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advancedatheist comments on Open thread, Dec. 1 - Dec. 7, 2014 - Less Wrong Discussion

3 Post author: MrMind 01 December 2014 08:29AM

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Comment author: advancedatheist 02 December 2014 05:20:54PM 4 points [-]

Has anyone come across research on parents' attitudes towards their sons when they can see that girls don't find their teen boys sexually attractive? If you saw that happening to your son, that has to affect how you feel about him compared to how you would feel if you saw that your son had sexual opportunities.

This relates to my puzzlement about the idea that the "sexual debut" happens as an organic developmental stage with a median age of 17, compared with the fact that quite a few straight young men miss this window and become the targets of social derision and contempt.

Reference:

Who is the 40-year-old virgin and where did he/she come from? Data from the National Survey of Family Growth.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19493289

Comment author: shminux 02 December 2014 07:38:50PM *  3 points [-]

quite a few straight young men miss this window and become the targets of social derision and contempt.

I'd say it's more of a pity than derision and contempt, but then it probably depends on one's social circles.

Comment author: cameroncowan 07 December 2014 09:30:26AM 1 point [-]

I think parents want their children to be successful with their peers, particularly if they are. I helped raise my cousins and the youngest one was the last to really attract men and we felt really sorry for her because she was missing out and she was depressed because her sisters were always attached and she was not. Its a social thing, but it doesn't really hurt you as a person. I do think however, that your attractiveness level when you're young does have affect on your perception of your attractiveness into the rest of your life. Evolutionarily, when we only live to 40, it was important to keep the species going. Now, I think it is a matter of fitting in and finding one's place in society. Knowing, at a young time that you are attractive helps keep you going as life goes along. Whereas, if you don't feel attractive then you get that idea and it can be very hard to break.

Comment author: Evan_Gaensbauer 03 December 2014 04:50:08AM 1 point [-]

This relates to my puzzlement about the idea that the "sexual debut" happens as an organic developmental stage with a median age of 17, compared with the fact that quite a few straight young men miss this window and become the targets of social derision and contempt.

Now I'm puzzled by this too. Does the median age for young males making their "sexaul debut" vary by culture?

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