Richard Hanania, in The Real Target of Pedophile Hysteria Is Age Gap Relationships, wants us to believe that the only thing standing between civilisational and demographic collapse is our refusal to admit that men are biologically wired to find 17-year-olds (and, by slippery extension, 15- and 16-year-olds) sexually attractive.
Thank you for taking the time to write this up. I am frequently puzzled by why so many people, including people I respect, find Hanania worth taking seriously. He strikes me as an internet troll with the veneer of respectability, working on motivated reasoning to support edgy claims to get attention (and apparently to support his own preferences.) I used to read his work but eventually gave up; there just wasn't anything new that was interesting, just repeating other people's arguments and a lot of obvious edge lord nonsense.
He’s a supposed “reformed white supremacist,” yet he still uses all sorts of dog whistles, the only thing that changed is that he perceives what I call “movement white supremacists” as unrefined and uneducated losers, yet he still subscribes to a lot of the core ideology.
He’s also a big-time gooner and brags about it. He’s a dumb chud who fits the caricature.
“The problem with Richard Hanania is that he needs a personality transplant, and those are… NOT YET AVAILABLE!”
You are being too kind. He thinks he is some smart guy, but has no real lasting insights and mostly goes for hot takes. Reminds me of the kid who got bullied in grade school and never grew out of that so is always going for attention and being an ass in the process.
Yes, I will never understand why so many people promote him. He clearly thinks he's much smarter than he actually is but only repackages other people's ideas
I like Hanania. His first book on the origins of Woke in expansive human rights law is brilliant. Would it not be productive in this conversation to consider Palestine? According to the UN Population Fund: "In the State of Palestine, child marriage is at 24 percent, which is relatively within the average incidence in the Arab region that is one in five women married before the age of 18.
However, in certain parts of Palestine, prevalence notably exceeds this average, for instance in Gaza three out of ten women aged 20-49 were married before the age of 18 compared to two out of ten women in the West Bank."
General Turginson “You mentioned the ratio of ten women to one man. Wouldn’t that necessitate the abandoning of the so called monogamous form of sexual relationships? At least as far as men are concerned?
Dr. Strangelove, “Regrettably, yes. But it is a sacrifice required for the future of the human race. I hasten to add that since each man will be required to perform prodigious service along those lines, the women will have to be selected for their sexual characteristics, which will have to be of a highly stimulating order”
That's Terry Southern's script and plot, actually. The satire is pitch-perfect, of course.
I'm reminded of that scene whenever I read about wealthy tech bros anticipating civilizational collapse and planning to bunker down in remote fortified compounds and private islands- and wouldn't you know, Epstein owned both types of real estate! The New Mexico compound was even intended to host a genetic research lab!
Jeffrey Epstein, Role Model. 21st century pioneer, boldly preparing for the custom crafted future of the centimillionaire-multibillionaire class.
I used to wonder about how the Strangelovean Ruling Cupola of the ultra-rich would control the mercenary legions required to hold the vengeful masses at bay, in the event of the Mad Max Disaster Zone/Private Enclave Utopia scenario that's evidently the limit of their morally crippled imaginations.*
Would the Superhuman Plutocracy castrate their elite commando teams, the way that earlier Imperial Dynasties kept their palace guards and manservant staff in line?**
But then I realized- that's the purpose of the newly invented Robot Armed Forces!
So Much Winning!
(*Douglas Rushkoff alleges that this is already happening, and provides some provocative evidence to back up his claim.)
(**In Norman Mailer's speculative historical fiction novel about Pharoanic Egypt, Ancient Evenings, he makes note of the three ways to castrate men, and goes on to discourse learnedly on the respective effects on the psyche of the three different types of eunuchs.)
Methinks that Hanania's normalization of age-gap "relationships" is simply another vector to immiserate young men. Every 40+ year old that deflowers a young woman is one less woman for young men. Do these older men actually make good husbands? Do they actually have ten kids with their teen wives? Or is it just lust, and these old men abandon the young women when they become inconvenient. There is hardly any evidence that large age gap relationships increase the birthrate. If anything, there is lots of data to the contrary. If you really want to raise the birthrate, normalize young men getting married when they are young (like you said), not having older men deflower all the virgins before the young men can marry them.
Age gap relationships of more than 2-5 years are incredible failures (statistically) compared to relationships between similar-aged couples, statistically. The data against longterm relationships between older men and younger women is plentiful and easy to google. You’re right that young men do get screwed over when old creeps prey on all the young women. It’s definitely not something anyone should be “normalizing,” or whatever these guys think.
Even ten years difference is a problem. 40-30? No problem. 50-40? No problem. 60-50…? Hmmm, a bit of a problem. 70-60, 80-70? That is when problems creep in. Make it 15 or 20 years and it becomes a serious issue. 50-30 and the guy might be suave and settled. Which some women crave. But when he is 75 and she is 55, not so much.
What ultimately matters is how the older party's health is and how well they take care of themselves.
I think you're both overblowing it a bit. People have different needs in these kinds of relationships. Will there be issues with living a normal life and growing old together with a 20 year difference? Yes, but many are aware of that and willing to make that choice.
Yes. Yes. Yes. (though not this mad obsession with virginity) There is this idea that men shouldn't marry (until really they are too old for the average young women to find them attractive.)
Sophia whoever taught you that virginity equals committment to family especially regarding marriage is a headcase or just flat out evil. I can't put too fine a point on it. I know many married people, myself included, who were not virgins when they were married who have been deeply committed to their family in general, and that includes their husbands.
I know nobody who has touted their virginity at marriage for which I can say the same. They might have eschewed the concept of divorce but they absolutely did not behave in ways that were healthy for the relationship, and in one case had a persistent affair. I'm sure there are some, but it is by accident rather than design. That is because what is required to be committed to anothter person, first and foremost is openess, vulnerability, willingneess to be affectionate. Principles are nice, but if you don't meet hard times with anything more than them, you'll never make it in hard times. I've been married for 28 years, have two grown children and we've gone through some things, so I don't say on theory.
I'll also say that time and time again, marriages have actively suffered when the people within them have been smothered by ideas of sex as bad. They can't get in sync, there is constant friction over an act that should bring husband and wife together, should repair breaches, and just the act of eveyday living.
Additionally, the very way you put it, women who are not virgins are not marriage material for young men--as if young men (of whom the same is not demanded, who were the ones who made those others not virgins, get to pick and choose, as if women are cattle. That is decidedly unhealthy. I'd say that any women who thinks men get to do that and should adjust herself accordingly isn't marraige material, she needs to get her head straight.
You might salvage yourself by saying people who aren't virgins aren't marriage material--but the very shallowness of that view, throwing out every other quality a person might have--well it shows such an immature view of marrriage, such an immature view of what it means to be committted, that I shudder.
I do not suggest that people cannot choose to wait until marriage for the sex act, that those who do so are themselves not marriagable--but they should not do it for any sense that you just suggested. It should align with their preferences, values, and a understanding that those with other views, are just as worthwhile as people. (They should also do it knowing the risks of such an action because there are profound risks.)
The most charitable take I leave with is that this is deeply, deeply misguided advice. Please don't continue giving it. You are doing great harm.
I think she did imply it, but if not I apologize. Nonetheless, Feminists say you may sleep with those you want to sleep with (who want to sleep with you ) in the relationship that fits your (mutual) values and mutual expectations.
We never say you must date everyone you accept a coffee from—quite the opposite. Some of them have infamously even thrown shade on the whole power dynamic —and gotten called prudes and man haters for their pains.
However, the idea that women are less committed to family because they had sex with the people they dated is beyond nuts. It’s even nuts if they were happy participants in hook up culture for a few years…that’s just nuts. Totally and completely nuts.
Most of those people commit because of a conviction ie are committed not a sense I ought to do this and as such are more likely to have stronger bonds not weaker bonds.
Methinks it's technically more accurate to say that the process -- spermatogenesis -- becomes less efficient and more prone to errors and mutations with increasing age. None of us -- as many women often insist about themselves -- are born with all of the gametes we'll ever need. Both spermatogenesis and oogenesis don't "go on line" until the onset of puberty. Although the cycle time -- how often a new gamete comes off the end of those production lines -- is very different between males and females -- about one every millisecond for men but one or two a month for women. Profoundly different tempos to those two biological clocks with probably far-reaching behavioural consequences.
