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| Creepy old man or just getting what he can? |
| Good for him. |
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50% |
[ 73 ] |
| He gives me the creeps. |
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49% |
[ 71 ] |
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| Total Votes : 144 |
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Justin Hale
Joined: 24 Nov 2007
Location: the Straight Talk Express
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 Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 12:18 am Post subject: |
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Here's an excellent lecture:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith2001/lecture3.shtml
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Perhaps the oddest thing about human reproduction, something that sets us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom, is the menopause. The mystery of menopause is this: why should women invariably lose their fertility when they are far short of showing advanced signs of biological ageing, and when it happens neither to monkeys nor men? To be sure, there is talk of a male menopause, or andropause. But neither in men nor in female apes is there a universal loss of fertility at such a relatively early age. Male reproductive ageing is variable. Some men may experience early loss of reproductive functions. Others retain fertility and may indeed father children at a great age. There is no such spectrum of possibilities for women. Menopause shuts the door to motherhood with blunt finality at around the age of 50. Fertility declines ahead of this for 5-10 years.
Reproduction is so important for Darwinian fitness that anything which impedes fertility should make us ponder the evolutionary stakes that may be at play. Menopause is a unique feature of the human female life history and its explanation is most likely to be found among the other elements that distinguish human evolution from our companion species on this planet. Just last month, my colleague Daryl Shanley and I published an evolutionary analysis that throws new light on the factors which may be responsible.
During the evolution of our hominid ancestors, two unprecedented developments took place. First, the size of the human brain underwent a very rapid enlargement. Secondly, we acquired the capacity for a level of advanced social and cultural interaction not previously seen. In concert with these developments, we evolved increased life spans, presumably because of evolutionary pressure to make the soma a bit less disposable. After all, there is little point in evolving a big brain and using it to make your life safer, if your DNA falls apart before you have been able to reap the benefits of these advantages. Such a process might happily continue - brains getting bigger and lives getter longer - but for one worrisome snag. The baby's brain still needs to pass through the mother's pelvis at the time of birth. Worse still, the physical dimensions of the pelvis are tightly constrained by the mechanics of the increasingly upright human gait.
Natural selection is a master of compromise. While a design engineer might suggest that the birth canal be rerouted, perhaps via the abdomen, such radical redesign rarely occurs. What happened instead was that babies came to be born with their brains half grown. Compared to other placental mammals, the human infant is unusually incomplete at birth. A lamb, calf or foal walks with its mother within hours of its birth. A human baby takes more than a year to accomplish this feat. On the other hand, in order not to extend the period of such high dependency even longer, birth is delayed until the baby's brain is as big as possible. The result is that humans have unusually difficult deliveries, which increases the dangers if things go wrong. The dangers are tragically clear from the high levels of maternal mortality that occurred - and still occur in the developing countries - in the absence of modern obstetric care.
So there we were, the pinnacle of evolution, but reproductively speaking in a fine old mess. Social and cultural evolution was occurring fast, and life expectancy was growing rapidly. For perhaps the first time in our evolutionary history, significant numbers of women began surviving to an age when the signs of senescence were starting to be felt.
Initially, it may have been only a small number surviving past fifty, but it brought a new challenge. If females retained fertility indefinitely, and if those who survived to older ages continued to become pregnant, the already difficult business of giving birth would become downright dangerous. There is some truth, at least in natural circumstances, in the idea that the fifty year old body is too old to give birth properly.
The solution, as you might have guessed, was to limit fertility to ages when it was relatively safe, even though this meant forgoing the genetic advantages of having as many children as possible. However, there were compensatory benefits.
The older mother would be spared the risks of a late pregnancy and her dependent children would be protected from becoming orphans. And with an increasing tendency for living in extended kin groups, the post-reproductive female could assist her daughters with their reproduction, perhaps by relieving them of some of the burdens of providing for their dependent offspring. There is good evidence from hunter-gatherer societies, particularly the Hadza of East Africa, that the fulfilment of such a role by the grandmother enhances the child-raising capacity of their daughters and decreases the mortality of grandchildren.
An important concept in evolutionary biology, developed by the late Bill Hamilton, is the idea of "inclusive fitness" - that one's genetic contribution to future generations should be measured in terms of the survival and reproductive success of kin other than just one's immediate offspring. What Daryl Shanley and I showed in our paper, is that it requires all these factors to be bundled together before it becomes clear that the menopause serves a genuine evolutionary advantage. It is this stringent requirement that explains the uniqueness of the human menopause and it tells us that post-menopausal women, far from being, in Darwinian terms, worn-out biological has-beens, are actually very special.
