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tl;dr ephebophilia is not just an artifact of a fixed age of consent, but an attraction to specific psychological traits
I've been thinking about all the classic American porn paperbacks I've read and it made me realize something about the various flavors of MAPs. A lot of classic smut features ephebophilic scenes. Or, to not mince words, jailbait characters have sex in these books. Why would someone put a well-developed minor (and go into explicit detail about her womanlike voluptuousness) into his story? I could come up with three reasons:
Reading the books actually shows what this difference (in the mind of the writers) is. A grown woman has barriers around sex. Of course, it's porn, so everyone is a happy slut by the epilogue, but the journey of a woman is about taking down these barriers: she has a lot of ideas with whom it is appropriate to have sex, when, where and what kind of. A girl in a woman's body has no such qualms. Well, maybe she has a few, passed down from her mother or her Sunday school, but as soon as she realizes that sex is a pleasurable experience (or "neat", as the books from the 70's put it), she's willing to have it for the sake of it (and suffer no ill consequences, because it's porn).
And it is my opinion that this attraction to easy-going relationships instead of torturous courtship is what defines ephebophiles and lumps them together with other flavors of MAPs. They want someone who can decouple sex from the rest of the cultural baggage around relationships, even though they are not attracted to actual physical traits of prepubescence. A literal pedophile might be attracted to specific physical traits, but he's also attracted to the idea that it's much easier to explain sex as a harmless game or a sign of special friendship.
However, I don't want to say this approach is exclusive to MAPs only. They are in a good and diverse company. People joking about "genetically-engineered catgirls" express a very similar sentiment: they imagine a female that is naturally loyal and attracted to them, unlike the messy natural femoids (curiously, this sounds more like a dog than a cat). Dudes mail-ordering brides from abroad expect them to follow a simple and straightforward contract: provide meals and sex, get citizenship. And of course, promiscuous gays are living every horny man's dream (modulo the sex of their partner).
This also explains why certain redditors* brand a 45-yo man dating a 20-yo woman a pedophile (steelman incoming). They don't mean he's literally attracted to her prepubescent body, which would be absurd. What they mean is that this man exploits the woman's unawareness of her potential value on the sexual marketplace. He can outbid her 20-yo suitors simply because he has 25 years of career growth on them. The woman should either practice perfect price discrimination or reject him in the name of... social justice?
Does this mean that the instigators of the sexual revolution, who, according to some posters whose names elude me right now, did it all only to bamboozle young and attractive women into no-strings-attached sexual promiscuity were ephebophiles? I guess they technically were.
* just today I noticed a major vibe shift on Reddit. People were discussing the latest anti-porn initiatives in the UK and were mocking those who think a 17.99-yo is a "literal child", treating them as their outgroup.
I'll also make a point that isn't an endorsement but is an observation I've made a lot, especially as I'm approaching real middle age.
"Introducing" a newbie to something, in general, is a very gratifying experience. Using your own deeper knowledge to guide them, give them little tips, and see their own development generates a strong sense of frission, in me at least. Hugely rewarding.
When it comes to sex, there's the double gratification of showing someone something new and then getting to partake in it with them for mutual pleasure.
I am told that many guys do prefer an older woman as a partner because such women have worked out their preferences, kinks, and limits and are quite practiced in their techniques and thus deliver a much more enjoyable experience overall.
I believe it. But taking a younger woman (not necessarily virginal) and showing her certain experiences for the first time and getting her unfiltered, completely unrehearsed reaction to such an intense sensation never really gets old. But the woman herself does, eventually after she's tried everything then the joy of new discovery is blunted. Novelty squeezed out. Then its just sex. Fun, but without the extra layer of finding new frontiers of eroticism.
And its not easily replicable! There's a finite supply of inexperienced (yet attractive) young women. Can't be recycled once they're despoiled. So it wouldn't be that surprising if some men try to collect 'em like pokemon.
So while this:
Is an unavoidable factor, I think there's 'obviously' a mutual gain to an experienced partner reaching out and lending some of their knowledge and guidance to an inexperienced one so they don't have to fumble around on their own or with an equally inexperienced partner and trying things out without knowing for sure if they're 'doing it right.'
Whereas a jaded, cynical, "experienced" woman who doesn't need a man's guidance to discover new experiences doesn't give that extra gratifying sense of "I alone have given her this feeling that she's never felt before." And, more directly, you also have to assume she's comparing you to those past encounters and you'll never really know if you measure up.
