poll about sexuality

[DrmDoc]

Society has always had highly arbitrary definitions of rape, that is, sexual relations occuring without legal consent. In some jurisdictions a girl can get married with her parents' permission at age 12 or 13, and then the consummation of that relationship is deemed perfectly consentual so it is not rape. But of course, the action sexual activity in those cases is identical with the sexual activity of an adult having sex with a 12 or 13 year old in a society which forbids marriage at that age. So how do the children involved experience the consummation of the marriage as a delight and the consummation of the unmarried liason with an older person as a perpetually mind-warping horror? Is the power of the piece of paper in the registry office really so great as to be able to alter the phenomenology of the act to make it harmless in the first case and utterly destructive in the second? This sounds more like magic than science.

If a society permits sexual contact between an adult and 8 year old child, does this suggests that the 8 year old is capable of consenting to that contact? If so, what is the earliest age, in your opinion, that a child is able to make informed decisions without the influence, urging, or coercion from an adult?

[Marat]

Children's consent to religious instruction, which can easily create considerable psychiatric damage depending on how neurotic the religion's dogmas are, is deemed to be possible at extremely early ages, say five or six. I was pressured into joining an intensive program of ice skating lessons when I was six, and all the adults around me, from the skating instructors to my parents, deemed that my reluctant assent was sufficient legal assent to impose on me the very severe physical risks involved in ambitious figure skating jumps. More than a few times the pick of my blade caught on the ice and propelled me forward to hit the ice face-first, but this certain damage didn't cause anyone to worry about whether I could really consent to that activity at such an early age. This was because ice skating was and is regarded as something inherently good, so fastidious worries about valid consent are not an issue. Since sex is equally arbitrarily assumed to be something inherently bad, worries about valid consent abound.

[DrmDoc]

Children's consent to religious instruction, which can easily create considerable psychiatric damage depending on how neurotic the religion's dogmas are, is deemed to be possible at extremely early ages, say five or six. I was pressured into joining an intensive program of ice skating lessons when I was six, and all the adults around me, from the skating instructors to my parents, deemed that my reluctant assent was sufficient legal assent to impose on me the very severe physical risks involved in ambitious figure skating jumps. More than a few times the pick of my blade caught on the ice and propelled me forward to hit the ice face-first, but this certain damage didn't cause anyone to worry about whether I could really consent to that activity at such an early age. This was because ice skating was and is regarded as something inherently good, so fastidious worries about valid consent are not an issue. Since sex is equally arbitrarily assumed to be something inherently bad, worries about valid consent abound.

You were pressured into activities by your parents for their gratification? You seem to remember the pain you suffered and, no doubt, you felt powerless to stop what you endured. You had no ally to intercede on your behalf because what your parents were forcing you to do was considered legal and your acquiescence to their pressure was considered consent? In your mind at the time and from your perspective as an adult was it right what they made you endure? Because an activity is legal and acceptable to a child's parent, should we always consider that activity acceptable? In ancient Peru, for example, child sacrifice was considered a sacred and acceptable ritual. Would you find such a ritual acceptable in present-day if the practive was still acceptable to the Peruvian people?

Edited February 26, 2011 by DrmDoc

[Moontanman]

I don't think it can be denied that in our day and society child/adult sexual contact is virtually certain to have bad consequences to the child. A pedophile might think he loves children but what he really loves is his own pleasure. A pedophile doesn't see the consequences of his actions from the stand point of the child. No long term relationship is possible between a child and pedophile simply because the child grows up and ceases to be a child. The pedophile would then loose interest in the child so the relationship is doomed no matter what happens.

 

Then you have to consider the effects of society on the child, much like the anorexic child responding to the norms of society by starving themselves to death. Can an adult have a brief childish sexual contact with a child and not do the child any damage, yes but few if any pedophiles are willing to stop at a childish sexual encounter and coerce the child into ever increasingly adult sexual contact. Some children might respond positively to this but society will not allow it and the end result of getting caught is always bad.

 

I think the oddest part of sexual consent laws is the arbitrary age of 18 as the age they can decide to have sex when in fact just past puberty is the most sexually active age humans go through. I think that can be debated and there is still room for this debate to talk about that aspect i think but prepubescent sex between an adult and a child in our society is almost certainly going to end badly.

[Marat]

The fact that all the sexual consent laws are highly arbitrary undermines their claim to be based on the ages at which real, scientifically objective harm results from that activity or not. In 19th century England, for example, something called 'Prince's Rule' was established for statutory rape cases, which stated that if the age difference between the older person and the person having underage sex was three years or less, then the statutory rape law did not apply. So if a 19-year-old had sex with a 15-year-old in many legal jurisdictions today where some analogue of Prince's Rule applies, and the age of consent is 16, then that would be defined as rape 'because of the massive psychological damage that objectively, scientifically, and necessarily results from adult-child sexual interaction.' But if an 18-year-old had had sex with that same 15-year-old at around that same time, that same act would not have been defined as statutory rape because of Prince's Rule, so the society would implicitly be saying that ll the enormous, objectively real, scientifically demonstrable, permanent psychiatric harm of the 19-year-old/15-year-old sexual relationship would magically disappear and become utterly and absolutely harmless in the 18-year-old/15-year-old sexual relationship.

 

That's pure idiocy.

[DrmDoc]

The fact that all the sexual consent laws are highly arbitrary undermines their claim to be based on the ages at which real, scientifically objective harm results from that activity or not. In 19th century England, for example, something called 'Prince's Rule' was established for statutory rape cases, which stated that if the age difference between the older person and the person having underage sex was three years or less, then the statutory rape law did not apply. So if a 19-year-old had sex with a 15-year-old in many legal jurisdictions today where some analogue of Prince's Rule applies, and the age of consent is 16, then that would be defined as rape 'because of the massive psychological damage that objectively, scientifically, and necessarily results from adult-child sexual interaction.' But if an 18-year-old had had sex with that same 15-year-old at around that same time, that same act would not have been defined as statutory rape because of Prince's Rule, so the society would implicitly be saying that ll the enormous, objectively real, scientifically demonstrable, permanent psychiatric harm of the 19-year-old/15-year-old sexual relationship would magically disappear and become utterly and absolutely harmless in the 18-year-old/15-year-old sexual relationship.

 

That's pure idiocy.

Protesting what you consider "arbitrary" laws does not directly address--as is your usual--my very simple queries. So I say and ask again:

 

You were pressured into activities by your parents for their gratification? You seem to remember the pain you suffered and, no doubt, you felt powerless to stop what you endured. You had no ally to intercede on your behalf because what your parents were forcing you to do was considered legal and your acquiescence to their pressure was considered consent? In your mind at the time and from your perspective as an adult was it right what they made you endure? Because an activity is legal and acceptable to a child's parent, should we always consider that activity acceptable? In ancient Peru, for example, child sacrifice was considered a sacred and acceptable ritual. Would you find such a ritual acceptable in present-day if the practive was still acceptable to the Peruvian people?

[Marat]

There are certainly many things adults make children do that shouldn't be forced on them, and legally, the state either doesn't care whether children consent (such as forced religious education imposed on very young people) or simply assumes their consent on very flimsy grounds (such as assuming children really consent to the risks of sports that their parents coax them into accepting). But often I was made to do things as a child which were a) harmful to me; b) perceived as beneficial to the adults around me; and c) imagined to be done with my consent in some instances -- even though they weren't; or in other instances were done without my actual consent but with what my elders probably assumed was my agreement.

 

The key point in all of this for our present discussion is that most of this non-consensual behavior for adult purposes I had to endure as a child was bothersome but not psychiatrically crippling just because I didn't like it, didn't understand it, didn't really consent to it, and wasn't mature enough really to consent to it. Children have to do a lot of things to please adults without really consenting to them, and they survive it.

 

But what would make these children psychiatrically warped for life would be consenting to something intrinsically truly horrible and damaging. This is why the key issue in resolving our discussion has to be not whether the children are truly consenting to the act, but whether the act is truly seriously harmful in its itself.

