Funny, I thought I got sick of your willful ignorance of physical and mental child development and abandoned it. I can’t say I’m susprised to see you in this thread promoting the same viewpoint again, but I wish you would leave my name out of it.
** Naturally 
If we agree to a broader use of the word ‘molestation’ (ie encouraging sexual expression focused on what would appeal to adult males).
I’ve expressed my other concerns, suspect that you share them as well (ie that by encouraging this activity they are making her a prime target of RL child molesters).
Another point - child sexuality does indeed exist, but, IIRC from my own childhood, it’s not nearly as well defined as an adults, and, I suspect, would have different focus.
Consider: eroticsm pornography aimed towards men has different shots, poses, settings etc. than that aimed at women (generalalities of course). My own memories of childhood eroticsm did not include fantasies of peering over my shoulder while wearing next to nothing, but were more romanticized, as in the Sleeping Beauty type of thing.
So while I accept that children have a sexual identity, the one being portrayed here is definately the same as used in the Playboy type of gig, which I assume to be that specifically designed to attract adult males.
I remove myself from the debate*, Scylla, because after 4 pages of people equating perdophilia in any form with out-and-out molestation I just got a little sick of it.
It still makes me sick. wring and I were, I thought, making some progress despite it all. It will have to wait for another debate.
Fair enough. I was using the term “pedophile” as one who who engages in pedophiliac activities, not merely as one who has the desire to do so. I should have written more carefully.
If the children are under the age of consent it is at least statutory rape. It is undoubtedly bad judgement, and if the men were attracted to them because they were children and had knowledge of that status than it is molestation and deliberate child abuse.
**
Me neither. However I think that is a rather narrow and unworkable benchmark. It is quite possible to sexually molest a child without actually having intercourse, so I think the point is moot. Furthermore, that distinction would cetainly be lost on a child who was repeatedly victimized sexually without ever having actually had intercourse.
**
I don’t think you can use the “it could be worse” argument to suggest that what actually is happening is ok. I suppose the Oklahoma bombing could have been worse too.
**
Me too. But having live kids perform on the internet specifically for their sexual gratification is not acceptable, nor legal probably.
**
Well PLD, there’s several ways that I can answer that. If he represents a danger to minors, than I do care. How do we make that evaluation?
There’s nothing that happens on the 18th birthday, sure. 17th neither. Not on any of the others either. 16th 15th 14th 13th 12th 11th nor 10th.
Look hard enough and I’m sure that somewhere in the world you will find a 12 year old girl emotionally and physically mature enough to make these decisions for themselves.
That’s besides the point.
These laws exist as an imperfect representation of an idea that most people clearly understand, though it is to a degree intangible.
That idea is simply: As an adult it is wrong to take sexual advantage of children.
Most people understand this. They understand the concept of informed consent.
Unfortunately though, there are people out there who do not understand or care about this. There are callous people, there are stupid people, and there are predators.
These rules and rigid codifications of maturity exist to protect children from those people. Though they are imperfect models of an intangible concept they do a fairly decent job. Society has agreed upon them, and as members of society we must follow them even in specific cases where they are truly not valid.
Though it may cause inconvenience to those that are not callous, stupid, or predators, following these rules is a relatively small price to pay to protect children from those that are. We don’t get to selectively ignore these laws to our own bnefit or for our own convenience.
Somehow I suspect that you understand all this.
erislover:
I see. You’re still here. Still reading. Still posting. But not “debating.”
What then shall we call this?
Whining?
I think it’s safe to say that we all understand the difference between desire and action. I also think that it’s safe to say that everybody has desires from time to time that are not appropriate. It’s also safe to say that their are varying degrees of inappropriate actions, with some worse than others.
None of these things are earthshaking revelations.
If you are above the age of consent and you are engaged in sexual activity with people below the age of consent, you are breaking the law. If you are 25 years old and having sex with 15, 16, and 17 year old children, you are clearly taking advantage of them. You’re a predator.
So, why not just go away like you promised? Or failing that, describe precisely what pedophiliac ativities you are engaged in that you think are ok.
