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.
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:
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.
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.
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
Well written.
I like the (age X .5) + 7 general rule for the elder partner starting at age 22.