Well, the problem is that that children aren’t capable of consenting to sex with adults. If a 15 year old looks and acts older and a man is deceived into believing that she is of age, and he has sex with her, he may believe that the sex was consensual, but the fact of her being a minor means she was not capable of legal consent. This raises a problem because it’s not reasonable (I don’t think) to blame the man in this circumstance. This is the opposite of a victimless crime – a perpetratorless crime. There is arguably going to be damage to the child but it was not consciously or intentionally inflicted.
I think the problem Dio may be having is that responsibility and accountability become nebulous and vague in these kinds of circumstances. Based on his posts on this board over the last few years I would conclude he in an extremely dichotomous thinker.
But this notion – of a child having sex without her consent with a man who thinks she is capable of consent – well, that just screams for shades of grey and nuanced, contextual analysis.
It’s also incredibly difficult to prove. No doubt some guys really didn’t know, but if ignorance was an excuse, any asshole could claim he didn’t know. It’s a real dilemma which Dio I think just chooses to resolve as categorically as possible. Despite the fact that his conclusion–that it’s impossible to not know the age of a person you’re having sex with-- is irrational.
Do you even remember being 13? I damn well do, and I damn well had sexual desires. (a lot of them. I probably fantasized about 3/4 of the girls in my school during masturbation sessions). Do you seriously think that no young teenage girl has ever manipulated someone with sex? Hell, my lab partner in 8th grade (with her early-bloomer C-cups, and both of us having skipped several basic intro classes to be in a group with 9th/10th-graders) would pull her blouses down to show more cleavage before that class specifically citing that she got better grades when she did it.
No, because I’m not a moron. What are you going to do when your daughters have male friends who are postpubescent, pretend they’re sexless children who would never dream of wanting to bang her? They are not, and they will be dreaming those dreams. And I bet she’ll be dreaming them right back.
A fucked-up child could *absolutely *be sexually manipulative. It is, however, the job of the adult who’s being manipulated to recognize that the child cannot consent to the behavior they’re proposing. Where things get tricky is when the “child” appears to be, to a reasonable person, of an age that they could legally consent to such activities. Which is the point of these threads.
I go skydiving. Instead of an actual parachute, however, I’m handed a backpack stuffed with bedding. Is it my fault that I trusted what I was handed was actually a chute?
BUT. HOW. DO. WE. KNOW. THAT. EVERYONE. IS. OVER. 18? You keep saying “I have no problems with casual sex when everyone is of legal age,” but then you conveniently sidestep the ways we’re supposed to know, for sure, that a stranger is of legal age. Because according to you, if I’m on that cruise ship and I fuck some guy, and he turns out to be 15, I should be… well, I can’t be castrated, so I guess I should have a forcible hysterectomy or something. :rolleyes:
If you want ANYONE to take your claims of not being bothered by casual stranger sex seriously, YOU NEED TO PROVIDE the criteria by which YOU BELIEVE someone can reasonably ascertain the age of said stranger.
I’m sure the vast numbers of government and private agencies who accept or mandate a photo ID for identification purposes will be happy to hear your grand plan for how unreliable they are and how their use for determining age is “irresponsible to the point of recklessness”. Except that only applies to sex, and nothing else. Because we’re in THE DIO ZONE. scary music
Well, I found a bunch of abstracts to articles that I don’t think I’ll be paying for just to prove a point I’m already confident of. This one seems relevant:
The abstract also mentions likely causes including that 72% of children had been sexually abused (suggesting as much as 28% hadn’t been, or wouldn’t admit to it), but I’m satisfied I’ve made my point that such children do exist, even without knowing exactly how the paper’s authors define “sexually aggressive”.
I didn’t say “an adult”, I said “older than them”. I was describing a true (and god damned sad!) situation at my local high school, in which girls in 7th-9th grade were offering oral sex to schoolboys in exchange for money, and in the main were pissed off about getting caught because it dried up the cash flow (the last bit being anecdotal from my kid sister, who knew some of the involved kids and was appropriately disgusted herself.)
There is certainly such a thing as child sexual abuse. This case under description was not it. I don’t know what the hell it was other than “sad”. The girls in question were the aggressors, none of them had any discovered history of being abused by adults, and as far as I know no adults were involved in the entire thing.
The purpose of the example was that it was the readiest thing I could personally attest to that demonstrated absurdly young post-pubescent teens initiating sexual activities on their own hook.
