Can I see a cite for this? I don’t doubt you, but I’d be very interested in seeing the comparison.
Here’s a quick link I found with more links to many further cites; though the recidivism myth is often repeated, it’s false.
Cites below (some but not all free, sorry).
From an evolutionary perspective, “several thousand years” is the blink of an eye. We have barely begun to respond to the invention of agriculture, much less the invention of the Value Sized Combo Meal.
Q.E.D., Hanson and Gluckman’s argument (I’ve read their paper) is [del]a complete crock of shit based on pure and unadulterated handwaving[/del] an interesting but poorly-referenced argument that does not appear to be supported by the available evidence. Basically, they claim that the earliest average age to which menarche can be advanced by improved diet and health directly reflects the biologically optimal age for first reproduction during evolutionary time, however
a) decades of research on assorted mammalian species (including humans) have shown that reproductive maturity can be induced at ages much younger than that observed in the wild when a high-fat, high-calorie diet is available, and that this is a situationally-appropriate tradeoff that decreases a female’s later health and reproductive performance, and
b) decades of research on existing hunter-gatherer societies have quite clearly shown that the average 12-year-old is not capable of functioning as an independent adult in those cultures (children consume more than they produce until about age 15 - cite1 - subscription, cite2 - free).
The annoying thing is that the web has picked up on the press release and now asserts confidently that prehistoric women hit puberty at 7-13, a value which the authors arrive at as follows:
Do I need to point out how laughable this is? :rolleyes:
Cites for age of menarche in hunter-gatherer societies, plus bonus data on age at first birth:
-
Bentley and Mace, Human Reproduction and Life Histories, 2006, in Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science (subscription required):
Three societies: (mean age at first menarche / mean female age at first reproduction)
!Kung: 16.6 / 18.8
Agta: 17.1 / 20.1
Ache: 15.3 / 18.5 -
Eaton, Women’s Reproductive Cancers in Evolutionary Context, 1994: free here - requires Acrobat Reader (does not play nice with Mac Previews software)
8 societies: average age of menarche 16.1, average female age at first reproduction 19.5 -
Walker et al, Growth Rates and Life Histories in Twenty-Two Small-Scale Societies, 2006: free here
Abstracting the data for the 8 “forager” societies: average age at first menarche 14.7 (range 12.6-16.6); average female age at first reproduction 18.8 (range 17.0-20.7)
To clarify, sex offenders are more likely to be arrested later for the same crime, as opposed to bank robbery or tax evasion. Whereas street-level criminals have a higher recidivism rate overall, but they’re more likely to be picked up for something else – a carjacker becomes a drug dealer, a wife-beater becomes a murderer, etc. That’s probably where the confusion comes from.
I’d just like to say that I’m quite impressed with your scholarly vigour, something I lack myself. I’m a thinker, not a researcher.
That does seem like a crazy line of thinking. They might as well have said "Oh, I don’t know, it’s Tuesday, let’s say it’s 9-13. "
I’d better jump in here now, because someone is sure to bring up Thailand. From my personal observation over the years, pedophilia among Thai males is not uncommon, especially in but not limited to rural areas, and to this day it is rare for Thai pedophiles to be prosecuted. In many cases, the local police and/or community mob may simply kill the pedophile if the family is upset about it. More often than not, the family’s daughter in question has been “mated” to an older man, usually for a sum of money, so no one cares.
Foreign pedophiles garner lots of press and makes Thailand look bad, so foreign pedophiles are leaned on heavily. As a result, the vast majority of them now head for Cambodia, but there are always a few boneheads who simply don’t get it. The police love to march foreign pedophiles out in front of the press. Thailand is simply no longer the haven for foreign pedophiles it once was, but the image remains.
I can’t say I pay all that much attention to the practice, but such be my observations.
True enough, but our society has evolved in the agricultural age. I’m not sure our laws should be constructed to comport with some theoretical idea of stone-age biology. I realize you are not making that argument necessarily, but were responding to another poster’s (perhaps erroneous) ideas about our evolved biology.
Bottom line for me is that while I abhor sexual abuse of pre-pubescent children, I am not so sure that post-pubescents shouldn’t be deemed legally capable of consenting to sex (at the very least when engaging in same with someone within a few years of their own age – with older partners you might get into some abuse-of-authority issues).
I have worked with the Sexual Offenders Squad (State Police). The number of paedophiles- is more than many people would imagine. I am stretching it a bit as I include those into child pornography.
Well as we seem to be talking about paedophile to mean child molester, how does that affect your statement? I can believe that there are far more people than commonly thought who have sexual interest in children and will watch child porn, but does that translate into there are far more people sexually assaulting/raping pre-pubescent children than commonly realised?
Oh, and another person here chiming in to say I wish a better legal distinction was made between paedophiles and ephebophiles - it’s an entirely different kettle of fish and should be treated as such (not that I’m saying the latter is always automatically fine, however).
