# Unrepentant pair of 14 year old humpers face jail. Fair or not? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 21, 2003, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unrepentant-pair-of-14-year-old-humpers-face-jail-fair-or-not/196722 "2003-08-21T17:13:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 21
**Author:** ![Ms2001](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ms2001/32/18463_2.png) [@Ms2001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms2001)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2003, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unrepentant-pair-of-14-year-old-humpers-face-jail-fair-or-not/196722/401 "2003-09-08T06:45:44Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CanvasShoes \* > \*\*Teenage sexuality works (used to work) in societies where sexual intercourse at a young age is the norm such as more primitive environments. And THAT is a great deal of why it works (and worked back then). \*\* Then it follows that if if teenage sexuality were more normal and accepted, it would “work” better. A law outlawing teenage sexuality will only make the problems worse. > [@](#): > > **It is the need to avoid, or attempt to avoid the consequences that go along with it. Is there sexual repression?** Unfortunately, the law does nothing at all to alleviate the consequences - it only attempts to discourage the act itself. You can see how Prohibition and the War On Drugs have failed to discourage alcohol and drug use, even though there’s no innate human desire for alcohol and drugs as there is for sex… why assume that sexual prohibition would be any more successful? Harm prevention is the best solution. If some drug users steal to support their habit or die from overdoses, it’s more fruitful to eliminate those negative effects (e.g. by controlling prices and purity) than to attempt to eliminate drug use itself. Likewise, if some teens who have sex end up diseased or pregnant, it will be more fruitful to focus on eliminating _those_ negative effects than to try to eliminate teenage sex itself. > [@](#): > > **Also, for the hundredth time, kids don’t go to “prison” for this. The ones who are charged are slated to go to a program or halfway house.** Well, I guess that makes it all better. Taken against your will and locked away from your friends, family, and everyone else you know? Sure. Stripped of your rights and privileges? Yup. But we’re supposed to believe it’s okay because the windows are made of glass instead of bars, and instead of making license plates, you get “therapy” for the condition of being a horny teenager. The problem isn’t the conditions of their sentence. The problem is that they’re being sentenced at all. > [@](#): > > **One thing that the “teens/teen supporters fighting for their rights to have sex” crowd keeps forgetting is that the two in the original story didn’t get the law called down on them because they were having sex. That happened because they demonstrated that they willfully refused to obey.** The law they broke was a law against having sex. They only got _arrested_ in this particular case because the parent walked in and called the cops, presumably because they refused to obey, but they were breaking the law regardless of whether she called the police. If they’d been caught by any other means (neighbors heard moaning and called the cops, etc.) they’d face the same charges. > [@](#): > > \*\*And there are laws in place to assist parents with many cases (though of course not ALL) where kids willfully refuse to obey. To name just a few: > > Underaged drinking, driving, entertainment (can’t be in a strip club, against the law, will get arrested), etc etc.\*\* Those laws have nothing to do with “willfully refusing to obey”. Even with parental permission, kids still can’t buy alcohol, get a driver’s license, or go to strip clubs. The cleark at the grocery store isn’t going to call your home to ask if it’s OK for your 14 year old daughter to buy cigarettes, he’s going to either kick her out or call the police. > [@](#): > > **And again, to reiterate a LONG deceased equine point, IF these kids had approached this in a mature way, which they didn’t, directly refuting the insistance those in this thread who are against this law have that kids are mature enough to handle sex, then likely none of this would have happened in the first place.** You claim it was immature for the kids to assert their (nonexistent) rights to have sex - that’s debatable, to say the least, and your comparison between the maturity of claiming that right, and the maturity required to responsibly deal with sex, is ridiculous. > [@](#): > > **And to reiterate yet ANOTHER rotting horse corpse. It is being supported, or at least what exists now is being supported, NOT so much because people think that consensual sex between teens is somehow so much different from breaking a leg skiing or whatever, but because parents who have exhausted all other options agree with the need to have some recourse and backup from the law in enforcing rules.** Then why has no one proposed other laws to “back up” parents trying to deal with kids who won’t do their homework, or eat their broccoli? Those are far more common than teenage sex, and a kid who fails school is far more likely to have problems than a kid who has safe sex. > [@](#): > > **But then again, when you grow up, and have that helpless precious little creature dependent upon you for survival and a good start in life, perhaps you’ll sing a different tune.** Now there’s a classic: “It’s a parent thing. You wouldn’t understand!” Perhaps you’ll understand why the wealthy need tax cuts when you have a million in the bank, or why the speed limit should be 100 MPH when you own a sports car, or why the EPA regulations are bad when you run a smoke-belching factory… 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Ms2001](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ms2001/32/18463_2.png) [@Ms2001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms2001)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2003, 6:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unrepentant-pair-of-14-year-old-humpers-face-jail-fair-or-not/196722/402 "2003-09-08T06:50:32Z")
> [@](#): > > Then why has no one proposed other laws to “back up” parents trying to deal with kids who won’t do their homework, or eat their broccoli? Those are far more common than teenage sex, and a kid who fails school is far more likely to have problems than a kid who has safe sex. To stave off the predictable “but, but, sex isn’t broccoli” comment: If parents really need the ability to lock their kids up for disobeying house rules, then shouldn’t that apply no matter which rule they break? ---
**Author:** ![ambushed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3bc359/32.png) [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2003, 8:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unrepentant-pair-of-14-year-old-humpers-face-jail-fair-or-not/196722/403 "2003-09-08T08:17:03Z")
Gird your grid for a big one, folks! * * * ## _Originally posted by ambushed_ I didn’t see any truly rational reasons justified anywhere in this thread, but I suppose it is possible I missed them. What are they, again? > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CanvasShoes \* > \*\*Asked and answered. By nearly every “pro” poster in this thread. On nearly every one of the preceding 8 pages. Don’t expect us to do your research for you. \*\*Oh, I see you’re irony challenged. Sorry. The point I was ironically making is that I have carefully read the entire 8-page thread and **nowhere** did I see any “truly rational reasons [for your position] justified anywhere in this thread”. All I’ve seen is evasive and fundamentally irrational rationalizations for your own excessive parental anxiety and for threatening or pursuing horrible, permanently life-ruining psychological devastation for that vast majority of teenagers who won’t obey your irrational, iron-fisted retributive anti-love. But at least, unlike babe, you’re actually arguing! Thanks! * * * _Originally posted by ambushed_ ## If you’ll re-read my post, you’ll see that I was referring to our sexually repressed society far more than sexually repressed parents who are psychologically injured by being raised in a sexually repressed society and are damaging their own kids in turn without realizing it. Teenage sexuality – even at very young, barely post-pubertal ages – was the norm for millions of years, and thus remains the norm for human nature even today. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CanvasShoes \* > **First of all, I wasn’t saying the PARENTS would be psychologically injured.** Oh, I see you’re a little bit reading-comprehensionally challenged. Sorry. Let’s parse the first sentence of my response together, shall we? Part 1: _I was referring to our sexually repressed society far more than sexually repressed parents_. What this means is that my point was primarily about our deeply sexually repressed **society** , which is incredibly and harmfully prudish and sexuality-fearing due to the sickly pervasive emphasis of right-wing Christianity. Do you deny this? Part 2: _[these] sexually repressed parents… are psychologically injured by being raised in a sexually repressed society and are damaging their own kids in turn without realizing it_. I was explaining that because we are all raised in this incredibly and harmfully prudish and sexuality-fearing society due to the sickly pervasive emphasis of right-wing Christianity, parents like you have already been injured by this sexually repressive society and, by foisting those psychological injuries on to your children, you are unknowingly perpetuating that damage! > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CanvasShoes \* > **Secondly…Oh, the old “that’s the way we’ve always done it so it must be okay” argument. WOW, you’ve got me. I’m so convinced. NOT.