Lutheran pedophiles

[Seth]

>>You seem to be implying that it's automatically questionable whether an older person has "taken advantage" of a teenager just because the two have sex.<<

Let's just say it probably happens. Since a 15 year old is not independent in the Western world, we give the caretakers of these teens some controls. I don't want to be raising some old fart's babies in my house.

That's a different issue altogether. If you have parental authority, you should exercise it properly. If you don't, and your kids like to fuck, that's your problem isn't it? It demonstrates a failure on your part. Why should the consequences of that failure be dumped on the old fart who did nothing different from what some young fart wants do so?

[Seth]

Seth, I think what you are missing is the imbalance in power and authority. Adults, particularly adult males, can exert authority which reduces the effective ability of a younger person to make a decision about sex which is in their own interest.

Yes, they can, especially persons in position of trust and authority, like schoolteachers. So what? We learn by making mistakes and then resolving not to make them again.

Recently we discussed the case in Montana where the old fart got off of a statutory rape charge with 30 days or something (and they are trying to resentence him right now as I recall). Much was made about the girl killing herself, which fueled much outrage. But what I NEVER heard was WHY the girl killed herself. Everyone involved was very obtuse and secretive about this particular aspect of the case...everyone except the sentencing judge, who was privy to all the facts. If I had to make an educated guess, I'd guess that the girl was truly in love with the old fart and when he was arrested because someone found out about their relationship, she fell into despair and depression at the thought that her (as I hear it) very aggressive pursuit of the old fart, in which she seems to have been the prime mover resulted in the man she loved being arrested and faced with life in prison simply for loving her. My guess is she became despondent at that and the notion that they could never be together, so she killed herself out of guilt and sorrow.

So, if this is true (for the purposes of argument), did the law serve anyone's interests in this particular situation? Was any harm done by the relationship? Or was the harm done by society's intolerance for age-disparate love affairs? Could they have been happy together for the rest of their lives, as a good many May/December relationships that successfully lasted for many decades proves? After all, a hundred years ago girls were marriageable at between 12 and 14 years old, and boys as soon as their pubic hair appeared.

This is why I think each case needs to be judged impartially based on the actual nature of the relationship and the desires of the individuals involved. If the girl is in love and isn't being harmed by the relationship (for example the old fart hasn't turned her into a prostitute or something) and is happy and is not making any complaint about being coerced, why should the law disturb the relationship.

On the other hand, if the teacher threatens to flunk the girl (or boy) if he/she doesn't suck the teacher's cock twice a week, then there is coercion involved that's equivalent to rape and should be punished just as severely.

In addition, adolescents can be sexually mature, but easily confused, and are notoriously prone to make rash decisions. A 15 year old girl may have the outer persona of a worldly -wise siren, but has not got the maturity or experience to allow her to detect opportunistic adults who may well cause her emotional and/or physical pain.

Well, she will learn, won't she? "Golly, that was a really bad idea. No more smelly old men for me, no matter how charming they might seem..."

After all, if it's okay for her to screw a peer or stick her finger or a vibrator up her pussy how is it all that much more harmful for her to use some old farts cock for the same purpose of sexual pleasure? If she doesn't like it, she doesn't have to continue and she doesn't have to do it again, does she? It's not really much different from trying lima beans or caviar and deciding not to do that again because you don't like the taste.

I'm not saying that this would always be the case, but it is common enough that prohibiting sex between adults and those below the age of consent (the exact age being arguable) is seen by most societies as a necessary legal position.

I don't think so. I think it's mostly sexist patriarchy that drives this sort of thing. Up until very recently a male teacher who screwed a teenage student would be sent away for a long time while a female teacher who had sex with a teenage male would be completely ignored. Recently there has been a drive to hammer female teachers who "abuse" teenage boys, and it's astonishing how many of them are getting caught. In the last two or three years I've hear of female teachers being arrested much more often than males. They still face much less harsh penalties, if any, than men do.

This has to do with the patriarchal notions about virginity and the sanctity of young girl's chastity and little to do with actual biology. This is why it's frowned upon, but not a criminal offense for peers to have sex, but it's all moral outrage and harsh penalties for old/young relationships.

When it comes to people in positions of power and authority, it is true that there can be undue influence and coercion involved, but that's why each case should be carefully examined on it's individual facts to see if any such coercion was involved.

That used to be the standard for college girls living with their professors. If the girl, who is an adult, doesn't mind, why should the school. It's mostly the lesbian/feminist notion that no pretty young college girl could (or should) ever have hot pants for her professor based on their anti-male anti-patriarchy dogma that put the kibosh on college professors enjoying one of the best perks of being a college professor.