No- wasn’t meaning anything about child molesters. But there are a number of people who will have kiddy porn at home while having young children of their own. And both parents know of it and watch it.
I could never understand it. But I like women whose chest casts a shadow 
You can’t measure the prevalence of paedophilia based on the extent of “child porn.” Such imagery is very often not of pre-pubescents, but post-, and therefore ought to be under the ephebophilia label. The distinction is never made, however. It is still illegal, but it’s not an indicator of true paedophilia.
Incidentally, paedophilia isn’t illegal either, it’s a sexual proclivity. It’s child sexual abuse that’s illegal.
That’s a pretty academic point, given that any expression of paedophilia is considered child abuse (I challenge you to think of a method for a paedophile actually acting on their sexual urges that wouldn’t be). It’s like saying “being gay isn’t illegal, just homosexual acts”.
As you seem to understand GuanoLad point exactly (based on your analogy of hypothetically illegal homosexuality), I don’t understand your challenge to list an example of “a method for a paedophile actually acting on their sexual urges that wouldn’t be (considered child abuse).” GuanoLad never suggested that there could be any means of acting out pedophilia that wouldn’t be abusive to a child. The assertion was simply that feelings of pedophilia are not illegal, only actions of pedophilia.
Feeling a sexual attraction to children is not illegal. You can go around announcing to everyone that you meet that you are sexually attracted to children and there’s no legal course of action that can be taken against you. You haven’t broken any laws by feeling a sexual attraction to children.
???
Masturbating while mentally picturing a naked little girl.
(I like a challenge.)
Are you including all folks on Sex Offender Registries? 'cause IME (working w/ offenders 30+ years), the number of ‘child molesters’ (including computer crimes, child porn, and just under legal) are onlly a portion of those on the registries(which in my jurisdiction includes prostitutes, pimps, a woman who ran a sex phone line, rapists, amd indecent exposure- which includes ‘girlsgone wild’ type of thing as well as consensual outdoor sex, and peeing in public). I’ve always found the actual number of traditionally thought of ‘child molesters’ as fairlysmall percentage.
Do you have any data that supports your contention that it’s a large %?
It’s because everybody is catching the gay!
OK, I’m new, so I might want to disclaim here… JOKING!!!
Damn, I got beat. 
bienville - I see what you’re saying, however if I was to translate what it is to be a paedophile into being gay (which I am - gay that is, probably need to make that clear!) I can tell you such a distinction between thinking and doing is almost pointless. I’m a sexual being, I want to have sex - if homosexual sex were still illegal I can assure you I’d be out there looking for it regardless. The idea of going my entire life just thinking about sex with men and never doing it? I can’t conceive of such a thing.
So, replace gay with paedophile, how does the non-criminalization of your desires really change anything? If you have sexual desire towards children I would be amazed if you haven’t (at least once) tried to access child porn, which according to the standards set by society is automatically child abuse. That’s without even trying to have actual sex with a child, consensual or not (whether a child can willingly have sex with an adult is a whole other debate that I don’t think I really want to get into). So to say “there isn’t really anything wrong with having sexual desire towards children, just acting on it” is in the real world a meaningless statement.
Oh, IMO. 
For the overwhelming majority of pedophiles who have an ongoing attraction to children (which is to say, most of them), it is apparently not so much analogous to being gay as it is to being bisexual, as they also have an ongoing attraction to adults. We would then have to ask a person who is bisexual what the likelihood is of their being such a distinction with respect to only one gender. Honestly, I don’t know the answer to that and I doubt anyone does.
If only some paedophiles could chime into the discussion to give their side of the argument…
Activates IP tracking software
Was that intended to kill the thread?
I’m not a pedophile, I’m not attracted to children, I can’t imagine someone actually having such things in their head. But obviously it exists. And unfortunately, as commented on previously, it seems to act something like a communicable disease, where if you’re abused as a child, you grow up to abuse other children.
All I came into this thread to say was, that like anything else, there is a continuum, not a black and white line in the sand.
I recall a couple of years ago when a 14 year old girl had been busted working at a strip joint using a fake ID. Some howling mad women in the media screamed about all those “sick, perverted” guys looking at her and wondering how they could be turned on by looking at a girl that age.
All I could think was, if she looked old enough for peope to think that she was 18, then there’s nothing wrong with any of the guys that were looking at her. But obviously, there’s something wrong with the people who think that some magical and (unknown to observers) age demarcation makes those other people mentally ill perverts for enjoying the show. The “wrong” here wasn’t the guys who looked, thought she was 18, and didn’t know. The “wrong” was the girl passing herself off as being 18 and working in the sex industry. She’s the one who needs help in that situation.
While I myself enjoy looking at hot young women with firm, hot bodies; I tend to shy away from some of the porn that’s out there because I don’t like looking at porn where the girl looks like she’s 12, even if she’s got the ID to prove that she’s as old as 20. Come back when you LOOK 18.