Which are?
…but it seemed like the thread was going this way anyway, and I just had to run this up the flagpole.
Okay, as far as I can see this “age of consent” thing isn’t working out so well. We have a psychologist ringing in that damage is not consistently provable in age disparate relationships, we have a LOT of preconceptions regarding these kinds of relationships and the national dialogue on it isn’t especially cordial, to say the least.
So, then I have a proposal, and do feel free to pick it apart–I really want to know if I’ve thought this through or not. Wouldn’t it make more sense to have each individual declare their own age of consent? Any person who hasn’t gone down to the local courthouse and filed a form stating that they are declaring themselves sexually responsible is legally a child and any person who has sex with one is punished to the maximum penalty allowed by law. Those who have declared themselves adults are exactly that from the time the form is filed, with all the rights, responsibilities, risks and wet spots attendant thereto. Age is not a factor in this scenario, and I figure any necessary counseling and educational requirements could be easily set as prerequisite to taking the final step. There would be no upper age limit either, a person uncomfortable with sex could remain a legal child in that aspect of life for as long as they wished.
I figure it would be a fairly big step to take, but it would start to move the whole issue of age disparate sexuality out of the realms of religion and “eeewwww” and into the arena of practicality and finding sensible, rational solutions to issues which are intensely individual and not amenable to “one size fits all” resolutions.
Comments?
That would only work if two items were axiomatic:
- Everyone knew precisely how mature they actually are at the present moment.
- Education (such as sex ed. and issues of consequences) imparted perfect knowledge with a low signal to noise ratio between the teacher’s mouth and the student’s brain.
Neither, as we can all attest, are true. Therefore, you get teenagers who should still be protected under law declaring themselves sexually emancipated after glurging through sex ed that would likely be shaped more by present societal mores and less by absolute fact. Not a good idea.
Well, just because something makes people happy doesn’t mean it should be the law of the land. Take that cannibal who killed and ate the depressed man in Germany awhile ago. You could argue that both of them came out of that experience happier; the suicidal man got to die, and the cannibal got to kill and eat another person. If we only prosecute the crimes that made someone “feel bad,” then a lot of crimes like that might fall through the cracks. Sometimes, it’s society which is hurt by someone’s actions. Or do you not think murdering consenting people counts as a crime?
(Before anyone says anything, I don’t think sex with “consenting” minors is on the same level as cannibalism, but it’s the same concept.)
Assuming we’re talking about the blonde hottie who just got house arrest for having sex with a 14 year old boy, yes, it quite obviously has to be prosecuted. However, giving the consensual nature of the details (they’re on thesmokinggun) I must stop short of calling her a rapist or child molester.
To be sure everyone is different. I can say with all honesty that if I had had her for a teacher in seventh grade I’d have spanked it while thinking about her nightly! But I would not have ever come on to her and had she approached me it would have definitely messed me up.
On the other hand, I can also say with nearly 100% assurance that I knew other 14-ish year old boys who would have jumped at the chance, bragged about it, and shared it with his similarly feeling circle of friends (all things the kid in the above case really did!) And as far as damaging them emotionally, well, let’s just say that there are a lot of teenage boys with about as much emotional sensitivity & depth as say Beavis and/or Butthead…
So make a test mandatory, like the GED or something. I specified that we should do everything possible to reassure society that the process of getting licensed to screw is rigorous enough to ensure licensees are indeed capable of handling their sexual lives on their own. Kinda like driver’s licenses, that–natural talent and inclination figures into the equation, but in the end getting a license is a matter of demonstrating capability, not of attaining a certain age.
So why is the only dialogue on this subject so focussed on possible damage to the younger of the pair? What about a person who goes to a bar, picks up someone with ID that says they’re well over the age of sexual consent, bangs them and then gets busted because the other person faked the ID? I think I’d have to argue that whatever ephemeral damage was done to the obviously worldly and pretty determined younger person in this scenario is outweighed exponentially by the damage to the elder.
Besides, just because a person is legally a sexual adult doesn’t mean that anyone HAS to fuck them. If they’re immature, annoying and a pain in the ass they still won’t get laid by any sensible person, so they’ll still be banging the same group of candidates they’re banging now. The difference would be that nobody has to register as a sex offender because they had sex with one of these mindless wonders masquerading as a grown up. Even if they did manage to fake their way to a licensed state while remaining stupid, ignorant and in need of protection I say fuck 'em. They wanted to be adults, they got it, if they don’t like it they can sack up and deal–welcome to adulthood, punk! We’ll never be able to factor Darwin out of the equation, y’know?
Why do you think the government would be even remotely capable of creating a test that would be unbiased and effective? If you’ve taken a driver’s license test and have a car, you know how useful lowest common denominator government testing is in producing good drivers. This is slightly worse than “people should be made to take a test to become parents.”
I think there are some exceptions if it was reasonable to believe the faker really was of age.
That the effect is in fact different for underage females than for underage males. I personally have some doubts about this, but the only explanation I can think of for the Times to ignore this half of the equation is that the result is different.
Sua
So the tests aren’t perfect, so what? Are you hearing yourself right now? Eleven year olds are having sex in perfect ignorance of what the hell they’re doing and what they could be getting into, but we shouldn’t try something different because it might not rule out every possible hitch?
As far as I’m concerned, any person who can find, name and label all the parts of both male and female genitalia, identify common and less common STD’s, the agent of infection of each along with symptoms and cure (if any), has a clear understanding of the mechanics of arousal and orgasm, can identify all available methods of birth control with the advantages and disadvantages of each including failure rate, and who has themselves already on their chosen form of birth control is cleared to screw. Astonishingly enough, of all the sexually active people I know only a handful would be allowed to have sex at all if this sort of licensing arrangement were in place, and that would include half of my parents.
Besides, who says the government of necessity has to be the mechanism for formulating the tests? Don’t we have psychiatrists and psychologists whose entire business is quantifying relative mental states?
I’d show y’all the forest, but these fucking trees keep getting in the way… :smack: