There seems to be a lot of people not making any difference between finding somebody attractive (or pretty) and actually being attracted. Unless you are into children, I don’t think you can actually be attracted to somebody of ‘inappropriate’ age (whatever that is) because you don’t know what their age is. I notice how all the unattractive uniformed schoolgirls disappear at weekends and holidays and a lot of attractive young women appear from nowhere. Some of the younger ones are just as chubby and unappealing with a bare midriff and short skirt as in uniform but I expect some of the ones who know how to dress are underage. They’re not going to look at me and I’m not interested in them because they’d bore me crazy. When Brigitte Bardot made her film debut for her lover Roger Vadim and gave the world ‘sex kitten’, I think she was 15. But she always came across far more mature than Marilyn Monroe some ten years older.
I’m reminded of the Richard Pryor routine where he’s lusting after his teenage daughter’s friends and how hot they are and then they open thier mouths and ruin the whole fantasy.
The family went to visit a relative of Dad’s in washington. I’d never met them before. What was striking was how similar Dad and this guy looked. Same hair, same eyebrows, same complexion, similar height. Dad has 75-100 lbs on him though.
I was in College. So was his daughter. hubba hubba. I’m thinking I shouldn’t be attracted, I mean we’re related. But she was HOT. I think it has something to do with looking at someone that has a lot of similar, but slightly different features. Throw in a little Oedipus for spice and…well…
Then she winked at me while I’m telling the dinner table about something, I don’t really remember what and it completely trainwrecked my conversation. I have no idea what I said after that.
Later on we made plans to go skiiing on Mt. Hood the next day. She got cramps, ditched the group, and I got stuck with her college friends. Still had a blast but was rather disappointed I didn’t actually see her again.
I asked mom years later and it turns out she was a cousin, like 5th or 6th removed. Woulda been fair game. 
ah well.
At first I thought he was joking.
Then I realized that he may not have been.
Then I followed the link he provided and discovered that he’s still thinking about this 7 years after the fact.
Then I threw up in my mouth a little.
Cousin, older. She is really hot and me and my other cousin (who is also her cousin) just kind of stared at her and said, “holy shit she’s hot.”
I once fell for a first cousin of mine (as in head over heels, not just “yeah, she’s attractive”). She actually wasn’t spectacularly attractive or anything, but she was my best friend for a few years and then things just got complicated.
The friendship suffocated more and more over the years as I got more jealous and more desperate, until eventually we just resolved not to talk to each other anymore. Didn’t really work. After a few more months of me drunk-dialing her, I resolved to try harder. Kinda worked. Then I found other things to do and learned to leave her alone for the most part. It was a very slow and messy process, but eventually things settled down.
In other words, what I couldn’t do, time did. It was just a matter of waiting it out, I suppose. Now we talk less than once every few months and we simply avoid family gatherings where both of us would be present (makes for awkward Christmases, but oh well). We both lost a best friend, but I got my sanity back and she got her life back. Fair trade, I’d say.
I was very attracted to a cousin of mine. She was adopted, though, so that may not count. And my neice is 15 and developing and too damn flirty and funny and I think has a little crush on me. No worries, no funny stuff, just a little odd.
Figures the only woman interested in me is off-limits for not just ONE but TWO reasons…grumble grumble…
Damnit. Next time I have to go to a function where there are family members/friends, I’m going to be walking around with my arms involuntarily folded over my chest. I mean, I get signals that men are attracted to me but for some reason I just always assumed to my family members, that attraction just automatically turned off. I’m too naive by far!
Yo — the portion of our sexuality that is wired to our eyeballs is totally MINDLESS. Pavlovian. (& Stupid as a carton of shoelaces, and nearly USELESS and MEANINGLESS as anything other than a prompt to not forget that sex does indeed exist in this universe)
The end of a curtain waving in the air current gets matched by the subconscious with a couple memories of women in flouncy skirts. Bango! Momentary attraction to a goddam curtain. (Now, perhaps, you have a flash of insight about males and fetishes?)
It’s nothing personal.
Yeah. I know. For some reason I just assumed it didn’t exist when it came to me…and family members. Though I get that it doesn’t mean much; it’s just biology.
Not exactly an enlightened viewpoint, don’t you think?
He noticed something that aroused him and you’re treating this as though it has some bearing on his moral character. I saw no indication, here or in the other thread, that he decided to go sex up said 18 month old. As a lot of others have said, there’s nothing you need to “do” about any sexual attraction, since attraction isn’t the same as action.
There are plenty of people who find infants and toddlers attractive. The psychiatric term is “nepiophile”, though it takes more than just one instance of noticing an attractive infant/toddler to meet the diagnostic criteria.
As for me, my personal age of attraction is 0-10.
Once again, there’s really nothing I or anyone else needs to “do” about finding kids (or close relatives) attractive. I mean, do you “normal” straights go around raping everyone you find attractive?
0 - 10? Wtf?
I second the…
Are we going to get an Ask the Pedophile thread soon? Because that just might blow my little mind.
I predict a high view to post ratio. That particular post may sink like a stone…and make any contributor a potential suspect.
What, you think Cesario doesn’t realize how unusual and tragic their situation is? They already made it clear that they don’t intend to act upon such attractions in a harmful way; that was the entire point of their post. What use are comments like these in response?
That having been said, I am amused that Cesario’s sole other post on the SDMB opens like this: “As to the people who circumcise their infant sons for some concept of STD protection or because they personally find circumcised penises more attractive, I really have to ask, is there some vast number of sexually attractive infants out there that I’m not aware of?”. A line that would work better coming from someone else, I think… 
When I was 13 or so, I was majorly flirting with my 13 year old cousin. I didn’t think it wrong or incestuous at the time. I was just learning about sex and flirting felt great. We didn’t act on it (thank og) but it was a great vacation.
I once saw a cousin I rarely see at a family function and my breath caught in my throat. Obviously, what I did about it was NOTHING, but I was attracted to him that evening. I confided with my sister and my grandma, who I’m close to - they thought he was gorgeous too.
I’ve been momentarily attracted to boys and girls who appeared as young as 8 or so, but it was always a distant appreciation (aka, seeing them from a car window, never hearing them speak). I consider it the equivalent of seeing a beautiful human being as artwork, and it was left as such. They might or might not have grown into adults I would find beautiful, but they looked like they would. Taboo or no, I’d have not wanted to have sex with any of them.
There is also this, although I find some underage people extremely attractive, in addition to the reasons you give, there is another. I find a pretty sure fire mood killer would be the young person talking. They might make wonderful eye candy, but even those who don’t seem hopelessly inane by the end of their first sentence, the gulf between us is simply too wide to be bothered with–so little shared context.