Who said they were “manipulating” men? The situation I described involved 5th graders willingly performing oral sex on 7th-8th graders for Jonas Brothers merchandise and other tween/teenage stuff from Hot topic. I believe the most expensive thing any of them got was an Ipod.
Hell, at the middle school here they did it for free. Was so bad that there was a particular cohort known as the blow job class. All with peers from what i heard, and there was something of an investigation so I’d imagine that adult involvement would have been reported had it been prevalent.
I know a girl who gave blow jobs to several boys when she was 12. She wanted attention, simple as that. She quickly realized this was a bad idea and straightened out for a couple of years (before relapsing at 18), but she says it happened and I can’t imagine why she’d lie in that direction.
Many teenagers are horny. Some are clever. Cleverness, horniness, and a taste for (slightly) more mature partners can combine to create something dangerous. Certainly adults should do what they can to protect young teens from themselves, but I wouldn’t be shocked if a 14-15 year old passed for 19 and problems ensued. Unless you want statutory rape laws to be a backdoor attack on hookup culture, it seems unreasonable to not allow some kind of mistake-of-age defense.
Also, from page 1:
Involuntary intoxication is an affirmative defense. So, if someone slips something in your drink, you are not liable for the results of your diminished capacity. IANAL etc
Doesn’t matter. You still go “splat” no matter whose fault it is.
Hey, I’m not saying I agree with the paradigm. I’m just elucidating what it is. Shoot, I had the Tracy Lords issue of *Penthouse *for years and didn’t feel particularly bad about it.
I totally read ‘‘elucidating’’ as ‘‘ejaculating.’’
I don’t doubt that some young pre-teens/teens are sexually aggressive, in fact I know they exist because I knew at least a handful growing up. But those kids are still vulnerable to exploitation – in fact I’d argue they are MOST vulnerable for exploitation, because it’s easier for an adult to rationalize having sex with a minor if she’s throwing herself at him.
I understand now that you interpreted Dio to be claiming that kids never throw themselves sexually at adults and were offering a counterpoint. I’m not sure that’s what he’s claiming – I think he might just be claiming that even if they are, it doesn’t mean they’re in control, responsible, or capable of consent. I would agree on that point. Nevertheless in that context I agree with your statement. Children are definitely capable of sexual aggression and soliciting sex from adults. Those children almost universally have serious psychological and behavioral issues, which means they are vulnerable to exploitation.
I absolutely agree with all the particulars of what you’re saying in this post.
I am specifically refuting Dio’s ideas in all particulars–his tendency to use “Child” to mean anyone of age 0-17 depending on how it suits him in that particular post, and his belief that children don’t have sexual desires or the capability for manipulation.
The only thing I would add is that, in the case of a teenager impersonating someone of legal age and having sex with an adult, I wouldn’t hold the adult culpable if there existed a reasonable belief that the adult thought the teen to be of legal age–which to me requires objective proof such as an ID, in the edge cases. Exploitation (on the part of the adult) requires that the adult know that their partner is a child and not a fellow adult, in my opinion, and while the child may well need to get help or counseling to reduce their chances of engaging in such behavior, they are still capable of performing said manipulations absent an understanding of the consequences.
Yeah, but that wasn’t my point. I know kids are capable of manipulative behavior. My point is that kids, particularly those who intentionally solicit sex from adults, lack the cognitive and developmental ability to fully understand the consequences of their actions, therefore, they are not capable of consent. Most children who engage in this type of behavior have already been abused. So labeling them manipulative when the reality is that they are more likely traumatized and extremely vulnerable to exploitation is not so helpful.
I just think the word manipulative is very loaded. Often what people perceive as manipulative is a survival mechanism that serves some protective function to the person engaging in the behavior. While I believe this is true of all people, I think it is especially true of children.
Actually, I’m hard pressed to think of a better word in this context. It’s not like children (typically) can convince someone of something though a detailed well-reasoned argument - rather, they rely on the tools they have, using emotional triggers. Throw a tantrum in public and a parent might get you the toy to avoid embarrassment. Keep whining, and a parent might give in to stop the irritation. Use sexuality in some manner…
I completely agree. I have no doubt that children are at least occasionally successful in deceiving older men into believing they are of age. Some kids are fantastic liars. Hence why I think Dio’s original claim is bullshit.
The only way that’s problematic legally of course is that how does a man charged with statutory rape prove that he was acting reasonably and in good faith? If ignorance of age should be a viable excuse, then how do we prevent every sleazebag off the street from claiming he didn’t know her age?
These are rhetorical questions. I don’t really have an answer. I don’t really think there’s an easy solution as far as legal accountability goes.