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I could be wrong, but I think I recall Aella's studies (or maybe someone else's?) suggesting peak physical attractiveness for women is somewhere around 16, which matches my intuitions.
But I think there are a couple of dynamics going on that distinguish a "celebrity 10" from an individual 10.
They have to be a celebrity at all. While there were plenty of girls at my highschool who I would have rated as 10s, definitely more attractive than most celebrities, none of you will ever agree with me that they are 10s because you never saw them and don't know what they look like. Short of sharing facebook photos (many of which have been deleted since then), which I wouldn't do anyway and violate their privacy, I have no way of communicating this properly. It isn't shared knowledge, they are not valid candidates for "the most attractive women" in popular discourse, because they are not famous.
Broad appeal. A woman with a specific look that some men really like and others don't might end up a 10 for 10% of the population and a 7 for 90% of the population. Meanwhile another woman might be a 9 in basically everyone's estimation. If you look around you you might find 10% of women have the specific look that appeals to you and conclude they are more attractive than the universal 9, but lots and lots of men are going to agree that the 9 is attractive, so when people average scores together the universal 9 might end up at the top while each of the niches end up lower on average (and then when we grade on a score the 9 curves up to a 10)
Aging gracefully. Due to social concerns and/or cognitive dissonance, a lot of men are not going to admit that the 16-year-old is a 10, even if they are physically attracted to her. So the set of 22 year olds are going to get a lot more external praise and validation. Therefore, a woman who retains a higher fraction of her teenage peak appearance into her 20s is going to be at the top of the ratings as far as people say them out loud, even if in literal terms she is less attractive than other 16 year olds or even her own 16 year old self.
So I think 22-year-old Megan Fox is considered peak due to hitting all of these points. If she were not famous, few men would genuinely treat her as a 10 in terms of preferring her over the top 5% of women they've ever met in real life. But she is famous, and has broad appeal, and was attractive in her early 20s, so the discourse goes the way it goes.
I really don't think this is compatible with the state of law. In the sense that I don't think it's true, because otherwise the law would use 16 instead of 18. Although I suspect a chunk of men like 16 the most, such as yourself. And they tend to be more K-selected, and so are more common in places like these.
There's some evidence the real answer is age 20 because this is when fecundity is supposed to peak. So a one night stand has the highest chance of a pregnancy. There's gonna be a ton of variance though. Some men will prefer 15 if their mating strategy is investment oriented, some men might prefer 25 per chance, maybe 25 is better for cuckholdry or something like that, she will have a family who she can pass off your child to as her own. So it will vary per men and in turn each man not only has a favorite age but also an attraction interval which is arguably more important than his exact favorite age.
The majority of U.S. states and European countries DO use 16 as the age of consent. There are often some caveats and exceptions regarding power dynamics like teachers and students, but broadly speaking most places acknowledge that teenagers are sexually mature, want to have sex, others want to have sex with them, and thus they can consent. Other places disagree with the legal/moral position and set the age higher (or lower, though not in the U.S.), but 16 is roughly the median for a lot of places.
It is important to note though that peak biological age is distinct from the functionally optimal age in modern society. Higher levels of technology and civilization require more education than in the past. Even if a 16 year old can get pregnant and have children, it's going to mess up their education, career, and general life prospects. And in a world where people are free to choose their own partners rather than having arranged marriages, 16 year olds are not likely to pick the best partners to have sex with. Therefore the legally optimal age of consent does not need to line up with the biologically optimal age of fecundity in the first place.
Your point about variation is valid though.
Yes but if it were the most attractive age to most people it would be all, like 18 (meaning all places let 18 be legal). And there would be very little taboo, kind of like dating a 19 year old when you're 45, which seems to go barely commented on. If she were 16 there would be an outrage in a lot of the west. Which leads me to my next point. In most of these places 16 year olds are only partially legal. They can apparently consent to sex even with an older man, unless he's their teacher, but they can't consent to some combination of sexting, getting married, or traveling together.
I think the fact that they are often at least substantially legal means a large minority of men find them very attractive. But not everybody. Not even most men. It's probably something like 30% to 45% of men are «ephebophiles».
This is a lot more optimism about the extent to which society serves its typical members than I'm personally inclined towards.
Why? If it didn't serve its typical members well, wouldn't it be easy to change?
Not in the slightest. Taboos are sticky.
How do you know that? Where does a taboo come from if not from an intention to serve a community's members well? In a country with free speech, how sticky can taboos be? Surely they must have enough decay. We've seen many taboos change very fast in the last 100 years ... in fact, there's if anything a force towards raising the age of consent. Under a sticky old taboo we'd expect a decay.
Have you not noticed the cited reasons for that change?
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