[Seth]

Yeah, not to go all "won't someone think of the childrens!!1", but society has to draw a line at some age under which it is decided that those people need protecting. As Jim said, some might not need protecting, but it's the one's that do that REALLY need protecting. And that's what the law is about. In fact, it's what most laws are about. Very few laws logically apply to everyone. But you can't have a different set of laws for different people (within the same group). I don't see how the law could work that way.

It seems to me that biology has provided an excellent indicator of the change between a protected child and a presumptively sexually mature young person: for girls it's menarche, for boys it's ejaculation.

What's wrong with using that as a metric. It's all scientificish and junk.

If other factors are involved, like coercion or abuse, those can be considered by the court based on a complaint by the victim. No complaint, no victim, no judicial review.

[JimC]

Arguing that having sex with young girls should be perfectly acceptable comes across as creepy self-interest when articulated by a man of your years, Seth.

Lolita, anyone?

[Seth]

Arguing that having sex with young girls should be perfectly acceptable comes across as creepy self-interest when articulated by a man of your years, Seth.

Lolita, anyone?

Fifteen's too young for me I'm afraid. Besides being illegal and I suspect a lot of work, having to listen to their music sucks. I can wait for eighteen to keep it legal given the opportunity, not that my fantasies come anywhere near aligning with reality, ever. Fortunately or un, young women are generally uninterested farts as old as I am, although I keep right on flirting with the waitresses at the cafe anyway.

Twenty five to thirty seems to be the age group of diner waitresses who even potentially take a genuine interest in me. My now ex-fiancee was 30. I'm good with that age range for an actual relationship. Usually it's the single moms looking for a stable home for their kids, which isn't out of the question for me at all, provided she's not crazy and can be nice to me.

For a quick fuck, 21 is the practical lower limit, not that it's ever likely to happen, just so I can loosen her up a bit with wine and spirits first.

But then again I'm speaking philosophically here about relationships between two people that are genuinely mutual and consensual and I'm not actually arguing for old/young sex. I'm examining the reasons why such relationships are legally impermissible, not necessarily why they are socially frowned upon. I don't like the idea of randomly-selected arbitrary legal limits that don't take anything other than age into account because it can lead to horrifically unjust and undesirable results in some cases, such as the Montana incident, if I'm right about why the girl killed herself. After all, Juliet did the same thing, and Shakespeare could have written Romeo as an older man. And did. (Midsummer Night's Dream, among others)

[pErvinalia]

Yeah, I get that feeling as well. Nothing to back that up other than the fact that 15yr old boys are horny as fuck and we all had crushes on older teachers at that age. And by crush, I mean up for it!

And girls are different how?
Plenty of fifteen year old girls are horny as fuck, and fancy older men.

You could be entirely right. It's just a "feeling", I guess. There is the prevailing bollocks about virginity being sacred and all that sort of shit to consider too. That mostly falls to girls, not boys in our society. There's also the prevailing reality of the power imbalance between males and females, even if in individual cases it might be reversed. In the majority of cases, I'd think a 15 yr old boy is as equally if not more strong than a 30 yr old woman. Reverse the sexes and it wouldn't be anything like the same case. So while you are quite possibly correct, it's hard to agree on the two cases being the same.

[pErvinalia]

You make some reasonable points. For me it's not about ability to give consent (well, legally, it is; but I'm talking more morally/ethically here), it's about the power imbalance.

What power imbalance? All a girl has to do is keep her knees together and her knickers on. If the old fart forces himself on her, it's rape. If he seduces her, it's consensual. She may regret it after the fact, but that's her problem, and enduring the consequences of bad decision making is what teaches us to make better decisions.

Man, you really don't understand this issue, do you? I'm not entirely surprised as you don't seem to understand how concentrations of wealth are power in the marketplace. Honestly, I don't know that I could be bothered going into it with you. You don't seem to understand the issue at all.

But society views sex and virginity as some sort of special thing that must be fretted over and protected and honoured and all the other bollocks (which ironically you libbo's love in relation to other aspects of society).

We love it in relation to sex too. Libertarianism doesn't get into people's bedrooms at all. So long as no force or fraud is initiated, a consensual sexual encounter between sexually mature persons is entirely up to them and it's nobody else's business but theirs.

It's the definition of "force" that is always the problem with libertarianism. Libbos apparently can only think in terms of physical force. Any other sort of exertion of power is not force in your model. That's wrong.

So you've got to remember that young girls are brought up in this society. And no matter how rational you may view sex, they are surrounded by an environment that says that have less than 100% perfect sexual experience is something awful and worth getting depressed over and even potentially killing yourself over.

True enough, which is yet another reason for young women to take advantage of the expertise and experience of older men, who are more likely to give them that.