Paula: The antidote is to get feminism out of our schools and institutions, stop ...
Got my vote. Though maybe less feminism itself than the more unscientific versions of "gender ideology" -- something it is largely responsible for since it is "credited" for emphasizing and delineating the difference between sex -- i.e., gonads -- and gender -- i.e., personalities and behaviours typical of but not unique to each sex. Although, according to the OED, the distinction goes back some three hundred to six hundred years; my elaborations on that theme here:
Hannaia is basically wrong. The age gap thing is wrong for the most part. To the extent it existed it was because of the chances of death in pregnancy or childbirth meaning that widowers in their 30s or 40s could expect to remarry a younger second wife. Men who reached the age of 30(ish) unmarried were generally speaking just as looked down upon by society as unmarried women of that age. But a widower with, say, 4 children would not uncommonly marry a younger woman rather than the rarer widow of the same age
Pregnancy related death has been essentially solved for the last almost century in the developed world.
What the world has not figured out yet is that women can be mothers and have careers but they need to do the mother thing first. That is cultural and it doesn't help that culture has also decided that you aren't an adult until you've graduated from university at age 22 or so. I'm not saying women should be married by 22 - though it's not bad if they do - but that if the expectation is that women go to university then start a career and then get married and have children then you have to expect that they will be having their first child around 30 and chances are low that they'll manage more than one other.
If on the other hand the culture expects women aged 18 to enter the workforce as junior labor while they look for a husband, get married have kids and then, say, get a degree when their 3 kids are in elementary school (and they are aged 30ish) and start their career for real afterwards then the women still get a good 30 years working and another couple of decades retired, but the fertility crisis just went away
Not believable. I married a 30 year old woman when I was 31. We had no children, and there was no certain cause - just, “bummer”.
She had a daughter from a previous marriage. I raised her as if she was my own. When her mom - my wife - started having psychotic ideation, coupled with painful “runaway” behaviors, my step daughter (as a teenager) remarked, “it would be better if mom died, instead of cycling through clarity and psychosis - we could grieve her once and be done with it.”
That daughter is married now and with her own child. I was spiritually and financially devastated by my wife, even though she was relatively reluctant to overtly hurt me, because the “good man” impulse led me to expend years of effort, and implicitly, 100s of thousands of dollars in expenses, trying to help her. But in the end, she preferred her thought patterns over the marriage. I legally separated from her in order to stop further injury.
It is now six years later. I have not been profligate with women. I have kept to myself rebuilding a store of wealth by living frugally. The few women who I treated to a coffee or a meal rapidly demonstrated that I was being put on trial - did I fit into their lives. These were 30 and 40 year old women. From my own experience I knew that they may never have children with me, but their starting demands were that I serve them. I quickly realized that this disgusted me. I have three nephews - why would I give my time and resources to a woman who was determined to amass wealth and prestige for herself, at the expense of my nephews, potentially not even giving them cousins that could strengthen the family structure? This was obviously wrong. I concluded that only a woman determined to have children, and able to do so, was worth my self-sacrificial commitment. A woman in her 20s. I am in my early 50s. There is nothing wrong with me aiming at such a pairing if a woman would have me.
My step daughter - and her biological father - would testify that I looked out for her well being even at the cost of my own expediency (I lost time and resources I could have used to have a family of my own). Why is me seeking a wife in her 20s wrong?
You actually do care about what people do (in all aspects of their lives). That’s why you are writing about Richard’s policy prescriptions. We Christians get this silly retort all the time, “I don’t care about your religious convictions (just don’t act upon them)”. This style of retort is childish so of course we ignore them when we hear them. God commands us to act upon His instructions, and we regard God more highly than you, a mere human.
While I'm very sorry to hear of your troubles, if she was having psychotic episodes, she didn't choose her psychosis over you, she was psychotic--that's the nature of the beast. They resist treatment. I'm a little baffled by how you talk of spending money on her. She was your wife. It's not "good man" syndrome to spend money and time to get one's spouse better. It's the nature of the vow, the committment.
Given the nature of her illness, I don't critique you for seperating from her. It is a terrible dilemna, and my son the lifeguard says one is not supposed to drown oneself while saving another. (I'm not against age gaps, necessarily, though the older the younger partner is the better I feel about them.)
But I critique you for your attitude that this was something women did to you, as opposed to the tragic nature of life. Or for thinking it is unreasonable for women to figure out how you fit into their life. I mean that's what young people do with each other, and old people too when dating.
If you want a child you can do it without reaching into the early twenties pool AND you can certainly do it, without reaching into the young women so vulnerable and inexperienced they don't ask how will this relationship serve me? Indeed, the very expectations demand (ie none) for women are exactly why some people find adult age gaps so cringe. You are looking for women who will donate their prime years to your needs but make minimal demands on you. Dude, that is not a good look. If you wonder why all those 30-50 year olds need to know how you will add value to your life, it's because of dudes like you they dated in their 20's who they were way too generous with.
No. You are attempting, like so many others, to “medicalize” that which is more fundamentally a spiritual flaw. I tried viewing it as some lesser and separate “medical” thing, but it is not. Every time my wife had self awareness, and could confess that she was behaving destructively, she could choose to submit to my authority and therefore protect herself from her psychotic outbursts, via the husband God gave her. In every instance where she was given this choice - to make a clear decision to protect herself from her admitted psychotic tendencies - she chose “no”.
What the what? Dude you are actually suggesting that if she submitted tot your patriachal authority she'd be freed from psychosis? Please take your oveerweening pride and stay the hell away from any young women in their 20's. DO NOT HAVE CHILDREN. You are a deeply abusive personality. And You are unfit for marriage and what that actually entails.
It is not a spiritual problem to not submit to authority on the part of the person with mental illness. It is absolutely a known symptom. In certain types of mental illness, one is present when well and not present when ill so you don't remember (the way non-ill people do) your illness in the same connected way. And when you are well, you are well. Plus the drugs are terrible.
And frankly, this take on it makes you a deeply, unreliable narrator. If you are so in love with phrases about God, then you shouldn't have seperated. God gave you that wife--to be good and loving with--and you should have learned what she needed and stood by her (as per your vows) instead of imposing your will on her, and using her as an ego test.
You used secular rules to escape accountability but religious rules to abandon and punish her. Not cool. Not cool. The spiritual test was yours and you failed. The very idea that you would judge women as not having proper moral attitude when you have spectacularily failed the task set for you, boggles the mind.
I should I know be charitable. No doubt your secret sense that you failed is why you transfer your guilt to her, and why you claim she had a spiritual failing not a medical dilemna. No doubt it causes much pain that way. I can see that psychology clearly. It was an awful tragecy and you have set of beliefs that make it difficult to process it.
But you are planning to take on another spouse without resolving it and worse, using your failures to blame any women with an ounce of dignity or self-respect. And unlike your wife you are able to be fully accountable for your actions.
I know this will fall on deaf ears, but still everyone deserves a warning. Get yourself right now. Othewise, your next actions will be deeply and profoundly immoral.
No problem begun. And it is men with this attitude that is what this article is exactly about. I’m trying hard to restrain my initial outburst at learning of this attitude, and be mindful of your trauma. You have unresolved issues. So does your step-daughter naturally. However, sir, on every level your attitude is what people warn young women about. It is utterly fair, just and proper that people look at your age-gap romances askance.
For myself, I am totally able to see conditions where even a 22-42 gap would create a loving, healthy relationship. Yours are not those conditions and your requirements for women at this moment are abusive whatever age. That they come from trauma make it only more likely this will be the end result. You are not being rational at this moment.
BTW, if by problem solved you mean, there wouldn’t be abuse because she’d submit, well then…you are a monster. And not much of a christian to boot. I also look at your wife’s “psychosis” with a very, very different eyes. I ask again, is this really what you want to model for your step-daughter? Would you want her to be treated this way? As if she was nothing and nobody?