** Are you proud of yourself for such inanity? > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CanvasShoes \* > \*\*Teenage sexuality works (used to work) in societies where sexual intercourse at a young age is the norm such as more primitive environments. And THAT is a great deal of why it works (and worked back then). > > Our society is not one of those. In other words, we are no longer made up of simple tribes living on the river’s edge with little else to do or to WANT to accomplish but to screw, have babies, sew furs and hunt. Is it right, wrong or indifferent that our society is NOT that type any longer? That’s a debate for another thread. The point is, that THIS society is NOT. More is expected of our citizens in the way of production, decorum etc etc.\*\* You’ve been sold a bunch of rotten goods by ignorant yahoos, Shoes. The fact that teenage sexuality has been the norm for millions of years tells we more astute thinkers that: (1) It’s an extremely stable, biologically and psychologically healthy (and thus fitness-enhancing) practice which would **NOT** have survived for millions of years if it were not **ideally** suited for human beings and human cultures. Don’t think you can get away with your prejudiced and massively uninformed attack on pre-moderns by calling them “primitive” as you have just because those cultures are not as sick and deeply injured as ours are! Go rent the film _Koyaanisqatsi_ if you want to see more deeply into the sickness of our society. (2) It’s **STILL** the sociobiological and psychological norm. A couple of millennia of Christianity-induced psycho-social injury and sickness from sexual repression like yours hasn’t changed that. (3) Humanity has been genetically and sociobiologically “fine tuned” for teenage sexuality, and genetics and sociobiology **cannot** be denied. Your irrational and ultimately child-harming prejudices and fears can’t change our million year-old human nature! It is precisely your hate and anger against this undeniable fact of nature that prompts you irrationally terrified folks to deliver and support your lust for permanently devastating legal retribution for behavior that is perfectly natural and normal! > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CanvasShoes \* > **It is not sexual repression which creates our (meaning society’s, as well as parent’s) desire for teens not to be sexually active.** Just keep telling yourself that. I understand that’s the best way to con yourself into denying the plain truth. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CanvasShoes \* > **It is the need to avoid, or attempt to avoid the consequences that go along with it.** Bullshit. First of all, it’s obvious that there’s no genuine love behind your repressive and anti-human goal of pursuing threats and legal persecution for normal behavior. If there were, the first thing you folks would do is call for a **full repeal** of all laws against teenage peer sexuality and tell the police that raising your kids is your own responsibility! This reliance and even fondness you folks have for using the force of the legal system to persecute and permanently injure those who cannot or choose not to obey you in all things is utterly demonstrative of your lust for power and your belief in ownership over your kids. It’s all right there in the Bible, which exhorts parents by force of law to **KILL** their disobedient children! You people are simply sad victims of your hidden need to exert total control over your kids in areas like sexuality that embarrass you or you fear to an irrational degree. The truth of this is shown in part by your fairly revealing words above: _“More is expected of our citizens [read: teenagers] in the way of production, **decorum** etc etc.”_ * * * ## _Originally posted by ambushed_ Again, so does taking shop classes instead of Algebra II or consuming excessive carbohydrates without adequate exercise, thereby contributing to increased risk for diabetes and other life-long illnesses. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CanvasShoes \* > **Sorry I wasn’t aware that shop class created emotional/mental/psychological carryover, whereas alegebra didn’t. Do tell. My tutor who attempted to help me over my severe math phobia would be VERY interested in your ahem…“theory”.** I guess I was wrong before, since you now appear to be somewhat more reading-comprehensionally challenged than I had originally thought. Let’s again parse my response together: (1)_"… so does taking shop classes instead of Algebra II"_. What this means is that if a teenager takes shop classes **INSTEAD** of Algebra II, he or she are most definitely severely limiting their life and career potentials, thereby damaging their entire life. Yet for some reason you don’t seem to support dragging the cops into such far more life-damaging decisions! (2)_"… consuming excessive carbohydrates without adequate exercise, thereby contributing to increased risk for diabetes and other life-long illnesses."_. Again, you folks quite self-contradictorily don’t support dragging the cops into those far more life-damaging decisions, either! > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CanvasShoes \* > **At any rate, I DID outline some of those consequences in previous posts. Several times, so have others in this thread. Again, do your OWN research, it’s bad form to come into a thread, only read the last few posts and argue without knowing what’s already been argued.** More stridently self-serving rubbish from the shoe man. I **HAVE** read the entire thread and done my own research, and yours and other’s posts “justifying” (rationalizing, actually) your lust for power over your teenage children by citing easily-avoided “consequences” are arbitrary and irrational. **There is no justification whatsoever for your sentencing your teenagers whose only “crime” is enjoying consensual, sexual intimacy with one of their peers to permanent social and psychological destruction!** > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CanvasShoes \* > **Do PLEASE do your research.** PLEASE stop your ridiculous evasion of my arguments by mindlessly asserting on no grounds whatsoever that I haven’t done my research!! > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CanvasShoes \* > **First of all, those of us who were for the law ALSO said that we would agree with modifying it, and others like it to make sure that prevention and last resort back up for parents were primary reasons for the law, NOT slapping kids in prison.** That’s not true. _Some_ of you power-hungry anti-freedom campaigners expressed a willingness to modify the laws, it’s true. But what you and the others have **NOT** done is called for the **full repeal** of all laws against teenage peer sexuality and tell the police that raising your kids is your own responsibility until other people’s legitimate rights have been clearly infringed upon! And that’s utterly deplorable! > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CanvasShoes \* > **Also, for the hundredth time, kids don’t go to “prison” for this.** That’s just more of your evasionary wordplay and nitpicking. Whatever you call it, they are seriously punished and their freedom is denied them and they are placed in the immediate proximity of genuine criminals and are lovelessly warehoused by a hopelessly understaffed and underfunded bureaucracy which cannot possibly do the kids any good. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CanvasShoes \* > **The ones who are charged are slated to go to a program or halfway house.** Another falsehood! Many – perhaps most – are sent to juvenile prison and are never entered into any “program” or half-way house. They’re seriously punished and their freedom is denied them and they are placed in the immediate proximity of genuine criminals and are lovelessly warehoused by a hopelessly understaffed and underfunded bureaucracy which cannot possibly do the kids any good. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CanvasShoes \* > **And for the hundredth time, kids don’t carry over any records to adulthood.** There’s that reading comprehension problem again! Where did I claim otherwise? But the problem isn’t records, it’s **permanent, life-ruining social and psychological damage resulting partly from their punishment and incarceration, partly from their exposure to genuine criminals, and partly from their extreme public humiliation and resultant devastated self-esteem and subsequent hatred of and distrust of society, their parents, and the law!** > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CanvasShoes \* > **How old are you? And, are you the parent of a teen?** (1)Mid-forties, and (2) irrelevant, since I’m a member of our society and a citizen concerned about your willingness to call the cops on teenagers who engage in perfectly normal and natural behavior. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CanvasShoes \* > **Also PLEASE note I said “frequently” not “ALWAYS”.** But either one is totally ridiculous, as my post makes clear. I know a **substantial number** of people who have engaged in teenage peer sexuality (and read of scores more in mainstream literature and non-fiction) who have not been harmed in any way, but I know **no one** who has done so that _has_ been harmed in any way! Clearly, you have little or no such knowledge or experience either way so your opinion is nearly worthless. At best, your opinions are based on seeing ultra-hyped TV stories on the ever-loathsome local news. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CanvasShoes \* > **So, I WAS already “speaking for myself” and others like me who have had negative consequences from sex too early.** I doubt thay. You certainly seemed to be trying to speak for many people when you wrote: _And frequently sex too soon was a big part of what screwed up OUR lives._ At least you admit that your life is screwed up! I would say that disqualifies you from any sort of claims of objectivity on this subject. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CanvasShoes \* > **Plenty of teens face negative consequences for having sex too early, which leave behind emotional and psychological baggage and cause problems for them later in life.** Cite giving those numbers relative to the full teenage population, please? The undeniable fact is that legally enforced sexual repression and fear- or hate-induced legal persecution causes **FAR** more emotional and psychological baggage and devastation later in life than does too-early teenage peer sexuality! > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CanvasShoes \* > **Likely neither of these kids will get much more than a slap on the wrist. And neither of them will be sent to prison regardless of the final decree.** Evasionary and unjustified speculation. Both of these kids have **already** suffered significant psychological harm just by being legally persecuted, so it’s far too late for a “slap on the wrist”! Furthermore, I’ve already dismissed your evasionary wordplay regarding the word “prison” and your hints to the effect that you belive that incarceration in juvie hall or half-way houses is totally harmless. See above. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CanvasShoes \* > **One thing that the “teens/teen supporters fighting for their rights to have sex” crowd keeps forgetting is that the two in the original story didn’t get the law called down on them because they were having sex. That happened because they demonstrated that they willfully refused to obey.** What silly rationalizations! I’ll wager you’re one of those who insist that Clinton was impeached because of “perjury” instead of the fundamental truth that he was impeached for getting a socially disapproved blow-job! > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CanvasShoes \* > \*\*And there are laws in place to assist parents with many cases (though of course not ALL) where kids willfully refuse to obey. To name just a few: > > Underaged drinking, driving, entertainment (can’t be in a strip club, against the law, will get arrested), etc etc.\*\* Thank for reinforcing my point. None of those things are perfectly natural, million-year-old teenage behaviors! > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CanvasShoes \* > **And again, to reiterate a LONG deceased equine point, IF these kids had approached this in a mature way, which they didn’t, directly refuting the insistance those in this thread who are against this law have that kids are mature enough to handle sex, then likely none of this would have happened in the first place.** You get an “A” in speciousness, disingenuousness, and irrelevance. A trifecta! Well done. First, please cite a reference for _their_ side of the story. It seems quite likely to me that the kids got unexpectedly caught and quite understandably reacted defensively. The story as reported by the media sounds like Grammies’s self-justifying exaggerations and sanctimonious bullshit. No one ever claimed that teenagers are mature, calm and sophisticated debaters, especially when they’re under pressure (Bob knows _I_ don’t believe that!) We simply – and correctly – pointed out that teenage peer sexuality is perfectly normal and natural and that the effect of using the laws against this perfectly normal and natural behavior are **FAR** more devastating and life-destroying than anything the teens did (especially considering that **they’ve already DONE it** before being cruelly sent to juvie prison!) > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CanvasShoes \* > **And to reiterate yet ANOTHER rotting horse corpse. It is being supported, or at least what exists now is being supported, NOT so much because people think that consensual sex between teens is somehow so much different from breaking a leg skiing or whatever, but because parents who have exhausted all other options agree with the need to have some recourse and backup from the law in enforcing rules.** Yep, like I said above, you lust for power over your teenage children who don’t love you enough to obey you in their intimate lives (because they didn’t receive enough love from you, probably, since you admit your life is screwed up) and you see no problems turning to threats of life-ruining legal persecution to enforce that lust for power! And regarding your closing point, thanks to _you_ for making unsubstantiated assertions and assumptions about our points without actually understanding any of them. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![CanvasShoes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/74df32/32.png) [@CanvasShoes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CanvasShoes)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2003, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unrepentant-pair-of-14-year-old-humpers-face-jail-fair-or-not/196722/404 "2003-09-08T15:32:08Z")
I just have one thing to say to your utterly ridiculous, unsustantiated claims. Cite? You have so many “facts” in your lengthy, preachy post, but you have not backed one of them up with any real data. Oh, and FTR? I’m not a man. I AM however the parent of two teens. Well, one is no longer a teen, she’s 23. You obviously missed my parental response when she became sexually active. Also, I haven’t “campaigned” for any of this, neither have any of the other parents in this thread. But of course you ignored anything we said which you couldn’t use to attempt to sharpen your “wit”. It’s obvious, based on your melodramatic speech that you’re merely a slightly older (chronologically) older version of nightime and that you have no hard facts to support your posturing. ---
**Author:** ![CanvasShoes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/74df32/32.png) [@CanvasShoes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CanvasShoes)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2003, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unrepentant-pair-of-14-year-old-humpers-face-jail-fair-or-not/196722/405 "2003-09-08T15:40:09Z")
PS, I have to laugh at your claim to have read the whole post. If you had, you’d already have KNOWN that I was a woman. As well as what the real opinions were of the other “pro” posters. Talk about inability to read and comprehend! Um. Hint, it’s not the READER’S fault if the author can’t write a decent sentence. ---
**Author:** ![CanvasShoes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/74df32/32.png) [@CanvasShoes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CanvasShoes)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2003, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unrepentant-pair-of-14-year-old-humpers-face-jail-fair-or-not/196722/406 "2003-09-08T15:51:45Z")
To the questions in the rest of your post. Asked and answered many, many times. ## quote: ## And there are laws in place to assist parents with many cases (though of course not ALL) where kids willfully refuse to obey. To name just a few: Underaged drinking, driving, entertainment (can’t be in a strip club, against the law, will get arrested), etc etc. [quote] Those laws have nothing to do with “willfully refusing to obey”. Even with parental permission, kids still can’t buy alcohol, get a driver’s license, or go to strip clubs. The cleark at the grocery store isn’t going to call your home to ask if it’s OK for your 14 year old daughter to buy cigarettes, he’s going to either kick her out or call the police. [quote] You’ve missed the point. LIKE the law against underage sex, those laws were legislated to protect teens against their own potentially foolish actions, as WELL as to protect society from the same. Also, LIKE the sex law, those laws PROVIDE BACK UP FOR PARENTS WHEN ALL **NORMAL** OPTIONS HAVE FAILED. THAT is the point. I can’t believe you would say “…Even with parental permission, kids still can’t buy alcohol, get a driver’s license, or go to strip clubs…” That’s REALLY ironic considering that you’ve stated in this post that kids WILL do what they want considering sex regardless of what parents want. PUH leeeez! Kids will TRY to “buy alcohol, get into dance or strip clubs or other adult places etc” and they CERTAINLY can drive without a license, nothing physically stopping them from “acquiring” the car keys and taking off for a joy ride! Luckily for us, the cops are then able to stop them by nabbing their little butts as they attempt to use fake ID etc etc. And no, don’t be so obtuse, getting into that sort of trouble is NOT “not eating one’s broccoli”. ---
**Author:** ![Ms2001](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ms2001/32/18463_2.png) [@Ms2001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms2001)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2003, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unrepentant-pair-of-14-year-old-humpers-face-jail-fair-or-not/196722/407 "2003-09-09T00:41:03Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by CanvasShoes_ > \*\*You’ve missed the point. LIKE the law against underage sex, those laws were legislated to protect teens against their own potentially foolish actions, as WELL as to protect society from the same. > > Also, LIKE the sex law, those laws PROVIDE BACK UP FOR PARENTS WHEN ALL NORMAL OPTIONS HAVE FAILED. THAT is the point.\*\* It isn’t much of a point, then. The laws against underage drinking, driving, etc don’t “provide backup for parents” any more than laws against theft or jaywalking. Why? Because parents aren’t involved in the law’s enforcement at all. A law that actually provides backup for parents, instead of merely restricting the rights of minors, would only apply at the parents’ request, and would not apply if the parents condone the behavior. Neither of those are true of any of the laws you mentioned. A 17 year old can’t legally buy alcohol or cigarettes, a 15 year old can’t get a driver’s license, and a 14 year old can’t legally have sex in certain states, _regardless of whether the parents approve_. The only possible input parents have is choosing whether or not to report a crime they see their kids committing. The only parents who are “backed up” by this law are the ones who refuse to let their kids have sex; the rest aren’t backed up, they’re undermined, because allowing their kids to have sex means covering up a crime. > [@](#): > > \*\*I can’t believe you would say “…Even with parental permission, kids still can’t buy alcohol, get a driver’s license, or go to strip clubs…” > > That’s REALLY ironic considering that you’ve stated in this post that kids WILL do what they want considering sex regardless of what parents want.