# 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:** 6
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2016, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-men-find-the-sight-of-pubescent-girls-tantalising/769232/101 "2016-10-24T22:52:10Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > My question still stands: what is it about “pubescent” girls that screams hotness? Morality aside, personally I just don’t get it at all. Perhaps this has to do with me being straight female, but I doubt it since I understand why older girls and women are attractive to men. Your typical 12, 13 year old, he’ll no. I cringe when I think about myself at that stage of development. Are you talking about physical attractiveness or something else? Because a man looking at me walk down the street wouldn’t have known the difference between 12 year old me and 17 year old me. Maybe if 13 year old me happened to be wearing heels I wasn’t accustomed to, but probably not. Like \*\*Nava \*\* , I can’t even tell myself in old pictures without relying on clothes, locations or other people in the photo. I was my adult height by 12, my breasts had stopped growing, I was having regular periods, I had a waist and hips. Now, 30 seconds of conversation would have clued someone in that I was 12 or 13 rather than 16 or 17, but that’s got nothing to do with physical attractiveness. I know some girls look physically very different at 13 than they do at 17, but not nearly all. I wouldn’t feel at all confident about my ability to stand outside a high school a dismissal time and distinguish the 13 year olds who just started 9th grade from the 17 year old seniors. ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Girl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7bcc69/32.png) [@Mighty\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Girl)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2016, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-men-find-the-sight-of-pubescent-girls-tantalising/769232/102 "2016-10-24T23:26:50Z")
> [@doreen](#): > > I was my adult height by 12, my breasts had stopped growing, I was having regular periods, I had a waist and hips. This is not the mental image I have of the word “pubescent”. Pubescent is not an age thing, it’s a stage of sexual maturity reached at different ages by different children. You are describing a post-pubecent female. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2016, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-men-find-the-sight-of-pubescent-girls-tantalising/769232/103 "2016-10-24T23:55:03Z")
> [@Mighty\_Girl](#): > > This is not the mental image I have of the word “pubescent”. Pubescent is not an age thing, it’s a stage of sexual maturity reached at different ages by different children. You are describing a post-pubecent female. Yes, by any almost any definition of when puberty ends.But I left out a sentence - whichever event you consider to be the end of puberty (whether it’s adult height, complete breast development or the beginning of menstruation), the month before that event I was still “pubescent” but no one who saw me walking down the street would have been able to tell if I was “pubescent” or “post-pubescent”. It is, after all a stage - people seem to be thinking exclusively of early puberty when the see “pubescent” but the word also includes those in late puberty. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2016, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-men-find-the-sight-of-pubescent-girls-tantalising/769232/104 "2016-10-25T00:30:07Z")
nm ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2016, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-men-find-the-sight-of-pubescent-girls-tantalising/769232/105 "2016-10-25T01:13:36Z")
I went from being in sales and marketing into becoming an English teacher, and stated to teach all ranges of students from kindergarten to adults. I find “tantalizing” to be an odd word to be using about pubescent girls; I teach to that age as well as older and younger. You notice that some of the girls are developing and that some will become sexy when they get older but “tantalizing” just seems like the guy is more into it than normal. ---
**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 25, 2016, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-men-find-the-sight-of-pubescent-girls-tantalising/769232/106 "2016-10-25T01:47:44Z")
> [@doreen](#): > > Are you talking about physical attractiveness or something else? Because a man looking at me walk down the street wouldn’t have known the difference between 12 year old me and 17 year old me. I’m talking about physical “omg, she’s giving me a boner” attraction. If 12 year old you looked indistinguishable to a near-adult, any man attracted to you would have been attracted to someone who looked like a _near-adult_. Not a child entering puberty as specified in the OP. I’ve mentioned 12 and 13 year olds because that’s what comes to mind when I think “pubescent girl”. Most girls at that age don’t look like grown women. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2016, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-men-find-the-sight-of-pubescent-girls-tantalising/769232/107 "2016-10-25T05:10:18Z")
> [@you with the face](#): > > My question still stands: what is it about “pubescent” girls that screams hotness? > [@you with the face](#): > > I’m talking about physical “omg, she’s giving me a boner” attraction. I think you are waaaay exaggerating both the extent of the sex appeal of the girls in question and the male reaction to it. No one in neither the OP nor elsewhere in the thread has said anything about pubescent girls being ‘screamingly hot’, nor that the sight of them instantly gives anyone boners. The truth is that as with sexually appealing girls/women of all ages who are nevertheless out of reach for whatever reason, the reaction is usually one of taking notice, appreciation combined with a smidgeon of lust, and then, as with expensive cars or big houses or other things a person might take notice of and want but realize are out of reach, they turn their focus back to whatever errand or mission they were on before and get on with their lives, hardly giving the girl or woman they were taking notice of a few moments ago another thought. ---
