attraction to children makes pedophiles consider something other people aren’t motivated to consider is the right kind of argument, though I don’t find it at all persuasive.” It is not just considering, but allowing oneself to feel and understand things that people have every interest in trying not to feel or understand.
To this I would add that your use of the word “pedophile” is emotive and deeply misleading as regards what I am talking about, and I think you know it well, much as you would like to retain it so as to bracket commonplace erotic longings with your own “unusual” ones. However much some may be in denial for politically correct considerations, there is plenty of evidence and logic to suppose that almost all men are attracted to pubescent girls, such being designed by nature for our best survival. Equally, if one can step beyond the prejudices of our sick society that you are an admiring member of, and look into the broader sweep of human history, one will find a similar capacity for men to be drawn towards pubescent boys, also designed by nature for our best survival.
This is also my procedure. The thing to note is that this blog is moderated so there is a time lag between when something is written and when it becomes public. I wrote my comment before I knew you’d posted the link, as is evidenced by the fact that I asked you for it.
Also, what appeared to be criticism was me explaining why my Bayesian priors were low. Among my friends I’d have simply said “prior probability = .2, prepared to update on new evidence”, but I thought you’d want the justification too.
I’ve been waiting to read your study before making any further response but I have a bit of a problem – I can’t find it. Tom claims to have seen it so you must have posted it somewhere but for the life of me I can’t find it. Could you please point it out to me?
This comment seams to have gotten stuck in moderation. What happened?
James, I see your comment is in reply to Edmund. You refer to a study by Edmund that I claim to have seen. All I can think of is a para in which Edmund cited two references. This para was published as a comment on the 26th. Here, for ease of reference, is the relevant para:
I already checked those out when his comment was first posted. The decline in height during the early part of industrialisation seems legit and was observed in many places. If I recall correctly, people tend to attribute it to processed foods that allowed people to “eat and not be fed”. At no point did I impugn the honour of this statement.
The part I was sceptical of was that height in the 10th & 11th centuries was equivalent to height in the mid 20th century. I found this specific claim to be extra-ordinary. I thought maybe he’d found the source and posted it somewhere I couldn’t find.
Ah, yes, sorry, I see what you mean now. In some haste I failed to notice that the two claims on height (1. Mediaeval 2. Industrial Revolution era) are not matched by the two links. I thought there was one link for each but it turns out to be two for claim 2 and none for claim 1. This was perfectly clear when Edmund wrote this:
I think I may also be cursed with constantly phrasing things in a manner that appears far meaner than I intended. (Can I blame this one on autism?) At this point I’m pretty sure I’ve pissed off Linca, David Kennerly, and Edmund. I’m unsure whether I’ve done the same to Ethan or pedophilelife. I’d like to apologise to all of you.
One of the perils of a lively comments section on controversial issues is that umbrage will be taken. The more comments one makes, the more risk there is that this will happen. You have made a lot of comments, James, ergo umbrage is inevitable. You might even be able to frame a Law of Umbrage along these lines!
So don’t take it too personally.
The various umbrage-takers you have named, if they can be so described, will be able to speak for themselves if they wish. For my part, I feel you are enriching the debate here enormously.
Its known that Muslim girls are made to wear the veil from the age of nine,how far back does this go? obviously they cant breed at that age but were and still are married off in some Arab countries.I suppose in a free society any penetration should not start before around 12,any girl lovers out there that have
in depth (pardon the pun,not intended) knowledge on the average capacity of
girls around that age please correct me.whats the youngest recorded mother?
I remember a thirteen year old with a baby in my collage days,gave birth around twelve,before 1885 the AOC in the UK was 12 if I’m correct,what was the average age that they gave birth?
“Its known that Muslim girls are made to wear the veil from the age of nine”
Really? In which country? Around here they don’t start wearing the hijab until early teens (if they decide to wear it at all).
“what was the average age that they gave birth?”
The Hajnal Line separates Eastern and Western Europe in accordance with their historical fertility patterns. In Western Europe (including Great Britain) Marriage and child birth were usually quite late – typically 20s. In the East it was in the teens.
BTW: The earliest recorded birth mother was a Peruvian girl named Lina Medina who was 5 years, 7 months at the time of the birth. When the pregnancy was discovered the father was arrested on suspicion of sexual abuse (of course) but was later released due to lack of evidence. However, Lina is a massive outlier adn should not be counted.