If it is correct that the menopause represents a distinct evolutionary advantage, as I believe to be the case, this was a hugely significant step. For probably the first time ever, an adaptation arose that specifically reflected the new value of older organisms. After aeons of largely neglecting the fate of the disposable soma, natural selection finally woke up to the fact that older women were so valuable that late fertility became dispensible instead.
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Those are good reasons, but also, men generally find younger women the most attractive, hence mutations of older women who could give birth late haven't passed on their genes, whereas older males have produced offspring with younger women in great number. In other species, women's fertility isn't as restricted, indicating preference for youth is absent in those species.
| Lastat wrote: |
Why do alot of young women gravitate themselves toward "significantly" older "gentlemen"?
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Older men can offer resources, safety and prosperity.
| Lastat06513 wrote: |
I have met a considerable number of girls, who were in their 20's, who either dated or married guys in their late-40's and early-50's (in one instance, the girl was 22 and the guy was 65... )
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Well buddy, did you see the study that was posted earlier? Here's it is again - it confirms that guys in their 40s and upwards mating with younger women is very common in our species' evolution.
| Justin Hale wrote: |
| Shaggy wrote: |
Here are some links about sperm quality
http://longevity-science.org/Parental_Age_2000.pdf
Human Longevity and Parental age at Conception
this study suggest that daughters born to men in the 45-55 year range live shorter lives and life expectancy decreases for the daughter as the
age of her father increases at conception- also talks about sperm quality |
Excellent paper � thank you. If you read the whole thing, it�s not straightforward at all and fascinatingly so. Daughters born to old fathers lived shorter lives, but those daughters who were born to longer-lived fathers (81+ years) were not affected by the late paternal age at conception. The fact that it�s even possible for an 81 year old to father a child is the whole point, but anyway�.daughters born to particularly young fathers (25-) also tended to live shorter lives (and sons not significantly affected at all by delayed paternal parenting). The effect on daughters� life expectancy is small, 2-4.5 years. Children born to young fathers have numerous increased risks described on p22. Finally, daughters with the highest life expectancy are born to fathers with paternal age 40-45. I can�t copy and paste from the paper, unfortunately, so I�ll use screenshots of salient points:
daughters/paternal (one study):
daughters/paternal (another study)
The point stands that the reproductive lifespan of females is shorter than in males because of the menopause and this provides straightforward evolutionary justification for older men seeking young, fertile women. |
| Garygoodbloke wrote: |
It's a good deal for both of them but is it freedom when he doesn't have an abundance of women and she doesn't have an abundance of money?
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For a decision to qualify as free, there must simply be the absence of coercion. Being poor and marrying a rich old man out of personally wanting to and agreeing to does not qualify as coercion in my opinion. |
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catman
Joined: 18 Jul 2004
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| Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 12:21 am Post subject: |
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| There are no enforced speeding or parking restrictions. No mandatory insurance. No fishing or pet licenses. A family can live on less than $100 a month. Petrol costs about 50 cents a litre. No teenage curfews. No political correctness. No sales taxes. Nobody sues anyone. All the local kids visit all the local houses where they are hugged and kissed like they were family. No kid gets abused and nobody worries about being accused of "inappropriate touching." |
Possibly a problem for him back home? Disgusting. |
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Justin Hale
Joined: 24 Nov 2007
Location: the Straight Talk Express
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| Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 12:25 am Post subject: |
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| The comment follows from the comment about family and as such is not digusting at all. |
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mateomiguel
Joined: 16 May 2005
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| Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 10:45 pm Post subject: |
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| garygoodbloke wrote: |
| but is it freedom when he doesn't have an abundance of women and she doesn't have an abundance of money? |
Are you not American? That's capitalism baby, and that's as free as Freedom Fries and mom's Apple Pie! |
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bassexpander
Joined: 13 Sep 2007
Location: Someplace you'd rather be.