But that is not what society is telling them. Society tells them that if they have sex with an older man they are a slut. These girls face incredible peer pressure, and they are at an age where suicide is an option for an increasing number of them.

I think that view is sick and is far more harmful than anything someone sleeping with a biologically mature female does. But that's the reality of society. Until we change this view, you can't expect young girls to have the same rational views on this subject as some of us older more wiser people do. To them sex is almost mystical and anything that disrupts that mysticism is so bad it could be life ending.

I don't disagree with you, but what you're saying merely reinforces my thesis. Better to give the horny young lady a superior sex experience than allow her to be damaged at the hands of a fumbling, ham-handed, ignorant premature ejaculator of her own age don't you think?

fumbling premature ejaculating sex isn't damaging. It's part of the learning experience. Getting tagged a slut and/or potentially coerced and in reality raped by an older man is a FAR greater danger to them.

[pErvinalia]

If this issue was purely just about sex, then I personally don't see that much of a problem with older people sleeping with younger biologically mature people. But it's not just about sex. Society has created all this incredible amount of baggage around sex, and the whole thing still has religious undertones of sin and dirtiness about it. You can't divorce the physical act of sex from all this other stuff. That's the reality that young girls (and boys) have to deal with. And it's that reality that the laws need to exist in.

[JimC]

If this issue was purely just about sex, then I personally don't see that much of a problem with older people sleeping with younger biologically mature people. But it's not just about sex. Society has created all this incredible amount of baggage around sex, and the whole thing still has religious undertones of sin and dirtiness about it. You can't divorce the physical act of sex from all this other stuff. That's the reality that young girls (and boys) have to deal with. And it's that reality that the laws need to exist in.

A more liberated society that has discarded the "sin" garbage may well have advantages, and it may reduce some possible types of harm from young adolescents having sex with much older people. However, it still would not alter the reality of an unequal balance of power, experience and ability to manipulate.

[pErvinalia]

But that exists in everything, Jim. You are still granting sex special status. I can manipulate young people into doing all sorts of things. The question is, should sex be special? Philosophically I say no. But I accept that pragmatically it is special in our societies and needs to be treated specially in the legal system.

[Seth]

You make some reasonable points. For me it's not about ability to give consent (well, legally, it is; but I'm talking more morally/ethically here), it's about the power imbalance.

What power imbalance? All a girl has to do is keep her knees together and her knickers on. If the old fart forces himself on her, it's rape. If he seduces her, it's consensual. She may regret it after the fact, but that's her problem, and enduring the consequences of bad decision making is what teaches us to make better decisions.

Man, you really don't understand this issue, do you?

Why is it that you think that disagreeing with you means I don't understand the issue?

I'm not entirely surprised as you don't seem to understand how concentrations of wealth are power in the marketplace.

Of course I understand it, you just cannot accept the fact that I understand it without making a knee-jerk conclusion about the propriety of it. That's likely because you're a Marxist who thinks that wealth is illegitimate in the first place and that the wealthy shouldn't have power in the marketplace. But what you are incapable of understanding is that the wealthy got that way by being better at manipulating the markets to their advantage, so they are entitled to their wealth and power by virtue of their entrepreneurial ability.

Honestly, I don't know that I could be bothered going into it with you. You don't seem to understand the issue at all.

I understand it just fine, thanks. I just have less interest in saving people from the consequences of their stupidity and ignorance than you do because I believe that it is in suffering such consequences that people learn to make better judgments, which hopefully they pass along to their children. It's not society or government's role to protect people from their own ignorance, stupidity or bad judgment. It's up to the individual to learn to make good decisions by making many small and relatively unimportant bad decisions from which they learn that actions have consequences and that those consequences are often unavoidable and irreversible. The sooner in life kids learn this, the better.

Today's society is far too much about protecting kids from the consequences of their actions and this shows in a cultural inability to make good decisions on an individual basis, largely brought about by the ingrained false assumption that somebody else will take care of them and fix things for them and that nothing they do can go irreversibly and irrevocably wrong.

That's a very, very bad way to raise future generations and I don't subscribe to it.

If fifteen year olds want to fuck, they will fuck. If they get knocked up, get the clap or have their heart broken by some old lech who uses them and dumps them, well, they are still alive and will be stronger and wiser for the experience, which makes them better citizens in the long run.

But society views sex and virginity as some sort of special thing that must be fretted over and protected and honoured and all the other bollocks (which ironically you libbo's love in relation to other aspects of society).

We love it in relation to sex too. Libertarianism doesn't get into people's bedrooms at all. So long as no force or fraud is initiated, a consensual sexual encounter between sexually mature persons is entirely up to them and it's nobody else's business but theirs.

It's the definition of "force" that is always the problem with libertarianism. Libbos apparently can only think in terms of physical force. Any other sort of exertion of power is not force in your model. That's wrong.

