This seems like a weird idea to me. I’m not sure I believe it - do you know of any documented cases?
I mean, I can see how some accusations could become self-fulfilling - e.g. branding someone a thief, limiting their ability to earn, might cause them out of desperation to turn to crime - I’m just not sure there’s a logical chain of events that would turn someone into a paedophile by telling them that they are.
It’s possible to have both a law that allows fathers (as patriarchs) to marry off their daughters at Age 13/14 (they have periods, so they are adults), and a law that forbids sex between two unmarried Teens (because the unmarried daughter is under her father’s “protection”).
This, mostly. It’s part of a larger parcel where under-18s are not allowed to do anything, and the Minute they turn 18, everything is allowed. So this goes not only for sex, but also alcohol, curfews and so on.
It seems to me to spring from some of that binary logic that dominates other aspects of American culture/ thinking - either they are protected or not.
The European method, which recognizes that a 5 year old, a 10 year old and a 15 year old are at different maturity Levels, so they get different rights and duties along with it.
So it’s not “parents giving alcohol to under-18 : prison and CPS” but “at Age 16, a teen is allowed to buy light alcohol like beer, but not hard Liquor like Whiskey”, and “parents can give one (!) glass of wine to their teen at 15th birthday, but not to the 10 year old sibling.”
This way, with laws and Society and parents agreeing on giving their Kids more freedom with each year of Age to get them used to more responsibility and let them make small choices to get them used to decisionmaking, seems to work out nicely.
I remember how baffled I was when Harry Potter and Goblet of Fire came out, and the US message boards (including here) erupted over Victor Krum kissing Hermione at the lake in view of the teachers - why didn’t they Interrupt? Hermione was a minor! A kiss! OMG the sky is falling - and the European Posters saying “WTF are you on, it’s just a kiss, Hermione is 15/16 years, what’s the Problem? Why should teachers interfere at all?” (And later, the School does a ball for the upper classes, with dancing - obviously, dancing and kissing is not the end of the world for Teens).
From context, I think he means not “become an actual pedophile = Person with sexual attraction towards minors” but “become registered as pedophile and outed to the community, therefore treated with derision and scorn, obeying Zone laws and similar restrictions, ruining his life regardless that in reality, he was acting like a normal teen”.
And yes, considering that at least several years ago, men got on the “sex offender registry” for peeing in public - which is undoubtly gross and unhygienic and should therefore be fined (and enough toilets be built also) ; but not on the same Level as a deliberate flasher - the sex offender registry is mismanaged and therefore both less than useful (to protect against dangerous offenders by having harmless People in there bloating it) and harmful (to those harmless who end up there).
Minors are allowed to consume alcohol while under parental supervision in most of the USA.
Has this changed recently, then? Because I’ve read many different stories of how parents are not allowed to buy any alcohol if they are suspected of giving it to their minor children, or getting in Trouble in Restaurants.
Generally no it hasn’t. Generally those exceptions are not in public so restaurants are mostly still out. There’s 320 million of us under 50 different sets of laws so you can see a lot of stories without the law in question being anywhere close to universal.
And restaurants ,etc often make their policies stricter than the law for various reasons - the law might say, for example that the restaurant must see proof of age before serving alcohol if the customer appears to be under 30. But the restaurant might decide to proof everyone to avoid arguments about " Why did you proof me and not her?" Or the restaurant might decide they don’t want to serve a 22 year old for fear he’ll give his 17 year old friend a drink - and then refuse to serve a parent with his 10 year old child -again, to avoid arguments.
That’s not how I’d interpret “if you tell a man that he’s a pervert he may well start believing it and acting upon it.”
It also makes you query some things. In the case of the man charged for having pictures (that he hadn’t shared) of his 17-year-old GF, he’s referred to as a registered sex offender prior to this case. That could be anything from violent rape to peeing in public.
That cade does also have a good argument for photos being different, though: they can be kept for a long time, and possibly used against the minor in question, and that requires a degree of long-term thinking that goes beyond even “I might get pregnant” because it requires abstract consideration of the career or lifestyle you might want in the future. OTOH I could see someone legitimately believing that legally being allowed to consent to sex also includes legally being allowed to take photos for private consumption. Ignorance of the law is no excuse, they say, but in that case the law should be straightforward enough that only the willingly ignorant would not know it.
That would require that the intent behind laws in General is to make them clear and reasonable to rational and Moral People - so you only have to enforce them on the non-rational part of Population, or on those on a low Moral Level.
