My neighbor has a pedobear sticker on his car. What should I do?

Maybe you shouldn't be so quick to base your positions of biological science on whatever book you happen to be reading.

@2: BOOSH!

I don’t think you can say that it’s based on evolution. I still think it’s a culture thing. You have to separate sexual desire from marriage-and-baby-birthing. It was when babies were considered part of a man’s property and as someone to pass on his acquired wealth, that a woman’s ability to birth babies belonging only to him became a selling point (and women became property to be sold).

If you look at hunter-gatherer tribes or the few matriarchal societies that have been studied, you may find less defined “this-is-what-is-attractive-to-all-of-us” ideals.

Birthing babies is only one part of this subject. Sure, teens and twenty-something’s are more likely to survive childbirth and so maybe we’ve turned that into a desire for youth. But is there truly an evolutionary reason for men to raise their biological children? By saying only biological fathers can be loving devoted fathers, you’re ignoring the caretaking abilities of adopted fathers, step fathers and loving uncles everywhere.

In Sex at Dawn, the authors suggest that people generally had no concept of how babies were made. With sperm being too small to see without microscopes and the lag time between intercourse and the initial signs of pregnancy and the likelihood that people were fucking any (hopefully willing) partner whenever the urge struck, it may have taken people a while to figure out the connection between sex and birth.

Once property ownership became a thing and people made the connection between sex and babies, and a woman’s vagina became her husband’s property so that he could ensure that her children were his to own, the desire for youth is understood. Women became investments for his future property.

But what about before that? - if you believe there’s a “before that”. What of the cultures that (until relatively recently) believed a woman’s children belonged to her? Or those cultures where the men actively raise their nieces and nephews and had no obligation to the products of their orgasms. Or the cultures that promoted the status of established mothers, not because of the potential for future babies that may belong to a potential husband, but because of her status of one with wisdom and honor because she had already added to the groups’ numbers.

Maybe it’s the push for marriage (and the cultural evolution of one man - one (or more) woman pairing) that forced culture to favor youth. I would rather see a study of a group of people who are free to have sex with whomever they want without consideration of property consolidation or baby-making or child-rearing and then get an idea for their sexual tastes. For that, you’d have to find a society that has not been touched by the big three religions, not based on property ownership, matriarchal, equalitarian, and providing equal access to food and shelter… hard to find, sure, but they’ve existed in the past.

I think we should avoid calling on tiny populations of historical or statistical outliers - matrilineal or polyandrous cultures, as interesting as they may be - as support for our world views and go about hinting they are superior of more genuine adaptations for our species. They are just OTHER adaptations.

When people do that they loose credibility when somebody else with an opposing world view does the same thing - like point to a culture that had human sacrifice or practiced ritual cannibalism - why THEY are relying on biased outliers to support their bigoted world view!

And Bonobos and Gorillas are not Homo Sapiens. They are fascinating to study and I'm sure a window to learning more about our own species. But let's get some perspective, okay.

Cultural adaptations come the complicated alchemy of biological adaptations and environmental circumstances. Evolution doesn't care about your politics.

But a woman who is too young - somewhere south of 17 but old enough to menstruate - die or are rendered infertile in childbirth as much or more often than older mothers.

It’s more likely that social groups added safety and support for females who had large babies, allowing larger babies to survive and to then grow up to produce their own larger babies. With many other people able to provide food, safety, comfort, and shelter, a female who’d had a large baby and needed time to recuperate could do so. That doesn’t automatically lead to a desire for younger females. It does automatically lead to a desire for group living.

The youth thing is directly related to property ownership.

@7, those were the exact lines of thought i was going to explore. you made it so clear, so sound. thanks.

@7 Excellent observations!

This was an interesting post all around, Charles. I look forward to the review of Pagel's book.

@7 That's not how evolution works!

It says nothing about women who have smaller babies. Presumably they would be eligible for the same support.

Not to mention your logic is circular. Having social groups...automatically leads to a desire for social living?

So the sea-change in your thinking comes down to previously thinking we were attracted to younger females because of a higher probability of becoming pregnant to now thinking our attraction comes from a higher probability of successfully delivering on a pregnancy.

Wow.

UUuuummmmm, men need to be visually stimulated to become arroused.
Done deal.

@10 well, yeah. And many women do have smaller babies even still (though not full-term-and-healthy three-pounders but we've been evolving for quite a while, really). What I mean is that it would be harder for a woman to break away from a group, ensuring the continuation of social living.

I personally can't see how we should live one man, one woman, in a house together, since that's not (probably) how humans lived for most of human existence. It's far more likely that we developed in groups, allowing babies to get larger, allowing sex, food, shelter, childcare to be shared in the social group. And it seems that the ideal of youth is (possibly) relatively new to humans, along with property ownership and likely unrelated to big babies.

Also, I'm not a researcher. Go read Christopher Ryan's book and a few others (I'll get a list of the ones I've read together and send it your way) (though I’m sure Charles’ reading list is more impressive than mine).

I've read the post. I've read the comments. I end up wondering about the motivation for knowing this information. I'm not convinced it matters much. While I generally have a thirst for knowledge, this seems motivated in a weird way, and seems kinda angry. (I'm not really concerned about the cougar phenomenon either).

Let's say we find out definitively that it is cultural. Is it therefore desirable to change? What if it is biodeterminism? Should we change it then? Why? Help me care about this my friends! While I may not get the issue I do have an earnest desire to understand my fellow readers.

Geoz,

I suppose for me I see that we could decisively completely change our society and very soon (RadioLab did a story about a tribe of baboons that had a major culture shift in a matter of months and that new culture stayed with the tribe for generations even as other baboons joined the tribe) (yes, yes, we’re a little different than baboons, but it suggests a possibility for change) (if some of our worse traits are indeed cultural) (not desiring young brides - that’s not so much a problem in itself, but emblematic of a greater problem, I think).

It’s all wrapped up with true equality for women, a major reduction in violence and rape, an end to war and an end to poverty in our society; and universal healthcare.

I’m not being facetious; I see a connection in all of that, by going back to our origins. So I’m intrigued with anthropology and learning about human nature makes me hopeful about what we can change in our society, even while reality has gotten so much worse for so many more people.

I don’t believe in god. I‘ve gotta have something to hope in.

Men prefer younger women because they have been brainwashed by the patriarchy to treat women as chattel. Tight asses, smooth skin, and perky breasts have nothing to do with it.

I don't think males always had one mate. Still don't. And not exclusively young unless they wish to establish themselves in the hiearchy by showing other male their virility.

If it's about fertility and successful birthing, then shouldn't a woman not be truly attractive to a potential mate until she's proven her baby manufacturing prowess?