**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 25, 2016, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-men-find-the-sight-of-pubescent-girls-tantalising/769232/108 "2016-10-25T14:28:48Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > I think you are waaaay exaggerating both the extent of the sex appeal of the girls in question and the male reaction to it. No one in neither the OP nor elsewhere in the thread has said anything about pubescent girls being ‘screamingly hot’, nor that the sight of them instantly gives anyone boners. From the OP: > [@](#): > > 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. The words “mated”, “tantalizing”, and the reference to the male brain being stimulated in an primitive way convey meaning here. Merely “taking notice” is not that meaning. “Appreciation” is not that meaning either. Sexual arousal is that meaning. If there is nothing shameful about this, why the downplaying? We get it, guys get horny at the sight of female secondary sex characteristics. Even when those characteristics are juxtaposed with very juvenile traits. Okay, not that complicated. Kind of gross, but whatever. So how about we stop pretending the OP’s guy didn’t single out pubescent girls as the object of lust. Because it’s clear that is what he meant. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2016, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-men-find-the-sight-of-pubescent-girls-tantalising/769232/109 "2016-10-25T15:27:23Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > If there is nothing shameful about this, why the downplaying? I don’t think we’re downplaying it so much as you are exaggerating it, and people recognize that. > [@](#): > > So how about we stop pretending the OP’s guy didn’t single out pubescent girls as the object of lust. Because it’s clear that is what he meant. He was responding to the idea that the French are supposedly more comfortable with older women presenting as sexually appealing. He agreed with that notion, but pointed out that youth + sexually mature gets a more visceral response than 50 years old + sexually mature. Especially since, as mentioned > [@](#): > > Everybody wants to fuck teenagers. That’s why there’s a law against it. Younger women are more likely to be fertile. Therefore, men evolved to find younger women more sexually appealing. Then along came civilization, and the laws of consent that say “I don’t care if she has boobs - she is too young, leave her alone”. But the evolved response remains. This is how men react. Go ahead and be horrified if you want. It won’t change anything, except we will lie about it. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Girl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7bcc69/32.png) [@Mighty\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Girl)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2016, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-men-find-the-sight-of-pubescent-girls-tantalising/769232/110 "2016-10-25T15:29:48Z")
> [@doreen](#): > > Yes, by any almost any definition of when puberty ends.But I left out a sentence - whichever event you consider to be the end of puberty (whether it’s adult height, complete breast development or the beginning of menstruation), the month before that event I was still “pubescent” but no one who saw me walking down the street would have been able to tell if I was “pubescent” or “post-pubescent”. It is, after all a stage - people seem to be thinking exclusively of early puberty when the see “pubescent” but the word also includes those in late puberty. This is why words have meaning. Pubescent includes little girls with tiny buds that are not even yet in need of training bras. That category is included in guys “tantalizing” group if they agree that they are talking about “pubescent” girls. There are other ways to describe young females with fully to nearly developed secondary sexual characteristics that do not lump them with 5th graders in pony tails. I am not surprised at all that men find young females with developed bodies attractive. I am also not surprised that some find pubescent (of all stages of development) girls sexually attractive. Having been a female all my life, I have encountered both groups. ---
**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 25, 2016, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-men-find-the-sight-of-pubescent-girls-tantalising/769232/111 "2016-10-25T16:20:37Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > I think you are waaaay exaggerating both the extent of the sex appeal of the girls in question and the male reaction to it. No one in neither the OP nor elsewhere in the thread has said … that the sight of them instantly gives anyone boners. I did. Post 35. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2016, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-men-find-the-sight-of-pubescent-girls-tantalising/769232/112 "2016-10-25T16:27:04Z")
> [@Mighty\_Girl](#): > > This is why words have meaning. > > Pubescent includes little girls with tiny buds that are not even yet in need of training bras. That category is included in guys “tantalizing” group if they agree that they are talking about “pubescent” girls. There are other ways to describe young females with fully to nearly developed secondary sexual characteristics that do not lump them with 5th graders in pony tails. I didn’t say he picked the best word possible- but words do have meaning , and “pubescent” includes the girls who have nearly finished puberty as well as those who have just started it. I’m sure he had one range or the other in mind, but it’s at least as likely that he was referring to the “almost women” as he was to the “practically children”. ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Girl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7bcc69/32.png) [@Mighty\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Girl)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2016, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-men-find-the-sight-of-pubescent-girls-tantalising/769232/113 "2016-10-25T16:37:51Z")