This in turn you achieve by starting with a certain ethical or philosophical Framework about humans and Society; and deriving from that who Needs to be protected against what and why, and in which way.
If you have this thorough foundation, you can adapt laws as Society changes its attitudes towards sex or drugs or gays; you can Change methods as scientific evidence from studies or comparisions of what works in other countries Comes in.
If however, you don’t take the time to ever think through this foundation, but instead react to the outcry of the Population (often a very small, but very loud, Segment), then you enact laws piecemeal that don’t fit together like a puzzle, but instead contradict each other, giving the Population no Framework of reference on what to expect for what activity.
The same goes for an 18year old woman who lets her 18year old boyfriend take nude Pictures because he admires her so much.
Or the married woman at Age 30 who has a second honeymoon with her husband (married for 10 years, yeah!) and they take nude Pictures on the beach because it’s romantic.
5 years later, the marriage dissolves, and in a fit of pique, the nude Pictures are posted online everywhere, destroying the social life of the woman.
Or: 2 years later their Computer is hacked and the Pictures are stolen.
How can anybody predict this? The only defense is either not getting any Pictures taken - just as we try to teach Kids not to put any personal Information on their students Portals or Facebook (with low success) - or we pass laws that not the taking of photos, but the unallowed sharing and spreading of photos is a crime, for breach of privacy.
I understand that Restaurants or stores selling Liquor, cigarettes etc. in the US can make their own laws.
But there’s a difference between a cashier saying “Sorry, our store rules are …” and saying “If I sell this beer to you, when you already told me you want to give it to your minor teenage son, then I could go to jail for selling beer to a minor/ loose my license to sell alcohol” / “If you give this beer to the Teenager, I will call the cops and you will be arrested”, and in most stories, People say the second reason.
Or were they all just misinformed by the store Managers?
Dunno about in the US, but in the UK, it’s illegal for the store to sell alcohol to anyone who intends to give it to an under 18 year old, likewise it’s illegal to buy alcohol for an under 18 year old (with minor exceptions; you may be able to buy a class of beer or cider for a 16-17 year old with a meal, though).
Once you have alcohol, however, it’s perfectly legal to give it to someone over the age of 5 at home or in private premises.
Speaking as someone who worked in a grocery which sold booze, yes, this works as stupidly as it sounds. It’s basically aimed at the situation when young teens get an adult acquaintance to buy booze while they stand outside. If they just have the bleedin’ sense to not hang round in front of the shop yelling corrections to the order through the doorway, you don’t know.
In fact a 16 year old with naked pictures of themself can be charged with possession of child porn.
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There certainly is a difference between the cashier describing a store policy and one describing a law- but I have rarely heard of anyone actually specifying whether it was actually illegal or just a violation of store policy - or even that the cashier just didn’t want to do it. Usually, the way I’ve heard it is “I have to proof everyone in the party” - which could be referring to a law, a store policy or just one individual’s policy. Even if the cashier does claim that it’s the law- that doesn’t mean it’s accurate.
And I’ve never heard a story about having an issue after telling the cashier or waitress you are going to give the beer to your underage child . The way I’ve always heard the story is that the issue comes up simply because of the presence of a potentially underage person , or because the person over the drinking age cannot possibly be the younger one’s parent. ( for ex a 19 yo and a 22 yo - the 22 year old cannot possibly be the 19 year old’s parent)
Oh, guys, about the whole marriage age vs. AoC thing?
Child Brides Join Push to Raise Marriage Age
ISTM part of the problem in this case is that while setting their hair on fire about “pedophiles” a lot of our legislatures chose to ignore the alternative of simply saying “Minors are not able to enter such an important life commitment, not even with parental consent. Oh, she’s pregnant? Is she under the threshold, send him to jail. Is she over the threshold? She can wait. Here ya go: this State officially repeals the notion of ‘illegitimacy’, all children and parents are equal. Oh, your religion considers it a dishonor? Tough cookies.”
But it’s easier to say every 16yo is “a child” and every suitor od a 16yo is a “predator”
Some good posts have already detailed things fairly well. I just want to put in a straightforward summation of sorts:
The answer to the title question
Is the US creating pedophiles by its laws?
Is “No.”
Is that the result of a law being sloppily written, or is there some attempt (no matter how absurd) to explain how that is useful in fighting child pornography?
If it’s badly written, why has it not been fixed?
Because no lawmaker wants to go on records as being “easy” on Kiddie Porn. Their political opponent would love this.