First of all I would just like to say how much in agreement I am with merico here. I really do thank everybody whole heartedly for being so open minded and understanding! I realise I may be pushing you now with the arguments I'm about to put forward, but please be aware that part of this is really more about me loving a nice tough debate than anything else And, you lot can take it
I'm glad you replied like that, actually. When I said "One thing you keep talking about" in my last post, I was then going to move onto the second thing, but I got tired of writing, and don't want to get back into this thread too actively anyway.
The second thing I have noticed you basing arguments on is morals. You even highlighted the word morals. But, what is your definition of moral? (On a side note, I am just interested, what is your definition of 'ready for sex'? And you keep talking about risks - which risks did you mean specifically?) My definition of a moral argument is one that is right, one that is humane. The dictionary.com definition can be found here http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=2&q=moral. How vague these are. They seem to me very opinionated, leaving what is and what isn't moral very open to flexibility.
This also means that morals are taught or learned and can be changed. I did of course think in a very similar way to you until my body forced me to change my view. The human mind can be programmed - just look at the differences between people in the western world, and suicide bombers coming out of the muslim countries in the middle east. It can be made to believe whatever anyone wants it to believe with sufficient training. The difference between fundamentalists and atheists. We learn what society teaches us as we grow up. Now, I'm not claiming that my view is right and the generally accepted one is wrong of course, because by the very argument I'm using for I'd be being hypocritical. What I'm saying is that, SOMETIMES, just sometimes, I think the no-exceptions way society likes to deal with stigma such as paedophilic sexual relationships is illogical, and I'm hoping that you will come to agree with me.
Am I correct in saying that one reason people are against the idea of an adult/child sexual relationship is that it is immoral? That argument doesn't make sense though; what is moral and what is immoral changes over time. A quick think back to the ancient civilisations will convince us of this. And, while it comes into the equation, no, I'm not only talking about paedophilic sex, although it was apparently rife in ancient Greece for example. What about the public entertainment enjoyed by thousands courtesy of the colluseum. What about human sacrifices to the gods. What about canibalism that exists even in the world today. These things that would seem perfectly natural and moral to one person would seem shockingly immoral and un-PC to us. It is no use saying "but blatent murder IS immoral!" because that is then your opinion. It is no use saying "But the people being killed never wanted to die!" Because the subject matter here is actually sex between an adult and a child, and in a consensual relationship neither side is at all averse to said behaviour. It is no use saying "But there never is such a relationship!" because there are. From what I've heard and read, in a tiny percentage of cases, boys will willingly participate in sexual activity. And, were it legal and accepted and all the rest, I wish I could go out and find people, because really, that is the one thing that is stopping me providing a firm and conclusive argument on this topic.
Let's look at another scenario. A paedophile and a kid have a sexual relationship. Kid's parents find out and take paedophile to court. Kid however was totally nonchant about having a sexual relationship with this guy and in fact rather enjoyed it, being pre pubic and with few inhibitions as far as sexual inclination is concerned. Despite parents' indoctrination to do otherwise, kid still testifies that everything was fine. But the law doesn't care - the parents are the legal guardians of the child, and the paedophile has obviously comitted a crime and so receives a heavy sentence. Tough. The next case in the court is somebody who's been arrested for violence, after breaking somebody's arm by attacking them with a baseball bat. Woah, but wait a minute! The person whose arm was broken turns out to have burgled their house and threatened them with a gun. Ya, hang on, this guy is innocent after all, you're free to go mate.
Huh? The guy who committed the worse moral offence got off without a sentence
Ya so guys, I'm back and arguing pro sex stronger and more obviously than ever. Ooh nah, all you police forces out there had better keep a tag on me. Not really, actually. As people have rightly said, please note that I am arguing from my point of view, and to change opinions. For safety's sake, I clarify, this does not mean that I will go out and have sex with any boys. It is my opinion. My opinion. opinion. You are free to say you don't believe me until you're blue in the face, but I am telling you now, even if it were legal, I would never deliberately initiate sexual contact with or try to convince a boy to have sex with me. Since it is illegal, I never will. And even if it wasn't, I would never even think about it unless I was 100% certain he was willing. Why do I think like that? Because - everybody is different! I think here is another direct parallel with 'normal relationhips'. Would you ever have sex with somebody who didn't want to have sex with you? 'nuff said.
So, am I doing this for selfish reasons? Course! I doubt many boys would get anything like the same level of enjoyment out of sex with me than I would with them. I doubt many of them would really be at all bothered if it never happened. Just, don't get the idea that I am at all happy living as a paedophile today, and I know it is the same for many other people, driving some as far as suicide. Now obviously I've never gone quite that far! But it happens in phases, on and off I feel so unhappy as a paedophile that I never want to go there again. I guess you can't know what effect complete sexual repression has until you experience it first hand. All this arguing about sex is an extra - I do sincerely thank you for considering what we have to say and don't wish anybody to think that my arguing in this direction invalidates what has already been said. If you can convince me that I am wrong, I would of course admit defeat.
Another difference between an adult/adult and an adult/child relationship differs from an adult/adult is the imbalance of power present. Depending on the maturity of the child, I believe this imbalance places much of the responsibility for the child's welfare on the adult. As you keep saying, children are often naively unaware of things adults would immediately steer away from. This tells me that, in an adult/child relationship, it is the adult who has the responsibility of deciding what and when something should be done. This screams of advantage taking and excuse making, of course. "I THOUGHT s/he wouldn't mind!" "But s/he said yes! [i.e. was pestered into saying yes]" "It was my responsibility, she might not be so sure now, but by my judgement s/he'll look back in years to come and won't mind!" I don't mean it that way. What I mean is that it puts the whole responsibility on the adult to keep the child safe - if anything goes wrong, no excuses, at the end of the day it's entirely his or her fault!
