Quote Originally Posted by ShlupQuack View Post
This isn't EoEO, so I haven't been taking this thread seriously enough to question you knowledge of the subject in a polite way.
Thanks. I'll be sure to return the hospitality.

What you have studies is relevant to the discussion--if you're making claims you should know something about the subject, shouldn't you?
It is relevant to knowledge, but disclosing it in the discussion is pointless. If you can't make an assertion and argue it without saying, "I know more than you" then either your point is weak, or you're being too pre-emptive.

But going by your reason for a moment, if a psychologist asserted that homosexuality is a mental illness, should I not feel entitled to disagree simply because I've never studied psychology?

The time at which the human body is best able to produce an offspring. A woman's body is most able to support an offspring after it has fully developed (late teens, at the earliest), and at this point the most desirable genetic material is available. After a woman's reproductive peak birth defects increase either due to damage to her remaining eggs, or just that the more desirable eggs were released before the less desirable ones.

I don't mean sexual peak; I mean reproductive peak. A woman's sexual peak is in her mid-thirties. The function of hormones in the teenage years is to facilitate physical development.
Source? I want to verify the last statement particularly.

Aside from verifying this, I want to add some food for thought: the technical age of a person doesn't quite matter, so much as the traits reflected in their physical appearance. If a young woman looks healthy, then this tells the onlooker that she is healthy and likely a good candidate for reproduction. This then translates into attraction. Since there is generally no difference in appearance between a 16 and 18-year old female, there can be quite a gap of attraction right after puberty.