I honeslty suspect for the French petition to have been motivated by a persecution complex on the part of French intellectuals who were unwilling to deal with some of the more lecherous habits of their peers. — thewonder

After a quick read of the wikipedia page, I am not sure who is going to disagree with your assessment.

In America, one at least needs to get parental consent before marrying and raping 12 year olds :grimace:

Deleuze and Guatarri sort of let me down on this. I can understand Foucault's argument, but I just don't know what else could possibly be happening. They just needed to stop listening to Yé-yé records, it seems. From what I know, in the States, you have to be 18 to marry unless you're in Nebraska where you have to be 19. I can see why they'd do that in Nebraska. Give them a year in college, y'know? The age of consent is sort of absurd, but I honestly can't see how the fuss about it is motivated by anything other than that a person either is or knows some unscrupulous characters.

In America, one at least needs to get parental consent before marrying and raping 12 year olds :grimace: — ZhouBoTong

This is false. No state allows 12 year olds to marry. Massachusetts has no specific minimum age law for marriage, but a judge must decide. Since the limitation on judicial discretion isn't set by statute, prior precedent set by ancient common law would control, so one could argue that 12 would be the youngest a girl could marry. There are no cases of 12 year old marriages though, and one would expect one wouldn't be upheld as valid if a wackadoodle judge allowed it.

I can see why they'd do that in Nebraska. Give them a year in college, y'know? — thewonder

Hahaha.

From what I know, in the States, you have to be 18 to marry unless you're in Nebraska where you have to be 19. — thewonder

Yes, you have to be 18 to marry, but there are huge loopholes, so that if certain criteria, including parental consent, are met, then 25 states actually have NO minimum age. You can find examples of 10, 11, and 12 year olds married within the last 20 years (no, it is not common, but still - check the wikipedia page for "child marriage in the united states" - egregious example, three 10 year old girls were married to men aged 24-31 in 2001).

but I honestly can't see how the fuss about it is motivated by anything other than that a person either is or knows some unscrupulous characters. — thewonder

I am guessing this will be a quiet thread as everyone will agree, but I suppose we will see.

This is false. No state allows 12 year olds to marry. — Hanover

You sure? How new are the laws? I can find 10 year olds married in 2001, and an 11 year old in 2006.
Again, wikipedia page is called, "child marriage in the united states".

The really annoying people in that debate are the ones who mistakenly believe that their particular views are universal. Those are usually the same people who agree that morality exists, but who cannot elucidate what exactly their own definite moral system would be. From there, they go on aggressively defending the alleged superiority of their non-system..

Age-of-consent-laws are a can of worms as far as discussion topics go. Various arguments have been made for the legitimacy of sex between people below whatever age of consent is in force, and between people who are older-than and people who are younger-than the specified age of consent. People tend to go ballistic over the idea that over-25 and under-16 people could have sex that was not crudely exploitative. Drag in North American Man Boy Love Association, and you'll have a riot on your hands.

My view is that lots of arrangements aside from the one we have ARE POSSIBLE, but would require pretty large changes in our sexual behavior from childhood up.

I've forgotten the details, but I read an anthropological study of a tribal group where sexual contact between persons in the tribe were acceptable from childhood on up. Children tended to have sexual contact with children, adolescents with adolescents, adults with adults. The upshot was that children, adolescents, and adults had pretty clear ideas about what sex was like, what were reasonable expectations of a partner, and so on.

Our society does its best to hinder free and open sexual experimentation among children and adolescents, and sex is maintained more on a scarcity basis than on a free and plentiful basis. We are not ready, even remotely, to emulate the open sexual habits of the tribe described above. It would be like letting a starving crowd into a grocery: instant destructive chaos.

Well, I'm glad @Bitter Crank has put a first toe out of line as I'd be reluctant to be the only gainsayer in such a contentious topic, but a lot of my work in psychology has been with adolescents and the idea that they don't fully understand consent below 15 is frankly laughable. I knew plenty of young people in my career who could run rings round half the posters here in any ethical argument.