The basis of Libertarian philosophy is that no one can have power over you that you do not voluntarily grant them. If you grant that power unwisely or imprudently, then it's your lesson to learn and society has no obligation to protect you from the consequences of your actions.

The only objection Libertarianism has is to the initiation of force (and that can be direct physical force or coercive force, so you're wrong...again) and fraud. Imprudence, mistake, error or simple negligence are not problems that society is under any obligation to protect you from perpetrating against your own interests. Libertarianism assumes that you are old enough to make the decision, you are old enough to take responsibility for that decision.

We call that "liberty," and we feel that individual liberty is a very important aspect of our lives that must be protected to the greatest possible extent, and that by interfering with the flow of consequences to the individual by regulating the individual's right to exercise liberty, society is harming itself far more than it's helping itself. So we limit our intervention to the initiation of (although not the response to) force or fraud and assume that individuals have the right to make mistakes and do stupid things that cause them to suffer adverse consequences, and we do not choose to excuse or ameliorate those consequences out of a false and harmful sense of pity or faux concern.

More harm has been done to individuals and society in the name of "protecting" us from ourselves than in all the wars in history.

So you've got to remember that young girls are brought up in this society. And no matter how rational you may view sex, they are surrounded by an environment that says that have less than 100% perfect sexual experience is something awful and worth getting depressed over and even potentially killing yourself over.

True enough, which is yet another reason for young women to take advantage of the expertise and experience of older men, who are more likely to give them that.

But that is not what society is telling them.

Then they should probably take that into account in making their sexual decisions don't you think?

Society tells them that if they have sex with an older man they are a slut.

Maybe your society does. But even if true, so what? If you don't want to be called a slut, don't act like one.

These girls face incredible peer pressure, and they are at an age where suicide is an option for an increasing number of them.

Well then this peer pressure should keep them from fucking old guys don't you think? If a few of them don't have a problem with their peers calling them sluts, why should anybody else care or intervene?

I think that view is sick and is far more harmful than anything someone sleeping with a biologically mature female does. But that's the reality of society. Until we change this view, you can't expect young girls to have the same rational views on this subject as some of us older more wiser people do. To them sex is almost mystical and anything that disrupts that mysticism is so bad it could be life ending.

I don't disagree with you, but what you're saying merely reinforces my thesis. Better to give the horny young lady a superior sex experience than allow her to be damaged at the hands of a fumbling, ham-handed, ignorant premature ejaculator of her own age don't you think?

fumbling premature ejaculating sex isn't damaging.

Yeah. So? That doesn't change the idea that a virgin girl might be better off under the tutelage of an experienced older man for her first sexual experience. That's not damaging either. I guess it depends on what the goal of having sex is for the people involved.

It's part of the learning experience.

Isn't it just....

Getting tagged a slut

If that's a concern, don't do it. Why should the law get involved?

and/or potentially coerced and in reality raped by an older man is a FAR greater danger to them.

Both of which remain illegal, so not really relevant to the discussion.

[pErvinalia]

You really are fucking clueless. I don't know why I ever bother entering debates with you any more. It's always the same shit. Adapt or die. Go post in it in the "adapt or die" thread.

[Seth]

If this issue was purely just about sex, then I personally don't see that much of a problem with older people sleeping with younger biologically mature people. But it's not just about sex. Society has created all this incredible amount of baggage around sex, and the whole thing still has religious undertones of sin and dirtiness about it. You can't divorce the physical act of sex from all this other stuff. That's the reality that young girls (and boys) have to deal with. And it's that reality that the laws need to exist in.

Why? If the consequences are as you describe, the law need not involve itself at all because societal pressure should be adequate to dissuade anyone who might care about such consequences from doing the dirty deed in the first place.

Why should the law come down on the older person and not the younger person? In supporting such laws you are implicitly saying that young people are incompetent to make decisions about their lives and that older persons are obligated to deny young people what they want and are requesting in order to infantilize our youth more and more and more.

I mean really. We have nitwits suggesting that the age of majority should be TWENTY FIVE. Sheesh.

I vote for the good old days when you were a man at 15, or whenever you could toss a bale on the wagon by yourself, and you were a woman when you became capable of having babies. It leads to a better, more responsible and more mature society than infantilizing adults the way we do today.

[Seth]

You really are fucking clueless. I don't know why I ever bother entering debates with you any more. It's always the same shit. Adapt or die. Go post in it in the "adapt or die" thread.

Tut tut. You just hate it when I destroy your silly ideas with reason and logic so you quit being rational and start being emotional.

[pErvinalia]

No, I just hate it when the only argument you ever have is "adapt or die". And there's no logic behind it. It's just a conservative moral judgement.