> [@doreen](#): > > I didn’t say he picked the best word possible- but words do have meaning , and “pubescent” includes the girls who have nearly finished puberty as well as those who have just started it. I’m sure he had one range or the other in mind, but it’s at least as likely that he was referring to the “almost women” as he was to the “practically children”. Or, as the word conveys, all of the above ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2016, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-men-find-the-sight-of-pubescent-girls-tantalising/769232/114 "2016-10-26T18:21:30Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > I think you are waaaay exaggerating both the extent of the sex appeal of the girls in question and the male reaction to it. No one in neither the OP nor elsewhere in the thread has said anything about pubescent girls being ‘screamingly hot’, nor that the sight of them instantly gives anyone boners. > > The truth is that as with sexually appealing girls/women of all ages who are nevertheless out of reach for whatever reason, the reaction is usually one of taking notice, appreciation combined with a smidgeon of lust, and then, as with expensive cars or big houses or other things a person might take notice of and want but realize are out of reach, they turn their focus back to whatever errand or mission they were on before and get on with their lives, hardly giving the girl or woman they were taking notice of a few moments ago another thought. I said much the same thing in my post and this is something that many women do not understand, or will not believe, that “noticing” as an almost innate male reaction does not necessarily move into the category of further interest or doing anything about the pubescent girl being noticed. I don’t know if this almost instantaneous mental compartmentalization is a Mars - Venus thing or not, but it’s what most men do whether women want to believe it or not. Certainly in the bell curve of sexual responses there are adult men who might see a pubescent girl as someone to go after, but this not the norm for properly socialized adult males in first world cultures and this behavior is properly criminalized. ---
**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 26, 2016, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-men-find-the-sight-of-pubescent-girls-tantalising/769232/115 "2016-10-26T19:20:00Z")
> [@astro](#): > > I said much the same thing in my post and this is something that many women do not understand, or will not believe, that “noticing” as an almost innate male reaction does not necessarily move into the category of further interest or doing anything about the pubescent girl being noticed. I don’t know if this almost instantaneous mental compartmentalization is a Mars - Venus thing or not, but it’s what most men do whether women want to believe it or not. > > Certainly in the bell curve of sexual responses there are adult men who might see a pubescent girl as someone to go after, but this not the norm for properly socialized adult males in first world cultures and this behavior is properly criminalized. How about not first world cultures? Should they have their norms fixed? ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2016, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-men-find-the-sight-of-pubescent-girls-tantalising/769232/116 "2016-10-26T19:45:29Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > How about not first world cultures? Should they have their norms fixed? Viscerally the idea of grown men going after relatively young pubescent girls repulses me, but I don’t live in that non-first world context. I put the “first world” caveat in because I don’t really know how pubescent sexuality is viewed across non-industrialized societies. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2016, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-men-find-the-sight-of-pubescent-girls-tantalising/769232/117 "2016-10-26T19:49:12Z")
> [@astro](#): > > I said much the same thing in my post and this is something that many women do not understand, or will not believe, that “noticing” as an almost innate male reaction does not necessarily move into the category of further interest or doing anything about the pubescent girl being noticed. I don’t know if this almost instantaneous mental compartmentalization is a Mars - Venus thing or not, but it’s what most men do whether women want to believe it or not. > > Certainly in the bell curve of sexual responses there are adult men who might see a pubescent girl as someone to go after, but this not the norm for properly socialized adult males in first world cultures and this behavior is properly criminalized. That’s right. I think most men would feel quite icky and manipulative were they to actually find themselves in a situation where sexual behavior of some sort with a pubescent or adolescent girl might be developing, but men still take notice of them and experience moments of attraction nonetheless. But that in no way means that most men will ever try to act on them. In fact, such attractions are usually considered so far out of bounds that most men will rarely confess them, even to each other. ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-men-find-the-sight-of-pubescent-girls-tantalising/769232/118 "2016-10-27T00:38:05Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > that most men will rarely confess them, even to each other. > **[Disgusting Ted](https://pbfcomics.com/comics/disgusting-ted/)** > > The Perry Bible Fellowship ---
**Author:** ![Me\_Billy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e480ec/32.png) [@Me\_Billy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Me_Billy)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-men-find-the-sight-of-pubescent-girls-tantalising/769232/119 "2016-10-27T17:32:32Z")
_ **Do all men find the sight of pubescent girls tantalizing?** _ No, I find their boyfriends tantalizing, but prefer older (like 20’s/30’s). ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2016, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-men-find-the-sight-of-pubescent-girls-tantalising/769232/120 "2016-10-28T14:59:33Z")
> [@Oredigger77](#): > > I just check and yes, in my mid thirties, I’m still attracted to [teenagers](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=C-u5WLJ9Yk4) Those look like teenagers to you? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-men-find-the-sight-of-pubescent-girls-tantalising/769232.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-men-find-the-sight-of-pubescent-girls-tantalising/769232.md?page=7)