I think it's frankly disingenuous to pretend the imposition of any of these kinds of restrictions is anything other than adults imposing their particular view of the way things should be on a demographic too disempowered to do anything about it. Adolescents are the only group left who still suffer taxation without representation... you know, the right revolutions have been fought over.

What we should be doing is empowering young people to make their own decisions. We should be encouraging their latent abilities to make rational, informed choices, supportively creating an environment where "no" means no, not telling them they're too stupid to decidewhat they do with their own bodies, too gullible to be trusted with anyone other than their own peers.

I would perhaps have more sympathy for the intentions of the lawmakers if they weren't the same group condoning placing children in isolation rooms for having the wrong haircut. It's hard to see they've got the child's best interests at heart. A lot of the legislation around children is more aimed at getting them to conform than it is about their protection.

The text also opined that if 13-year-old girls in France had the right to receive the pill, then they also should be able to consent.
A bit of a non sequitur from the op's link.

Before pontificating about the invariable capacities of adolescents, have a little look at the kind of shit that goes down. — wiki

... not telling them they're too stupid to decidewhat they do with their own bodies ... — Isaac

Well, in my impression young girls actually are indeed too stupid for that. Furthermore, they get badly manipulated by school and media into doing things that they will bitterly regret later on.

In a situation where men have seventeen times more testosterone in their bodies than women, access to sex is a traded by women in exchange for something they want. Ultimately, they will end up wanting commitment. However, if the girl has given out sex to previous men without requiring their commitment, then the next one will use that fact to demand commitment-free sex too ("Why all of them and not me?"). Therefore, as soon as they have sex with one man, it becomes increasingly difficult to demand commitment in return. That phenomenon is known as hopping from cock to cock on the cock carousel. Commitment-free sex is an ambush for young girls.

If a girl wants to get anything valuable or even meaningful out of sex, she will have to withhold it until she can somehow land a good deal. Unfortunately, she will have to do that at a time when she is too young to know how to do that. So, without parents and family assisting her, she will generally not be able to land a good deal but end up on the cock carousel instead.

Furthermore, cock-carousel veterans mostly end up single and alone in their late thirties, with three or four decades of solitude ahead of them. They live off antidepressants and alcohol, typically in that order.

If I linked to a description of sex trafficking rings and debt-prostitution rackets with adult women would that suggest we should make it illegal for women to have sex too?

Well, if you have any evidence whatsoever for any of that, it would certainly make an interesting read.

In a situation where men have seventeen times more testosterone in their bodies than women, access to sex is a traded by women in exchange for something they want.

...

If a girl wants to get anything valuable or even meaningful out of sex, she will have to withhold it until she can somehow land a good deal. — alcontali

You have a strange view of women's sexuality. They can enjoy it for its own sake just as men can.

It would suggest that there are problems with sexual behaviour, and that we should make some rules and try and enforce them. There is a tradition derived from biology that the young need extra protection in various ways, including legal protection, and protection from adults and their own folly. The law has to set an arbitrary limit to this extra protection. An intelligent and compassionate legal system will negotiate this arbitrary limit with nuanced interpretation.

Your question is a bit of a feeble rhetorical gimmick, when there are extremely serious issues to be considered, as my link was intended to highlight.

Well, if you have any evidence whatsoever for any of that, it would certainly make an interesting read. — Isaac

There is a lot of literature about the "cock carousel". Google search has a lot of hits: https://www.google.com/search?q=cock+carousel . There are also other search terms that are more neutral and that will yield similar literature.

The main issue in this subject is that experimentally testing anything is not possible.

It is like experimentally testing that hiv causes aids. You see, it is absolutely possible to inject 1024 individuals with the hiv virus, check out what happens next, and then faithfully record what you have seen. It can obviously be done, even trivially, but they will either not do it, or else, they will do it, but not publish the test report. Truly scientific evidence is most likely illegal.

It is also possible to collect all kinds of numbers, and to speculate about why these numbers are the way they are, but that practice is not a legitimate substitute for experimental testing. This kind of questions do not belong to the scientific epistemic domain. This kind of questions is out of reach of any knowledge-justification method. In that sense, you are simply meant to believe what you want to believe about it.