[DrmDoc]

The key point in all of this for our present discussion is that most of this non-consensual behavior for adult purposes I had to endure as a child was bothersome but not psychiatrically crippling just because I didn't like it, didn't understand it, didn't really consent to it, and wasn't mature enough really to consent to it.

So, from the perspective of a child, what you were forced to do wasn't fair and you resented it. Correct? Your recollection of your childhood experiences suggests that you are able to empathize with the plight of children unwilling subjected to experiences beyond their years of maturity. Yet, despite your unfavorable childhood memories, you see no harm in forcing a child to engage in sex acts with an adult. Is that what your experiences have taught you? That a child is merely chattle and being an adult, like might, makes right any and everything a child is forced to do including sacrificing its life?

 

Children have to do a lot of things to please adults without really consenting to them, and they survive it.

Agreed, but does that make everything an adult forces a child to do right?

 

But what would make these children psychiatrically warped for life would be consenting to something intrinsically truly horrible and damaging. This is why the key issue in resolving our discussion has to be not whether the children are truly consenting to the act, but whether the act is truly seriously harmful in its itself.

No doubt the skating lessons you took to please your parents were torturous and, perhaps, your parents understood that. Although they forced you to do what pleased them, they probably, like good parents, thought you would benefit later from what you learned as a child might benefit from music or dance lessons. However, that is not the mindset of a pedophile. They do not engage children in magnanimity or with a genuinely objective thought of what is best for the wellbeing of the child. Instead, they use their position of authority and dominance selfishly over the protests, naivety, and powerlessness of the children subject to their will.

 

As to what we should consider "intrinsically truly horrible and damaging" to a child, shouldn't that necessarily include anything and everything a child is not mentally, emotionally, and physically prepared to endure?

[Marat]

I can remember being one of thirty screaming and crying children sitting in a first grade class. We were all crying together because the neurotic hag who was our teacher was pushing us too fast to learn certain arithmetic principles that we couldn't absorb, and she manifested her frustration with us by shrieking her lungs out at us. Not one of us consented to or approved of this entire process, which was imposed on us by adults and for what adults perceived to be either their own interest or our interest. Certainly the way the instruction was conveyed was not to our own interest.

 

But no one cared about this, since it was accepted that there are lots of activities in society, involving both children and adults, in which there is less than perfect consent. People are just supposed to adapt to social circumstances and if they are five years old and would rather be outside playing, they have to waste Sunday mornings listening to some minister of the gospel scream at them about how badly their bodies will be scalded by the Devil in Hell if they ever touch themselves under their underpants. Twenty years later, they are expected to get up at seven A.M. and show up at the shipyard in the freezing cold weather to drive rivets into the side of a warship even if they prefer to sleep late and hate militarism, because they are threatened with starvation if they don't drive rivets to earn their pay. Etc.

 

As I said before, the degree of informed, mature consent we require to find participation in an activity morally or legally acceptable is a function of how dangerous or harmful we regard that activity. If you don't like me and I offer my hand for you to shake, and you feel pressured by social conventions to take my hand and shake it, this 'unwanted physical contact' that I have pressured you into is not regarded as cause for calling the police, bringing in psychiatrists and counselors, and otherwise going into a panic. Why? Because a handshake is no big deal. In the same way, if a sexually liberated and relaxed society regarded human sexuality as something essentially normal and harmless, then sexually cooperating with other people would have no more significance than shaking hands with them, and so all these overblown concerns about having sufficient maturity to consent would never arise in the first place.

[DrmDoc]

As I said before, the degree of informed, mature consent we require to find participation in an activity morally or legally acceptable is a function of how dangerous or harmful we regard that activity. If you don't like me and I offer my hand for you to shake, and you feel pressured by social conventions to take my hand and shake it, this 'unwanted physical contact' that I have pressured you into is not regarded as cause for calling the police, bringing in psychiatrists and counselors, and otherwise going into a panic. Why? Because a handshake is no big deal. In the same way, if a sexually liberated and relaxed society regarded human sexuality as something essentially normal and harmless, then sexually cooperating with other people would have no more significance than shaking hands with them, and so all these overblown concerns about having sufficient maturity to consent would never arise in the first place.

