Posts with Comments by thaddeus
Virginity & heritability
Jerry Seinfeld said one of the reasons he had his first encounter of the closest kind so late (19 I think, but he may even have been older) was because he could not stand pressing the issue, so to speak, unless the girl was totally into it. Apparently he did not find himself in such a situation until he was at least 19.
As for girls usually remembering their first encounter of the most intimate kind in mostly negative terms--expected. Most people know this through instinct or just biological common sense, which is why even the most "liberated" parents, both fathers and mothers, get angry at the idea of anybody sexually eyeballing their teenaged daughters but not so much their sons. There's a lot of lip service paid to the vulnerability of pubescent males being vamped by designing females, but when it actually happpens, most people aren't too bent out of shape about it. Still, 14 year old boys fathering children by their 30 year old teachers does have a weird out factor, so I'm glad the law is there, theoretically, to intervene.
As for girls usually remembering their first encounter of the most intimate kind in mostly negative terms--expected. Most people know this through instinct or just biological common sense, which is why even the most "liberated" parents, both fathers and mothers, get angry at the idea of anybody sexually eyeballing their teenaged daughters but not so much their sons. There's a lot of lip service paid to the vulnerability of pubescent males being vamped by designing females, but when it actually happpens, most people aren't too bent out of shape about it. Still, 14 year old boys fathering children by their 30 year old teachers does have a weird out factor, so I'm glad the law is there, theoretically, to intervene.
Evolving to become more miserable?
The royals did have problems producing. Henry the VIII went through 6 wives and ended up with 3 officially legitimate progeny (official at least at the time of birth) living past infancy. One of these, Edward VI, died in his teens, and we all know about Mary and Elizabeth. King Charles II, mid-17th c., had a dozen kids from his mistresses, mostly Nell Gwynn, ancestor of Princess Diana, but none from his wife, a Portugese princess. Successors, William & Mary, had no offspring. Their successor, Queen Anne, had 18 pregnancies of which only 5 lived past the age of two, one son lived only to die at 11.
OTOH, George III had about 15 kids with Queen Charlotte (he was one of the few kings never to have mistresses), of whom most all lived to grow up, but were so remarkably lacking in legitimate children from his sons that there was a crisis of succession in 1818, leading to a quickie marriage of one of the sons, and the birth of a single heir, Victoria.
Meanwhile, in the New England colonies, the middle classes were producing at a the rate of 10 children per woman, with a survival rate of 90%, incredible for that day and age.
OTOH, George III had about 15 kids with Queen Charlotte (he was one of the few kings never to have mistresses), of whom most all lived to grow up, but were so remarkably lacking in legitimate children from his sons that there was a crisis of succession in 1818, leading to a quickie marriage of one of the sons, and the birth of a single heir, Victoria.
Meanwhile, in the New England colonies, the middle classes were producing at a the rate of 10 children per woman, with a survival rate of 90%, incredible for that day and age.
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