Although the average age of the onset of menses is decreasing, and that is the technical definition of ‘puberty,’ I am not sure that the ‘look’ that we think of as post-pubescent is keeping up. An 11-yr-old who has menstrated still does not have the womanly lines to her face and figure that a teen does, and really would not be appealing to your average het man.
Not that I can really speak for your average het man…
I’m sort of the exact opposite of AHunter… I find all women of most ages attractive. From about… um, 15 to 40’s and 50’s. I’m at a loss to describe this recognitiion of attractiveness as “bad”.
grienspace: In Canada, 14 years is "legal"
Now I could well be wrong about this, but isn’t a person under 18 “legal” only if you’re within two years of their age?
Well,
A different point. I am 31 and it seems that the dress code these days is way different than when I was a teen. Showing off T and A seems to be standard practice for the under 18 crowd.
I find it hard not to look at the teens showing T and A but agree that anyone who acts upon the impulse should be drawn and quartered, or something similar.
At the same time I live in Vegas where the motto seems to be “Come to our casino, we have tits on parade”. (#1.)
Slee
#1. I got a job at a casino out here and they had a lecture about sexual harrasment. They said if you wanted to look you should just stare at your shoes. I spent 3 months staring at my shoes because what the hell else can you do when you encounter show girls wearing thongs and a bikini top in the lunch room or walking down the hall? Or Parrot wielding showgirls in thongs? (#2)
#2. The casino had girls with trained birds entertain the crowd at the reception desk during peak periods. These girls would walk by my office in thongs everyday. I knew to open the door because the girls would be talking to the Parrots to get them active and the Parrots would talk up a storm. That was a nice job perk.
No, in Canada, if you’re 14 years of age, you’re legally able to consent to sexual relations with anyone who is not in a position of authority over you (e.g., your boss, your teacher, your guardian, in which case, the age of consent is 18). The only other exception to this rule is for sodomy: a 16 year old can screw a 35 year old of the opposite sex, but a couple of gay teenagers go to the rockpile in Kingston.
In Canada, the “within two years” rule applies if you’re under 14.
Sua - I know what the discussion’s about; check the Pit thread. I just thought I’d respond to a somewhat sweeping generalization.
[hijack]If it’s the job of these women to wander around in thong bikinis (and get drooled over by the clientele), how can merely being looked at by fellow employees possibly be creating a hostile work environment? Sheesh. (It’s not like you’re even gonna look that hard or that long, when (unlike most of the customers) you see them attired like that, day in and day out.) [/hijack]
What if you’re a guy & your daughter is 16 & looks just as pretty as her teenage friends
of the same age, how do you know it’s okay to feel for them, but not for her?
puberty STARTS at around 11, but girls don’t stop growing til about 16. at least for the most part. thus the “post” part of postpubescent
I am having a bugger of a time articulating what I think on this subject in this and the pit thread.
I think it comes down to the difference between being able to appreciate beauty in teenage girls and fetishizing them as forbidden fruit.
I’m not sure if this is really pertinent, but here’s my opinion as a fifteen-year-old girl.
First of all, I think that a lot of us don’t even notice how provocative our clothing is to people outside high school. I wear form fitting shirts and tightish jeans and never get a second glance at school - teenage guys see almost every girl wearing this every day. I walk on the street and am taken aback by the attention I get - nothing really obvious, just lingering glances. Sometimes it’s a little creepy, mostly it’s ok. Basically, it breaks down like this: if the guy looks less than a decade older than me, it’s flattering. If he looks like he’s in his mid-twenties to thirties, I’m basically ok with it but wondering why he isn’t looking at women his own age. Fourties to fifties is getting creepy because he’s old enough to be my father, and anything above that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. To be clear, I’m talking about glancing and not leering - leering is never acceptable. It really freaks me out, especially as I stated above that I’m unused to attention, much less that much. So that’s what I think, FWIW. I know that this debate is about whether it’s acceptable and not what us underage girls think, but I just thought I’d add my two cents.
Which one? 
Kingston has seven prisons.
Of course, I don’t believe that law would be enforced in this circumstance.
I wouldn’t be so sure. Several years ago, when Alan Rock was Justice Minister (when the Liberals had a strong and immensely popular majority), he tried to get that part of the statute stricken, and ran into so much opposition in the House of Commons that he withdrew it.
Even though i’m just repeating others…
I find no harm in just looking, no matter the age. Having the desire is ok, but acting on the desire sure as hell ain’t.
On the other hand the Ontario Court of Appeal has already found this unconstitutional as has the FCA IIRC. It hasn’t been found unconstitutional in other courts simply because no one has been stupid enough to pursue a charge anywhere else. It would really be exceptionally surprising to find a court anywhere in the country prepared to uphold this law.
That’s certainly an understandable response all the way up the line; but remember that all those older guys weren’t born that old, and have probably been looking at girls your age since they were your age. They probably are looking at women their own age as well, but your age never got crossed off their radar as human beings, and I can think of no reason why it should be. When I was hitting puberty, girls who were hitting puberty were who caught my attention, and much older than that held no interest for me (eww, they were old!). As I’ve gotten older, those who catch my attention have gotten older as well; but no age group has ever been replaced by another. They just accumulate.
Insofar as the whole “What is appropriate?” debate, to me the obvious response is “In whose opinion?” and then everyone can argue over whose opinions should and should not count. Bottom line when it comes to post-pubescent minors as a group: attraction is biologically justified but socially not allowed for the most part. It’s up to each individual where their personal morality allows them to sit comfortably in that space, and IMO, they should allow everyone else that same freedom, regardless of whether they agree with them.
I think the age taboo is an invention of human cultures rather than nature; certainly there are examples of human cultures throughout history where aged, mature men took wives as young as 9 or 10 years old. But aside from that:
If the majority of men were only attracted to women in an age group from 2 years younger to 2 years older than themselves, then the swimsuit calendar industry would go belly-up, and very likely so would most of the porn industry. In other words, it’s FAR more likely that a 35 year old man is going to find a young, healthy and provocatively dressed 16 year-old girl sexually attractive than not. Some responses are not immediately filtered by the moral codes imposed by our culture…
I think part of the reason my attraction to teenagers never went away is that, at that age, I never dated, thus didn’t get it “out of my system.”
On the other hand, I wasn’t attracted to women older than me until one evening in my mid-twenties. One of the contestants on Jeopardy was a fiftyish woman, plump and pleasant-looking. One minute she looked like somebody’s kindly aunt, then WOW! A completely unexpected wave of desire flooded me; left me weak-kneed.
Nowadays I admire women of up to retirement age.
Morally justifying this matter is not that difficult. When a teenager, is it wrong to be attracted to other teenagers? Of course not. So, attraction to minors is fine if one is a minor, but not fine if one is not. This suggests that sexual attraction to those younger than oneself is wrong. Yet, it is not wrong to feel sexually attracted to someone if they are 20 and you are 60. This is far larger an age gap than that between some minor and non-minors (the term for this eludes me at the moment.) This being the case, it makes little sense for such attraction to be morally wrong. What of acting on such attraction? The key question here is the same for ALL questions concerning sexual activities: “Do all those involved truly want to participate in such activities?” Thus, if a minor initiates a sexual encounter, and you are attracted to her, there is nothing morally wrong with such an encounter. Obviously, the minor desired the encounter, unless she was pressured by someone other than yourself. Even if this were the case, if you are unaware of such pressure, you have still done nothing wrong. Your intention was not to pressure the minor, so the moral blame is with those who pressured the girl. So, in summary, sexual actions are justified if all people involved want to participate in such actions. True, there are still some grey areas, but I shall let them be for the time being.
A predictable response, though I anticipated it arising much earlier.
Mandos, I–and millions of parents nationwide–completely reject your specious reasoning that regards pedophilia as appropriate human behavior. An adult having sex with a minor, as outlined in your chilling scenario, is wrong–and deserving of a good ass kicking, followed by several years in prison.
I’ve watched this thread dissolve into the inevitable morass of grays, rationalizations, and denial, and want to offer a somewhat different perspective: Being sexually attracted to children is not healthy, nor is it “normal,” and let’s not kid ourselves by playing with terms.
BTW, there’s a hell of a difference between “noticing” a child and scoping out a child.