You have a strange view of women's sexuality. They can enjoy it for its own sake just as men can. — Michael

With 17 times less testosterone in their blood, women obviously do have a different sexuality. It is incomparable, actually. Their sexuality is obviously less "urgent", while potential consequences are much more serious. Therefore, the idea that there would be no difference between male and female sexuality amounts to ignoring pretty much the essence of the matter.

It's clear you haven't the faintest idea of what you're talking about.

There is a tradition derived from biology that the young need extra protection in various ways, including legal protection, and protection from adults and their own folly. — unenlightened

Really, what 'biology' would this be?

Your question is a bit of a feeble rhetorical gimmick, when there are extremely serious issues to be considered, as my link was intended to highlight. — unenlightened

I can assure you that I take the attempt to suppress the autonomy of an entire demographic on spurious 'biological' grounds very seriously indeed. As should anyone with any experience of the kind of bullshit that was spewed out to defend the oppression of women on the same 'biological' grounds. There are some appalling things done to children, as there are to adults. We respond by making the appalling thing illegal. We do not respond by removing the autonomy of an entire swathe of the population over their own bodies, just as a precaution.

There are some appalling things done to children, as there are to adults. We respond by making the appalling thing illegal. We do not respond by removing the autonomy of an entire swathe of the population over their own bodies, just as a precaution. — Isaac

Well actually we do both. The biology is that humans are born helpless and remain vulnerable and inarticulate for some time. They have a very limited autonomy such that they cannot survive without help. This also goes for almost all adults in almost all circumstances incidentally, but to a lesser extreme. The induction into our complex society, that we call education also takes some time and is also a survival requirement.

Your outrage is spurious - children need protection and are not autonomous.

It's clear you haven't the faintest idea of what you're talking about. — Artemis

I already explained the epistemic conundrum surrounding this type of questions. It is obvious that, in classical epistemic terms, everybody is merely conjecturing on the matter.

In absence of formal knowledge-justification methods, we can still fall back, however, on traditional transmission of knowledge. Why do primitive tribes know that a particular type of fruit is poisonous? Well, because their elders transmitted that to them, who got it from their own elders, ad nauseam.

The traditional view, as transmitted for millennia (as far as can be checked), on premarital sex, i.e. the "cock carousel", is very, very negative. I can confirm with you that here in SE Asia, most people consider that practice to be avoided at all cost. People living at over ten thousand miles from each other, independently from each other, transmitted that view for thousands of years.

With so many questions epistemically undecidable, I believe that the traditional transmission methods of knowledge are seriously underrated. In the end, these cultures survived for thousands of years, if not longer, while there is no reason to believe that modern western decadence will last even for just one more century. I think that it will be game over long before that.

I already explained the epistemic conundrum surrounding this type of questions. It is obvious that, in classical epistemic terms, everybody is merely conjecturing on the matter.

In absence of formal knowledge-justification methods, we can still fall back, however, on traditional transmission of knowledge. Why do primitive tribes know that a particular type of fruit is poisonous? Well, because their elders transmitted that to them, who got it from their own elders, ad nauseam. — alcontali

I'm confused by this. Are you saying that we have no means to learn about the sexual behaviour and attitudes of women (or men?) and so much accept what we've been taught?

I don't even know where to start responding to that. :brow:

Well actually we do both. — unenlightened

No - we don't, that's the point. We do not do both with any other section of the community, so I'm asking you why it's OK with adolescents. It's not OK to protect women from rape by making them dress more demurely. It's not OK to protect blacks from racial violence at football games by telling them not to go. So why is it OK to protect adolescents from predatory sexual activity by telling them not to have any sex at all?

You've not provided any evidence at all that children need the level of control we exert over them. The mere fact that "humans are born helpless and remain vulnerable and inarticulate for some time." has no bearing whatsoever on the matter of when an adolescent can freely choose who to have sex with without fear of legal reprisals. Nor, for that matter on the long list of other stuff we restrict them from doing.

