Are you saying that sexual intercourse is ONLY touching taken to the extreme? If so, I would strongly disagree with you. Pleasurable intercourse shared between two consenting adults engages both the body and the mind. Even if that intercourse is involved in a one-night stand, I would propose that it still involves both the body and mind, too. If it didn’t, that would make the individuals having sex automatons. Especially for women, it’s very difficult to separate physical pleasure from emotional pleasure. Because of that strong connection, rape is all the more painful. It’s not like someone’s just poking you in the belly with their finger. They’re invading not only your personal space and your body, but your mind as well.
I think that those of you who are making comments about how forced sex would always be painful for a woman, risk of pregnancy, etc., are somewhat missing the point. Certainly, no one would argue that rape should be legal as long as (a) the rapist wears a condom, and (b) he liberally applies astroglide first.
To answer the OP’s question, the reason that special categories (both legal and emotional) exist for sexual crimes, is that very few people, even those who espouse extremely liberal, free-love views, really think of sex as trivial. I admit that this is somewhat circular. Why is sex important and sacred? Because people think it’s important and sacred, that’s why.
I’ve always thought it would be interesting to write a sci-fi story about a society in which the societal attitudes towards sex and eating were swapped. Think about it: sex and eating are both biological functions. They’re both necessary for survival (of the species in one case, of the individual in the other). They both can be sensually pleasurable. They both involve bodily orifices. Could a society exist in which everyone ran to a private cubicle at lunch time to quickly eat their food, and a newly-married couple would feed each other, with the ideal that that was the first time either one had seen another human being eat? And meanwhile, junior high school age kids are having orgies at recess and no one minds at all?
In a society like that, forcible rape would just be one of several categories of physical assault, no worse or better than, say, hitting someone over the head with a baseball bat. But forcible spinach-feeding would be a crime of horrific proportions.
The OP was pretty much answered in the fourth post. The difference is consent. Sex without consent, is, by definition, rape. It is not “more wrong” or “less wrong” than forcing spinach. And the difference in punishment imposed by society is a direct reflection of society’s attitude towards the act. In the case of rape and paedophilia, it is decidely non-trivial.
It may only be due to Christian and other religious influences. I feel pretty confident that if society did not consider rape any different than a physical assault, the punishments would not differ.
The issue with children is likewise informed consent. Children below the age of consent are presumed to not be able to give consent. Those over, can. The age is an arbitrary number that differs by state and country.
Oddly enough, I cannot come up with a single society that does not classify rape into a category separate from simple assault–not even officially atheist ones like the PRC. We like to pretend that “sex is no big thing”, but any worthwhile biologist can tell you that sex, and everything connected to sex, almost always IS a big thing–at least when dealing with mammals.
Anything that disrupts what the monkey troop deems to be the done way handling DNA replication tends to end up in violence.
Legally, that works. But, why is a sexual act with a child considered outright morally wrong? If the child enjoys it and wants it, why is that wrong? I have a feeling there is a deeper answer. I suspect there would be debilitating effects of being exposed to sexual pleasures at a young young age when you also consider that the child is unable to verbally consent and understand what’s going on.
The difference between sex with kids and sex with adults is that the adults know what they are getting into. Kids, on the other hand, are easily coerced into doing things because they haven’t yet developed the judgement to decide whether something is right or wrong.
For example, if I managed to convince the kid down the street to give me all of his money, and told him that that was the good, right thing to do, that wouldn’t be moral, would it? But it could be possible to convince the kid to do it. After all, I’m older than he is, and therefore thought to be wiser…I should know what’s right, right?
Also, sex is generally seen to be an “adult” activity. Some kids may feel mature and grown up if an adult guy/girl wants to have sex with them, and therefore may go for it.
Basically, sex with children is taking advantage of them. And that is never, ever right.
“If I held a gun to your head and forced you to eat a bowl of spinach, it seems comical instead of heinous”
Would it really be comical though? I suspect part of the problem with your argument is right there. Once we are forced to do something, its actually a pretty horrible thing, regardless of whether the act is ‘sacred’ or not.
Much of this is really just a version of the good old ‘prostitutes cant be raped’ arguments, and have been covered many times over.
Otara
Well, if you’re going to assume that sex is trivial, there are still perfectly good reasons to abhor rape and pedophilia: consent and the lack thereof. Consent is a big thing, because without it, you’re taking away someone’s right to choose what they will and won’t engage in.
After all, road trips are pretty trivial. I like road trips, they’re a lot of fun, and I look at them as no big deal. But when someone puts a gun to my head, forces me into a car, and takes off across the country, that is a big deal. We call it kidnapping, but what it really is is theft: the theft of my right to decide for myself whether or not I want to go.
Pedophilia by its very definition involves pre-pubescent children, and children of that age aren’t able to give meaningful consent. Why? Because they don’t fully understand what it is they’re consenting to. If you don’t know and understand what it is that you’re agreeing to do, then your agreement is worthless.
OK, I’ll play. Sex and Ethics for $500, Alex.
Sex is personal. Coercion is an incredibly evil thing in any context, but the more personal, the more invasive.
