The confusion over pedophilia

When people say "pedophilia", they often don't understand what they're saying. I've seen people refer to sex with 16 year olds as pedophilia.

Pedophilia is defined as sex with children (from neonate to pre-pubescence). Pedophilia doesn't make a great deal of sense from a biological perspective, because pre-pubescent humans are incapable of causing pregnancy or becoming pregnant, so adult humans exclusively seeking sexual relations with pre-pubescent humans are probably doing something wrong. "Evolution gone wrong" you could say, although it's not as simple as that.

In fact, it's just another example of "Fisherian Runaway" sexual selection. Where youth in women was found to be an indicator of fertility, youth soon came to be attractive for its own sake. Just like the peacock's tail became attractive for its own sake. Adult women well understand this subconsciously, and they play along when they shave their body hair. In fact there is a name for it: neoteny.

Ephebophilia is defined as sex with adolescents (stage between puberty and adulthood). From a biological perspective, there is nothing wrong with ephebophilia, because adolescents are able to cause pregnancy or become pregnant. In fact the difference between adolescence and adulthood is pretty much arbitrary and meaningless and academic from a biological perspective.

Biologically we have not changed a great deal from those who lived even 1000 years ago, so to say that people are abnormal for reproducing when young when in the past it was pretty much the standard thing to do shows a distinct lack of awareness of history. In ages past, life expectancy at birth was probably no higher than 30 years, and life-expectancy at adolescence was probably around 40 or so (most women would have had a very large number of children). It is then straightforward that if our ancestors weren't ephebophiles and instead waited until their 30s to have children as they do today, homo sapiens would have had the same fate as the mammoths.

Another thing to keep in mind is that even the use of the word "ephebophilia" is a Fisherian Runaway in the making. Suppose there are a large number of people being struck by thrown apples. Even then, it makes no sense to outlaw the simple act of having apples. Similarly, it is only relevant to criminalize ephebophilia in the case of those people who seek only sexual relations with adolescents with the exclusion of attendant normal reproductive behaviour. It is meaningless to criminalize a person for marrying an adolescent, having several children, and living happily married until death. Otherwise every man throughout history who ever lived is technically a "criminal".

On the other hand, if the person wants nothing more than to have sex with one 15-year old after another with no intention of having any meaningful relationship with any of them, then it makes more sense to criminalize that behaviour because it is dysfunctional and any society allowing such a thing will soon be overwhelmed by other more functional societies.

What women want

Women complain about men a lot these days, as well they should. Men are untidy, insensitive, sex-crazed. They rape, they murder, most criminals are male. They make women pregnant and then run off with other (much younger) women. They don't pay child support for kids they've fathered. Et cetera.

Ironically, all the qualities that men have, both good and bad, are those which have been selected by women. In fact it's more than just a "selection", it's an "election", because by having a child by a man, the woman is casting a vote that says "this is the kind of man I want future generations of men to be like". And of course the men are voting as well, but to a lesser extent, what they want women of the future to be like. Note that none of this is being done consciously. Consider the peacock's tail. It confers no survival advantage. In fact a peacock with the best and biggest tail is the easiest for predators to catch. But it has a reproductive advantage because it's what the peahens want. Why do the peahens want it? They have no idea.

So it's futile for a woman who has given birth to a man's child to then complain about his qualities. She is only repeating the "mistake" his mother made!