Babies need 100% care (they don't get it most of the time, being dumped in cots and left to cry themselves to sleep, but apparently we don't give a shit about that). As babies grow up, they need less care and control until they reach 25 when the brain seems to finally settle down. The mere existence of a scale of care doesn't automatically justify any intervention we decide to make, it must be proportionate to the care required so as not to treat autonomy without due importance.

Ages of consent vary dramatically throughout the world from 11 to 18. There is no conclusive evidence in the psychological literature that this makes any difference at all to children's welfare. So we justify telling 15 year olds what to do with their own body how exactly?

already explained the epistemic conundrum surrounding this type of questions. It is obvious that, in classical epistemic terms, everybody is merely conjecturing on the matter — alcontali

There's actually a quite simple solution: take a woman's word for it.

Adolescents are the only group left who still suffer taxation without representation... you know, the right revolutions have been fought over. — Isaac

Anyone who lacks the capacity to vote will be taxed without representation, which would include children, the intellectually disabled, certain emotionally disabled people, and then there are those who have lost their right to vote, as in felons. It's not just an attack on children, but it's based upon the principle that those lacking the competence to make decisions be restrained from making decisions.,

What we should be doing is empowering young people to make their own decisions. We should be encouraging their latent abilities to make rational, informed choices, supportively creating an environment where "no" means no, not telling them they're too stupid to decidewhat they do with their own bodies, too gullible to be trusted with anyone other than their own peers. — Isaac

All you're saying here is that you believe that those minors who are capable of making rational decisions be empowered to make them, which is simply to argue that you believe the current standards limiting sexual consent are too restrictive. This is not a departure from the status quo, except that you're asking for a reduction in the age of consent, or perhaps allowing decisions on a more case by case basis. I say that because I'm assuming you're not suggesting 3 year olds be empowered to consent to sexual activity with their parents. One hopes there is a boundary to your position, even if you do maintain some concerns that the 3 year olds will begin dumping tea in the harbor in protest.

As a society we must create rules to protect our vulnerable citizens, and how we do that will necessarily be arbitrary and imprecise to some degree. If we're going to prohibit sexual activity between minors and adults, what is a legislature to do? Does it make a law that errs on the side of caution and make the age of consent high, or does it err on the side of freedom of expression and make the age of consent low? It seems different states see things differently, but there is a rationality either way. If you want to allow judges to decide on a case by case basis, do you truly believe we have enough Solomon like judges to make consistently good decisions?

Assuming we agree upon the laudable goal of protecting children, which I hope we do, I'd suggest an approach better than offering children advice on how to best decide whether to have sex with adults, is that we advise adults of the risks they are likely imposing on children by becoming sexually involved with them and we further advise them of the consequences of exposing these children to those risks. The risks of such sexual involvement to the children are well documented, as survivors of such abuse are left with a myriad of relationship and sexual issues. The risks to the adults, of course, involve significant prison time, which one would hope would be an adequate deterrent. As a society, we no doubt imprison too many people generally, but to the extent we need to build more prisons, it should be for those who abuse children. For those folks I fear we have not enough beds.

Much of this is to say that the laws do not regulate children; they regulate adults. I ask you as an adult not why children should be permitted to have sex with adults, but why you wish for there to be a greater right for adults to have sex with children? What is it that you, not the children, are suffering from?

@alcontali The "cock carousel" is a sexist and misogynist meme. Note that sexists aren't welcome here and will be banned.

"If you’ve spent any time at all observing misogynists online, you are no doubt familiar with the concept of the “cock carousel” — a vaguely poetic way of referring to the allegedly vast number of men that the average woman is said to have sex with in her “prime,” from the moment she first starts having sex in her teens up until she “hits the wall” somewhere between age 25 and 30, immediately rendering her too old and ugly to be appealing to most men. (Allegedly.)