…
My first reaction is to tell you that that’s like asking why a minor chord in music is felt to be “sad”, or even why is it that we like pleasure and dislike pain. But OK…sex is a process in which physical stimulation of some of your nerve endings is rather dramatically and directly hooked up with your limbic-system stuff, your emotions, even your motivations and priority-setting apparatus. This is stuff that is very central to your sense of self and of self-determination, and therefore you tend to want to possess control over who you let have access to it. For someone to force themselves into this territory and mess with your core like that is generally experienced as incredibly invasive.
I can think of others that would be personally invasive in the same way: if someone operated on your head and inserted wires to stimulate pleasure and pain centers in your brain and then pushed your buttons (literally), that would be pretty damn personal, don’t you think? In order for you retain any sense of self-determination, if such a thing were to happen, you’d almost have to become so split off from your own sense of what you do and do not enjoy that you might never be able to take any kind of pleasure in anything, at all, ever again/
Sex with kids and whom, other kids? Or adults? If the kids are interested in having sex with each other and they are willing and of pretty much equal age, I don’t see anything wrong with it. Maybe mildly wrong in trivial ways under some circumstances but not “heinously wrong” by any means.
If there’s a big age differential, huge power inequalities become an issue and that’s where it gets a lot more wrong. Power differential slides you right into coercion territory (i.e., you have to be in a position of being able to decline sex or you are not having sex all that willingly), and although it’s a continuum and not an either/or thingie like a light switch once you’ve got a sufficient amount of coercion stirred into the mixture you’re essentially back in rape territory again and I’ve already explained what’s wrong with that.
Then there’s adults. Quite aside from the simple power differential that exists as a consequence of being older (which applies between older kids and younger kids), there is now also the institutionalized power differential between a minor and an adult, consequence of the institution of childhood. You may argue that the social disempowerment of children as children is entirely necessary and not in need of changing or you may argue that it needs revamping, but either way there is a rather bare and fundamental difference between the power possessed by an adult and that possessed by a minor child. So even relatively trivial age gaps (like 16 to 20) are imbued with severe coercion probabilities in ways that larger age gaps (like 21 to 45) are not. And, once again, once you’ve got enough coercion present in the situation your situation more and more comes to resemble rape.
**Exactly! ** (Hey, Dogface, maybe we agree about ***lots ** * of things ***other ** * than politics!? 
) IMHO we are still more animal than we care to admit (especially basic drives like sex) and so our underlying attitudes to sex are an attribute of our species. Some species of monkey shag pretty much all the time, irrespective of blood relationship or age, on a truely “trivial” basis as judged from our viewpoint. Other species, many less closely related to homosapiens, are protective of their young versus intercourse, have inbuilt reaction against shagging their offspring and generally have complicated artificial attitudes to sex dressed up a mating rituals. None of these species have any concept of religion, or morality, as far as we can tell - they are instinctive largely.
I think are attitude to rape is instinctive of our species, as it is to paedophilia to a lesser degree (the instinct is there - just the definition of a child has tended to extend far beyond the arrival of physical sexual maturity as diet and other factors have brought down the age of the onset of puberty). Compared to the age of our species regarding sex as sacred is a modern concept redefining and incorporating an already existing social attitude into a religious framework (as religions have done with most everything else they expouse).
The OP claimed that
. I would argue that it has not been sacred for far longer than it has been sacred -at least in the way that I understand the OP to mean. I see the **
** tag as a transitory phase that we are now, at least in much of the West and Asia, abandoning for a return to a more traditional, instinctive, common sense (call it what you will) attitude.
I believe I have a ‘modern attitude’ towards sex, as outlined by the OP. However, I’m not sure that I qualify to answer the questions as posed because I do not believe that a liberal attitude towards something necessarily means I consider it trivial. I’m not sure that I would use the word ‘sacred’ but things like sex and religion are both personal and very special indeed to an individual.
A liberal attitude towards sex does not mean a trivialisation of the act between consenting adults. It (the liberal attitude) is a symptom of society that has a healthy respect for the rights and freedoms of individuals.
Likewise a liberal attitude towards religion does not trivialise any one set of beliefs that an individual cares to indulge in. It (the liberal attitude) is a symptom of society that has a healthy respect for the rights and freedoms of individuals.
There have been times and places in history when sleeping with the ‘wrong’ person or practicing a different religion to that which was sanctioned by those in power carried grave consequences. There are various reasons why a society would adopt and live under such standards but at the root of it generally lays the desire of one group to impose its prejudices and judgemental bigotries on others.
Fortunately we have been able to discard a great deal of ‘traditional’ moral baggage that has restricted and abused the rights and freedoms of individuals. Most of us now live in a society where what we get up to in our own beds or churches (assuming we do not harm others or break the law) is none of anyone else’s business.
As for the differences between consensual sex, rape & paedophilia, (and why the latter are more severe abuses than other types of assault) - they have been clearly illustrated by other posters.
Tell me, TGWATY, which would you consider worse being forced to do at gunpoint, eat spinach or practice a more tolerant religion?