Of course your step-daughter did. I don’t question that an unmedicated individual with persistent psychosis is an unfit parent. You have to be lucid to be a parent, and from your description frankly, her best moments were merely masking sanity. (You don’t use a single diagnostic term oother than psychosis however so it is hard to say). What I push back on is this idea that psychosis is “a choice” or that we are giving her “a pass” by saying her illness determined her choices. If she was almost never lucid, then she could not possibly have been capable of making a choice—by the very diagnostic terms that define psychosis. She couldn’t sign a legal document so how can one claim she made a true spiritual choice? That’s a claim that mocks not only what we know about the material world, but also the soul.
I also push back to this if she’d only “submit to your male authority” she’d be well. This kind of attitude is one those who claim to care or work in care often take with those who are unwell. Just do what we say and all will be fixed. Do it our way. Do it now. And it tends to have the opposite reaction, they want, it breeds resistance. Why? Well, first of all, because even those who have studied it a long time, don’t know what is to be in it, they dismiss the difficulties the solutions pose… because of a disconnect. The people around them want the problem solved. They want control. The patient wants to be well. And that is one of the key issues with mental illness, most of the solutions don’t leave you well. They leave you unwell, and since you don’t remember yourself in a psychotic state, its hard to stick with them. I assume, that one of the consolation prizes is feeling at least in control or yourself, if unwell. But your approach didn’t let her feel in control did it?
It required another submission. One any human being would find a bit repulsive. I don’t know you, perhaps you didn’t do the great and wise father routine at first and have only grabbed it now as some transference of your misplaced guilt and anger. But if you talked as you did now? It would not have helped. There is a place for spiritual counsel for the ill, and spiritual not battle, but struggle. But it is not in blaming the disease on it. It is helping a person to reconcile themselves to the fact they have it. That is the hardest part of disability, especially if it comes late in life.And then the kind of spiritual counsel that helps them endure it. There is a lot of strength required to do that. All of that must come from within.
And that’s something really troubling about your attitude. You don’t just think women should submit unto men, you think they are not entitled to their own distinct spiritual battles. Her battle, which would be her own struggle, was something she did to you and her daughter. And weirder still, had something to say to the behavior of all other women. They are not distinct people to you. Even if I believed in such nonsense hierarchies, or such interpretations of illness, I could never tolerate a world view which can’t understand women have individual souls. Is that really how you see your step-daughter, someone whose use is solely to submit to some man and use her body to give him children? Her life, her mind, her welfare don’t matter? She’s just a anonymous servant who must fit herself to who will have her? Because I note in all these discussions, not once, not once do you give a moments thought to your former wife.
You talk of how terrible it is for you, how much treasure and time were taken from you. You do not talk of how much was taken from your wife—so much more. Because you cannot possibly twist this as she chose to get this psychotic break. She chose to bring insanity upon her and lose the ability to hold who she loved. But you have zero mercy for her.
I know this was a immensely devastating event for your family. I have endless compassion there. I know such things often lead us to become people we are not for a time. But until you can see and feel clearly, until you can see that the real disaster happened to your wife, that you and your step-daughter were collateral damage to that storm, then you shouldn’t take on another person. And most certainly not a young, vulnerable woman who would be willing to “submit herself” to a man twice her age without any demands no less. If any church leader is advising you this way, you need to switch churches.
I am saying that our family would have been protected from her psychosis. I would have worked with her to have a form of legal guardianship so that she could not destroy our family while psychotic.
But don’t worry. She retained her freedom and now our family is destroyed. That’s the outcome you want, right?
It ain’t going to be easy. I am in a small and conservative evangelical church - I am presuming that this can help me screen for the right moral attitude.
“The film portrays Lester as a contemptible, self-deluding creep who is mercifully murdered before he can ruin another child’s life.“
That’s not quite correct. When the girl Lester has been lusting after the entire movie finally offers herself to him, he realizes that she is a frightened child pretending to be sexually mature. He immediately shifts from treating her as an object of desire to a child in need of protection. He wraps her in a blanket and speaks kindly to her like an adult speaking to a child. It’s a moment of grace and repentance right before he dies. He has a deathbed conversion, without knowing he is on his deathbed. This interpretation completely undermines Hanania’s reading of the movie.
It’s worth noting that, while her character was supposed to be 16, Mena Suvari was 19 at the time American Beauty was filmed. She was a sexually mature adult woman. Finding her attractive doesn’t even make a guy an ephebophile!
I understand evolutionary biology. It helps us understand why we are the way we are. Very interesting. But it’s never an excuse for acting like a Neanderthal because it’s “natural”. Yes, yes, sure, sure, some men are attracted to adolescent schoolgirls. But schoolgirls aren’t attracted to them, nor are they ready for pregnancy, childbirth or motherhood. Women too have evolutionary challenges that are no longer useful. Understanding should guide and free us, not give us an excuse for predatory behaviour.
Hanania's argument sounds crazy. On the other hand, through most of history girls and some boys too were married at 14. Juliet in Shakespeare's play is 14. No one finds this strange. Mahatma Gandhi and his wife were both 13 when they married. Alexander the Great was 14 when he won his first battle and so was Mughal Emperor Babar. Of course, our ideas about childhood and adulthood are different now. But citing history in this regard is not at all useful.
I address this in the post. In the past a girl would go through puberty years before her 1st period. This allowed some time of safe sexual exploration with peers. Due to high nutrition in the West, puberty & 1st period start at the same time. Early teen pregnancies come with a lot of risks. Peak fertility for women is 25
No actually it is. Fertiliy is quite low in the teen years and rises for the simple reason that girls bodies are not ready to bear a child yet. There is a lot of mechanics to it, not simply egg and sperm--this is true of all mammals and why breeers of animals DON'T breed animals the eqivalent age.
This reminds me of once reading that in ancient Sparta, the king (Lycurgus I think), allowed old men (say 40+) to marry young women (say 15+) but the child was to be had by a strong muscular man of age 25. A state instituted cuckoldry. It amused me that to the Spartan king this basically meant that everyone got what they want out of this arrangement.
Old men, got companionship of youthful women and a capable child to continue his name. Young strong men could just fuck around without getting tied down to a woman. Young woman got to experience the wealth and luxuries that mostly only old men enjoyed in Sparta and also sexual experience with a young stud. And the state presumably believed that this led to strong children who would join the army in the future and continue their hegemony over the Greek world. I would love to know if the Spartans were actually happy in this arrangement, or was this another one of their self imposed torture to cultivate character or something.
Looking it up it seems to be from Plutarch’s “Life of Lykourgos”, and historians think there was some underlying reality to these reports but as with anything ancient, evidence is scant.
i compared this piece to another substack article i also enjoyed with chatgpt and here is what it said
If I had to admit only one of these authors to a prestigious institute as a writer, based solely on these two pieces, I would choose the author of Summary 1 (the Hanania critique).
Here’s why—broken down by criteria such institutes actually care about.
1. Intellectual Rigor and Argumentative Depth
Author 1 demonstrates:
Command of multiple disciplines (evolutionary biology, anthropology, psychology, history, ethics).
Clear identification of logical fallacies (naturalistic fallacy, motte-and-bailey).
Ability to steelman and then dismantle an opponent’s argument rather than caricature it.
Correct use of technical terminology without letting jargon replace moral reasoning.
Even when polemical, the argument is structured, cumulative, and falsifiable. It engages a real, live intellectual controversy and anticipates counterarguments.
Author 2, while insightful, is making a single cultural-anthropological observation and extending it narratively. It’s thoughtful, but not as analytically demanding.
Edge: Author 1
2. Original Contribution vs. Synthesis
Author 1 is intervening directly in an elite intellectual dispute, correcting misuses of biology and evolutionary psychology in public discourse. The argument reframes a debate rather than merely observing a trend.
Author 2 offers a compelling synthesis of existing ideas about snacking, hunger, comfort culture, and self-regulation—but does not substantially revise existing frameworks in nutrition or sociology.
Prestigious institutes select for people who change how arguments are framed, not just how clearly they’re told.
Edge: Author 1
3. Moral Seriousness Without Sentimentality
This matters a lot at elite institutions.
Author 1 handles morally explosive material (sexual predation, minors, fertility collapse) without collapsing into hysteria, while also refusing moral relativism.