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| Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2008 12:09 am Post subject: |
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Some of you guys would have a lot of fun on this site:
www.mag-anak.org
Actually, it's pretty cool if you date/marry a pinay. My coworker did, although he was 60 and she was 54. |
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garygoodbloke
Joined: 15 Jan 2007
Location: Sydney, Australia
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| Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2008 1:29 am Post subject: |
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| mateomiguel wrote: |
| garygoodbloke wrote: |
| but is it freedom when he doesn't have an abundance of women and she doesn't have an abundance of money? |
Are you not American? That's capitalism baby, and that's as free as Freedom Fries and mom's Apple Pie! |
Lol, if you read more closely you can see I'm not actually American, I'm Australian. Although Australia is also capitalist so I'll still reply to the point you were making.
What if I pay a homeless person to commit suicide and let me watch? Is that ok and justifiable by your argument? After all, suply and demand right?
I'm NOT drawing a direct comparison here even though I know my point will probably be distorted and taken out of context. I am simply saying that a capitalist view of the issue fails to fully integrate the concerns of moral or ethical perspectives. As in, just because you can legally do something, does it mean you should? Just because I can tell everyone I meet that I think they're a moron, does it mean I should do it? I think by now you can see my point and if you can't then there's no point for me to continue this line of reasoning.
Either way, that's where I stand. |
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Kepler
Joined: 24 Sep 2007
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| Posted: Thu Apr 17, 2008 7:51 am Post subject: |
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There was an article in The Jakarta Post about the man pictured in the first page of this thread and the happiness he has found in Indonesia-
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For Yuyun is 23 and Sheldon is 72. To save you the job of scrabbling for the calculator, that's almost half a century of difference.
"I married a child," said Sheldon. He said he hasn't been wed before, but has had other partners. He also has a daughter in the U.S.; Yuyun has inherited a stepchild two years older than herself.
"This is keeping me young. I've always been associated with beautiful women and this is the best relationship I've ever had.
"Let's face it; every middle-aged man has a fantasy of making it with a young girl -- just ask Bill Clinton. Here in Indonesia fantasy can become fact"....
"I no longer enjoy Britain -- it's like a police state. I can't even get a visa for Yuyun so she can meet my relatives and see the country. We don't want to live there.
"Here there are no speed cameras, no parking restrictions, no surveillance, no income tax, no VAT. To open a business you find some premises and go ahead ... no licenses, no fire inspections.
"No political correctness, no lawsuits, no compulsory insurance, no fishing or television licensing. Here I bought a house for $6,000. You couldn't get a garden shed for that in England.
"Western women are disgusting. They are selfish, egotistical and money oriented. If you don't have tons of cash they're just not interested.
"Here I've never met a real bitch. Indonesian women list being faithful at the top of their requirements in a man. There's a bit of hero worship. They like white skin." |
http://old.thejakartapost.com/yesterdaydetail.asp?fileid=20070429.C01
Last edited by Kepler on Tue Apr 22, 2008 3:28 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Thu Apr 17, 2008 8:42 am Post subject: |
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I was sympathetic all the way until . . .
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| Western women are disgusting. They are selfish, egotistical and money oriented. If you don't have tons of cash they're just not interested. |
No. Western women are empowered. They are like a reflection of Western men. |
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KirbyMagnus
Joined: 05 Apr 2008
Location: Korea
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| Posted: Thu Apr 17, 2008 3:28 pm Post subject: |
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| Kuros wrote: |
I was sympathetic all the way until . . .
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| Western women are disgusting. They are selfish, egotistical and money oriented. If you don't have tons of cash they're just not interested. |
No. Western women are empowered. They are like a reflection of Western men. |
I agree it is wrong to say western women are selfish and egotistical. I think everyone is money orientated in one way or another. A woman doesn't care whether you are rich or not, but she wont be interested if you are poor and unemployed.
That said "empowered" to many men now chimes with "selfish, egotistical, and money orientated". The women in Sex and the City are "empowered", the sort of women you see on the apprentice are "empowered". The stupid middle class bints who strip or become call girls and write a blog about it claiming they are "empowered" and not just selling out for the cash are "empowered".
I think women should strive for independence and equality. No woman should seek empowerment. Your response to the male patriarchy that has enslaved you is to erm become exactly like them. Great!, now as well as annoying alpha male idiots we have annoying alpha female idiots. |
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mateomiguel
Joined: 16 May 2005
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| Posted: Thu Apr 17, 2008 4:58 pm Post subject: |
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| garygoodbloke wrote: |
| Lol, if you read more closely you can see I'm not actually American, I'm Australian.... Either way, that's where I stand. |
Ok, ok, I get your point. There's no apple pie in Australia. Sad.
