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What "childhood loss and trauma" was it that led Turing to find nineteen-year-olds attractive, exactly? I'm pretty sure most people find people in their late te

by seldo 17y ago

What "childhood loss and trauma" was it that led Turing to find nineteen-year-olds attractive, exactly? I'm pretty sure most people find people in their late teens and early 20s attractive. Complete speculation here, but your use of "boys" makes it sound like you conflate Turing's actions with paedophilia. The ongoing and statistically inaccurate association of homosexuality with paedophilia is one of the reasons public actions like this one affirming that one can be both homosexual and legally and morally respectable are still necessary.

jacquesm 17y ago
The reference to Turings childhood loss was to Chris Morcom, the first person Alan Turing fell in love with while at school. But Turing was already recognized as quite gifted at that time. It is possible, but not proven that because Morcom was slightly older he might have pulled Alan Turing along in his slipstream. I just found this: http://www.turing.org.uk/turing/scrapbook/spirit.html http://www.turing.org.uk/turing/scrapbook/spirit.html From which I gather it influenced his views on religion strongly but it didn't detract from his other work.
pbhjpbhj 17y ago
Most sexual relationships, feel free to prove me wrong, don't have a 20+ year age gap. Sorry but in my locality teenagers (yes 19 is teenaged) are referred to as "teenage boys" (as opposed to teenage girls, boys being a male descriptor) or "youths" as well as "young men". The large age gap brought to mind the pederastic (not necessarily paedophilic) relationships of Greece BCE - Socrates apparently railed against older men consumating such relationships. Morcom's death appears to have been a pivotal moment in Turings formative years - my Freudian speculation was that Turings attraction to younger men, teenagers, could have been an attempt to chase the relationship of his youth that ended so abruptly; much as middle-age men are want to chase younger women as an attempt to recapture their youth. It also seems right that having left his parents and arrived in bording school only to have his only real friend taken from him by death could well have spurred Turing on into his studies whilst social success may have led him to fritter away his gifts, ignore his studies and follow more worldy pursuits.
- teeja 17y ago
  "Most sexual relationships, feel free to prove me wrong, don't have a 20+ year age gap." There's no need to prove wrong a statement based on speculation. Gay men, go ahead and prove me wrong, are no more likely to have relationships with wide age disparities than homosexual men. Besides: what of it? Most people don't have an IQ over 130 either. Most people don't drive Jaguars. Most people don't have a second home overseas. What's that a measure of? NORMALCY? I agree that sometimes people who are hurt in life-at-large turn to inward pursuits in order to avoid further pain. It's certainly true that a lot of professional scientists have little or no use for 'social success', and see most of us as quite foolish, unreasoning creatures. But I don't think of their success as an excuse to run around torturing young men ... or driving older, very successful men to suicide after decades of loyal and very valuable service.
  - pbhjpbhj 17y ago
    Statements based on speculation are not automatically wrong and so if you wish to _show_ they are wrong then you need to prove it. Your first sentence is specious at best and not really that as even a priori it strikes me as poor logic. Did you mean no more likely [...] than heterosexual men? The best stats I can get are from "The Demographics of Same-Sex 'Marriages' in Norway and Sweden" however they don't relate particularly to the Midlands of England in the 1950s. They show that indeed about 34% of homosexual male registered relationships in their study have a 10+year age gap (vs. 9% for heterosexual marriage) but account for this by the greater age of those entering registered homosexual relationships. So yes "older men with younger" is apparently a more common homosexual pattern [in modern Sweden amongst officially recognised partnerships] but that's not really relevant as we're not considering a population but a specific case - stats don't show anything certain about individual members of a population. So this apparent Ephebophilia may have been a more specific fixation (which was my speculation) - Turing's crush died tragically at 18, the lad he was arrested for having a tryst with was 19. Like I said, it's speculation. There doesn't appear to be anything ruling it out. Two side points: "Normalcy", yes statistics indicate "normalcy", the age gap is unusual. Deviations from normalcy often have interesting phenomena behind them - I had a BBQ this evening, that's unusual, the reason why we chose to sit outside and eat, cooking over charcoal, indicates something about my character. I don't understand your reference to "torturing young men" what are you getting at there?

