What's your view of evolutionary origins of MA?

[WandersGlade]

I'm sure you'll be familiar with the view that pedophilia is evolutionarily advantageous because it makes reproduction happen as quickly as possible. However, strictly speaking this can explain hebephilia, but not actual pedophilia (i.e. attraction to pre-pubescents). For a while I was of the view that pedophilia was a spandrel (i.e. an evolutionary byproduct of other structures, a coincidence).

[Fragment]

I do think that pedophilia needs a different evolutionary explanation to hebephilia, though. It is possible that it follows a totally different path to hebephilia.

Another possibility is simply that the triggers that enable hebephilia are not very well fine tuned, so they sometimes under or overshoot the mark of "prime fertility". Age is much more of gradient than gender, so age attraction seems like it'll inevitably have more fuzziness than gender attraction, on both the individual and phenomenological bases. Even people with a narrow AoA like myself (typically 12-14) still have a range and not a single number, and I still find other people attractive outside of my AoA from time to time. It's about physical and social traits more than it is about the age itself.

[WandersGlade]

The issue for me is that I actually prefer 8-10 year olds to 12-14 year olds. My interest wanes as the girls become fertile. So it's as though there's something distinctly unnatural about my MA.

[BLueRibbon]

I moved this topic to General MAP Discussion.

The 'Take Action!' forums are for theorizing and organizing political activities.

It's an interesting topic. Let's keep it going here.

[WandersGlade]

I moved this topic to General MAP Discussion.

The 'Take Action!' forums are for theorizing and organizing political activities.

It's an interesting topic. Let's keep it going here.

Ah, sorry. I wasn't clear about what theorycrafting meant in this context.

[Talix]

I have two theories to offer here.

The first is that pedophilia is just hebephilia gone too far. Developmental neurology is an imperfect mechanism, and in the same way that sometimes the brain development fucks up and gives a man the sexual orientation intended for a woman (homosexuality), sometimes it fucks up and goes to far with the minor attraction into pedophilia.

The problem with this is that pedophilia appears to be a sticking point of it's own. If it was a matter of a spectrum gone too far, then we would expect more people with a mildly pedophilic orientation. Yet there seem to be two distinct sticking points in minor attraction at hebephilia and pedophilia.

The other theory is that pedophilia is an even better way to ensure paternity. If you start having sex with a girl before she is fertile, then continue to have sex with her when she becomes fertile, that's an even more surer way to ensure paternity then staring to have sex with her at puberty. Basically it's a way to make certain that you are the first to have sex with her when she become fertile.

The evidence for this is that a lot of pedophiles tell me that they stay attracted to a child until a much older age then if they met the kid at that older age. So if they meet a kid at 7, they might stay attracted to the kid till they are 13. But if they just met the kid at 11 the kid would be too old.

This would be consistent with the idea that pedophilia is a way to ensure that you are the absolute first to have sex with a girl when she becomes fertile.

Of course, all of this is a bit academic. Evolution is a bitch. It wants you to have sex with as many fertile woman as possible, by force if necessary. And if somebody is in your way, evolution is happy to kill them. It's not a great place to look for your ethics.

[Fragment]

Of course, all of this is a bit academic. Evolution is a bitch. It wants you to have sex with as many fertile woman as possible, by force if necessary. And if somebody is in your way, evolution is happy to kill them. It's not a great place to look for your ethics.

The other question is how does this even apply to BL, do BL and GL even have similar psychological/ evolutionary mechanisms?

Re: ethics though, I'd say we shouldn't set up too much of a binary opposition between evolution and ethics. What you say is true in a vacuum- rape and murder work on an individual level. Yet ethics themselves are an evolved thing, evolved because of the social nature of humans as a species. Rape and murder are only successful strategies on the individual level, on the societal level prohibitions on them are are actually better strategies. Being murdered arbitrarily is clearly not a good thing for the gene pool.

[WandersGlade]

Of course, all of this is a bit academic. Evolution is a bitch. It wants you to have sex with as many fertile woman as possible, by force if necessary. And if somebody is in your way, evolution is happy to kill them. It's not a great place to look for your ethics.

The other question is how does this even apply to BL, do BL and GL even have similar psychological/ evolutionary mechanisms?

Re: ethics though, I'd say we shouldn't set up too much of a binary opposition between evolution and ethics. What you say is true in a vacuum- rape and murder work on an individual level. Yet ethics themselves are an evolved thing, evolved because of the social nature of humans as a species. Rape and murder are only successful strategies on the individual level, on the societal level prohibitions on them are are actually better strategies. Being murdered arbitrarily is clearly not a good thing for the gene pool.

