I, for one, believe that taking control of our biology is unnavoidable, even neccessary. In the future, that is, when humanity is wiser, when we know the full implications of our actions and the responsibilities that come with the power of our technology. Right now, however, we have neither the will nor the maturity to meddle in something in something as fundamental as our genes. (except of course for therapeutic purposes, which that idiotic president of the world's greatest country is stunting )

Now, as to the topic of controlling the onset of puberty, why the hell not. Our social structure nowadays is too complicated to grasp within our short childhoods, and we end up having to learn things along the way, often with unwanted consequences. (yes, we learn better first hand, but getting raped so you can learn what it is to be raped is just stupid and cruel)

The thing is, we have already outrun evolution. We are too advanced for our own biology.

Besides, delaying puberty would give most of us a few decades bonus in our life expectancy, since a large part of aging is triggered by sexual maturity. (as tested in worms by previous experiments)

Still, the biggest hurdle to this would be our technology. (politics will come later) As paolo has stated, we know very little of the effects that manipulating the onset of puberty has on the body.

Oh, and in the near future, we probably won't have to worry about deciding this before the child is born. Viral (or nanorobotic) vectors could be used to introduce new genes even in adult individuals.

n3rf (imported) wrote: Mon Aug 15, 2005 3:57 am Paulo, You write so well, I get envious. The question - do we not already 'manipulate' these by the food supply nowadays with hormones given in the meat and milk and other ?? products to produce more of it ?? So what do You say - it is already goings on - intentionally or not ?? Regards Johan N3RF

Thanks.

There are really two schools of thought on this one.

As for American food supply, one faction argues that the growth hormone and content of various other drugs used in the production of our food does NOT cook out and is affecting the people who eat it. Others will swear that there's nothing wrong at all.

I subscribe to the idea that our food supply DOES indeed effect the growth rate and timing of puberty in our children. Here, all one has to do is look at the kids from the south end of the county, where small town and rural life tends to have kids eating "real food" at home and fast food as perhaps a weekly one-time treat. Meanwhile, the kids on the more urban north end of the county, who eat a steady of fast food and production meats every day are taller, more mature, and develope fast and much earlier than their southern counterparts.

However, many Asian countries have experienced the opposite - too many naturally occurring estrogens in the food supply that tend to retard male characteristics.

I still wish that I had had my puberty delayed, although I probably would have been annoyed about having to get a painful shot every month without knowing just what was being prevented. What with vaccinations & whatnot it seems kids are always getting jabbed with needles.

Well,

From a purely non-religious or non-moral standpoint, I might suggest to everybody that what is happening in this instance with the human species could be a form of natural selection.

That is, the human species in not without its adherence to the laws of survival of the fittest and so forth.

The interference of science with when or how the species undergoes puberty and sexual maturity has to do with how we are evolving, if you are an individual that believes in science. To interfere with these natural processes of humanity is to interfere with the ability of humanity to procreate and to perpetuate its species.

I would further like to suggest that our practices of sexually segregating males and females socially is contributing to the tendancy to be unable to identify with member of the opposite sex. Same sex relationships for some males and females feel right because we do not allow them to mingle soon enough.

Regardless, whether homosexual, heterosexual or bisexual, the only 'virgins' that seem to exist in our society are UGLY 12-year-olds. (Even the UGLY ones have "lost it" by the time they are 14 or so.)

Remember when people married at 12 years old in the 1800's? Neither do I but I have heard tales...

With that being said there is a tendency to enter into puberty at earlier and earlier ages. The cure for this could be as simple as paying more attention to dietary suppliments.

However, this is not likely to happen because there is lots of money to be made in feeding people.

Religion notwithstanding, we tend to fuck up everyone's sexuality with our customs and such.

So why not just fuck it up entirely and deny them a 'natural' process of puberty? Hell, sexually nutering them is just one step from delaying puberty. If we delay their puberty then what makes us better than the castrators of young lads in Italy to create the castrati? I'd wager not a whole hell of a lot is the answer.

A-1

As a natural amateur soprano castrato singer (among other things), who would like to see a revival of the castrato tradition, I consider that pharmaceutical means for delaying puberty indefinitely should be made more widely known and available, especially for the sake of those boys who want it, either because they are transsexual, or are horrified at the prospect of so-called "normal" puberty, or want to preserve their voices for singing purposes and become castrati. At a later stage they can then opt for surgical castration. Where prescription drugs cannot be obtained by boys e.g. because of parental opposition, the alternative use of saw palmetto extract, which may be coupled with natural phyto-estrogens like extracts of black cohosh, chasteberry, hops, and legumes, avaiable from health-supplement shops, should be made better-known.

In the 18th century in Europe, puberty usually did not arrive until the age of at least 17, and 18- and 19-year-old boy sopranos were common then. Even more recently, in England until the 1930s, there were still 17- and 18-year-old boy sopranos around, e.g. Ernest Lough and John Bonner, judging by the Betterland collection of early English boy-soprano recordings that I recently bought - see http://betterland.boychoirs.org/bland001.html for further information. (I bought them because they should be a fair approximation to castrato voices because of the ages of most of the singers, and give me ideas for adding to my own repertoire). No-one really knows why the average age of puberty has recently become so reduced - it would have to be something that causes the hypothalamus to start releasing gonadotrophin-releasing hormone (which then acts on the pituitary) prematurely.

A bit off topic reply but I just 'found' The Betterland Collection, and an MP3 rip of one of Lough's vinyl LP's on Usenet. Very good music. If you're a Usenet person, alt.binaries.multimedia.treblevoices

Most of the natives are friendly.

I love choral music - helps me sleep and makes the boys crazy when they're forced into "Culture".

I don't recall which set of liner notes it was in, but the mention of boys' voices not changing until age 17-18 was mentioned.

As for the natural supplements like saw palmetto, you'd have to have a boy willing to take it and understand why. Hell, I have to pretty much use a veterinary 'blowgun' to shoot vitamins and allergy meds down the boys' throats!