\*\* I was hoping you’d realize I meant _legally_. Sure, kids may be able to buy alcohol or get into a strip club… if they defraud the person who checks ID, or if there is no one checking ID. (Good luck doing that at the DMV!) But in any case, a crime has been committed, and the only thing keeping that kid (and possibly the store owner) from being convicted is that he didn’t get caught this time. > [@](#): > > **PUH leeeez! Kids will TRY to “buy alcohol, get into dance or strip clubs or other adult places etc” and they CERTAINLY can drive without a license, nothing physically stopping them from “acquiring” the car keys and taking off for a joy ride!** It’s certainly possible to break the law and get away with it most of the time, especially for laws against activities that take place in private and have no victims. Prohibition failed to stop alcohol use, the war on drugs has failed to stop drug use, and laws against teenage sex will fail to stop teenage sex. Believe me, I’m not worried that teenagers will miss out on sex because of this law. They’ll still do it and most of them will get away with it. I’m worried that the few who are caught will be punished unfairly, and that the time, money, and effort that should be spent on harm reduction (sex education, contraception, clinics) or on pursuing _real_ criminals will instead be spent locking teens up in a futile effort to discourage sex. > [@](#): > > **And no, don’t be so obtuse, getting into that sort of trouble is NOT “not eating one’s broccoli”.** Whoosh. I ask again: If parents need “backup” in the form of getting their kids convicted of crimes and locked away when they won’t obey house rules, shouldn’t that apply to _all_ house rules? If not, how should the legislature decide which house rule violations deserve a jail sentence? (Halfway house sentence, “happy fun zone” sentence, whatever you want to call it.) ---
**Author:** ![ambushed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3bc359/32.png) [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2003, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unrepentant-pair-of-14-year-old-humpers-face-jail-fair-or-not/196722/408 "2003-09-09T06:02:20Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CanvasShoes \* > **I just have one thing to say to your utterly ridiculous, unsustantiated claims.** Yet another of your large collection of utter falsehoods, of course. You blather mindlessly at some length. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CanvasShoes \* > **Cite? You have so many “facts” in your lengthy, preachy post, but you have not backed one of them up with any real data.** Nor have you provided any cites that demonstrate that legal persecution of perfectly normal and natural behavior is anything but child abuse! Also, please re-read my post to Suse here: [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?postid=3946691#post3946691](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?postid=3946691#post3946691) Are _you_ going to fund and defend psychological research into the benefits of teenage peer sexulity? Tell me when you’ve done so and I’ll cite the work. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CanvasShoes \* > **Oh, and FTR? I’m not a man. I AM however the parent of two teens. Well, one is no longer a teen, she’s 23. You obviously missed my parental response when she became sexually active.** I feel real sadness for your children, having been raised by someone like yourself who openly admits that their life is terribly screwed up. But as they say, none of us gets to choose our parents. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CanvasShoes \* > **Also, I haven’t “campaigned” for any of this, neither have any of the other parents in this thread.** Nonsense. Your and others’ arguments defending legal child abuse _is_ a campaign. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CanvasShoes \* > **But of course you ignored anything we said which you couldn’t use to attempt to sharpen your “wit”.** Yet another of your tiresome falsehoods. In my previous post, I responded to most every word you wrote to me! > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CanvasShoes \* > \*\*It’s obvious, based on your melodramatic speech that you’re merely a slightly older (chronologically) older version of nightime and that you have no hard facts to support your posturing. \*\* I understand your psychological need to lash out so desperately against someone who has so thoroughly debunked your absurd child-harming assertions contrary to fact. Oh, well. ---
**Author:** ![ambushed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3bc359/32.png) [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2003, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unrepentant-pair-of-14-year-old-humpers-face-jail-fair-or-not/196722/409 "2003-09-09T06:17:09Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CanvasShoes \* > **PS, I have to laugh at your claim to have read the whole post. If you had, you’d already have KNOWN that I was a woman. As well as what the real opinions were of the other “pro” posters.** Will you ever tire of spewing such laughable inanities? What on earth makes you think that people reading these threads bother to keep track of posters’ genders? Unlike you, clearly, I focus on what is said rather than who is saying it! But I apologize for not remembering the incomparably important fact that you have a vagina and not a penis. As for the other “pro” posters, I repeat that not a one of them has provided anything approaching a sound and valid logical argument defending their support of legal child abuse. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CanvasShoes \* > \*\*Talk about inability to read and comprehend! Um. Hint, it’s not the READER’S fault if the author can’t write a decent sentence. \*\* No, it’s the reader’s resonsibility to read carefully, which you apparently couldn’t manage. Perhaps that’s because your life was so terribly screwed up by your teenage foray into perfectly natural and normal sexuality, or perhaps it’s because you took shop classes instead of Algebra II? ---
**Author:** ![ambushed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3bc359/32.png) [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2003, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unrepentant-pair-of-14-year-old-humpers-face-jail-fair-or-not/196722/410 "2003-09-09T06:26:37Z")
Fine post, **Mr2001**! What clear thinking! I found the following particularly compelling and utterly devastating to all the pro-legal child abuse supporters here: > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Mr2001 \* > \*\*It isn’t much of a point, then. The laws against underage drinking, driving, etc don’t “provide backup for parents” any more than laws against theft or jaywalking. > > Why? Because parents aren’t involved in the law’s enforcement at all. A law that actually provides backup for parents, instead of merely restricting the rights of minors, would only apply at the parents’ request, and would not apply if the parents condone the behavior. \*\*What excellent reasoning! There’s absolutely no rational and honest way to rebut that. I also liked: **(Halfway house sentence, “happy fun zone” sentence, whatever you want to call it.)**😉 ---
**Author:** ![CanvasShoes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/74df32/32.png) [@CanvasShoes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CanvasShoes)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2003, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unrepentant-pair-of-14-year-old-humpers-face-jail-fair-or-not/196722/411 "2003-09-09T06:41:53Z")
> [@](#): > > I understand your psychological need to lash out so desperately against someone who has so thoroughly debunked your absurd child-harming assertions contrary to fact. Oh, well. Laughing…and shaking my head. Holy cow I’m glad you’re gay!!! Not that I wouldn’t see you coming from 2 miles away should you be anywhere within my dating pool. “lash out so desparately” “absurd child-harming” blah blah blah. Keep going, sweetheart, soon you’ll be ready for “As the World Turns” with all that melodrama. I notice that you once again managed to ignore my previous answers to your above questions and statements. I have little faith that you’re here for anything other than to stir up trouble, but, what the heck, I’m bored, you seem a semi-lively mouse to bat about so I’ll answer. ## Here goes. quote: ## Originally posted by CanvasShoes I just have one thing to say to your utterly ridiculous, unsustantiated claims. > [@](#): > > Yet another of your large collection of utter falsehoods, of course. You blather mindlessly at some length. Large collection?..and “blather mindlessly at some length”? Boy, it must be hard for you to get through a pamphlet or a leaflet if you find 5 or 6 sentences to be a “large collection” or “blathering at length”. (ps, I DID notice you declined to provide proof yet again). ## quote: ## Originally posted by CanvasShoes Cite? You have so many “facts” in your lengthy, preachy post, but you have not backed one of them up with any real data. > [@](#): > > Nor have you provided any cites that demonstrate that legal persecution of perfectly normal and natural behavior is anything but child abuse! Also, please re-read my post to Suse here: [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb...691#post3946691](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb...691#post3946691) Ah, a POST of yours which is