I’m actually sorry I brought this up, because I don’t think it’s relevant to the main point of the thread. I will say for the record that I disagree with you, though. Gay culture has its own norms, and while they don’t extend as far as forcing children to have sex, gay teens often make a point of seeking out older, more experienced men.
You’re right. If I’m going to ask preciseness of you, I should engage in it myself. Point rescinded.
I think it’s valid to the extent that we’re assigning motives to people based only on what we can see at a Web link. As you and I are both painfully aware, the Internet is nigh-unto useless in a lot of cases for determining intent and for detecting nuance.
I’m willing to accept in the absence of evidence to the contrary that some of these preadolescent girls have seen a little too much MTV and tell mommy and daddy that they want to look like the ladies in the “Lady Marmalade” video. The argument comes in when we try to determine to what extent good parents have a responsibility to indulge or not indulge such a request on the part of their children.
Sure, I also have problems with the scruples of the parents who think they can make a few bucks off their kids this way, but I can’t bring myself to see it as akin to suborning child molestation.
Here’s a crazy thought: Ask him. Instead of casting aspersions and making assumptions, maybe ask him.
Glad to see you agree with me. Seriously, though, that’s my point–right now, as you say, we have laws that are an “imperfect representation.” But laws, and the culture that gives rise to them, change over time, and perhaps it’s time to start viewing certain things as items in a continuum rather than adhering to the “magic birthday” practice. This is probably a topic for a completely different thread, though.
I’m not so sure I agree with that. I think that belies a certain willful dismissal of what has given rise to our concepts of “children,” “adults,” “majority,” “competence” and “adolescents” over the past century or so.
wring has (yet again) hit on what I kept thinking reading this…
A child may be aware of her own sexuality. But she may have no real idea of her effect, or the responses she is getting.
During my own Lolita stage - at a much older 15 and 16 years old, I had a tank top and a jean miniskirt. Very cute. Very sexy. I had NO CLUE! Thinking back to the reactions of adult male “friends” at the time, I am embarrassed and shocked. I’m also surprised that I wasn’t preyed on by someone who thought “She knows what she’s doing” – 'cause, of course, in a way, I did…I just really didn’t.
I liked the attention. I mistook lust for love (or at least something much more romantic than sex) and appreciation of my “charms” for respect and admiration. Sex is a heady power, but it backfires easily.
To give “Mom” a little credit here (not that I think she deserves much, but she might deserve a little), she might still be at the arrested stage of understanding sexuality herself.
I’ve been through feminist theory where this was all objectification and evil, even for adult women, and I don’t buy it. But I don’t buy the idea that pure sexual attraction is all puppies and roses either, even for adult women (or men). It is a fact of life that sometimes we think with our groins - and a fact that sometimes that reaction is inappropriate - its directed at children, or a married friend. As someone posted earlier, being an adult is about controling those reactions.
PLD:
Little to add to most of your previous post, I either concur or respectfully disagree as a matter of opinion.
Sure. We can always reevaluate. When and if we figure out a better way to handle these issues, I’d be all in favor of implementing it. Until then I think it would be a very bad idea to give up what we have accomplished in this area as I think the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks.
Phil, it’s often been the norm-more so in the past-for younger girls to have romantic relationships with older men-it’s practically expected. Why is it so special that gay men may practice something similar, or gay women, for that matter?
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by pldennison *
Actually, the laws in many (most? I think so) states have been modified in recent years to reflect that, somewhat. In such states, if two people have sex, with one or both being minors, and the age difference is less than two or three years (depending on the state) then it’s not considered a violation of the age-of-consent laws.
The idea was that, if two sixteen year olds have sex, who’s taking advantage of whom? And the corollary was that whichever one reached 18 first wasn’t raping the younger one if they continued to have sex.
Maybe we could add more distinctions in there. If I had sex with a 17 year old, that wouldn’t be as wrong as my doing so with a 13 year old, which in turn wouldn’t be nearly as wrong as if I had sex with a 9 year old. Sure, the law should reflect that. But there’s a thousand things that the blunt instrument of the law should treat more precisely, and doesn’t. For me, this is well down the list of things that need to be fixed.