Let's now look at the idea of taking on responsibility from the angle of a world in which paedophilia is totally accepted. I have a young freind called Jack. Because paedophilia is accepted and understood, Jack's parents know all about me and what I think about Jack. Even Jack himself is all too aware. In fact, my freinds are aware of my relationship with the kid and some of Jack's freinds too. Because Jack has been brought up in a world acceptant of paedophilia, he knows all about it, it's nothing special; he knows that I want sex with him. But he's told people that the idea of any sort of sex actually rather frightens him, and he wouldn't want it at all. He's told me that too. Think about the position that puts me in - if I initiated anything, how could that count as anything but rape? The responsibility is now dispersed and shared between not only me and the boy - but the boy has many more openings to spot if anything is going wrong and ask other people for help much earlier.
You see, I think one of the problems with what I am arguing about is that acceptance of adult/child sex would be much easier if everyone was already acceptant of paedophilia - without that additional factor, there are so many corners that can trip up the arguments it becomes almost impossible to rationalise. If everyone was acceptant of paedophilia and the sex that came with it, the situation would be so different. The worry of rape would be greatly diminished. The burden put on kids to keep that sort of relationship a secret is lifted. Risk of rape still wouldn't be zero, but it would be reduced. In other words, I'm going back to my previous posts about risk factor being present in every situation, no matter which sexuality you're on about.
One worry I have with the legalisation of adult/child sex is the transmission of STDs. This is the one point for which I cannot think of a satisfactory workaround. Because of their naivity and trusting nature, it would of course be dead easy for children to pick these things up without a second thought. And to wreck their own lives in the process. Not everyone is the same - just because I say I will act in one way and keep to my word, no disrespect to ANYBODY of course, but I can be quite sure that not everybody will! From my own viewpoint, I can say that yes, I am quite sure that I haven't picked one up yet! And in this respect, I wouldn't present a problem to any children if I ever had sex with one. However, had I picked one up somewhere, how easy would it be for me to lie about it?! Hmmm. I am not at all sure how to talk round this one.
My second worry is that kids might not be treated with the respect they deserve in all situations. How embarassing would it be - say society finally changed its mind about paedophilia, and tomorrow it was all OK. We then hear of scandals about people using children for sex - conning them into it then discarding them. Not by everybody, but by some people. A child is obviously not a life partner. I know that I would always treat kids with respect. But would everybody? As another parallel to ordinary relationships, we hear of violence, high divorce rates, virtual 'enslavement' of women. Where has that love gone, I ask? That would be a terrible knock for a child, who might get a kick from being treated specially and having sex or whatever, then being deserted...like a prostitute. Much different from an adult, who would be able to put it behind them much more easily. Or am I worrying too much? I don't know. I don't want to be deprived of something for what other people MIGHT do, but then again I would hate to see what other people might do actually happening. *sigh*
Heh, well, I never claimed it was the norm. I don't deny it's not the norm, by any stretch of the imagination. I only said it's not ALWAYS wrong. Yes, partially for my own horribly selfish benefit. But if I and many others believe something we think is correct and can be backed up by real life evidence, I feel entitled to debate it until somebody can convince me otherwise.
I have already talked about morals, responsibility and balance of power. If an adult needs to a talk a kid into having sex, then I think that is very wrong and indeed irresponsible. If an adult imposes sex on or knows they present a definite risk to a child by having sex with them, then that is also irresponsible. Most certainly, if an adult harms a child through lack of care and thought, even slightly, I agree that this is an inexcusable offence.
No, because I personally don't agree that sex is either inevitable or necessarily harmful. I don't equate the sting with sex, which is why the story does not illustrate to me what it does to you. What I was saying was that a deadly sting is hardly an expression of love, even if both animals died in the process. If an adult and a child have sex, if it is consensual and both are comfortable, it is unlikely that one or the other will need to be hurt. If you were having sex with your boyfreind, and are being hurt in the process I am sure he would notice and stop immediately to put you out of any pain.
In fact, love has nothing to do with that really, does it. If any (innocent! my brother doesn't count LOL) individual was in pain due to something somebody was doing, would not anybody stop? Above all, if I was hurting a boy I loved, I would feel utterly compelled to stop.
The more I discuss this topic, the more I lean towards the view that society is creating its own problem with adult/child sex - you try and suppress something as powerful as love, in technical terms, it is only naturally gonna come back to bite ya in the ass...
How does it prove anything? It just states something happened. That proves nothing.
Sure, although the sexual attraction is lost. This hasn't happened to me yet, but people this has happened to say they retain a platonic love for their kids as they grow older, somthing that goes deeper than a simple friendship. The best analogy I can think of to explain this is, I guess, like a parent's love for a child.
I would be inclined not to talk about MJ. He clearly isn't entirely normal, in more ways than just sexuality, and is really a bad comparison to make to the rest of us. To me, it seems obvious that he is a paedophile, however adamently he denies it to the media, (for good reason, of course). I don't think anybody can really give an opinion on this topic, as there are so many lies and so much elaboration floating around about it that the only person who knows what's really happening is MJ himself.
My personal opinion, however, is that, he's a lunatic if he thinks he can be a superstar world famous entertainer and also get away with doing something that is considered one of the ultimate taboos of modern society.