They explicitly separate description from prescription, which is a hallmark of serious thinkers.
They understand that civilization is about constraint, not indulgence—an idea that runs through political philosophy from Aristotle to Freud to Norbert Elias.
Author 2 is morally lucid but safer: no real ethical risk in criticizing snack culture.
Edge: Author 1
4. Literary Power and Voice
This is the one area where Author 2 comes close to winning.
Author 2 has a warm, confident, essayistic voice, reminiscent of Malcolm Gladwell crossed with cultural anthropology.
The prose is accessible, rhythmic, and personable.
It would perform very well in magazines or long-form nonfiction.
However:
Author 1’s writing, while sharper and more confrontational, shows greater range—irony, moral gravity, historical sweep, and polemic control.
The Nabokov and American Beauty sections demonstrate genuine literary literacy, not just rhetorical flourish.
Institutes tend to prefer writers who can operate at high temperature without losing precision.
Narrow edge: Author 1
5. Risk Tolerance (a Quiet but Crucial Criterion)
Prestigious institutes quietly prize writers who:
Can withstand backlash
Write under reputational risk
Don’t rely on institutional consensus for authority
Author 1 is clearly willing to:
Challenge fashionable narratives on both Left and Right
Name uncomfortable facts
Accept being misread or attacked
Author 2 is incisive but institutionally “safe.”
Edge: Author 1
Final Judgment
Admit: Author 1
Why, in one sentence:
Because they demonstrate the rare combination of technical precision, moral seriousness, interdisciplinary fluency, and intellectual courage required to shape—not merely describe—elite discourse.
Important Caveat
This is not a claim that Author 2 is weaker overall—only that based on these pieces alone, Author 1 shows greater readiness for:
Fellowship-level debate
Institutional representation
High-stakes intellectual contribution
If the institute were instead selecting for public intellectual essays, cultural commentary, or general nonfiction readership, Author 2 might well be the better choice.
If you want, I can:
Reverse the exercise and argue for Author 2
Assess which author would thrive more in academia vs. public writing
Rewrite either piece to better fit an institute’s admissions expectations
Thank you for getting Lolita right. Too many people seem to think it’s a doomed romance or even erotica. Humbert Humbert is a monster, and the book depicts him as such. There is nothing romantic or sexy about the story.
By the way, Delores (which is the girl’s name in the book — only he calls her Lolita) is supposed to be about 12, not a child but not sexually mature, either. I guess that made Humbert a hebaphile? Not gonna spell check that one, sorry. Both of the actresses who played Delores were older than the character in the book. You couldn’t film the book faithfully and have it not come off as kiddie porn.
I too was vaguely dissproving, mainly because of the reviewers calling Lolita the eternal nymphet. Then a friend explained that Nabokov had maid Humbert a plagerist from the get go so he absolutely couldn't think well of him or want us to. Other people had spoken of other scenes but that detail made it all totally clear.
"The public is not suddenly forgetting that paedophilia means pre-pubescent children and deciding, in a fit of collective madness, that a 45-year-old sleeping with a 22-year-old is the same thing." I beg to differ. At 30, I met an 18-year-old and we started dating. After fifteen months of dating and engagement, we got married when she was 19, and we waited until our wedding night for sex. Nonetheless, many people explicitly and directly accused me of pedophilia for this marriage.
Well, for starters, gettting married doesn't make it legitmate. (Tons of child brides out there.) Also, there is a huge difference between an full blown adult dating a 18 year old and one dating a 22 year old. Those are quite different ages. And while the age gap is less in your case, the life stage is closer in the 45 to 22 situaition, than 30 and 18. And the not having sexual experience makes it worse not better in that regard. That you then marrying in only 15 months, not exculpatory. Had you waited to marry for 5 years, well ok then. But you didn't even wait until she was 20 dude. That's why people looked sideways at you. They didn't mean straight up pedophilia either but they did mean exploitative and "cringe" as the young people say.
'Pedophile' is one of those words that absolutely, unequivocally must only be used accurately, never as a pejorative. Words have meanings, and meanings matter, especially when the meaning is one that good people believe necessitates a wood chipper.
Sure, we shouldn’t use it the way Elon Musk does. I’m not sure I’d say wood chipper is the answer. I don’t trust the system to use the death penalty responsibly and I trust mobs even less. But if someone is a peddophile, it matters, and is a sign of bad character—also by definition (and your example) they are loathsome
He's very good at knowing what will get a reaction. This article is exactly what he wants. The best thing to do with Hanania is block him and pretend he doesn't exist.
While I endorse the bulk of the article, as it hits exactly on every point--except two. The first is the "natalist" crisis, we don't have a natalist crisis right now. We are projected to start losing population IN 50 YEARS and even then we won't have a dangerous population crisis. A lot can happen in 50 years, in demographics. We will be declining from way over 10 billion people. Humanity's base number has been considerably less. I'm not saying we need to return to that number--but it isn't even remotely a crisis unless unless it dips below that number. And again, a lot can happen in that time. Lifespans and the health of people can increase so that the number we need to maintain population might be smaller. Or people might be motivated to have more children.
One aspect to this situation that people NEVER think of is that it might be coming from nature. Nature regulates all other animal populations so that there is an overabundance and then lowered fertility etc. in other years. It is hardly surprising that with a population that stretches the carrying capacity for our species the desire to procreate is diminished. We think it is housing, car seats (seriously you blame feminism when that's staring you in the face), feminsm (again seriously?) when it could simply be nature regulating itself. Not everyone was thrilled to be a parent in the past but had them for social reasons and bad birth control. Now people with those genetics are feeling nature's levers. (It's really a simple algorithmn higher death equals more babies. Lower death rate less babies.) WW2 and the baby boom anyone?
What we do have is a transition problem. It could be cured by immigration but people don't want to do that. Fine, ok, but don' t pretend the problem is not enough people. It is where you want those people to be.
My other objection here is the idea that feminism has made the ferility rate lower. Stuff and nonsense. Countries witth more feminism tend to buck the trend, and women who are employed outside the home are more likely to have more children than the opposite. Other than carseats and young men who have been taught that marriage is the end of everything, the biggest single killer of fertility was the industrial revolution. When women had to go outside the home to work, instead of their usual job farming (usually the maintance & survival tasks) then the family had to make choices. Then family had to be limited. The idea in the 1950's that women would just be cleaners and nappy washers was impossible to maintain, obviously it could not hold. Anyone who had looked at women's lives across history would understand that women would find such a situation intolerable. The idea that they were subject to men to such a degree that they had no agency in their tasks? We are not evolutionarily built for that.
And the idea that women maintaining that they are people with the right to decide their own future is antithetical against motherhood? Yeah, they don't know much about motherhood and/or entranced by sentimental slop.
I'd also note, that I don't know many feminists who claim that rape doesn't exist in nature and if it does it would be justified. (I know far more who would claim it is and thus men are guilty of original sin) And I know tons of men who would claim rape is natural and only violent stranger rape is anything to get worked up about. But the fact is that rape is uncommon in nature, outside certain species, or certain conditions.
Thank you for taking the time to write this up. I am frequently puzzled by why so many people, including people I respect, find Hanania worth taking seriously. He strikes me as an internet troll with the veneer of respectability, working on motivated reasoning to support edgy claims to get attention (and apparently to support his own preferences.) I used to read his work but eventually gave up; there just wasn't anything new that was interesting, just repeating other people's arguments and a lot of obvious edge lord nonsense.
Yup. Agreed
No one with his horrifying visage should comment on the age of consent.
He’s a supposed “reformed white supremacist,” yet he still uses all sorts of dog whistles, the only thing that changed is that he perceives what I call “movement white supremacists” as unrefined and uneducated losers, yet he still subscribes to a lot of the core ideology.
He’s also a big-time gooner and brags about it. He’s a dumb chud who fits the caricature.
“The problem with Richard Hanania is that he needs a personality transplant, and those are… NOT YET AVAILABLE!”
You are being too kind. He thinks he is some smart guy, but has no real lasting insights and mostly goes for hot takes. Reminds me of the kid who got bullied in grade school and never grew out of that so is always going for attention and being an ass in the process.
