Prostitution

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Originally Posted by Jag_Warrior

Sorry if my objection to adult/child sexual relations seems puritanical to you. But it is what it is. Maybe it's a cultural thing. I don't know. But here in the U.S. (outside of certain fundamentalist religious cults), you probably won't find too many people who find such relationships acceptable - especially those involving teachers. And say, why did you stop at 16? Why not 12 or 13, or even 11 - or is that what you meant by "no age limit"? I personally find that rather disturbing. As you seem to be defining "consent" here, anyone who can speak can say "yes" or "no", correct? So as long as the minor is physically capable, why not let that be the deciding factor? So a 40 year old man and a 14 year old girl... Let Love Rule (good Lenny Kravitz tune, BTW), you'd say? No, the primal desires of either party aside, that just doesn't fly with me.

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While I much respect your view and can totally understand why you hold it, I can't help but ask — what actual, practical good do the current laws do? As you say, these are primal desires we're talking about, and they can't just be legislated away.

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Originally Posted by Jag_Warrior

I'm not against two teens or two near teens forming a relationship. But a 30 or 40 year old and a 12-16 year old???

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Again, you make a very reasonable point. Thankfully, though, social norms and other factors mean that the numbers of such people desiring, let alone entering into, such relationships are few and far between.

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Originally Posted by Jag_Warrior

Sorry if my objection to adult/child sexual relations seems puritanical to you. But it is what it is. Maybe it's a cultural thing. I don't know. But here in the U.S. (outside of certain fundamentalist religious cults), you probably won't find too many people who find such relationships acceptable - especially those involving teachers. And say, why did you stop at 16? Why not 12 or 13, or even 11 - or is that what you meant by "no age limit"? I personally find that rather disturbing. As you seem to be defining "consent" here, anyone who can speak can say "yes" or "no", correct? So as long as the minor is physically capable, why not let that be the deciding factor? So a 40 year old man and a 14 year old girl... Let Love Rule (good Lenny Kravitz tune, BTW), you'd say? No, the primal desires of either party aside, that just doesn't fly with me.

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There is a good reason why I used 16, it is because:

1. 16 year old, unless mentally impaired, can take care of themselves
2. 16 year old people are legally responsible for their own actions, for example they have the right to drive a car which IMHO has a higher responsibility and risk associated with it than having fun with an older person. Over here they even have the right to take part in national and local elections.
3. I remember how it was when I was 16 and I think that if I was judged mature enough to be allowed to work, to pay taxes, to drive a car and to elect politicians then I also have the right to do what I feel right for my sexual satisfaction

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Originally Posted by Jag_Warrior

As you seem to be defining "consent" here, anyone who can speak can say "yes" or "no", correct? So as long as the minor is physically capable, why not let that be the deciding factor? So a 40 year old man and a 14 year old girl... Let Love Rule (good Lenny Kravitz tune, BTW), you'd say? No, the primal desires of either party aside, that just doesn't fly with me.

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Not sure why you keep binging up the 14 year age, I don't remember having them included in my previous posts, for good reasons.

Say why don't we make that minimum age 30? This way the chances for puritans to throw a hissy fit will be reduced by about 40%.

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Originally Posted by ioan

I remember how it was when I was 16 and I think that if I was judged mature enough to be allowed to work, to pay taxes, to drive a car and to elect politicians then I also have the right to do what I feel right for my sexual satisfaction

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Where were you living when you were 16? In Romania you couldn't drive a car ( I mean on a public road ) or elect politicians before you were 18.

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Originally Posted by BDunnell

While I much respect your view and can totally understand why you hold it, I can't help but ask — what actual, practical good do the current laws do? As you say, these are primal desires we're talking about, and they can't just be legislated away.

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True, a primal desire can't be legislated away or limited. No "desire" can be legislated away or limited. It's the action following the desire which the legislation would seek to limit. Most people live within the social norms of their society, and such relationships wouldn't interest them anyway. The target would be those people outside of the norm (male or female) who, for whatever reason, aren't able to form normal relationships with people their own age, and seek out minors/adolescents. As I said, in most states in this country, if the intentions of that adult are sincere (and not just a pleasure game), one can approach the parent(s), and a relationship can legally ensue with a child meeting a certain minimum age, though still a minor. But the fact that these teachers and others typically try to "train" the child to keep a secret says that they know their actions are illegal, if not morally wrong.