little more than a literary reference and an outdated one at that, and is but ONE article. Of course we have only your word as to what that article contains. ## quote: ## Originally posted by CanvasShoes Oh, and FTR? I’m not a man. I AM however the parent of two teens. Well, one is no longer a teen, she’s 23. You obviously missed my parental response when she became sexually active. > [@](#): > > I feel real sadness for your children, having been raised by someone like yourself who openly admits that their life is terribly screwed up. But as they say, none of us gets to choose our parents. Laughing at your attempts here. Again, you not only missed my ORIGINAL description of what I actually did when my daughter became sexually active, you read this, a reference to it, ignore it again, and exaggerate what I said regarding “screwing up one’s life”. By the way, all of us describe QUITE thoroughly in the preceding 8 pages what we mean by this phrase. My life is not CURRENTLY “screwed up terribly” but as I described several pages ago, having sex too soon was detrimental to what I COULD have accomplished at a much younger age, had I not had sex too early and gone down paths that were not good choices for me because of that. Currently? I have a very good life. My point (but then, when aiming at a head made of granite it’s not likely to do much good) is that parents want MORE than what they “messed up on” for their children. Not just in matters of sex. In loving their children they hope that they won’t make the same mistakes. It’s not just in sex that parents try to protect their children from things for which they’re not ready. ## quote: ## Originally posted by CanvasShoes Also, I haven’t “campaigned” for any of this, neither have any of the other parents in this thread. > [@](#): > > Nonsense. Your and others’ arguments defending legal child abuse is a campaign. Please provide a cite that this law and others like it are in any way child abuse. If so, then we are “abusing children” for putting them in halfway houses for drugs, or abusive behaviour, or for stealing cars and robbing 7-11s. Also, a person can debate one side or the other of an issue, and even bring in his/her personal experiences regarding such and not be “compaigning” for said issue. Semi-mediocre try though. ## quote: ## Originally posted by CanvasShoes But of course you ignored anything we said which you couldn’t use to attempt to sharpen your “wit”. > [@](#): > > Yet another of your tiresome falsehoods. In my previous post, I responded to most every word you wrote to me! No, actually you didn’t. Only that which you could use to be obnoxious, that which “merely” showed another person offering information/explanations you completely ignored, especially if answered some of your attempts at sarcasm. PS, regarding the “young teens had sex for millions of years before the current society so it’s been PROVEN to be natural, normal and desireable behaviour”. Well, if all your friends jumped off a bridge would you do it too? What a laughable argument. Our ancestor’s also thought nothing of beating the brains out of “enemy” encampments so as to steal their women, food and supplies. It was “natural and normal” to not brush one’s teeth, or to bathe either. LOTS of things used to be natural and normal. But when people find a better, more successful way to do things, most of them are going to want to stick to at least SOME semblance of that “better way”. Trying to keep kids from growing up too fast and having to face the consequences of sex too soon, IS in many people’s hearts and minds a “better way”. You disagree, fine. Do so. And now, like others in this thread have LONG said, the horse needs a decent burial. Have fun. ---
**Author:** ![ambushed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3bc359/32.png) [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2003, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unrepentant-pair-of-14-year-old-humpers-face-jail-fair-or-not/196722/412 "2003-09-09T06:43:25Z")
I repeat: **We simply – and correctly – pointed out that teenage peer sexuality is perfectly normal and natural and that the effect of using the laws against this perfectly normal and natural behavior are FAR more devastating and life-destroying than anything the teens did (especially considering that they’ve already DONE it before being cruelly sent to juvie prison!)** How, again, does adding severe injury to harmless, perfectly innocent and natural behavior serve these kids or society? ---
**Author:** ![yosemite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/3ab097/32.png) [@yosemite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yosemite)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2003, 8:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unrepentant-pair-of-14-year-old-humpers-face-jail-fair-or-not/196722/413 "2003-09-09T08:00:15Z")
Just popping in really quickly to ask CanvasShoes: please email me. My address is in my profile. Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![ambushed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3bc359/32.png) [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2003, 10:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unrepentant-pair-of-14-year-old-humpers-face-jail-fair-or-not/196722/414 "2003-09-09T10:20:09Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CanvasShoes \* > **Laughing…and shaking my head. Holy cow I’m glad you’re gay!!! Not that I wouldn’t see you coming from 2 miles away should you be anywhere within my dating pool.** Thank you for once again demonstrating what a contemptible, self-admitted screwed-up hate-monger you proudly present yourself to be. I truly hope it’s a pose. But considering those remarks, it comes as little surprise at all that you have such difficulty reading above 8’th grade level and that you so vehemently support legal child abuse! And why am I not surprised that you need to be looking at your “dating pool”? > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CanvasShoes \* > **"lash out so desparately" “absurd child-harming” blah blah blah.** The truth really hurts you, obviously! It appears that those old platitudes have a considerable amount of validity. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CanvasShoes \* > **Keep going, sweetheart, soon you’ll be ready for “As the World Turns” with all that melodrama.** Ah, yet more juvenile abuse and blatant evasion. I’ve come to expect nothing more from you! > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CanvasShoes \* > **I notice that you once again managed to ignore my previous answers to your above questions and statements.** What **is** this sick obsession you have for repeatedly telling bald-faced lies? As I correctly reported above, I have replied to virtually every word you’ve so mindlessly spewed at me! It is **YOU** who have so cravenly and disingenuously refused to reply rationally and intelligently to _my_ arguments! > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CanvasShoes \* > **I have little faith that you’re here for anything other than to stir up trouble, but, what the heck, I’m bored, you seem a semi-lively mouse to bat about so I’ll answer.** But then, you very much appear to lack faith in and genuine love for your children and anyone else’s children, so fortunately no rational, caring, loving person is going to buy your ultimately harmful and foolish assertions. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CanvasShoes \* > \*\*Large collection?..and “blather mindlessly at some length”? > > Boy, it must be hard for you to get through a pamphlet or a leaflet if you find 5 or 6 sentences to be a “large collection” or “blathering at length”. (ps, I DID notice you declined to provide proof yet again).\*\* Another of your typical denial of the facts. You’ve told quite a number of falsehoods in your posts to me, and one of the very minor ones is when you falsely asserted that you will have only “one” thing to say to me but then go on to blather mindlessly at some length. **I** noticed that as another of our countless and shamefully dishonest tactics, you deliberately edited out the word “some” from your re-quotation of my actual words. I never said you were “blathering at length”, I said you were “blathering at _some_ length”. Since you tend to represent yourself as an expert on all things, please explain for us all why FOUR things (not counting your subsequent mindless blather) is actually only ONE thing, and why FOUR things and 5-6 sentences absolutely does not qualify for being referred to as being of “some length” in contrast to “one” thing! * * * ## Originally posted by CanvasShoes Cite? You have so many “facts” in your lengthy, preachy post, but you have not backed one of them up with any real data. * * * ## Originally posted by ambushed Nor have you provided any cites that demonstrate that legal persecution of perfectly normal and natural behavior is anything but child abuse! Also, please re-read my post to Suse here: [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb...691#post3946691](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb...691#post3946691) > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CanvasShoes \* > **Ah, a POST of yours which is little more than a literary reference and an outdated one at that, and is but ONE article. Of course we have only your word as to what that article contains.** What childish and evasionary responses you expectorate upon us! Did you actually think that spewing “Nyah, nyah, nyah” like that could be mistaken for serious debate? I believe you did! That would be astonishing for someone else, but sadly not for you. Furthermore, it is clear that you once again failed to comprehend my very simple post! You desperately need to work on your reading skills. Literary reference? Outdated article from five years ago? You astound me with your extreme hatred for truth and reason and honesty! How long have you been working on losing all those virtues? Or does it come naturally? * * * ## Originally posted by ambushed I feel real sadness for your children, having been raised by someone like yourself who openly admits that their life is terribly screwed up. But as they say, none of us gets to choose our parents. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CanvasShoes \* > **Laughing at your attempts here. Again, you not only missed my ORIGINAL description of what I actually did when my daughter became sexually active, you read this, a reference to it, ignore it again, and exaggerate what I said regarding “screwing up one’s life”.** Liar! You explicitly and unambiguously emphasized that **YOUR** life was badly “screwed up” by your teenage sexual experiences! That’s one of the primary reasons you gave to explain why you are so callously adamant in supporting legal child abuse! > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CanvasShoes \* > **By the way, all of us describe QUITE thoroughly in the preceding 8 pages what we mean by this phrase.** Yes, you explicitly and unambiguously emphasized that **YOUR** life was badly “screwed up” by your teenage sexual experiences! That’s one of the primary reasons you gave to explain why you are so callously adamant in supporting legal child abuse! It’s deeply disturbing to see what lengths you will go to in prevaricating and denying your own words! > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CanvasShoes \* > **My life is not CURRENTLY “screwed up terribly” but as I described several pages ago, having sex too soon was detrimental to what I COULD have accomplished at a much younger age, had I not had sex too early and gone down paths that were not good choices for me because of that.** More desperate back-pedalling and denying that you explicitly and unambiguously emphasized that **YOUR** life was badly “screwed up” by your teenage sexual experiences, and that that’s one of the primary reasons you gave to explain why you are so callously adamant in supporting legal child abuse! As I said before, that fact disqualifies you from claiming objectivity in this debate. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CanvasShoes \* > **Currently? I have a very good life.** That’s what you _would_ say now, of course! It may even be true, but if it is, that only **proves** that in the extremely rare case that teenage peer sexuality produces some minor harm, it’s **far** less life-destroying and psychologically devastating than your lust for police-backed power over your children, not to mention your adamant support of legal child abuse! > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CanvasShoes \* > **My point (but then, when aiming at a head made of granite it’s not likely to do much good) is that parents want MORE than what they “messed up on” for their children. Not just in matters of sex. In loving their children they hope that they won’t make the same mistakes. It’s not just in sex that parents try to protect their children from things for which they’re not ready.** Yawn. Yes, I _know_ those are the self-defensive lies that people like you tell themselves to justify their failure to _genuinely_ love and respect their children. With such parents as yourself, they are self-rationalizations for their deeply rooted lust for power over their kids and their desire to own them and live vicariously through them. If you genuinely loved and respected your teenage children, you would love and honor them enough **NOT** to threaten their or their peers’ very **lives** with your contemptible and cowardly and responsibility-evading legal extortion! Now, I certainly very strongly believe that truly loving parents’ wishes to protect their children from legitimate harm is a primary and well-justified motivation for trying to steer their child’s decisions. That’s what parenthood is largely about! BUT: (1) By the time they’re teens, there are an increasing number of life areas in which parental interference – particularly via the cops! – is increasingly harmful and damaging, even though parents like you will not be able to truly understand that. One such area is the kids’ own decisions on their readiness for mutually consensual teenage peer sexuality. (2) In certain cases, such as their intimate lives, refusing to allow the teenager to learn from his or her own mistakes is far more damaging to the child than permitting them to learn from real-life experience! > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CanvasShoes \* > **Please provide a cite that this law and others like it are in any way child abuse.** I understand perfectly why someone like **you** would consider it harmless and not any kind of child abuse at all for teenage inmates to be sexually molested, raped, and/or psychologically tormented during their confinement. For child-haters, that’s far better than letting them make their own intimate decisions! But even though you have so cravenly and evasively refused to provide – actually you’ve been utterly _unable_ to provide – the evidence _I’ve_ asked for, here’s some cites and quotations about the enormous, life-long, and undeniable harm of juvenile incarceration, which is extremely commonly used in lieu of any “halfway houses”: [Juvenile Detention Campaign](http://home.vicnet.net.au/~pjan/news/juvenile.htm) > [@](#): > > Locking up young offenders costs at least $80,000 per year. Locking up young offenders makes them more likely to commit crimes when they are released. … > > Current community services [NOT halfway houses!] for young offenders do more than prevent young people breaking the law they also are an important factor in reducing youth suicide and the drug problem and developing their sense of social responsibility. > > Very few young offenders are violent offenders and the majority respond very well to supervision in the community which trains them for taking responsibility for themselves. Institutions have the opposite effect. [Justice? Spare a kid from harm](http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/hatcher/67388_candy22.shtml) > [@](#): > > … But it also was a page from the book of Dr. David Satcher, who served as U.S. surgeon general between 1998 and 2002 and before that directed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. > > Satcher has written comprehensive reports on youth violence and on children and mental health. He knows this: As many as two-thirds of the youngsters in the juvenile justice system suffer from mental health problems. > > Few got help when they were younger, when the symptoms first showed up and they had the best chance for successful treatment. > > Among the reasons: No one took the time to find out why the child was acting out [but sicced the cops on them anyway!]. Or the child or his family was ashamed of the stigma attached to seeking counseling or treatment, so didn’t. … > > Satcher is frustrated with politicians who willingly spend money to build prisons and detention centers but balk at paying for school counselors and nurses, treatment for kids with problems, and after-school programs for youngsters who have nowhere else to go. But you child-hating types clearly prefer to throw kids who’ve done nothing but engaged in a perfectly normal and natural behavior into life-ruining juvie prison! How can you live with yourselves? Also see: [Deaths in juvenile detention, 1980-1992](http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/dic/dic3.pdf) But I’ve every reason to believe from your “arguments” that a few deaths won’t even _slightly_ deter your adamant support for throwing kids who’ve done nothing but engaged in a perfectly normal and natural behavior into life-ruining juvie prison! (Continued in next post…) ---
**Author:** ![ambushed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3bc359/32.png) [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2003, 10:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unrepentant-pair-of-14-year-old-humpers-face-jail-fair-or-not/196722/415 "2003-09-09T10:32:29Z")
(Continued from previous post…) See also: “Preventive Detention and the Judicial Prediction of Dangerousness in Juveniles: A Natural Experiment,” The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 86, no. 2 (1996): 415-448. Also see: [http://www.vera.org/publication\_pdf/146\_182.pdf:](http://www.vera.org/publication_pdf/146_182.pdf:) > [@](#): > > When children in foster care are arrested for delinquent acts, they are more likely than other children to be sent to juvenile detention to await their trials, rather than back home. > > The results can be **damaging for the children** and expensive for taxpayers… > > The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the legality of pretrial detention to prevent crimes by juveniles or to ensure their appearance in court, but debate continues concerning its appropriate use. Many believe that detention is a useful tool that deters juveniles from further offending and from failing to appear in court. Those who argue for detention reform contend that detention decisions are arbitrary and often punitive, and that the costs far outweigh the benefits. Guess what the evidence proves? See also: Lynn Atkinson at the National Conference on Juvenile Detention (1994, Canberra): > [@](#): > > "… In the 1990s we are concerned with issues such as the justice/welfare nexus and how this impacts on policy and practice in juvenile corrections; the distillation processes of the juvenile justice system such that powerless and marginalised groups are over represented in the detention centre populations; **the unredeeming nature of juvenile detention** ;… (and) the role of the private sector in juvenile corrections. …we can see a long tradition of failing to solve or adequately address these issues … (but) **researchers … have affirmed that juvenile detention is indeed unredeeming and is in fact linked to increase recidivism.