Frankly speaking, I don’t see anything wrong with proposing that as a topic of discussion if your intent was not simply to snipe at Cesario and you had a little more substance to your argument then ‘wouldn’t it be nice’. Like, say you proposed vigilante justice for child rapists.
But I’m not a mod or anything.
I didn’t have the emotional development of an adult even at 22 years old. Does that mean my wife raped me? I was certainly able to “consent” to sex much earlier than that.
I don’t think laws against pedophilia are about rape, or consent. They’re about protecting kids from adults who want to abuse them. Nobody would prosecute anyone if two ten year old kids sneaked out of the house and had sex, even though neither of them are allowed to consent to sex. I can certainly imagine scenarios in which an adult can have sex with a kid without coercion, but that doesn’t make it any less creepy.
I agree. I’m not to sure of exact methodology, but I do agree. I don’t think you’re ever going to eliminate all of it, but then, there’s harm even in societal attitudes to adult sex, so it’s clearly a thornier problem than just the AoC.
Here, I disagree. I do think there are legitimate developmental milestones that could be set up much easier than a psych test (for instance, things like pre-verbal, physical indicators like menstruation, testosterone levels etc) but there’s no direct age link for any of these. But like I said before, I’m OK with sensible AoC levels *(which, IMO, 18 isn’t)
Alright. I’m done hurling epithets. It’s not going anywhere anyway. And I’m sick of trying to defend against “oh but it’s just a theory.” It’s a fool’s game.
Here’s the thing … if Cesario had come here and announced that he was pedophile, and that he struggled with it, that he was seeking help with it, that he wished he could change it, that he does everything he can to avoid tempting situations, etc., I’d never have said word one. But instead, he is trying to make everyone agree with him that his urges should be legitimized under the proper circumstances. That is utterly abhorrant to me and I refuse to dignify it with debate.
If you feel you must host these “what-ifs” pretending that it has nothing to do with actual harm being done, then you have my pity as much as Cesario does.
To my knowledge he has been completely unsuccessful in this endeavor. The act is abhorrant to me as well and I don’t think anyone in their right mind would think differently.
As to the debate - I don’t think he’s going to win any converts, however I think the topic is worth a discussion, as important tangents will be brought up and positions will be rationally justified.
That said, I don’t think the board should be overwhelmed with such discussions. I think they should run their course and die out. As of right now, my discussion with Cesario has almost run it’s course.
Here’s a question. What if your hypothetical 9 year old or 11 year old came up to you with this test, which he’d provably found out about in some totally legit way (from, say, the State Department of Consent Licensing website), and asked to take it because s/he was curious about sex and thought they were mature enough?
I don’t remember that one (his posts are so freaking hard to search through, no matter how many times we’ve pointed this out to him)
Oh, and Meatros – I’m impressed. Very impressed. Let’s hope Cesario listens.
That made me smirk. I am SO going to hell now.
Nobody here has defended pedos, as you say. They were simply attempting to discuss and clarify, or often rebut, Cesario’s claims. I guess the problem with that is that they were not hurling invective or threats.
This thread almost made me decide to quit SDMB, and not because of Cesario, because of the stupidity of the pack of hounds.
This thread has paved the way to some fucked up dreams. And yes,…
Moiser exactly!!! There ARE grey area scenarios…I still feel kind of oogie that I was in love with a girl who was a teenager. (granted I LOVE Hannah dearly and she was very mature for her age…but still…so many people I know have changed so drasticly emotionally (and relationship skills wise) from when they were teens)
Hell even with the fact that some teens are mature enough to have a romantic relationship with a twentysomething, there are still PLENTY of cases where a twenty-something dude has a young teen girl as his girlfriend so he can take advantage of her. (ie the girl is kind of “doofy” about what she can and can’t do in a boyfriend-girlfriend reationship)
We can debate on and on about “consent” but the fact of the matter is that pedos are predators. They THINK that kids can consent. But seriously…ALL the pedos care about is THEIR orgasm and THEIR pleasure.
A honest to god romantic realtionship between a kid and an adult?
What I’m picturing sounds like some sort of weird SNL skit.
Kid" Oh, I love this new PlaySkool toy! You know Saturday Morning cartoons? …prattles on about various and sundry kid stuff
Adult " I want a beer/some pinot gringo…starts thinking about adult stuff.
It’s not a mutually consening relationship. It’s an adult taking advantage of a little kid! A common theme on pedo boards is kids “innocence”
They are taking advantage of that “kids’ innocence!”!!! That’s just so wrong on so many levels.
You keep stating this as a fact. Got any cites to back it up?
I know this will sound like begging the question, but if a person really cared about the child, they wouldn’t be fucking them in the first place. The number of people who have suffered trauma from being molested as children should at the very least stop someone who genuinely cared about the child from engaging in sexual intercourse with them.
That said, I’m sure there are a great deal of people who molest children who think they care about them. However, I dare say that’s an extension of the delusion that also credits the child with a fully-developed sense of self.
I can’t comment on the mindset of Pedo’s, what they want or don’t want and what they value or don’t. What you say seems to be conventional wisdom (Pedo’s are selfishly only concerned about their ability to get off) and I don’t know how much of it is actually true.
That said, you are pointing to something that I think is very important in this discussion and something that I think is very hard to nail down: What constitutes a balanced and loving relationship.
On the face of it, I’m not sure that even in an ideal scenario the adult-child relationship can be a balanced and loving one. I freely confess this could be because I’m ignorant of such relationships and that I base my opinion on little more then how things seem to me.
One thing that I do know is that attraction is not enough to constitute a balanced and loving relationship.
Thanks, I appreciate it.
Cesario - I realize that our conversation is rather long (the last post I had to break up because it went over the board limits) and I think we are getting to the point where nothing new will be said (I could be wrong), but a question occurred to me:
If you could change your orientation, so that you were attracted solely to adults, would you?
Please explain your reasoning either way - I have my suspicions as to what you would do (and they do not stem from guilt or anything like that), but my suspicions and reality are often different. 
Agreed.
To be perfectly frank, you are right that there are developmental milestones and they do not correlate exactly with age. There are shades of gray, as I’ve said. I think the overwhelming majority of 10 year olds have not gone through puberty and do not have the knowledge or desire for consensual sex. I’d almost go so far as to say ‘all’, but for the sake of discussion I’ll grant the possibility that there could be an outlier out there - some genetic anomaly with a great intelligence.
Do we adjust the laws so that the anomaly can have sex earlier? What’s wrong with having the anomaly wait until they are older? I think that if the anomaly has such a strong desire for sex and absolutely must engage in the activity right now then there might be other psychological issues involved.
So why not let them wait, even if they hypothetically could handle it at an earlier age? The only person I can conceivably view as being hurt by that arrangement is an adult pedophile - but if the pedophile can’t wait either, then what does that say about their relationship to begin with?
I think we are on the same page - I’m not sure that 18 is a sensible AoC, but I think it makes sense to have AoC laws.
I agree, although I’m not sure there is a direct correlation between puberty and desire for sex. But be aware that the age of puberty is creeping lower all the time (in the Western world, at least).
That’s interesting actually - I hadn’t realized that it was that early.