I wasn't really thinking too much about ethics, but now that it comes up, I guess I'm more of an optimist about human nature. I feel like we could live more natural lives and be happier because of it, without devolving into violence. In fact, I suppose I think violence comes from denial and repression to a certain extent; like the more self-accepting you are, the less aggressively you behave.
For example, I often wonder if the preoccupation with retributive justice (i.e. punishment and revenge) is tied America's puritanism regarding sex.

[Joel]

Perhaps pedophiles are evolutionarily useful in caring for abandoned children or for their interest in helping with care for the children of their siblings or in the wider community? Publicly run social services are a very recent invention.

So it is possible that families with some pedophiles in the family had a better chance of survival, because there was a very eager backup available to help with care of children, when something happened to the primary care provider (parent). I've seen similar theories explaining adaptive nature of homosexuality, where the gene responsible for the ability to produce gays is carried from mother to daughter.

The evidence for this is that a lot of pedophiles tell me that they stay attracted to a child until a much older age then if they met the kid at that older age. So if they meet a kid at 7, they might stay attracted to the kid till they are 13. But if they just met the kid at 11 the kid would be too old.

Yes, I am a good example of this phenomenon in the extreme. I consider myself an exclusive pedophile, not at all attracted to adult women. But I still love and enjoy sex and intimacy with my 40+ wife. Our relationship started when she was 14-years-old. In a way, she hasn't aged in my eyes.

[BLueRibbon]

Perhaps pedophiles are evolutionarily useful in caring for abandoned children or for their interest in helping with care for the children of their siblings or in the wider community? Publicly run social services are a very recent invention.

From an early draft of an essay on advocating an AoC of 12:

Evidence suggests that attraction to minors is not uncommon. Indications vary, with phallometric reports showing higher rates than self-reporting, but an analysis of the data would suggest that at least 15-20% of the adult male population are aroused by prepubescent children. Adult male attraction to teenage girls barely falls short of attraction to adult women in heterosexual men (with significant denial proven by studies that ask men to rate photos based on sexual attractiveness, in which labeling of photographic subjects as underage/overage is deliberately incorrect). For homosexual men, attraction to adolescents is the most common, followed by attraction to prepubescent boys and then attraction to adult men being the least common. A BL sexual orientation is more common than a gay orientation.

If attraction to minors (with some 'risk' of acting on it) was so damaging to the human race, and especially pronounced in the homosexual population where sex with more fertile teens conveys zero evolutionary benefit on the individual level, it would not have endured. There has to be some benefit, from a group selection perspective, to attraction to minors and possible AMSC; otherwise, widespread minor-attraction would not have survived the long period of human history prior to postpubescent AoC laws. It could be posited that paternalistic instincts, for which BLs and GLs display an extremely positive affinity, make minor-attraction such a net positive for the group that it persists despite not being ideal on an individual 'reproductive potential' level.

Perhaps another reason that minor-attraction persisted for so long is that, for such a long time, those with a pedohebephilic orientation were at least able to engage in sex with adolescents, even if not with prepubescent children. For heterosexuals, this would convey an individual evolutionary benefit. Additionally, people attracted to children and teens, in a world with an AoC of 10-12 (much of the past thousand years), would be encouraged to engage in sex with adolescents instead of children, thus offering a protective benefit to younger children.

And

Attraction to teenagers is extremely common, and prior to the commercial exploitation of teenage girls in disease-ridden Victorian London, it was never considered to be a big deal. Unfortunately, the simple fact that most men are attracted to teenagers cannot, in itself, be considered a just reason for lowering the Age of Consent if all of the claims made by the public are somehow held to be true. We will need to explain why it is beneficial for adult-teen sexual contact to be decriminalized if we are to appeal to a public that believes strongly in denying and repressing their sexual interest in teens, especially given that most heterosexual males are equally or more interested in young adults. The argument that legal adult-teen sex would decrease the risk allegedly posed by pedophebephilic men to young children is logically sound, but it is perhaps too radical and confusing to be accepted by the public.

Minor-attraction having no proven genetic component would be an argument against these points, and the fact that homosexual pedohebephilia is so common, yet does not directly result in offspring, could be used against us. However, the evolutionary concept of group selection works in our favor here, justifying the argument that widespread MAPness, when not exclusive, was so beneficial to society that it persisted despite presenting a distraction to procreation. Perhaps the benefit of having a BL in the community also explains why homosexual minor-attraction is more common than homosexual adult-attraction, the latter being less inherently suited to a child mentoring role.