This may well end up GD or Pit but I’ll start it here…
This question stems from a conversation we were having about possible new law that make sexual preference a protected aspect like sex, race, or religion.
The question arose that if we make sexual preference protected, what’s to prevent the pedophile from claiming that he’s operating within his lawful rights? He might claim that pedophilia is a protected sexual preference.
The obvious answer is that the matter is one of consent - a child cannot, theoretically, consent to sex. But it is conceivable that a child may be found legally able to consent - after all, we’re finding children legally responsible and “tried as an adult” in murder cases all the time now. We’re starting to recognize as a society that children, in certain circumstances, can act as adults.
What, also, of those into beastiality. Could this be a sexual preference? Again we can counter with the ability to consent but an animal does not have the rights of a human, either.
So - two questions:
how can we write a law that makes homosexuality protected without allowing “perversions” like pedophilia.
(and possibly more suited to IMHO or GD) is it possible to legally differentiate preference from perversion?
It is much more difficult to prove true consent in an adult-child sexual relationship because of the possiblity (and likelihood )of manipulation of the child by the adult. The legitimacy of the testimony by the child could too easily be called into question. Imagine if a child willfully murdered someone but was coerced into it by an adult. It is unlikely the kid would be tried as an adult.
As long as you aren’t creating a hostile work environment (I support your right to be into bondage at home. Coming to work in a bondage outfit is another matter), and your sexual preferences are not a crime, you should have the full rights and protections available under the law.
If it’s illegal, its perversion. If someone or something gets hurt (and does not or is unable to consent to being hurt) then it is a crime.
Yeah, this question is more of an IMHO/GD thing, but I gave it a shot.
Sure it’s possible, easy even. A perversion is a socially unacceptable preference. The thing to prevent a pedophile from asserting that his rights are the same as any other preference is the fact that society is unwilling to view it as such. If one makes the argumentum ad absurdum like that, rape and sexual murder could be rationalized away as “just someone’s preference”. They may be, but that doesn’t mean that the rest of us have to live with it.
So, how can we write a law making homosexuality protected without allowing “perversions” like pedophilia? With a pen.
This is circular with my question as how to differentiate perversion & preference.
This argument, though, and Pravnic’s point, could be used against legal rights for homosexuals, though.
To make homosexuality illegal, I just have to pass a law saying it’s disapproved by the majority of society. Viola, I’ve defined a perversion and we’ve already decided that perversions are illegal.
The idea of a protected class is that principal is more important than majority. Forbidding interracial marriage should be wrong on principal despite the majority opinion. (I use this example because Alabama only repealed it’s ammendment against interracial marriage this past election season. Still over 40% of the people voted to keep it.)
I was watching Bergman on tv the other day, they had a specialist who said that men who molest young boys are mostly NOT gay men. But straight men, usually married & religious. How did gay men get mixed up with Pedophiles in this topic?
FDISK , the problem with your arguments are that they prevent us from writing a law that protects homosexuality because you’ve already defined it as a perversion.
This may be how you feel but it doesn’t help answer the OP.
Belrix , I don’t think the answer is all that difficult since both consent and age of majority are relevant factors to consider.
We can simply allow sexual relations to be legal as long as (at least) those 2 conditions can be established. We don’t write a law to say any sexual preference is protected. We write a law to state specifically what conditions must exist for a sexual relationship to be legal.
I realize bestiality would possibly still be in a gray area but it wouldn’t be difficult to include a clause about a specific group.
My intent was not to equate gays & pedophiles. My intent was to contrast what should be protected behavior and what should be illegal behavior.
What is in common is they are both a form of sexual activity.
The question has to do with defining legal sexual expression but still making sure we aren’t inadvertantly permitting the perverse forms.
Being that I don’t think can explicity list all possible forms of sexual expression in a single law, we need instead need to define modes or standards of legal sexual behavior and conversely illegal (perverse).
The law does not and should not bestow the right on a group of people to directly violate the rights of another group.
Homosexuality can be a legally protected because it is, in the eyes of the law, an activity that takes place between two consenting adults. Because consent is mutually given, neither adult is violating the rights of the other adult. Harm does not enter the equation.
Pedopholia cannot be legally protected because it is, again in the eyes of the law, an activity which takes place between one “consenting” adult and one person incapable of giving consent. Because one person cannot give consent, that person’s rights are violated. Harm is done to the child.
I suppose it is conceivable, but highly unlikely. Even in the cases where children have been tried as adults, it has been in cases involving children past the age of puberty, usually well past, and the severity of the crime merited removing the child from society for longer than is allowed when someone is tried as a juvenile. How could a court assume consent? At what point can it be assumed that a child made an informed decision to enter a sexual relationship with an adult? At what point could it benefit both the child and society to make this assumption? In cases of capital crimes committed by a child, the court may opt to try the child as an adult if the risks of allowing the child to re-enter society with a clean slate at 18 are considered great enough. In what situation could this be parallel to determining that a child gave informed consent to have sex?
Homosexuality = No harm to anyone involved, no rights violated.
Pedophilia = Direct harm caused by one person to another, with the victim’s rights violated.
Well, child molestation (as opposed to ephebophilia) is more or less guarenteed to be rape. As is, well, rape. Rape is illegal, obviously.
Men, women, or underage goats, it matters not. Or should matter not, as long as all parties consent.
You misunderstand me. I don’t claim that consent isn’t the issue; it is. I’m just stating how it’s possible to legislate in such a manner. The OP seems to suggrest that if one sexual preference is necessarily recognized by society as legitimate, any must be.
The obvious answer, which the OP addressed, is that some things are capable of consensual action by mutual mature informed consent.
There is some argument that some adolescents are capable of such consent, and that those who desire sex only with a (psychologically mature) adolescent ought not to be considered deviants and prosecuted as such. I think this is debatable.
I would suppose there would be an outside chance that an exceptionally mature (in the psychological sense) prepubescent child might be able to give informed consent, but I believe this is unlikely to the point of ridiculousness – the equivalent of the hypothetical GQ “If the earth became a black hole, what would happen to the posts on this board?”
If you can bring a sheep, a vacuum cleaner, or a five-year-old into court and have him, her, or it explain the possible psychological impacts of having sex in clear learned English prose, feel free to consider him, her, or it a legitimate sex partner. Until then, I’ll consider that they are incapable of informed consent.
I liked breaknrun’s solution: a society can condition the legality of a sexual practice on mutual consent and the capacity to provide it (one of the measures of which is a legal age threshold) – without passing judgement on the “ICK factor” . All the while incurring zero moral obligation to legalize pedophilia since children do not have the capacity for consent.