He’s a troll. This is his job. Your engagement pays his bills.
It is simply the desire for centrism. When people get bored of hating each other, they like centrists.
Yes, I will never understand why so many people promote him. He clearly thinks he's much smarter than he actually is but only repackages other people's ideas
I like Hanania. His first book on the origins of Woke in expansive human rights law is brilliant. Would it not be productive in this conversation to consider Palestine? According to the UN Population Fund: "In the State of Palestine, child marriage is at 24 percent, which is relatively within the average incidence in the Arab region that is one in five women married before the age of 18.
However, in certain parts of Palestine, prevalence notably exceeds this average, for instance in Gaza three out of ten women aged 20-49 were married before the age of 18 compared to two out of ten women in the West Bank."
Intersectionality maybe has its uses? :)
Not sure what is intersectional about this. Or your point.
General Turginson “You mentioned the ratio of ten women to one man. Wouldn’t that necessitate the abandoning of the so called monogamous form of sexual relationships? At least as far as men are concerned?
Dr. Strangelove, “Regrettably, yes. But it is a sacrifice required for the future of the human race. I hasten to add that since each man will be required to perform prodigious service along those lines, the women will have to be selected for their sexual characteristics, which will have to be of a highly stimulating order”
Stanley Kubric was sixty years ahead of this.
That's Terry Southern's script and plot, actually. The satire is pitch-perfect, of course.
I'm reminded of that scene whenever I read about wealthy tech bros anticipating civilizational collapse and planning to bunker down in remote fortified compounds and private islands- and wouldn't you know, Epstein owned both types of real estate! The New Mexico compound was even intended to host a genetic research lab!
Jeffrey Epstein, Role Model. 21st century pioneer, boldly preparing for the custom crafted future of the centimillionaire-multibillionaire class.
I used to wonder about how the Strangelovean Ruling Cupola of the ultra-rich would control the mercenary legions required to hold the vengeful masses at bay, in the event of the Mad Max Disaster Zone/Private Enclave Utopia scenario that's evidently the limit of their morally crippled imaginations.*
Would the Superhuman Plutocracy castrate their elite commando teams, the way that earlier Imperial Dynasties kept their palace guards and manservant staff in line?**
But then I realized- that's the purpose of the newly invented Robot Armed Forces!
So Much Winning!
(*Douglas Rushkoff alleges that this is already happening, and provides some provocative evidence to back up his claim.)
(**In Norman Mailer's speculative historical fiction novel about Pharoanic Egypt, Ancient Evenings, he makes note of the three ways to castrate men, and goes on to discourse learnedly on the respective effects on the psyche of the three different types of eunuchs.)
Methinks that Hanania's normalization of age-gap "relationships" is simply another vector to immiserate young men. Every 40+ year old that deflowers a young woman is one less woman for young men. Do these older men actually make good husbands? Do they actually have ten kids with their teen wives? Or is it just lust, and these old men abandon the young women when they become inconvenient. There is hardly any evidence that large age gap relationships increase the birthrate. If anything, there is lots of data to the contrary. If you really want to raise the birthrate, normalize young men getting married when they are young (like you said), not having older men deflower all the virgins before the young men can marry them.
Age gap relationships of more than 2-5 years are incredible failures (statistically) compared to relationships between similar-aged couples, statistically. The data against longterm relationships between older men and younger women is plentiful and easy to google. You’re right that young men do get screwed over when old creeps prey on all the young women. It’s definitely not something anyone should be “normalizing,” or whatever these guys think.
Even ten years difference is a problem. 40-30? No problem. 50-40? No problem. 60-50…? Hmmm, a bit of a problem. 70-60, 80-70? That is when problems creep in. Make it 15 or 20 years and it becomes a serious issue. 50-30 and the guy might be suave and settled. Which some women crave. But when he is 75 and she is 55, not so much.
What ultimately matters is how the older party's health is and how well they take care of themselves.
I think you're both overblowing it a bit. People have different needs in these kinds of relationships. Will there be issues with living a normal life and growing old together with a 20 year difference? Yes, but many are aware of that and willing to make that choice.
People make the choice though at 30 and 50. When it isn’t a problem. Talk to couples who are 80 and 60.
Do you think they didn't consider the length of human lifespans before getting into a relationship?
I am sure they did. But not many can make good decisions 40 or 50 years in advance.
There is another aspect to this. Why deny yourself some good years now when one doesn’t know how long anyone has.
Older men have more money, but they can be replaced by higher taxes
Yes. Yes. Yes. (though not this mad obsession with virginity) There is this idea that men shouldn't marry (until really they are too old for the average young women to find them attractive.)
Sophia whoever taught you that virginity equals committment to family especially regarding marriage is a headcase or just flat out evil. I can't put too fine a point on it. I know many married people, myself included, who were not virgins when they were married who have been deeply committed to their family in general, and that includes their husbands.
I know nobody who has touted their virginity at marriage for which I can say the same. They might have eschewed the concept of divorce but they absolutely did not behave in ways that were healthy for the relationship, and in one case had a persistent affair. I'm sure there are some, but it is by accident rather than design. That is because what is required to be committed to anothter person, first and foremost is openess, vulnerability, willingneess to be affectionate. Principles are nice, but if you don't meet hard times with anything more than them, you'll never make it in hard times. I've been married for 28 years, have two grown children and we've gone through some things, so I don't say on theory.
I'll also say that time and time again, marriages have actively suffered when the people within them have been smothered by ideas of sex as bad. They can't get in sync, there is constant friction over an act that should bring husband and wife together, should repair breaches, and just the act of eveyday living.
Additionally, the very way you put it, women who are not virgins are not marriage material for young men--as if young men (of whom the same is not demanded, who were the ones who made those others not virgins, get to pick and choose, as if women are cattle. That is decidedly unhealthy. I'd say that any women who thinks men get to do that and should adjust herself accordingly isn't marraige material, she needs to get her head straight.
You might salvage yourself by saying people who aren't virgins aren't marriage material--but the very shallowness of that view, throwing out every other quality a person might have--well it shows such an immature view of marrriage, such an immature view of what it means to be committted, that I shudder.
I do not suggest that people cannot choose to wait until marriage for the sex act, that those who do so are themselves not marriagable--but they should not do it for any sense that you just suggested. It should align with their preferences, values, and a understanding that those with other views, are just as worthwhile as people. (They should also do it knowing the risks of such an action because there are profound risks.)
The most charitable take I leave with is that this is deeply, deeply misguided advice. Please don't continue giving it. You are doing great harm.
She said chastity not virginity. That could mean just don't follow feminist messages and sleep with everyone you date
I think she did imply it, but if not I apologize. Nonetheless, Feminists say you may sleep with those you want to sleep with (who want to sleep with you ) in the relationship that fits your (mutual) values and mutual expectations.
We never say you must date everyone you accept a coffee from—quite the opposite. Some of them have infamously even thrown shade on the whole power dynamic —and gotten called prudes and man haters for their pains.
However, the idea that women are less committed to family because they had sex with the people they dated is beyond nuts. It’s even nuts if they were happy participants in hook up culture for a few years…that’s just nuts. Totally and completely nuts.
Most of those people commit because of a conviction ie are committed not a sense I ought to do this and as such are more likely to have stronger bonds not weaker bonds.
Paula: Sperm do not age gracefully.
Methinks it's technically more accurate to say that the process -- spermatogenesis -- becomes less efficient and more prone to errors and mutations with increasing age. None of us -- as many women often insist about themselves -- are born with all of the gametes we'll ever need. Both spermatogenesis and oogenesis don't "go on line" until the onset of puberty. Although the cycle time -- how often a new gamete comes off the end of those production lines -- is very different between males and females -- about one every millisecond for men but one or two a month for women. Profoundly different tempos to those two biological clocks with probably far-reaching behavioural consequences.
Paula: The antidote is to get feminism out of our schools and institutions, stop ...