** > > … There is a failure of punitive detention to impact on recidivism or to address at an individual or systemic level the underlying issues which have propelled many … young people into the justice system and into custody … .it is clear that juvenile detention has been a repository for the marginalised and the powerless… See also: [http://home.vicnet.net.au/~pjan/news/juvenil2.htm:](http://home.vicnet.net.au/~pjan/news/juvenil2.htm:) > [@](#): > > Nils Christie, a Norwegian criminologist and the author of _Crime Control as Industry_, claims that companies that service the criminal justice system need sufficient quantities of raw materials to guarantee long-term growth. An economist looking at almost any industry might make the same simple statement. In the criminal justice field, **the raw material is prisoners** , and industry will do what is necessary to guarantee a steady supply. From the same link: > [@](#): > > **Federal investigators found that the prison remained dangerous because of inmate-on-inmate assaults and sexual abuse**. A year earlier, a Justice Department investigation found that guards routinely beat the young inmates. A lawsuit filed in July 1998 on behalf of 12 inmates alleged they were frequently beaten by guards and assaulted by inmates bribed by corrections officers. Other complaints included “meals are so meager that many boys lose weight. Clothing is so scarce that boys fight over shirts and shoes. Almost all of the teachers are uncertified, instruction amounts to as little as an hour a day and until recently there were no books. Up to a 4th of the inmates are mentally ill or retarded, but a psychiatrist visits only one day a week. There is no therapy. Emotionally disturbed boys who cannot follow guards’ orders are locked in isolation cells for weeks at a time or have their sentences arbitrarily extended” Also from the same site: > [@](#): > > Eight boys formerly jailed at a CCAm privately run juvenile prison in South Carolina, claim in separate lawsuits that prison employees squeezed their crotches when the boys’ hands and feet were bound behind their backs. The teenagers claim CCAm employees often choked and hog-tied boys at the prison. The boys also allege workers improperly used pepper spray on them. Also: > [@](#): > > A private youth development centre (run by Correctional Services Corporation - CSC) which opened January 1997 in Florida has been criticised by a judge for inflicting cruel and unusual punishment. In July, young boys alleged they had been locked in solitary confinement, stripped down to their underwear or left naked, and prohibited from sitting down or falling asleep. They complained of being locked in their cells for up to 16 hours a day. Also: > [@](#): > > At another Rebound-run facility in Colorado, a report found “a consistent and disturbing pattern of violence, sexual abuse, clinical malpractice and administration incompetence at every level of the programme.” See also: [http://shrivercenter.org/documents/alt%20\_to%20\_detention.doc:](http://shrivercenter.org/documents/alt%20_to%20_detention.doc:) > [@](#): > > \*\*Over a third of all juveniles in detention are being detained because they have committed minor to moderate offenses causing them to be incarcerated in secure detention for excessive amounts of time without treatment alternatives. These lesser criminal juveniles are placed with serious and violent offenders. While juvenile detention is a place for those youth who commit person, property, or major drug offenses, it is not an acceptable punishment for a minor who has committed a misdemeanor, single act of delinquency, public order offense, technical violation, or who is awaiting trial. The rapidly emerging national crisis caused by the rise in necessity for juvenile detention is making it difficult to process the youths efficiently. As a result, those children who have committed lesser crimes are paying with their futures. … > > Research indicates that detention does not deter future offending; however it does increase the likelihood that children will be placed out of their homes in the future even when data is controlled for offense, prior history, and other factors. Placing non-violent offenders in a living situation with more serious offenders is detrimental to the lesser offenders. Those youths convicted repeatedly of status offenses, such as running away or truancy, who are forced to spend time in a detention facility, either pre or post trial, often become more serious offenders later in their lives. … > > Another tragic misuse of juvenile secure detention system are the overwhelmed mental health and child welfare systems who use secure detention as a dumping ground for children those systems have failed… Detention centers are the one resource that cannot turn the children away. … > > Many detained youth are held in facilities that fail to meet minimum constitutional, statutory, and professional standards of care. The juveniles suffer terrible physical and/or emotional harm. … > > The fact that many who are subjected to such conditions are young, non-violent and overwhelmingly members of minority, racial or ethnic groups exacts even greater costs upon already vulnerable youth.\*\* I could go on and on and on, but people like you who hate the truth and so adamantly support legal child abuse have absolutely no respect for the facts. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CanvasShoes \* > **If so, then we are “abusing children” for putting them in halfway houses for drugs, or abusive behaviour, or for stealing cars and robbing 7-11s.** Another DEEPLY dishonest and bogus assertion!! Your “arguments” are so cheap and offensive that they’re beneath contempt. Leave it to you child-haters to deliberately conflate perfectly innocent, normal, and natural behavior with criminality! How you can live with yourself is utterly beyond my comprehension. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CanvasShoes \* > **Also, a person can debate one side or the other of an issue, and even bring in his/her personal experiences regarding such and not be “compaigning” for said issue. Semi-mediocre try though.** That may be technically true, but you – YOU – are a terrifyingly adamant campaigner for legal child abuse! * * * ## Originally posted by CanvasShoes But of course you ignored anything we said which you couldn’t use to attempt to sharpen your “wit”. * * * ## Originally posted by ambushed Yet another of your tiresome falsehoods. In my previous post [and in this one, too!], I responded to most every word you wrote to me! > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CanvasShoes \* > **No, actually you didn’t. Only that which you could use to be obnoxious, that which “merely” showed another person offering information/explanations you completely ignored, especially if answered some of your attempts at sarcasm.** Lies, lies, **LIES!** What is this obsession you have with repeatedly issuing such flagrant falsehoods? Have you, in the end, no shame? No shame at all? Gah! > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CanvasShoes \* > \*\*PS, regarding the “young teens had sex for millions of years before the current society so it’s been PROVEN to be natural, normal and desireable behaviour”. > > Well, if all your friends jumped off a bridge would you do it too? What a laughable argument.\*\* Holy Bob! Who’s laughable?? Sheesh!! That’s got to be one of the stupidest responses I’ve ever seen here! First of all, you sad, sad prevaricator, **I never wrote that!!** You lie and lie and lie and lie! You are without a doubt the most disingenuous person I’ve ever encountered on this board! You clearly **cannot** offer any rational and adult response to any of my adult arguments so you quite typically turn to yet more cheap, insipid and shockingly dull-witted juvenilia. How proud your family and friends must be of you! Furthermore, \*\*EVOLUTION AND NATURAL SELECTION AREN’T ANYTHING AKIN TO YOUR CHILDISH “JUMP OFF BRIDGES” ANALOGY!\*\*I hope you don’t have any respect for yourself, but if you do, judging from your posts here it’s clearly based on self-deceit. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CanvasShoes \* > \*\*Our ancestor’s also thought nothing of beating the brains out of “enemy” encampments so as to steal their women, food and supplies. It was “natural and normal” to not brush one’s teeth, or to bathe either. > > LOTS of things used to be natural and normal. But when people find a better, more successful way to do things, most of them are going to want to stick to at least SOME semblance of that “better way”.\*\* Oh, I love it! Where do you keep coming up with such juvenile and laughably pseudo-scientific nonsense? According to your shockingly ignorant premise (which is totally and utterly uninformed by anything approaching science or reason), intelligently deciding for yourself if and when to engage in mutually consensual teenage sexuality is morally equivalent to making war! Yep, you’ve demonstrated once again what kind of person you are. How I pity your kids! > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CanvasShoes \* > **Trying to keep kids from growing up too fast and having to face the consequences of sex too soon, IS in many people’s hearts and minds a “better way”.** For truly loving and caring parents, I’d tend to agree. I very much doubt that you qualify for such appellations, however. **BUT THAT IS NOT WHAT’S UNDER DEBATE HERE!** What we’ve been debating from the very start is whether or not destroying teenagers’ lives by threatening or carrying out your adamantly supported lust for revenge under the guise of legal child abuse is good for teenagers or not! Can’t you keep track of the discussion, or are you finally admitting that you have nothing of any merit to say in defense of your cruel and malevolent position? > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CanvasShoes \* > **You disagree, fine. Do so.** I’ve not only disagreed with your pathetic, false, and ultimately child-harming assertions, I’ve overwhelmingly established that they’re terribly cruel and are deeply, deeply unethical! > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CanvasShoes \* > \*\*And now, like others in this thread have LONG said, the horse needs a decent burial. > > Have fun. \*\* I hope that means you’re surrendering and departing! This thread has seen far too much anti-child evasion and bullshit from people like you already. ---
**Author:** ![ambushed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3bc359/32.png) [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2003, 10:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unrepentant-pair-of-14-year-old-humpers-face-jail-fair-or-not/196722/416 "2003-09-09T10:34:53Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by yosemitebabe \* > \*\*Just popping in really quickly to ask CanvasShoes: please email me. My address is in my profile. Thanks! \*\* Sure, you girls just natter away privately, since you can’t defend your legal child-abusing positions publicly! ---
**Author:** ![Ms2001](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ms2001/32/18463_2.png) [@Ms2001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms2001)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2003, 11:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unrepentant-pair-of-14-year-old-humpers-face-jail-fair-or-not/196722/417 "2003-09-09T11:11:06Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by CanvasShoes_ > **Ah, a POST of yours which is little more than a literary reference and an outdated one at that, and is but ONE article. Of course we have only your word as to what that article contains.** You can’t be serious. Remember when you gave this “cite” for the assertion that minors can’t handle sex: > [@](#): > > There are studies from such longstanding books as “The Kinsey Report,” “Masters and Johnson,” “Human Sexuality,” and even good old “Dr. Ruth” just to name a few Those sound a lot older than 1998, don’t you think? Not to mention a lot vaguer and more “literary”. Now here’s **ambushed** ’s cite: > [@](#): > > “A Meta-analytic Examination of Assumed Properties of Child Sexual Abuse Using College Samples”, in the July 1998 issue of The American Psychological Association’s journal Psychological Bulletin I typed the title into Google and immediately found [this PDF file](http://www.ipce.info/library_3/rbt/metaana.pdf) and [this HTML document](http://www.itp-arcados.net/sonder/totengraeber/rtbstudie/rtb.meta.analysis1998.html). Let’s take a look at the report’s conclusions. (bolding mine - I don’t know if these are the parts **ambushed** wanted to point out, but they seem relevant) > [@](#): > > For these male college students, 37% viewed their CSA [child sexual abuse, defined as “sexual interactions between children or adolescents and significantly older persons”] experiences as positive at the time they occurred; 42% viewed these experiences as positive when reflecting back on them; and in the two studies that inquired about positive self-perceived effects, 24% to 37% viewed their CSA experiences as having a positive influence on their current sex lives. **Importantly, SA men across all levels of consent (i.e., both willing and unwanted experiences) did not differ from controls in current psychological adjustment, although SA men with unwanted experiences only did, implying that willingness was associated with no impairment to psychological adjustment.** > > … > > One possible approach to a scientific definition, consistent with findings in the current review and with suggestions offered by Constantine (1981) , is to focus on the young person’s perception of his or her willingness to participate and his or her reactions to the experience. A willing encounter with positive reactions would be labeled simply adult-child sex, a value-neutral term. If a young person felt that he or she did not freely participate in the encounter and if he or she experienced negative reactions to it, then child sexual abuse, a term that implies harm to the individual, would be valid. Moreover, the term child should be restricted to nonadolescent children ( Ames & Houston, 1990 ). **Adolescents are different from children in that they are more likely to have sexual interests, to know whether they want a particular sexual encounter, and to resist an encounter that they do not want. Furthermore, unlike adult-child sex, adult-adolescent sex has been commonplace cross-culturally and historically, often in socially sanctioned forms, and may fall within the “normal” range of human sexual behaviors ( Bullough, 1990 ; Greenberg, 1988 ; Okami, 1994 ).** I suppose one could argue that sex between two adolescents is somehow more harmful and less normal than sex between an adult and an adolescent, but it doesn’t seem very likely. > [@](#): > > **My point (but then, when aiming at a head made of granite it’s not likely to do much good) is that parents want MORE than what they “messed up on” for their children. Not just in matters of sex. In loving their children they hope that they won’t make the same mistakes. It’s not just in sex that parents try to protect their children from things for which they’re not ready.** OK, so this law serves the interests of parents who’ve had bad experiences with sex, and want to protect their children from similar problems. What about parents who had positive experiences with sex (or negative experiences with strict anti-sex rules) and want to let their kids safely enjoy sex? This law undermines them, it doesn’t help them. > [@](#): > > **Please provide a cite that this law and others like it are in any way child abuse. If so, then we are “abusing children” for putting them in halfway houses for drugs, or abusive behaviour, or for stealing cars and robbing 7-11s.** Comparing consensual safe sex to abusive behavior, auto theft, and robbery… doesn’t it hurt to stretch that far? (Though, frankly, I wouldn’t call the law “child abuse” either. Abuse is locking your kid in a closet or beating him with a yardstick, not reporting his crimes to the police. You don’t get a trial before the yardstick.) > [@](#): > > _Originally posted by ambushed_ > **And why am I not surprised that you need to be looking at your “dating pool”? > … > Leave it to you child-haters to deliberately conflate perfectly innocent, normal, and natural behavior with criminality! How you can live with yourself is utterly beyond my comprehension. > … > Sure, you girls just natter away privately, since you can’t defend your legal child-abusing positions publicly!** Looks like I’m the good cop and you’re the bad cop, then? I dig. I think you could tone it down just a bit, though; this is still GD. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![ambushed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3bc359/32.png) [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2003, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unrepentant-pair-of-14-year-old-humpers-face-jail-fair-or-not/196722/418 "2003-09-10T01:58:12Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Mr2001 \* > \*\*I think you could tone it down just a bit, though; this is still GD. 😉 \*\* You’re quite right, of course. I very much appreciate your reminder! **CanvasShoes** , I sincerely apologize for going a bit over the top. I’ll try to keep it from happening again. Thank you for your patience. ---
**Author:** ![Nightime](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/e9c0ed/32.png) [@Nightime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nightime)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2003, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unrepentant-pair-of-14-year-old-humpers-face-jail-fair-or-not/196722/419 "2003-09-10T02:27:02Z")
> [@](#): > > It’s obvious, based on your melodramatic speech that you’re merely a slightly older (chronologically) older version of nightime and that you have no hard facts to support your posturing. You just had to bring me up again, after I had left this thread. Since your points are so spurious and your thought process so depraved, I guess I can spare a minute to debunk them. Hard facts: 1. Most children born to teen mothers have adult fathers. 2. This law makes consensual sex between teens illegal, but does not punish teens for having sex with adults. 3. The kind of teen who you think this law is aimed at (although the law itself makes no such distinction) is exactly the kind of teen who would look for an adult sexual partner to avoid punishment by this law. Unless you are now going to say that the teens this law should be aimed at really do just want to have sex with their significant other, in which case your point becomes far more vile than before, you must admit that offering an incentive to wild teens to have sex with adults, who ALREADY father most of the babies of teen mothers, is a despicable action. So let me get this straight… you think that a law which pushes wild and wanton teens into having sex with adults, which is far more likely to result in a baby, and punishes other teens severely for having sex with someone their own age who they care about, is a good thing? And after all this evidence to the contrary, you are still unwilling to see the obvious? Let me be clear: if your pet law pushes even one teen into a relationship with an abusive adult, instead of a natural relationship with someone their own age, I will hold you personally responsible. If even one teen is abused in whatever place they are confined for consensual sexual contact with someone their own age, you are morally responsible. (And again - hard facts are present in this thread that such things do happen.) If you are fine with having such barbaric atrocities on your conscience (if you have one), then there is nothing more to be said. But please, don’t come in here talking about “hard facts”, when you have been shown multiple facts disproving your ignominious opinions, and have simply ignored them in favor of your own abominable ideas, which do not share the quality of being based on any facts whatsoever. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unrepentant-pair-of-14-year-old-humpers-face-jail-fair-or-not/196722.md?page=20)