I was actually just bein sarcastic, and trying to make the same point as you did. You did a good job using sincerity there. |
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Insidejohnmalkovich
Joined: 11 Jan 2008
Location: Pusan
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| Posted: Fri Apr 18, 2008 4:36 am Post subject: |
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| The open or secret dream of every man is to have as many women and as nubile women as possible. Quit lying to yourself otherwise. |
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crusher_of_heads
Joined: 23 Feb 2007
Location: kimbop and kimchi for kimberly!!!!
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| Posted: Fri Apr 18, 2008 5:26 am Post subject: |
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| Kuros wrote: |
I was sympathetic all the way until . . .
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| Western women are disgusting. They are selfish, egotistical and money oriented. If you don't have tons of cash they're just not interested. |
No. Western women are empowered. They are like a reflection of Western men. |
Do you Touch Yourself ala The Divinyls? |
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OneWayTraffic
Joined: 14 Mar 2005
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| Posted: Sat Apr 19, 2008 3:18 pm Post subject: |
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| thepeel wrote: |
| The dude does seem creepy to me. But it isn't my place to judge the legitimacy of their relationship. I'm sure she did as all people do and found the best mate for her, given the circumstances. Him too. We aren't all blessed with ideal situations in life. They could be crazy in love and happy as all hell. The age and ethnic differences seem odd, but are really just contextual. |
My feelings exactly. And there certainly are examples of May December relationships elsewhere. |
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hack
Joined: 24 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Sat Apr 19, 2008 4:37 pm Post subject: |
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| I suggest all you guys who think this is creepy, save this thread and then look at it iwhen you are 72 and see if you feel differently then when you wish the same thing could happen to you. |
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friendoken
Joined: 19 Jan 2008
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| Posted: Sat Apr 19, 2008 6:03 pm Post subject: |
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| bassexpander wrote: |
First of all, she is apparently 23. She's not 13. She's a full 5 years above the legal age of consent in the USA. People from that area of the world tend to look very young.
Yes, the man is old. But until you spend time in that part of the world and get to know the culture (and no, I'm not talking about your panty-rides in Pattaya equaling cultural understanding) your judgmental reasoning for why this marriage took place is little more than a stuffy western opinion.
She may truly love him. Obviously, he is crazy about her.
One only need go back 75 years or so to find examples of this type of relationship in Western society, as well. Since that time, it has been the goal of modern feminism to equate older men with younger women as "perverted" or "wrong." For the most part, western society has bought it, too.
Why do feminists do this? Because they must to continue their belief/agenda of the working woman moving up in a man's world. Achieving high positions in business or society takes time. Education before that takes time. Suddenly these "empowered' women find themselves knocking on the door of 35, wrinkling, and bitter that men their age or even older are chasing after 20-something tail. The successful woman must sacrifice her most beautiful years in order to become successful (most cases). One way to attempt to resurrect some semblance of a chance for reproduction is to convince the world that women between the ages of 18 and 26 or so should be totally off-limits to men more than 6 to 10 years their senior
Those of you who believe this relationship between the older man and younger woman to be some kind of horrible perversion have, in fact, been indoctrinated to think of it as such. For an older man to be attracted to a younger woman is very natural, and historically there are countless examples of it. Some younger women like older men too -- some much older.
And I'm talking about 20-something women. Years ago, women much younger than that were marrying older men. That's historic fact, and it has been so for a great many years.
The only defense people have against this kind of argument, when they find themselves losing it, is to start throwing out words like, "pervert" and "creepy" at guys like me, who try to offer a counter viewpoint.
Look at any magazine and ask yourself.... how many of those models are 18 or younger? How many are above 25? Why do you suppose it's that way? |
I think this is brilliant. For the record I am a young female and by all accounts attractive. If I were in a position that many SE Asian females find themselves - likely poor (ish) and my options for finding a wealthy local man were very slim I would do the same thing as so many of them do. I would look for a foreign man. It doesn't matter what age they are, if they love and respect me, that is enough. My life would take a quantum leap towards the more comfortable and possibly my family's as well. There is nothing wrong with age differences in relationships. If there is love and caring...what else do you need?
Climb down off of your soap boxes and realize everything doesn't necessarily have to be your way to be acceptable. Sheesh. For people who likely consider themselves open minded, I can hear a lot of mental doors slamming shut. |
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