Since the myth of the cock carousel is such a key component of the ideology of the so-called manosphere, I thought I’d devote a post to tearing it down completely."

http://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/2018/11/13/why-the-cock-carousel-is-bullshit-according-to-science/

I'm confused by this. Are you saying that we have no means to learn about the sexual behaviour and attitudes of women (or men?) and so much accept what we've been taught? — Michael

The three main, accredited knowledge-justification methods are:

• axiomatic (logic)
• scientific (experimental testing)
• historical (witness-deposition corroboration of alleged facts)

As soon as you stray from those, your justification will be attacked and rejected on those grounds alone. Only few conclusions on the subject of sexuality can be reached by experimental testing. In my impression, most propositions in the subject will be conjectural. You can still try, but it is a hornet's nest.

You have the notorious example of Sigmund Freud and especially Alfred Adler whom Karl Popper so unceremoniously slags off in Science as Falsification:

Once, in 1919, I reported to him [Adler] a case which to me did not seem particularly Adlerian, but which he found no difficulty in analyzing in terms of his theory of inferiority feelings, Although he had not even seen the child. Slightly shocked, I asked him how he could be so sure. "Because of my thousandfold experience," he replied; whereupon I could not help saying: "And with this new case, I suppose, your experience has become thousand-and-one-fold."

The three main, accredited knowledge-justification methods are:
axiomatic (logic)
scientific (experimental testing)
historical (witness-deposition corroboration of alleged facts) — alcontali

And as @Artemis has said, you can ask women their reasons for having sex.

a vaguely poetic way of referring to the allegedly vast number of men that the average woman is said to have sex with in her “prime,” — Baden

This is a really weird thing for them to say, as if it's mathematically possible for women to have a greater average number of male partners than men having female partners (given the roughly 50:50 ratio of men to women).

The most straightforward way to decide this is to ask which the greater social evil is, that adolescents and those who would have sex with them for whatever reason be denied those opportunities, or that children, who are less mature and more prone to being manipulated— especially by adults—be unprotected from potentially damaging early sexual experiences.

I don't see any compelling reason why the former evil should outweigh the latter. First do no harm and so on.

(i.e I agree with @Hanover and @unenlightened).

It's theoretically possible given the one-sided time qualification "in her prime", but regardless of logical considerations, it's of course, empirically, nonsense.

it's based upon the principle that those lacking the competence to make decisions be restrained from making decisions. — Hanover

No it isn't, otherwise they'd be a competency test to entitle one to vote. There is an estimation of competency made in some case, but not in the case of adolescents. 16 year olds are allowed to vote in Scotland but not in England. Are Scottish teenagers more competent than the English? No. Is Scotland collapsing under the strain of so much incompetent voting behaviour? No. So why are English 16 year olds not allowed to vote. Its not competency is it?

As a society we must create rules to protect our vulnerable citizens, and how we do that will necessarily be arbitrary and imprecise to some degree. If we're going to prohibit sexual activity between minors and adults, what is a legislature to do? Does it make a law that errs on the side of caution and make the age of consent high, or does it err on the side of freedom of expression and make the age of consent low? — Hanover

It really is not that complicated. There already exist countries in which the age of consent is 14. Are those countries collapsing under the burden of psychologically damaged teenagers? No. So when a country chooses 18 its not doing so on the basis of the child's welfare is it. It is evident from entire countries like Germany, Italy, Portugal etc that no endemic problems result from this, so states in America where it is set at 18 can't claim to be 'erring' on any side, its not guesswork, we have whole sections of Western Europe proving it's fine.

The risks of such sexual involvement to the children are well documented, as survivors of such abuse are left with a myriad of relationship and sexual issues. — Hanover

So the whole of Germany, Italy and Portugal are overrun with damaged teenagers, I'm surprised no thing's turned up in the literature.

to the extent we need to build more prisons, it should be for those who abuse children. For those folks I fear we have not enough beds. — Hanover

I agree entirely, but I fear my definition of abuse would not be the same as yours. I tend to include such trivial matters as detention without trial, isolation, assault, psychological abuse and forced labour. All of which are simply considered fine below 16 in most countries.

Much of this is to say that the laws do not regulate children; they regulate adults. — Hanover

This is just more of the same patronising stuff. Of course the laws regulate children. There are two partners in a sexual relationship and few people are so callous as to just take whatever they want so long as the consequences fall on someone else, particularly if that someone else is their sexual partner.