The study actually is interesting, but as a one-time anthropologist, the evolutionary explanations are past stupid. Lots of fruit isn't green, fruit would have been a smaller part of the diet on the savanna, and the savanna isn't particularly green anyway. Evolutionary explanations for things are very rarely that simple; just for starters, just because something is there, it isn't always because it is useful. Think of appendixes & gall bladders & wisdom teeth.

But the very clear differences in the study are indeed interesting, and given their size, very possibly well beyond anything simply attributable to cultural conditioning. Me, I would wonder about the effect of exposure to hormones on rod & cone development. There has been a fair amount of research suggesting that males and females tend to visually perceive somewhat differently, though it is unclear how or why, and most of the research has focussed on neurological causes. It might simply have been physical all along.

If Vick was say a corporate lawyer or nouveau cuisine chef or tech industry up and comer or something, and got busted for dog-fighting, would loss of his job be an inevitable and unquestioned outcome? Should all newly convicted criminals immediately be fired and stripped of their savings?

Why is it different for athletes? Prominent rock-stars wouldn't necessarily see their careers go down the tubes. Journalists might even see their sales mount. Even famous televangelists caught engaging in revolting behaviour can go through a bit of atonement and "therapy" and go back to the pulpit. But athletes are apparently like Caesar's wife, and must be pure and seen to be pure.

Not that I hold any brief for Vick, who has on the whole been a disappointment and not worth his inflated contract, nor dog-fighting, which is nasty and revolting, but it's not like he was betting on games, nor taking out contracts on opposing players' knees, nor failing to meet the terms of his contract. Well, if he's in jail, then I suppose he won't be coming to work, and can get fired for that. But getting fired simply for being convicted of an offense in no way connected to his job seems a bit odd.

Oh, I forgot. Like everything else, its for the sake of the children. Why on earth we hold up this one profession, a profession about physical talent, not moral strength or (obviously) life-choices intelligence, is beyond me.

I read the disclaimer, but still, the segue from mice's hearts to transsexual athletes was truly bizarre. And whether transgender athletes can really establish much on a scientific basis between male and female bodies is obscure-- rather, it is between surgically & hormonally altered bodies and, well, I'm not sure.

The thing that gets me about this is the level of control being (or attempted to be) exercised.

I don't dress my teenage daughters. The missus and I help them pick out what they like, and let them know what we think it looks like on them. They, like most of their friends, show little tendency to want to tart themselves up. I think that the panic that fundies and anti brats are feeling is somewhat irrational-- there is no real wave of teenage slut-hood sweeping the country, in spite of urban legends and the best interests of the advertising industry.

If my daughters did want to tart themselves up, I would not get into a fight about clothes, I would wonder what had changed in their lives, why they felt that they should. And ask. And talk.

But there is nothing more American and apple pie than worrying about teenage girls' sexuality, indeed, than encouraging teenage girls to worry about their own and each others' sexuality. And attempting to control it, one way or another.

Some of these last posts have been making me ill. Editors, I think it is time Salon if not BroadSheet to shut this thread down; I do not think that the proposition that children can be empowered active agents in healthy sexual relationships with adults really needs to be debated, anywhere.

A more reasonable take on it; check out the last paragraph. Heck, check out all the other topic pages. Weird.

And, uh, NSFW! Especially the very front page, which the link below bypasses. (I hope I don't get burnt myself for linking this from work...)

http://www.sexinchrist.com/submission.html