(p.s. I’d be very careful of using the term ‘cultural conditioning’ in a derogatory manner when adopting the moral high ground from a fundamental religious perspective)
What’s kind of disturbing is that the liberals (i.e. non-moral absolutists) condemn sexual crimes such as pedophilia simply on the basis of its “ickyness”. Such arguments, as they rightly point out when right-wingers use “ickyness” as their only argument against homosexuality, is that it’s pretty illogical and subject to change. Therefore, it is possible (though it’s still as unthinkable as homosexuality was a century ago) that these weak arguments will be brushed aside in the future, legalizing many of these crimes.
I consider it heinous because it’s a physical assault, made even worse by the fact that our brains link sex with so many other perceptions and emotions. (And let me tell you, anyone who puts their finger in my mouth against my will is immediately and painfully going to learn how much I resent it.)
Yes, where is it? Some people believe kids and teenagers can never be “willing” by definition, but I’m not one of those people.
The logic they use to justify that position is weak, to say the least - usually assuming (1) that the consequences of sex are so mysterious, inexplicable, or complicated that a child can’t possibly understand them, and/or (2) that a person is incapable of consenting to something if he doesn’t understand every consequence that might possibly come of it. Children don’t fully understand the consequences of eating ice cream for breakfast, or watching cartoons instead of educational shows after school, and you can certainly make a case that children shouldn’t do those things… but no one would take seriously the belief that children can’t consent to do them.
Some people think sex is dirty and children are innocent, so naturally they can’t believe that some children might actually be willing to act sexually. Instead, they tell themselves that any child who participates must have been forced into it, which is even worse than a typical rape because of the power imbalance involved, and because the supposed rapist is defiling something so innocent - the same reasons that a man who attacks a child (or a woman) is considered worse than a man who attacks another man.
(Side note: I’m going out of town tonight, so I might not be able to reply for several days. Great thread, though.)
I personally percieve the crime of rape as heinous, so I assume that it percieved by society as heinous because other individuals in that society feel as I do.
No, I didn’t. Do you think I should have to?
I don’t understand this.
I’m not sure if I disagree with that, except for the “god-granted” part. And I wouldn’t say “special” so much as “unique”, or “different from any other phenomenon”.
It’s your first premise I can’t get past. You say that the modern attitude of sex is that it just a simple pleasurable thing. Uncomplicated. Unladen with meaning. It just feels good.
Well, I don’t think that’s so. I think a lot of people assign considerably more meaning to it than that. Even people who don’t focus on what is supposed to be “sacred” about it. As others have said, it’s both personal and emotional.
It’s the personalness and emotionalness of it which make consent so important.
Are we reading the same thread? Has anyone here, left or right, liberal or conservative, condemned any particular act solely on the basis of its “ickyness”? Please point the post(s) out, because I must have missed it/them.
Of course it is possible that strict, age-based laws may at some point go out of style–as others have pointed out, there’s no magic biological switch that makes all people ready for sex on the midnight of their 18th birthday. Unlikely, though, as age does tend to be a simple and commonly-accepted standard for the general public. Victor Frankl said that, “An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior.” Similarly, we should expect the general population to be a bit irrational when they are reacting to emotionally charged subjects–as a rule, they’re going to miss the less obvious exceptions to the rule.
Sometimes I wonder if the population over 18 isn’t ready for the responsibility that comes with sex. For some people, it is indeed treated as a trivial thing or nearly so. I have one friend who has referred to sex as “just a sticky hug” under certain circumstances. That does not mean even she would find forcible hugs equally abhorant to forcible sex. The difference might only be one of psychological intimacy, but psychological wounds are not any less real than physical ones. The fact that rape turns the ultimate creative act into a destructive act is not a mere semantic distinction for a victim, even one who might engage in sex casually.
And “trivia” itself is an extremely relative term–a drive down a city street to the local market could be routine to me, but to the 15 year-old with a learner’s permit, it’s something else entirely. Almost anything can become routine or meaningless to the right sort of personality–even killing–but presumed routine on the part of some is probably not the first basis on which laws should be made for all. Is the triviality of an act as felt by even a majority supposed to dictate the rational basis of law as applied to everyone? I would tend to argue that the opposite is the case.
Well, I think you should if you’re going to use it as the basis for a law. I mean, I wouldn’t want my hypothetical kids eating ice cream for breakfast, but if I said it should be illegal for anyone to give a child ice cream in the morning, I think you’d want a little more explanation.
I like eating food, but only when I’m hungry, and only if it’s something I want to eat.
If you put a gun to my head and forced me to eat something I totally despised, like Saerkraut, I would end up gagging and most likely vomiting. When the authorities got ahold of you, I would demand that you be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. I would take it very seriously.
Same thing with sex. Genitals that make contact with me against my will are just as unwelcome to me as saerkraut. Being threatened with serious injury or death for not complying with a rapists demands would also be psychologically traumatizing.
I take blatant disregard for my bodily integrity very seriously, regardless of the oriface being intruded upon.
Have you ever had an orgasm or experienced sexual intimacy with another person? If you have, I think the answer to that should be obvious. That area of the body is capable of bringing more pleasure than other areas. To twist a normally joyfull experience into a hurtfull one designed purely to control another human being is especially traumatizing.