On net, you'd prefer to be the guy against whom all future encounters are measured, vs. the guy who has to wonder if she's being honest about her past encounters.
And lest I get hit with the leery, suspicious eye, my own preference is for a woman who I've been with long enough to learn all her sensitive spots, favorite positions, her strengths, weaknesses (and vice-versa) and develop a sincere intimacy so you can read them easily and adjust on the fly and otherwise maximize the mutual joy. That's the optimal setup. A slightly more experienced guy, an inexperienced woman, and a long relationship to grow into each other so both get the benefit of knowing that their shared experiences are unique and they're not being compared against some unknown third parties.
I absolutely don't relate at all, and I imagine that many men are on the same boat. But I can understand that a large minority of people feel this way and that minority of men due to their tendencies end up taking the virginity of an outsized proportion of all the women out there, thereby ruining it for the rest of us.
Those pokemon collectors are absolutely ruining it for the rest of us.
I've commented on the issue of Lotharios having an outsize (negative) influence on the pool of 'marriageable' women before.
I had the 'insight' that yeah, these types literally optimize for attracting young, sexually inexperienced women, they know exactly where to look, what to say, how to present themselves, and how to string such a woman along without getting in so deep they can't escape. Its a game they get really good at because they are playing it over and over and over again.
They do it a few times and then it becomes second nature, and since they never stick around, they can keep running up enough of a body count in a relatively short period of time to have a noticeable impact on the local singles market.
And some portion of them, I reckon, fetishize the act of despoiling an innocent girl with no intention of committing, but also take some pleasure from knowing she's been ruined for any other partners that might come along.
I am actually willing to consider straight up execution for such men, IF ONLY for the deterrent effect.
The nature of the problem is that a young woman, without having SUBSTANTIAL oversight, can't tell one of these guys apart from a more committed partner, and if one of these guys gets her first (and as stated above, they're VERY GOOD at this game!), as her first relationship experience it can pretty much ruin her ability to identify and trust a 'good' man, and might make her bitter enough to think all men are like that.
Doesn't work. For every Lothario you execute, there will always be another one eager to take his place. Having sex with a bunch of nubile virgins is the ultimate reward. All you are doing is selecting for more impulsive, risk-taking cads. Or, as the Dreaded Jim put it:
And, yes, this requires SUBSTANTIAL oversight, which our society is optimized to prevent (starting with the institution of college, which is virtually designed to take young women away from the watchful eyes of their friends and families).
Yes, I've zeroed in on college as a particular problem since it has compounding (negative) impact on a woman's marriageability and fertility. Four fertile years burned, racking up both debt and body count, for a degree that they may not use, and then they often opt to go for MORE schooling rather than enter a marriage or the 'real world.'
And of course it also creates the target-rich environment for the virgin poppers. Women from small towns, leaving their high school boyfriends behind, no parental supervision, tons of drugs and alcohol available, and both blatant and subtle nudges towards promiscuity all around.
Without some strong social pressure its almost impossible to expect women to resist for the full four years. And by the sheer numbers, most women don't resist. body counts at time of first marriage have steadily climbed.
So yeah, more supervision on the women is part of the the solution.
AND YET, removing some of these guys and deterring the rest would likely have an overall positive effect as well.
I mean, lets just use a fox and henhouse analogy. Yes, you guard the hens/eggs because they are dear, but if you catch a fox in the act, you still kill it. You don't want a whole population of foxes that are optimized for henhouse raiding to arise.
Except that (generic) you are not keeping your hens in a henhouse; you are sending them out into the forest without a care in the world, then getting upset because most of them end up eaten by foxes. You are trying to make the forest safe for the hens by executing the foxes one at a time, and that is simply not going to work.
First, you have to keep your hens in a henhouse. And in order to do that, you need a priest who tells you that it is good and proper for a man to lock up his hens, a sheriff who recognizes your legal right to do so as the rightful owner of the hens, and friends and family who will look at you like you are an absolute idiot if send your hens out into the forest. Only then will there be any point to killing the occasional fox that happens to get in.
Needless to say, our priests, our cops, and our communities do the exact opposite.
Agreed on college. Academia delenda est. Man will not be free until the last professor is strangled with the entrails of the last journalist.
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