# Do all men find the sight of pubescent girls tantalising? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 21, 2016, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-men-find-the-sight-of-pubescent-girls-tantalising/769232 "2016-10-21T11:46:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2016, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-men-find-the-sight-of-pubescent-girls-tantalising/769232/61 "2016-10-21T18:35:09Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > My question still stands: what is it about “pubescent” girls that screams hotness? They have boobs. You are over-thinking this. Men respond to the sight of women who appear to be sexually mature. > [@I Can't Recall Who](#): > > Of course I want to sleep with teenage girls. So does everyone else - that’s why there’s a law against it. > [@](#): > > I’m not saying there are no men who are attracted to girls at this stage. But I don’t think its most men… It is. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2016, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-men-find-the-sight-of-pubescent-girls-tantalising/769232/62 "2016-10-21T18:48:40Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > I’m not saying there are no men who are attracted to girls at this stage. But I don’t think its most men, nor do I think it’s unreasonable to be concerned that someone would make a point of declaring this attraction. I don’t think it’s most men either, but it’s hard for me to get into the minds of other men. Typically, it’s more like 20-somethings for those older guys I know who like their women younger, not teenagers. But it’s possible the guys who are attracted to younger girls don’t express their attraction around me. Teenagers just look like children to me. ---
**Author:** ![harmonicamoon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/65b543/32.png) [@harmonicamoon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/harmonicamoon)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2016, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-men-find-the-sight-of-pubescent-girls-tantalising/769232/63 "2016-10-21T18:53:44Z")
When my SO’s 11 year old daughter’s nipples started poking through her blouse, I told the SO that it was time for her first bra. I always thought it was strange that the SO hadn’t noticed it first. Maybe males have an eye for this sort of thing. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2016, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-men-find-the-sight-of-pubescent-girls-tantalising/769232/64 "2016-10-21T19:11:26Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > I’m not saying there are no men who are attracted to girls at this stage. But I don’t think its most men… Men whose brains have yet to develop a proper moral compass. No idea if they’re the majority or not but, given the schmuck of a Republican candidate… ---
**Author:** ![Drunky\_Smurf](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drunky_smurf/32/449_2.png) [@Drunky\_Smurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drunky_Smurf)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2016, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-men-find-the-sight-of-pubescent-girls-tantalising/769232/65 "2016-10-21T19:12:59Z")
> [@Two\_Many\_Cats](#): > > Well, the guy in question in this thread said that guys are geared this way because of their caveman ancestors, so I imagine that means every male including you and your friends. Correct. Every male ever in the history of forever is a prevert who wants to bang 13 year olds. All dads, husbands, brothers and sons want to bang them. ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2016, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-men-find-the-sight-of-pubescent-girls-tantalising/769232/66 "2016-10-21T19:21:49Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > They have boobs. So do 20, 30, 40, and 50 year olds. Yet something tells me dude in the OP doesn’t regard the older ladies as tantalizing as much as the kids in the fresh-out-of-training-bra crowd. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2016, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-men-find-the-sight-of-pubescent-girls-tantalising/769232/67 "2016-10-21T19:31:28Z")
> [@Skywatcher](#): > > Men whose brains have yet to develop a proper moral compass. No idea if they’re the majority or not but, given the schmuck of a Republican candidate… A person’s moral compass does not guide their attractions, it guides their actions. There are, for example, pedophiles with a strong moral compass who have successfully managed to not engage in any act of molestation, despite their attraction to children. Similarly, a married man might choose to remain faithful to his wife, but his moral compass does not prevent him from being attracted to other women; it just keeps him from acting on that urge. ---
**Author:** ![Oredigger77](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/oredigger77/32/3181_2.png) [@Oredigger77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oredigger77)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2016, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-men-find-the-sight-of-pubescent-girls-tantalising/769232/68 "2016-10-21T19:37:37Z")
I just check and yes, in my mid thirties, I’m still attracted to [teenagers](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=C-u5WLJ9Yk4) ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2016, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-men-find-the-sight-of-pubescent-girls-tantalising/769232/69 "2016-10-21T19:44:03Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > A person’s moral compass does not guide their attractions, it guides their actions. There are, for example, pedophiles with a strong moral compass who have successfully managed to not engage in any act of molestation, despite their attraction to children. Well, something is underdeveloped in their brain if they’re still attracted to developing bodies, or even earlier than that. ---
**Author:** ![gytalf2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ac91a4/32.png) [@gytalf2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gytalf2000)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2016, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-men-find-the-sight-of-pubescent-girls-tantalising/769232/70 "2016-10-21T19:50:11Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > A person’s moral compass does not guide their attractions, it guides their actions. There are, for example, pedophiles with a strong moral compass who have successfully managed to not engage in any act of molestation, despite their attraction to children. > > Similarly, a married man might choose to remain faithful to his wife, but his moral compass does not prevent him from being attracted to other women; it just keeps him from acting on that urge. This is my perspective, as well. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2016, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-men-find-the-sight-of-pubescent-girls-tantalising/769232/71 "2016-10-21T19:53:36Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > So do 20, 30, 40, and 50 year olds. My point exactly. > [@](#): > > Yet something tells me dude in the OP doesn’t regard the older ladies as tantalizing as much as the kids in the fresh-out-of-training-bra crowd. I don’t see why - he agreed that 'women in France, culturally, seem to be comfortable being/dressing sexy for a lot longer than our culture", and “the French don’t worship youth the same way we do.” Which appears to be pretty much the opposite of what you said. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2016, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-men-find-the-sight-of-pubescent-girls-tantalising/769232/72 "2016-10-21T20:10:38Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > My point exactly.I don’t see why - he agreed that 'women in France, culturally, seem to be comfortable being/dressing sexy for a lot longer than our culture", and “the French don’t worship youth the same way we do.” > > Which appears to be pretty much the opposite of what you said. > > Regards, > Shodan The OP said he offered the “men are aroused by pubescent girls” thing as a BUT to her observation about French attitudes towards aging. It was a counter argument, in other words. Your interpretation actually makes his comment look even more random and weird. “People seem more open to seeing older women as sexy here.” “Yes, and pubescent girls can be tantalizing!” ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2016, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-men-find-the-sight-of-pubescent-girls-tantalising/769232/73 "2016-10-21T22:17:15Z")
Absolutely not. I never have. But according to the book “Dataclysm”, (written by a founder of OKCupid) most women seem to prefer a man to be a couple years older, until in their 40s, then they find men a few years younger to be the best looking (peaking at about 45-49? The graph showed what age men and women found most attractive, but excluded people older than 50s and other personal qualities). Most men apparently find women in their early to mid 20s most attractive, throughout most of their life, but in practice often have relationships with women slightly younger than they are. Looks aren’t everything, most women don’t want to date someone a lot older, a lot of personal qualities like life experience, narcissism and social and cultural touchstones vary by age. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2016, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-men-find-the-sight-of-pubescent-girls-tantalising/769232/74 "2016-10-21T22:20:07Z")
Older women are often very sexy. “Dataclysm” claims men in their early 20s find older women most attractive, though, invoking the term “cougars”. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2016, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-men-find-the-sight-of-pubescent-girls-tantalising/769232/75 "2016-10-21T22:28:54Z")
> [@Lola181](#): > > Hello, > > I was talking to a potential partner about ageing. I’m 35, he’s 46. I said women in France, culturally, seem to be comfortable being/dressing sexy for a lot longer than our culture, the French don’t worship youth the same way we do. > > He said yes, but when a girl enters puberty, the male brain goes ‘ding’, because in cave man days she would be ready to be mated. I was taken aback, and later rang him to clarify. He said, "I was just saying that seeing girls, in puberty, can be a little bit tantalising.’ > > Is this the case? What does he mean? Is it harmless or should I dump him? He doesn’t seem like a pervert, and says he’s never dated with such a large age gap. Now I’m just freaking out thinking all men/him are turned on by pubescent girls and I don’t know how to take it. Please help explain this to me, decent kind men out there! Once you start developing adult sexual characteristics it will act as a signal that one can reproduce. At some level it’s to be expected that it’s attractive. Billions of years of evolution has influence regardless of culture. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2016, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-men-find-the-sight-of-pubescent-girls-tantalising/769232/76 "2016-10-21T22:37:30Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > I admit to wondering what was going through his mind when he said that. One part of me thinks he was trying to deflate the OP a bit, to remind her (unnecessarily) that age does matter sexually to men. The weirdness comes from him doing so by pointing to such an extreme and then trying to universalize it using pseudo-scientific theorizing. Evolution is not pseudo science. The brain is a biological organ and is subject to evolution just like a toe or the pancreas. ---