Got my vote. Though maybe less feminism itself than the more unscientific versions of "gender ideology" -- something it is largely responsible for since it is "credited" for emphasizing and delineating the difference between sex -- i.e., gonads -- and gender -- i.e., personalities and behaviours typical of but not unique to each sex. Although, according to the OED, the distinction goes back some three hundred to six hundred years; my elaborations on that theme here:
https://humanuseofhumanbeings.substack.com/p/genspect-feminism-and-the-transcult
Hannaia is basically wrong. The age gap thing is wrong for the most part. To the extent it existed it was because of the chances of death in pregnancy or childbirth meaning that widowers in their 30s or 40s could expect to remarry a younger second wife. Men who reached the age of 30(ish) unmarried were generally speaking just as looked down upon by society as unmarried women of that age. But a widower with, say, 4 children would not uncommonly marry a younger woman rather than the rarer widow of the same age
Pregnancy related death has been essentially solved for the last almost century in the developed world.
What the world has not figured out yet is that women can be mothers and have careers but they need to do the mother thing first. That is cultural and it doesn't help that culture has also decided that you aren't an adult until you've graduated from university at age 22 or so. I'm not saying women should be married by 22 - though it's not bad if they do - but that if the expectation is that women go to university then start a career and then get married and have children then you have to expect that they will be having their first child around 30 and chances are low that they'll manage more than one other.
If on the other hand the culture expects women aged 18 to enter the workforce as junior labor while they look for a husband, get married have kids and then, say, get a degree when their 3 kids are in elementary school (and they are aged 30ish) and start their career for real afterwards then the women still get a good 30 years working and another couple of decades retired, but the fertility crisis just went away
I'm working on a project. I'll post on it when it's finalised
Not believable. I married a 30 year old woman when I was 31. We had no children, and there was no certain cause - just, “bummer”.
She had a daughter from a previous marriage. I raised her as if she was my own. When her mom - my wife - started having psychotic ideation, coupled with painful “runaway” behaviors, my step daughter (as a teenager) remarked, “it would be better if mom died, instead of cycling through clarity and psychosis - we could grieve her once and be done with it.”
That daughter is married now and with her own child. I was spiritually and financially devastated by my wife, even though she was relatively reluctant to overtly hurt me, because the “good man” impulse led me to expend years of effort, and implicitly, 100s of thousands of dollars in expenses, trying to help her. But in the end, she preferred her thought patterns over the marriage. I legally separated from her in order to stop further injury.
It is now six years later. I have not been profligate with women. I have kept to myself rebuilding a store of wealth by living frugally. The few women who I treated to a coffee or a meal rapidly demonstrated that I was being put on trial - did I fit into their lives. These were 30 and 40 year old women. From my own experience I knew that they may never have children with me, but their starting demands were that I serve them. I quickly realized that this disgusted me. I have three nephews - why would I give my time and resources to a woman who was determined to amass wealth and prestige for herself, at the expense of my nephews, potentially not even giving them cousins that could strengthen the family structure? This was obviously wrong. I concluded that only a woman determined to have children, and able to do so, was worth my self-sacrificial commitment. A woman in her 20s. I am in my early 50s. There is nothing wrong with me aiming at such a pairing if a woman would have me.
My step daughter - and her biological father - would testify that I looked out for her well being even at the cost of my own expediency (I lost time and resources I could have used to have a family of my own). Why is me seeking a wife in her 20s wrong?
I'm personally not bothered what people do in their lives. My point is Anania's policy prescription
You actually do care about what people do (in all aspects of their lives). That’s why you are writing about Richard’s policy prescriptions. We Christians get this silly retort all the time, “I don’t care about your religious convictions (just don’t act upon them)”. This style of retort is childish so of course we ignore them when we hear them. God commands us to act upon His instructions, and we regard God more highly than you, a mere human.
While I'm very sorry to hear of your troubles, if she was having psychotic episodes, she didn't choose her psychosis over you, she was psychotic--that's the nature of the beast. They resist treatment. I'm a little baffled by how you talk of spending money on her. She was your wife. It's not "good man" syndrome to spend money and time to get one's spouse better. It's the nature of the vow, the committment.
Given the nature of her illness, I don't critique you for seperating from her. It is a terrible dilemna, and my son the lifeguard says one is not supposed to drown oneself while saving another. (I'm not against age gaps, necessarily, though the older the younger partner is the better I feel about them.)
But I critique you for your attitude that this was something women did to you, as opposed to the tragic nature of life. Or for thinking it is unreasonable for women to figure out how you fit into their life. I mean that's what young people do with each other, and old people too when dating.
If you want a child you can do it without reaching into the early twenties pool AND you can certainly do it, without reaching into the young women so vulnerable and inexperienced they don't ask how will this relationship serve me? Indeed, the very expectations demand (ie none) for women are exactly why some people find adult age gaps so cringe. You are looking for women who will donate their prime years to your needs but make minimal demands on you. Dude, that is not a good look. If you wonder why all those 30-50 year olds need to know how you will add value to your life, it's because of dudes like you they dated in their 20's who they were way too generous with.
No. You are attempting, like so many others, to “medicalize” that which is more fundamentally a spiritual flaw. I tried viewing it as some lesser and separate “medical” thing, but it is not. Every time my wife had self awareness, and could confess that she was behaving destructively, she could choose to submit to my authority and therefore protect herself from her psychotic outbursts, via the husband God gave her. In every instance where she was given this choice - to make a clear decision to protect herself from her admitted psychotic tendencies - she chose “no”.
This is ultimately a spiritual problem.
What the what? Dude you are actually suggesting that if she submitted tot your patriachal authority she'd be freed from psychosis? Please take your oveerweening pride and stay the hell away from any young women in their 20's. DO NOT HAVE CHILDREN. You are a deeply abusive personality. And You are unfit for marriage and what that actually entails.
It is not a spiritual problem to not submit to authority on the part of the person with mental illness. It is absolutely a known symptom. In certain types of mental illness, one is present when well and not present when ill so you don't remember (the way non-ill people do) your illness in the same connected way. And when you are well, you are well. Plus the drugs are terrible.
And frankly, this take on it makes you a deeply, unreliable narrator. If you are so in love with phrases about God, then you shouldn't have seperated. God gave you that wife--to be good and loving with--and you should have learned what she needed and stood by her (as per your vows) instead of imposing your will on her, and using her as an ego test.
You used secular rules to escape accountability but religious rules to abandon and punish her. Not cool. Not cool. The spiritual test was yours and you failed. The very idea that you would judge women as not having proper moral attitude when you have spectacularily failed the task set for you, boggles the mind.
I should I know be charitable. No doubt your secret sense that you failed is why you transfer your guilt to her, and why you claim she had a spiritual failing not a medical dilemna. No doubt it causes much pain that way. I can see that psychology clearly. It was an awful tragecy and you have set of beliefs that make it difficult to process it.
But you are planning to take on another spouse without resolving it and worse, using your failures to blame any women with an ounce of dignity or self-respect. And unlike your wife you are able to be fully accountable for your actions.
I know this will fall on deaf ears, but still everyone deserves a warning. Get yourself right now. Othewise, your next actions will be deeply and profoundly immoral.
A woman who marries me would have to submit to my authority. Problem solved.
No problem begun. And it is men with this attitude that is what this article is exactly about. I’m trying hard to restrain my initial outburst at learning of this attitude, and be mindful of your trauma. You have unresolved issues. So does your step-daughter naturally. However, sir, on every level your attitude is what people warn young women about. It is utterly fair, just and proper that people look at your age-gap romances askance.
For myself, I am totally able to see conditions where even a 22-42 gap would create a loving, healthy relationship. Yours are not those conditions and your requirements for women at this moment are abusive whatever age. That they come from trauma make it only more likely this will be the end result. You are not being rational at this moment.
BTW, if by problem solved you mean, there wouldn’t be abuse because she’d submit, well then…you are a monster. And not much of a christian to boot. I also look at your wife’s “psychosis” with a very, very different eyes. I ask again, is this really what you want to model for your step-daughter? Would you want her to be treated this way? As if she was nothing and nobody?
My wife’s daughter - my step daughter - chose me over her mother. So you are choosing to be with her mother and against her.
My daughter really hates all the people who gave her mom a soft pass.