by seldo 17y ago

jacquesm 17y ago

The reference to Turings childhood loss was to Chris Morcom, the first person Alan Turing fell in love with while at school. But Turing was already recognized as quite gifted at that time. It is possible, but not proven that because Morcom was slightly older he might have pulled Alan Turing along in his slipstream. I just found this: http://www.turing.org.uk/turing/scrapbook/spirit.html http://www.turing.org.uk/turing/scrapbook/spirit.html From which I gather it influenced his views on religion strongly but it didn't detract from his other work.

pbhjpbhj 17y ago

Most sexual relationships, feel free to prove me wrong, don't have a 20+ year age gap. Sorry but in my locality teenagers (yes 19 is teenaged) are referred to as "teenage boys" (as opposed to teenage girls, boys being a male descriptor) or "youths" as well as "young men". The large age gap brought to mind the pederastic (not necessarily paedophilic) relationships of Greece BCE - Socrates apparently railed against older men consumating such relationships. Morcom's death appears to have been a pivotal moment in Turings formative years - my Freudian speculation was that Turings attraction to younger men, teenagers, could have been an attempt to chase the relationship of his youth that ended so abruptly; much as middle-age men are want to chase younger women as an attempt to recapture their youth. It also seems right that having left his parents and arrived in bording school only to have his only real friend taken from him by death could well have spurred Turing on into his studies whilst social success may have led him to fritter away his gifts, ignore his studies and follow more worldy pursuits.

teeja 17y ago
"Most sexual relationships, feel free to prove me wrong, don't have a 20+ year age gap." There's no need to prove wrong a statement based on speculation. Gay men, go ahead and prove me wrong, are no more likely to have relationships with wide age disparities than homosexual men. Besides: what of it? Most people don't have an IQ over 130 either. Most people don't drive Jaguars. Most people don't have a second home overseas. What's that a measure of? NORMALCY? I agree that sometimes people who are hurt in life-at-large turn to inward pursuits in order to avoid further pain. It's certainly true that a lot of professional scientists have little or no use for 'social success', and see most of us as quite foolish, unreasoning creatures. But I don't think of their success as an excuse to run around torturing young men ... or driving older, very successful men to suicide after decades of loyal and very valuable service.
- pbhjpbhj 17y ago
  Statements based on speculation are not automatically wrong and so if you wish to _show_ they are wrong then you need to prove it. Your first sentence is specious at best and not really that as even a priori it strikes me as poor logic. Did you mean no more likely [...] than heterosexual men? The best stats I can get are from "The Demographics of Same-Sex 'Marriages' in Norway and Sweden" however they don't relate particularly to the Midlands of England in the 1950s. They show that indeed about 34% of homosexual male registered relationships in their study have a 10+year age gap (vs. 9% for heterosexual marriage) but account for this by the greater age of those entering registered homosexual relationships. So yes "older men with younger" is apparently a more common homosexual pattern [in modern Sweden amongst officially recognised partnerships] but that's not really relevant as we're not considering a population but a specific case - stats don't show anything certain about individual members of a population. So this apparent Ephebophilia may have been a more specific fixation (which was my speculation) - Turing's crush died tragically at 18, the lad he was arrested for having a tryst with was 19. Like I said, it's speculation. There doesn't appear to be anything ruling it out. Two side points: "Normalcy", yes statistics indicate "normalcy", the age gap is unusual. Deviations from normalcy often have interesting phenomena behind them - I had a BBQ this evening, that's unusual, the reason why we chose to sit outside and eat, cooking over charcoal, indicates something about my character. I don't understand your reference to "torturing young men" what are you getting at there?