Well, let’s put it to the test, then. An evil this great must be handled by those of us who care so deeply and understand so much.
Call in on one of these sites. Or-- better yet-- call in on me, a professed pedophile. Given a few moments one can glean my name, address and phone number from the web, so all the info is there.
Maybe I’ve got kiddie porn on my computer. Maybe I’ve got a child from the local school that comes to my house and we play dress down. There is no evidence, though.
But of course, now that I think about it, that evidence doesn’t matter, right? So call me in. See what the inspectors find. They should have a very high chance of finding something. Pictures downloaded on my computer, magazines illegally purchased, phone calls to numbers where the parents have a child but they don’t recall ever meeting me. Maybe I stalk outside the three churches I live by. Maybe I hand out candy. Maybe I’ve left a trail of shattered lives all across America in the multiple states I’ve lived in.
I am obviously evil, and without evidence even. Call me in. If not, then please, please, please get a grip on the witch hunt, and realize that we are judging people very harshly for opinions based on unfounded assumptions. I expected opinions in this thread. I expected assumptions (wouldn’t be much to debate, otherwise, and truly many assumptions themselves have been reasonable, as have some of the conlcusions). I don’t expect much from this board, but I do expect it to be posted by better than the Inquisition could churn out. I’d hang in AOL chat rooms otherwise and talk with people who decided sCyLlA was infinitely more visually appealing than Scylla, and whose scatalogical humor would have a hard time making even a teenage boy in health class laugh.
For the record, if anyone really wants to know, I pretty much comply with ago of consent laws in most states, and that is by physical attraction only (I say pretty much because they vary from area to area, but 15/16+). You ever talk to a 16 year old when you weren’t one? Sheesh.
eris get off that horse, it’s dead.
the OP was not should we hunt these folks down like the dogs they are, but “is it sick/wrong or a clever way to pay for college”.
For myself, I’m firmly on the ground of ‘it’s sick, it’s wrong’. It may be illegal, I’m not sure. I am certain that if this were a friend of mine, I’d be challenging them on it. If this were a friend of my child’s, that house would be off limits to my child.
Since we frankly don’t even have evidence that the people are real in the first place (first rule of the internet), I’m free to call 'em dogs, swine, whatever 'cause as presented by themselves they’re acting in a reprehensible manner.
I am perfectly comfortable with that level of ‘judgement’. If I were sitting on the jury, I’d be looking for much more evidence than is submitted, and I’d be looking for specifics about the law.
But I’m not. I’m on a message board, debating the topic ‘is this sick/wrong or clever’. Got no problem with that. See?
I distinctly recall reading proclamations of evilness, stupidity, ignorance, and perversion on every single fucking page of this thread, and it was all directed at people.
Well, you certainly did lighten your tone and I appreciated it. But since the topic is indeed about a situation and not people, the hostility toward them still pisses me off. See?
This thread should have been started in the pit where no one would have been there to ask for a meaningful debate and would still be asking for it from parties involved on fucking page 5. Hopefully I can clog this thread for one more page with meaningless drivel so it will die before we get a real troll in here to waste bandwidth.
I don’t want to throw myself in front of the firing squad here, but I have a question.
Since the whole “age of consent” thing has come up over this, I want to know what the difference is between a thirteen-year-old and a 25-year-old dating, in Everytown, USA, and a thirteen-year-old being given over to her 25-year-old husband by her father a few centuries ago, or in a culture that doesn’t have the same age of consent laws that we do.
I’m not trying to defend the actions of these parents–not by a long shot!–but I’m curious. Is this wrong because our culture says it’s wrong, or because of something much more fundamental than that?
erislover:
To my understanding 15/16 years old is not the age of consent in any state.
If I recall correctly and you’ve professed to be 25ish, then there is no question that you are both breaking the law and taking advantage of children.
There is a world of difference between a 15/16 year old and a 25 year old.