Of course your step-daughter did. I don’t question that an unmedicated individual with persistent psychosis is an unfit parent. You have to be lucid to be a parent, and from your description frankly, her best moments were merely masking sanity. (You don’t use a single diagnostic term oother than psychosis however so it is hard to say). What I push back on is this idea that psychosis is “a choice” or that we are giving her “a pass” by saying her illness determined her choices. If she was almost never lucid, then she could not possibly have been capable of making a choice—by the very diagnostic terms that define psychosis. She couldn’t sign a legal document so how can one claim she made a true spiritual choice? That’s a claim that mocks not only what we know about the material world, but also the soul.
I also push back to this if she’d only “submit to your male authority” she’d be well. This kind of attitude is one those who claim to care or work in care often take with those who are unwell. Just do what we say and all will be fixed. Do it our way. Do it now. And it tends to have the opposite reaction, they want, it breeds resistance. Why? Well, first of all, because even those who have studied it a long time, don’t know what is to be in it, they dismiss the difficulties the solutions pose… because of a disconnect. The people around them want the problem solved. They want control. The patient wants to be well. And that is one of the key issues with mental illness, most of the solutions don’t leave you well. They leave you unwell, and since you don’t remember yourself in a psychotic state, its hard to stick with them. I assume, that one of the consolation prizes is feeling at least in control or yourself, if unwell. But your approach didn’t let her feel in control did it?
It required another submission. One any human being would find a bit repulsive. I don’t know you, perhaps you didn’t do the great and wise father routine at first and have only grabbed it now as some transference of your misplaced guilt and anger. But if you talked as you did now? It would not have helped. There is a place for spiritual counsel for the ill, and spiritual not battle, but struggle. But it is not in blaming the disease on it. It is helping a person to reconcile themselves to the fact they have it. That is the hardest part of disability, especially if it comes late in life.And then the kind of spiritual counsel that helps them endure it. There is a lot of strength required to do that. All of that must come from within.
And that’s something really troubling about your attitude. You don’t just think women should submit unto men, you think they are not entitled to their own distinct spiritual battles. Her battle, which would be her own struggle, was something she did to you and her daughter. And weirder still, had something to say to the behavior of all other women. They are not distinct people to you. Even if I believed in such nonsense hierarchies, or such interpretations of illness, I could never tolerate a world view which can’t understand women have individual souls. Is that really how you see your step-daughter, someone whose use is solely to submit to some man and use her body to give him children? Her life, her mind, her welfare don’t matter? She’s just a anonymous servant who must fit herself to who will have her? Because I note in all these discussions, not once, not once do you give a moments thought to your former wife.
You talk of how terrible it is for you, how much treasure and time were taken from you. You do not talk of how much was taken from your wife—so much more. Because you cannot possibly twist this as she chose to get this psychotic break. She chose to bring insanity upon her and lose the ability to hold who she loved. But you have zero mercy for her.
I know this was a immensely devastating event for your family. I have endless compassion there. I know such things often lead us to become people we are not for a time. But until you can see and feel clearly, until you can see that the real disaster happened to your wife, that you and your step-daughter were collateral damage to that storm, then you shouldn’t take on another person. And most certainly not a young, vulnerable woman who would be willing to “submit herself” to a man twice her age without any demands no less. If any church leader is advising you this way, you need to switch churches.
I did not abandon her. She refuses to live with her husband.
I am saying that our family would have been protected from her psychosis. I would have worked with her to have a form of legal guardianship so that she could not destroy our family while psychotic.
But don’t worry. She retained her freedom and now our family is destroyed. That’s the outcome you want, right?
You will need a foreign wife to make this happen. Or 8 figure wealth.
It ain’t going to be easy. I am in a small and conservative evangelical church - I am presuming that this can help me screen for the right moral attitude.
I post under my real name with my real visage. There’s no universe where I take a derogatory comment from a random di**head seriously.
I didn’t take Hanania to be defending Lester in “American Beauty”, only explaining his biological urges as natural. But I will reread his essay.
“The film portrays Lester as a contemptible, self-deluding creep who is mercifully murdered before he can ruin another child’s life.“
That’s not quite correct. When the girl Lester has been lusting after the entire movie finally offers herself to him, he realizes that she is a frightened child pretending to be sexually mature. He immediately shifts from treating her as an object of desire to a child in need of protection. He wraps her in a blanket and speaks kindly to her like an adult speaking to a child. It’s a moment of grace and repentance right before he dies. He has a deathbed conversion, without knowing he is on his deathbed. This interpretation completely undermines Hanania’s reading of the movie.
It’s worth noting that, while her character was supposed to be 16, Mena Suvari was 19 at the time American Beauty was filmed. She was a sexually mature adult woman. Finding her attractive doesn’t even make a guy an ephebophile!
Obviously the line for “adult” is arbitrary though. She could vote but not buy cigarettes, which she could have done then.
She could legally have sex with Kevin Spacey in every state (though he apparently would not be interested).
You should try reading the article
You dirty perv!
I understand evolutionary biology. It helps us understand why we are the way we are. Very interesting. But it’s never an excuse for acting like a Neanderthal because it’s “natural”. Yes, yes, sure, sure, some men are attracted to adolescent schoolgirls. But schoolgirls aren’t attracted to them, nor are they ready for pregnancy, childbirth or motherhood. Women too have evolutionary challenges that are no longer useful. Understanding should guide and free us, not give us an excuse for predatory behaviour.
Hanania's argument sounds crazy. On the other hand, through most of history girls and some boys too were married at 14. Juliet in Shakespeare's play is 14. No one finds this strange. Mahatma Gandhi and his wife were both 13 when they married. Alexander the Great was 14 when he won his first battle and so was Mughal Emperor Babar. Of course, our ideas about childhood and adulthood are different now. But citing history in this regard is not at all useful.
I address this in the post. In the past a girl would go through puberty years before her 1st period. This allowed some time of safe sexual exploration with peers. Due to high nutrition in the West, puberty & 1st period start at the same time. Early teen pregnancies come with a lot of risks. Peak fertility for women is 25
Peak fertility is not '25'. Your ability to reproduce decreases as you age and sperm count/eggs are reduced.
No actually it is. Fertiliy is quite low in the teen years and rises for the simple reason that girls bodies are not ready to bear a child yet. There is a lot of mechanics to it, not simply egg and sperm--this is true of all mammals and why breeers of animals DON'T breed animals the eqivalent age.
This reminds me of once reading that in ancient Sparta, the king (Lycurgus I think), allowed old men (say 40+) to marry young women (say 15+) but the child was to be had by a strong muscular man of age 25. A state instituted cuckoldry. It amused me that to the Spartan king this basically meant that everyone got what they want out of this arrangement.
Old men, got companionship of youthful women and a capable child to continue his name. Young strong men could just fuck around without getting tied down to a woman. Young woman got to experience the wealth and luxuries that mostly only old men enjoyed in Sparta and also sexual experience with a young stud. And the state presumably believed that this led to strong children who would join the army in the future and continue their hegemony over the Greek world. I would love to know if the Spartans were actually happy in this arrangement, or was this another one of their self imposed torture to cultivate character or something.
This sounds like Herodotus which, like Bede's Ecclesiastical History, was mostly derived from myth
Looking it up it seems to be from Plutarch’s “Life of Lykourgos”, and historians think there was some underlying reality to these reports but as with anything ancient, evidence is scant.
Plutarch. Yes. Couldn't remember his name yesterday :)
i compared this piece to another substack article i also enjoyed with chatgpt and here is what it said
If I had to admit only one of these authors to a prestigious institute as a writer, based solely on these two pieces, I would choose the author of Summary 1 (the Hanania critique).
Here’s why—broken down by criteria such institutes actually care about.
1. Intellectual Rigor and Argumentative Depth
Author 1 demonstrates:
Command of multiple disciplines (evolutionary biology, anthropology, psychology, history, ethics).
Clear identification of logical fallacies (naturalistic fallacy, motte-and-bailey).
Ability to steelman and then dismantle an opponent’s argument rather than caricature it.
Correct use of technical terminology without letting jargon replace moral reasoning.
Even when polemical, the argument is structured, cumulative, and falsifiable. It engages a real, live intellectual controversy and anticipates counterarguments.
Author 2, while insightful, is making a single cultural-anthropological observation and extending it narratively. It’s thoughtful, but not as analytically demanding.