And,invariably, I ask again: "...shouldn't that necessarily include anything and everything a child is not mentally, emotionally, and physically prepared to endure?"

[Marat]

The term 'endure' rather skews the analysis towards the negative. If sex is assumed to be a basic human good, then being exposed to that good earlier in life rather than later -- somewhat the way natural geniuses learn to play the piano at age four or do calculus at age six -- is certainly not harmful, even if the child still lacks the full maturity necessary completely to experience. savor, and critically evaluate the experience. For example, the friend of mine I mentioned earlier in this thread who was a piano prodigy and played with a major East Coast sympthony orchestra when she was eight years old told me later that she was hardly able to appreciate everything going on in her life at that time. But would this insufficient maturity for the experience really have to be psychiatrically injurious?

 

Since children spontaneously play sex games with each other at a very young age I would assume that they don't do that of out any masochistic desire to cripple themselves psychologically for life and must just enjoy what they are doing. So if children naturally play sex games for their own amusement, how do we measure that they are not yet mature enough to do that? To say that they are not yet mature enough to play the same games with adults that they spontaneously invent to amuse themselves seems an arbitrary assumption.

 

Aside from our culture's present perception that child-adult sexual interactions are harmful, I have trouble seeing how we can be so certain that these activities -- provided of course that they are not done with violence or physical injury -- which would make any activity harmful, are intrinsically necessarily harmful in every possible human society. Certainly when these activities occurred nearly universally in all the primitive eras of human existence prior to the invention of sex-restricting morality they could not have been very harmful, since otherwise they would have resulted in the mass extinction of a poorly adaptive human race transformed at an early age into neurotics or psychotics by their experience. And certainly when these activities occurred with all young males in Ancient Greece they produced the greatest cultural era the world has ever known -- which is a sure sign of peak psychological health.

[DrmDoc]

The term 'endure' rather skews the analysis towards the negative. If sex is assumed to be a basic human good, then being exposed to that good earlier in life rather than later...

Cultivating a child's innate talent is not the same as imposing a behavior on an unprepared child and, as ancient Peruvian child sacrifices attest, not every activity adults impose on children serves a later "good" no matter the justification.

 

Since children spontaneously play sex games with each other at a very young age I would assume that they don't do that of out any masochistic desire to cripple themselves psychologically for life and must just enjoy what they are doing. So if children naturally play sex games for their own amusement, how do we measure that they are not yet mature enough to do that? To say that they are not yet mature enough to play the same games with adults that they spontaneously invent to amuse themselves seems an arbitrary assumption.

Spontaneous play among children is not the same as adults inserting themselves into that play. Invariably, adults who have sexual contact with children do so for their own gratification and not for any future "good" of the child. Admittedly, sex between adults can be rather selfish; however, the distinction selfish adults pose by imposing their will upon children is the equivalent of rape given their position of dominance.

 

Aside from our culture's present perception that child-adult sexual interactions are harmful, I have trouble seeing how we can be so certain that these activities -- provided of course that they are not done with violence or physical injury -- which would make any activity harmful, are intrinsically necessarily harmful in every possible human society. Certainly when these activities occurred nearly universally in all the primitive eras of human existence prior to the invention of sex-restricting morality they could not have been very harmful, since otherwise they would have resulted in the mass extinction of a poorly adaptive human race transformed at an early age into neurotics or psychotics by their experience. And certainly when these activities occurred with all young males in Ancient Greece they produced the greatest cultural era the world has ever known -- which is a sure sign of peak psychological health.

Fortunately, this era of human experience is not as primitive as it may have been and we do not live in ancient Greece. For all of ancient Greek's cultural accomplishments, they were, in my opinion, a debauched, barbaric society compared to present-day. How did grooming its young males to sexually serve adult males, serve the young males or Greek's society?