And yes, I have talked to 16 year old girls. “Talking” however, is not the issue.
I worked summers in College as the riding instructor at a girls’ camp. Those years that I was 19-20, there were girls there 15-16.
The gulf in maturity and sophistication even at that level was huge, and there was absolutely no question that to take advantage of these girls would be both illegal and morally reprehensible, though some certainly seemed sexy as hell to me.
I didn’t abstain out of respect for the law, or because I was afraid for my job, I abstained out of a sense of responsibility. I was trusted, and as an adult I recognized that these girls were not adults. Had I taken advantage and caused a child emotional pain or a loss of innocence that she was not ready for I would not have been able to live with myself. I don’t know how you do.
I can’t imagine that it’s satisfying or fulfilling to prey on naivete. I have found much in these posts of yours disturbing. When you say that “these girls know what they are doing,” you are fantasizing. Worse, you are acting on it, almost surely to the detriment of these children.
The only excuse that I can imagine would be retarded development, where one is not the emotional equal of one’s own peer group and cannot interract succesfully with it. Instead one chooses a younger and less sophisticated age group where one can deal succesfully. In other words that would be a case where girls your own age find you immature, and you need to step down to a younger group to find partners you can interract with as peers.
I don’t mean that as an insult, but if that is the case you might wish to consider that it doesn’t speak particularly well of you, and your certainly not doing these younger kids any favors, either.
More likely is that you are dominating, manipulating and managing a relationship with a mere child to suit your own needs. The kid doesn’t know what they are doing. You do. You’re hurting them.
As for turning you in. Don’t tempt me. I will say that if I was commiting as serious a crime as you’re professing, I certainly wouldn’t be talking about it on a public message board. That too, shows a disturbing lack of judgement.
Adieu.
{picking of nits} no, not really, the ‘charges’ of evil, stupidity, ignorance, perversion were aimed at ‘anyone who would do such and such’. Remember, we don’t know what the reality of these people are. We’re being asked to ‘judge’ them based on the little amount of evidence we saw - which coincides with ‘what they have chosen to display’, so, for example, since people tend to attempt to protray themselves in the best possible light, I think it’s probable to conclude that this is them operating on all cylindars, that in the rest of their life, they’re probably not rescuing baby puppies and feeding the homeless birds.
And, while I don’t generally go for the term ‘evil’ - the stupid -ignorant one well, if they aren’t that, then they’re being **willfully ** ignorant of potential dangers, so take yer pick.
And, from dealing with this group o’ folks for over a year now, I’ve seen quite a few examples of cases where they weren’t willing to ‘condem’ the person, saying ‘gee, we don’t have enough evidence’.
The difference in this case, IMHO, was that there was a lot of evidence to conclude that certain things were likely to be true. The fact that there was no evidence to prove 100% didn’t matter to most of us, since we were willing to look at the egregiousness of the demonstratable behavior and willing to conclude that it was unlikely that the “Mother Theresa” was hidden within the rest. (ie some one that was being a good parent etc. would find this so very unthinkable they wouldn’t do it, therefore some one who would conclude that it was ‘maybe ok’ was unlikely to display good judgement in other areas).
Just a point of correction:
Scylla: Apparently there are a number of states with an age of consent as low as sixteen. I had thought they were mostly eighten as well, until I got into a discussion about “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and statutory rape of all things 
. In South Carolina, the age of consent actually appears to be fourteen. Personally I can see someone making an argument that sixteen is reasonable. I’ve known some moderately mature ( relatively speaking, of course ) sixteen-year olds. Fourteen seems to be pushing it to me, at least in our society. But I don’t think I would consider someone who is physically attracted to a sixteen-year old to be a pedophile.
Of course I don’t think much of a 25-year old who entered into a relationship with a someone who was 16, either. As you said, there is a yawning gulf in maturity, or should be. I remember thinking it was creepy ( actually more pathetic ) when I was in High School, when guys that graduated 4 or 5 years ago were still hanging out and dating High Schoolers. A surprisingly high percentage of them seemed to be ex-High School sports heroes with ( at the time, at least ) dead-end lives. I always figured it was a “re-living past glories” thing.