Edge: Author 1
2. Original Contribution vs. Synthesis
Author 1 is intervening directly in an elite intellectual dispute, correcting misuses of biology and evolutionary psychology in public discourse. The argument reframes a debate rather than merely observing a trend.
Author 2 offers a compelling synthesis of existing ideas about snacking, hunger, comfort culture, and self-regulation—but does not substantially revise existing frameworks in nutrition or sociology.
Prestigious institutes select for people who change how arguments are framed, not just how clearly they’re told.
Edge: Author 1
3. Moral Seriousness Without Sentimentality
This matters a lot at elite institutions.
Author 1 handles morally explosive material (sexual predation, minors, fertility collapse) without collapsing into hysteria, while also refusing moral relativism.
They explicitly separate description from prescription, which is a hallmark of serious thinkers.
They understand that civilization is about constraint, not indulgence—an idea that runs through political philosophy from Aristotle to Freud to Norbert Elias.
Author 2 is morally lucid but safer: no real ethical risk in criticizing snack culture.
Edge: Author 1
4. Literary Power and Voice
This is the one area where Author 2 comes close to winning.
Author 2 has a warm, confident, essayistic voice, reminiscent of Malcolm Gladwell crossed with cultural anthropology.
The prose is accessible, rhythmic, and personable.
It would perform very well in magazines or long-form nonfiction.
However:
Author 1’s writing, while sharper and more confrontational, shows greater range—irony, moral gravity, historical sweep, and polemic control.
The Nabokov and American Beauty sections demonstrate genuine literary literacy, not just rhetorical flourish.
Institutes tend to prefer writers who can operate at high temperature without losing precision.
Narrow edge: Author 1
5. Risk Tolerance (a Quiet but Crucial Criterion)
Prestigious institutes quietly prize writers who:
Can withstand backlash
Write under reputational risk
Don’t rely on institutional consensus for authority
Author 1 is clearly willing to:
Challenge fashionable narratives on both Left and Right
Name uncomfortable facts
Accept being misread or attacked
Author 2 is incisive but institutionally “safe.”
Edge: Author 1
Final Judgment
Admit: Author 1
Why, in one sentence:
Because they demonstrate the rare combination of technical precision, moral seriousness, interdisciplinary fluency, and intellectual courage required to shape—not merely describe—elite discourse.
Important Caveat
This is not a claim that Author 2 is weaker overall—only that based on these pieces alone, Author 1 shows greater readiness for:
Fellowship-level debate
Institutional representation
High-stakes intellectual contribution
If the institute were instead selecting for public intellectual essays, cultural commentary, or general nonfiction readership, Author 2 might well be the better choice.
If you want, I can:
Reverse the exercise and argue for Author 2
Assess which author would thrive more in academia vs. public writing
Rewrite either piece to better fit an institute’s admissions expectations
Cool! Thanks!
Totally agree on the structural and cultural aspects of the fertility crisis Hanania’s solution is not going to shift the needle.
Well written.
I like the (age X .5) + 7 general rule for the elder partner starting at age 22.
Personally I don't care. DiCaprio can have his girlfriends.
None of your business
Precisely
Thank you for getting Lolita right. Too many people seem to think it’s a doomed romance or even erotica. Humbert Humbert is a monster, and the book depicts him as such. There is nothing romantic or sexy about the story.
By the way, Delores (which is the girl’s name in the book — only he calls her Lolita) is supposed to be about 12, not a child but not sexually mature, either. I guess that made Humbert a hebaphile? Not gonna spell check that one, sorry. Both of the actresses who played Delores were older than the character in the book. You couldn’t film the book faithfully and have it not come off as kiddie porn.
I too was vaguely dissproving, mainly because of the reviewers calling Lolita the eternal nymphet. Then a friend explained that Nabokov had maid Humbert a plagerist from the get go so he absolutely couldn't think well of him or want us to. Other people had spoken of other scenes but that detail made it all totally clear.
"The public is not suddenly forgetting that paedophilia means pre-pubescent children and deciding, in a fit of collective madness, that a 45-year-old sleeping with a 22-year-old is the same thing." I beg to differ. At 30, I met an 18-year-old and we started dating. After fifteen months of dating and engagement, we got married when she was 19, and we waited until our wedding night for sex. Nonetheless, many people explicitly and directly accused me of pedophilia for this marriage.
Well, for starters, gettting married doesn't make it legitmate. (Tons of child brides out there.) Also, there is a huge difference between an full blown adult dating a 18 year old and one dating a 22 year old. Those are quite different ages. And while the age gap is less in your case, the life stage is closer in the 45 to 22 situaition, than 30 and 18. And the not having sexual experience makes it worse not better in that regard. That you then marrying in only 15 months, not exculpatory. Had you waited to marry for 5 years, well ok then. But you didn't even wait until she was 20 dude. That's why people looked sideways at you. They didn't mean straight up pedophilia either but they did mean exploitative and "cringe" as the young people say.
'Pedophile' is one of those words that absolutely, unequivocally must only be used accurately, never as a pejorative. Words have meanings, and meanings matter, especially when the meaning is one that good people believe necessitates a wood chipper.
Sure, we shouldn’t use it the way Elon Musk does. I’m not sure I’d say wood chipper is the answer. I don’t trust the system to use the death penalty responsibly and I trust mobs even less. But if someone is a peddophile, it matters, and is a sign of bad character—also by definition (and your example) they are loathsome
I hope you hurt those people in some way
Why does this person get so much attention? [Hanania]
He's very good at knowing what will get a reaction. This article is exactly what he wants. The best thing to do with Hanania is block him and pretend he doesn't exist.
While I endorse the bulk of the article, as it hits exactly on every point--except two. The first is the "natalist" crisis, we don't have a natalist crisis right now. We are projected to start losing population IN 50 YEARS and even then we won't have a dangerous population crisis. A lot can happen in 50 years, in demographics. We will be declining from way over 10 billion people. Humanity's base number has been considerably less. I'm not saying we need to return to that number--but it isn't even remotely a crisis unless unless it dips below that number. And again, a lot can happen in that time. Lifespans and the health of people can increase so that the number we need to maintain population might be smaller. Or people might be motivated to have more children.
One aspect to this situation that people NEVER think of is that it might be coming from nature. Nature regulates all other animal populations so that there is an overabundance and then lowered fertility etc. in other years. It is hardly surprising that with a population that stretches the carrying capacity for our species the desire to procreate is diminished. We think it is housing, car seats (seriously you blame feminism when that's staring you in the face), feminsm (again seriously?) when it could simply be nature regulating itself. Not everyone was thrilled to be a parent in the past but had them for social reasons and bad birth control. Now people with those genetics are feeling nature's levers. (It's really a simple algorithmn higher death equals more babies. Lower death rate less babies.) WW2 and the baby boom anyone?
What we do have is a transition problem. It could be cured by immigration but people don't want to do that. Fine, ok, but don' t pretend the problem is not enough people. It is where you want those people to be.
My other objection here is the idea that feminism has made the ferility rate lower. Stuff and nonsense. Countries witth more feminism tend to buck the trend, and women who are employed outside the home are more likely to have more children than the opposite. Other than carseats and young men who have been taught that marriage is the end of everything, the biggest single killer of fertility was the industrial revolution. When women had to go outside the home to work, instead of their usual job farming (usually the maintance & survival tasks) then the family had to make choices. Then family had to be limited. The idea in the 1950's that women would just be cleaners and nappy washers was impossible to maintain, obviously it could not hold. Anyone who had looked at women's lives across history would understand that women would find such a situation intolerable. The idea that they were subject to men to such a degree that they had no agency in their tasks? We are not evolutionarily built for that.
And the idea that women maintaining that they are people with the right to decide their own future is antithetical against motherhood? Yeah, they don't know much about motherhood and/or entranced by sentimental slop.
I'd also note, that I don't know many feminists who claim that rape doesn't exist in nature and if it does it would be justified. (I know far more who would claim it is and thus men are guilty of original sin) And I know tons of men who would claim rape is natural and only violent stranger rape is anything to get worked up about. But the fact is that rape is uncommon in nature, outside certain species, or certain conditions.