Agecuck
Agecuck is a term used in some online spaces to shame someone who criticizes men that openly profess a sexual attraction to minors. This type of attitude towards these types of men is often referred to as agecuckoldry. The term implies that men who deny or oppose sexual attraction to minors are deceitful or cowardly.
The term has been used on incel forums, being most frequently used by notable incels.co user Mainländer.
Stigma against large age gaps in heterosexual relationships[edit | edit source]
Society has a universal stigma against men dating teenagers age 14 to 17, even if the man is only a few years older. Age gaps between legal adults who are both 18 or older are also stigmatized to a lesser extent. It is very common for feminists on Twitter to condemn men in their early 20s who date high school-age girls or even men who date 18 or 19 year old women. Some argue that these feminists do this out of a desire to level the mating market in their favour, by counteracting the tendency for younger women to select for say, older men with resources together with the natural male tendency to prefer younger women.
When an 18 year old dates a 14 year old, the 18 year old is sometimes considered an "evil pedophile" and a "grown ass adult" but if an 18 year old dates a 25 year old, for example, then society often infantilizes the 18 year old and says they're still a "child". 18 year olds, however, are adults both biologically and legally because they are post-pubescent and have reached the age of majority.
Although people usually only want to torture, rape or kill actual child molesters (those who molest prepubescent children), there are some people who want to do these extremely painful things to men who have sex with underage teenagers.Nevertheless, people wishing death or torture on men who have sex with underage teenagers is a lot less common than people wishing such things on child molesters (those who molest prepubescent children).
Due to the stigma against age differences in relationships, many men refuse to date women who are even a couple years younger. For example, on social media, some men will say "I'm 21 and the youngest I'll date is 20" or "I'm 23 and even 20 is too young for me". Men who think this way often don't genuinely feel disgusted by dating 18-20 year olds, but refuse to date them because of the extreme stigma against age differences. Many fear being judged by society or ostracized. Some might worry they could be physically assaulted, due to the Internet's encouragement of violence and torture against men who like younger women. If the stigma didn't exist, many of these men would be willing to date younger women. When interracial marriage became more accepted, it also became significantly more common, and when homosexuality became more accepted, it also became more common for homosexual people to come out of the closet.
Public opinion on incel forums[edit | edit source]
Incel forum users can be open-minded towards the JBpill. Many admit to finding 'JB' girls attractive. Some even think that girls look most physically attractive at ages 14 to 17. This may be due to these users lacking the social nous to hide such attractions (given strong social stigma against it) as well as online forums affording a degree of anonymity that allows such users to vocalize their opinions. Though it is important to note, sexualization of minors is a common phenomenon on social media and in society in general, with many mainstream 'normie' platforms being criticized for allowing and indeed profiting from such content.[1]
The largest incel forum, incels.is, has recently decided to prohibit sexualization of minors.[2]
Prevalence of male sexual attraction to minors[edit | edit source]
Contrary to what most people think (the notion that it's rare to find teenage girls attractive), it is actually common for men to find teenage girls sexually attractive. This has been in confirmed in multiple phallometry studies and has all been confirmed by sexologists like James Cantor, Michael Seto, and Fred Berlin, who all have researched about pedophilia, hebephilia and ephebophilia. According to studies, the age group that men find the most attractive is late teens and early 20s. Attraction to early-mid teens and mid-late 20s, however, is also extremely common. Many believe that finding teenagers attractive is pedophilia. Pedophilia is clinically defined as exclusive sexual attraction to children, which seems rare and aberrant. Pedophilia is classified as a psychiatric disorder and is in the American Psychological Association's DSM-V.
On the other hand, hebephilia is a predominant sexual attraction to pubescent minors ages 11 to 14, and ephebophilia is a predominant attraction to older teens ages 15 to 19 (and thus, those past the minimal age of sexual consent in many jurisdictions). There is debate among experts on whether or not hebephilia should be included, but none of them agree to classify ephebophilia is a disorder because older teens are sexually mature, post-pubescent and reproductively mature and because men usually are attracted to older teens. For some studies that estimate the prevalence of male sexual attraction to female minors, see Scientific Blackpill#Age.
Social construction of teenagers argument[edit | edit source]
A common argument against dating teenagers, even legal age ones, is that teenagers aren't fully developed in the prefrontal cortex of the brain until 25, they aren't old enough to date older people, even though 18-19 year olds are old enough to handle war and fighting for their country. Some have claimed that social considerations determine maturity more than biological development. A man named Robert Epstein[3] has written a book called The Case Against Adolescence where he argues that the notion that teenagers are inherently immature is actually a myth and that immaturity in teenagers is a result of society infantilizing them.
Society extended childhood to 18 (and to a lesser extent, 21) and has treated teenagers and young adults like children, which causes immaturity and psychopathology in them. In many preindustrial societies, teenagers did not show any signs of immaturity or turmoil. Robert Epstein argued that the teen brain isn't what causes immaturity and that immaturity causes the teen brain, and that immaturity is caused by society's infantilization of teenagers and young adults. He writes that laws restricting adult responsibilities for teenagers didn't begin to exist until the 1800s and became much more common in the late 20th century. In other words, older teens are biologically adults and as a result, their brain tells them they are supposed to have adult responsibilities, which is why they try adult responsibilities and activities.
Trauma from sex with older people[edit | edit source]
Many people argue that teenage girls are traumatized or psychologically damaged by consensual sex with older guys. While there is strong evidence of an association between experiences of early sexual abuse and later adverse outcomes,[4] there is an argument that a lot of these factors derive from genetic factors (i.e. people that are abused inherit their abuser's personality traits in the cases of parental sexual abuse). Thus, causation is difficult to tease out from the effects of the genomic socio-cultural milieu such events often occur in.
Some studies have found null results comparing 'objective' (court records) to subjective reports of CSA (child sexual abuse) for measures of psychopathology.[5] This may be evidence of general antifragility and proof people are generally more robust to stressful experiences than generally considered.
However, sexual abuse is still a highly stigmatized subject and most cases are not reported so it is not clear how reliable such studies are. Such studies are also few in number and inconsistent, and thus the relationship between 'objective' and subjective recollections of abuse and negative mental health outcomes is uncertain.[6] Such studies, moreover, do not speak to ethical arguments against sexual coercion or sexual relationships with minors.
Some argue that since CSA was common throughout history or culturally accepted in the past that this is evidence that such acts are not harmful or immoral. This is, of course, fallacious logic.[7]
References[edit | edit source]
- ↑ https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15546128.2022.2096734
- ↑ https://incels.is/threads/rules-and-faq.799/
- ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Epstein
- ↑ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S22150366193028
- ↑ https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-020-0880-3
- ↑ https://acamh.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jcv2.12010
- ↑ https://acamh.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jcv2.12010