A quick net search turned up this link:
As if you aren’t pulling for the same points you are making “ad infinitum”?? I happen to agree with you in some aspects. Yet when I disagree you snap at me. This is the exact problem I have with zealots. Disagree with them a little, and they would seek to damn you. I actually went over and examined the sites myself, as well as looked over the arguments. I also said that the parents should have used better judgement in trying to set it up as a pay site, a quote which you convienently left out, making me look like a some monster. Dressing like MTV/divas and engaging the process of dressing up should left as a private affair, most certainly not be the subject of a website. But some showoffs will provide web sites anyway. It is up to the parents of these showoffs to provide better taste in choice of photos placed online. and be especially careful about those insiduous “cam” sites a teen may open.
Also, teens have been known to pass unflattering photos to each other to other teens through ICQ and other such channels. Is anybody suggesting here that adult material be banned from the Internet because of the action of savvy, misguided children?
capacitor I don’t get your gripe w/me at all. You’d posted a reply to Guin
after we’d spent quite a bit of time on the whole issue of is it the clothes themselves, and gee whiz, they wear swimsuits in public on the beach. Even now, as I read it, after your declaimers, this seems to me to be something posted w/o having participated in the rest of the thread. Like I said, we’d gone over and over clothing/modeling subject for several pages at that point. So, I wondered why some one would again talk about girls playing dressup. Hence my reply to you.
To which you responded to me with this:
again, reducing what (we didn’t say) to an absurd degree, making me honestly wonder if you’d actually looked at the stuff. So I asked.
now you’re all a-mad at me. I still don’t get why you posted what I quoted above, since in the one case the issue had been done to death. In the second, while we had been saying pretty much “children should not be marketed to child molesters” you responded with that bit about hiding them away forever. Don’t you think there’s a teeny bit of room between those two extremes?
but, if you want to be mad at me, go ahead.
calling me a zealot, however, (especially in this thread fercryinoutloud) is not called for.
Ok, my turn to reassess. I thought you were taking a zealot approach to anyone who disagrees with you in some parts. I agree that there is room between the two extremes. However, I found to my experience that people in this sensitive field don’t see it that there is no such room between the two extremes. They either treat children as all innocent, totally unaware of their sexuality, and must be sheltered from the real world or, eager young person willing to learn and engage in everything sexual. We see this in mainstream media as well, and the mixed messages, if possible, get even more schizophrenic than the two extremes.
I for one know that children are not at all “innocent”, in the sense of sexual awareness. The are inundated with it from conception. and some, thinking that they know it all, experiment in ways even adults don’t do. However, they don’t know the dynamics of sexuality and relationships, and certainly don’t think of both as adults do. They think it is just a form of fun, and act accordingly. However, dishonest talk or non-talk about sexuality from the part of parents, clergy and schools leaves the children to distill information about the dynamics of sexuality from conflicting mass media, what we call “the streets”, mythology and wrong talk from peers, and, eventually, a manipulative adult seeking malevolent self-gratification.
It is up to the parents to give the children a healthy respect of their sexuality, and its power. The parents being discussed are misguided here becuase the child’s potential sexuality was inadvetently amplified by its presence on a web page. The parents thought they were giving these wannabe models and show-offs a healthy outlet, not aware of the Wild-West mentality the Internet still has for the most part. The pages in question are without context, leaving the focus to the photos themselves. If we saw it live, or see it in a real glossy photograph with a group of people, we probably this it is “aww, that’s cute.” (Ok the string bikini maybe not.) But when it is etched on the web page, with its format unfortunately similar to what we expect from adult photo web sites, the mood changes. Our instinctive reactions to that amplification of sexuality is what make the photos “sick and wrong”.
I will submit that the problem lies in the presentation of photos themselves, and not treating the child as a child, but as a commodity. They are teaching the child that the budding sexuality, as opposed to using the brain, is all that counts in today’s market.