**Author:** ![Ken001](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/43a26b/32.png) [@Ken001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ken001)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2016, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-men-find-the-sight-of-pubescent-girls-tantalising/769232/77 "2016-10-21T23:03:47Z")
My thought is we are overreacting. A British vet will have a much wider vocabulary than average and when it comes to ages, he is likely to choose a descriptive term. That is what he will do daily with his work. Maybe the comment is a clue and maybe not. I’d talk to him more before reaching any conclusions. ---
**Author:** ![Arcite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/67e7ee/32.png) [@Arcite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arcite)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2016, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-men-find-the-sight-of-pubescent-girls-tantalising/769232/78 "2016-10-21T23:41:28Z")
> [@Dr\_Paprika](#): > > Absolutely not. I never have. > > But according to the book “Dataclysm”, (written by a founder of OKCupid) most women seem to prefer a man to be a couple years older, until in their 40s, then they find men a few years younger to be the best looking (peaking at about 45-49? The graph showed what age men and women found most attractive, but excluded people older than 50s and other personal qualities). Most men apparently find women in their early to mid 20s most attractive, throughout most of their life, but in practice often have relationships with women slightly younger than they are. Looks aren’t everything, most women don’t want to date someone a lot older, a lot of personal qualities like life experience, narcissism and social and cultural touchstones vary by age. The OKCupid guy pointed out something else gleaned from OKCupid’s data that is very interesting and pertinent to this thread: men will set the age range they’re “looking for” in their profiles, which is visible to everyone, such that the minimum age is no more than a few years younger than themselves, i.e., a range that society thinks is acceptable. So 40 year old guys will set their range to 34-40 or thereabouts. But then those same men will proceed to message 21 year olds. I think society is in massive denial about this because of feminism and the idea of actual child molestation being just about the worst taboo imaginable. This is just speculation on my part, but I think many more men are attracted to much younger women than anyone will admit. I once read a post on a blog (though it was an evo-psych blog, so I suppose some in this thread will dismiss this as a just-so story) where a guy told of an experiment he did among other men he knew. He asked them to perform the following thought experiment: imagine your fairy godmother appears and tells you you’re going to die tomorrow. This is your last night on earth. Your parting gift is that I will conjure up one ready-and-willing female for you to spend the night in bed with. Now, you can’t pick the exact woman, but you get to specify one of her traits, and that is her age. What age do you pick? The guy said that no one said older than 19. Now, you can claim that was just some anonymous poster on the internet so he could have made the whole thing up for all we know, but I think that if most men search their feelings, they’ll know it to be true. ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2016, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-men-find-the-sight-of-pubescent-girls-tantalising/769232/79 "2016-10-21T23:49:24Z")
> [@Arcite](#): > > I once read a post on a blog (though it was an evo-psych blog, so I suppose some in this thread will dismiss this as a just-so story) where a guy told of an experiment he did among other men he knew. He asked them to perform the following thought experiment: imagine your fairy godmother appears and tells you you’re going to die tomorrow. This is your last night on earth. Your parting gift is that I will conjure up one ready-and-willing female for you to spend the night in bed with. Now, you can’t pick the exact woman, but you get to specify one of her traits, and that is her age. What age do you pick? The guy said that no one said older than 19. Now, you can claim that was just some anonymous poster on the internet so he could have made the whole thing up for all we know, but I think that if most men search their feelings, they’ll know it to be true. I would not chose such a woman. There’s no denying that young women can be very physically attractive. But I have know quite a few (having had daughters go through those ages). I can say with no hesitation, if I had one night left on earth and could design a woman to spend it with, it would be a woman older than 19. Probably significantly older. While there may be exceptions, I have found women older than 30 to be much better lovers, and better company. I haven’t found an upper age limit yet. ---
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2016, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-men-find-the-sight-of-pubescent-girls-tantalising/769232/80 "2016-10-21T23:52:01Z")
> [@Drunky\_Smurf](#): > > Correct. Every male ever in the history of forever is a prevert who wants to bang 13 year olds. All dads, husbands, brothers and sons want to bang them. That was the OP’s potential partner’s opinion, not mine. But nice stampeding to your own defense. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-men-find-the-sight-of-pubescent-girls-tantalising/769232.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-men-find-the-sight-of-pubescent-girls-tantalising/769232.md?page=5)