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Originally Posted by ioan

There is a good reason why I used 16, it is because:

1. 16 year old, unless mentally impaired, can take care of themselves
2. 16 year old people are legally responsible for their own actions, for example they have the right to drive a car which IMHO has a higher responsibility and risk associated with it than having fun with an older person. Over here they even have the right to take part in national and local elections.
3. I remember how it was when I was 16 and I think that if I was judged mature enough to be allowed to work, to pay taxes, to drive a car and to elect politicians then I also have the right to do what I feel right for my sexual satisfaction

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You post these items as if they are universal truths, and they are not. They're generalizations and anecdotals. Even here in the U.S., each state has differing laws regarding age of consent. But you also seem to be following puritanical logic here. You've simply chosen the arbitrary age of 16 instead of 18. All you're doing with the above items is arguing for the universal (?) age of consent to be 16. Someone else could do the exact same thing, use the exact same arguments, and have the age as 15. I was driving a vehicle (on my dad's farm) when I was about 10. I made my first business transaction when I was about 11. So why not split the difference and make the age of consent 13? Whatever age is chosen, it is going to be rather arbitrary no matter how you look at it. Different people mature at different rates. So no particular age is going to work for everyone. And to use hyperbolic pejoratives (puritan, pedo, etc.) for ages that don't agree with your view is rather silly, IMO.

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Originally Posted by ioan

Not sure why you keep binging up the 14 year age, I don't remember having them included in my previous posts, for good reasons.

Say why don't we make that minimum age 30? This way the chances for puritans to throw a hissy fit will be reduced by about 40%.

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I'm not trying to twist your words or misquote you. But as you posted this, I wasn't entirely sure what you meant... or if you really meant this in the way that it was written. So that I better understand your point, what did you mean by "... there is no age limiting the sexual attraction that two human beings can feel"??? That is why I included other (lower) ages. If there is no age limit (in your view), then "why stop at 16?", is my question.

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Originally Posted by ioan

You might not be a puritan but you're posting like one.

If someone over 30 has consented sexual relationship with someone aged 16, 17, 18 etc it's their bloody business and there is no age limiting the sexual attraction that two human beings can feel.

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Again, my view is, whatever age of consent the citizens and lawmakers of a particular state want to choose, arbitrary though it may be, some sort of statutory limit MUST be in place. Otherwise you would have certain types of adults trolling playgrounds (with bags of candy) as they look for "dates". And the socially awkward American female teachers who think that they should be allowed to "date" their minor male students, they are more than free to leave here and go teach in your country. They'll wind up in jail here. And that's not going to change. Sounds like they'll be welcome in your country. Have at 'em! :wave:

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Originally Posted by Jag_Warrior

You post these items as if they are universal truths, and they are not. They're generalizations and anecdotals. Even here in the U.S., each state has differing laws regarding age of consent. But you also seem to be following puritanical logic here. You've simply chosen the arbitrary age of 16 instead of 18.

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There's life outside the US too and in Europe the age of 16 is not anecdotal, it is enforced by law because such things have to be regulated in order to avoid abuse.
Now you are just grasping at straws to defend a view that many of us do not share, and dare I say it is hypocritical as you did admit yourself that you have no children and probably never will.
I think that it would be useless to continue running circles especially as I already made my position clear.

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Originally Posted by ioan

There's life outside the US too and in Europe the age of 16 is not anecdotal, it is enforced by law because such things have to be regulated in order to avoid abuse.
Now you are just grasping at straws to defend a view that many of us do not share, and dare I say it is hypocritical as you did admit yourself that you have no children and probably never will.
I think that it would be useless to continue running circles especially as I already made my position clear.

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A quick search will show that Europe and for that matter much of the world has different ages that are the legal age of consent. Just as with the US they often have exceptions for certain circumstances.

Personally I would think regardless of law that any person more than a few years older than a 16 year old is indeed a sick individual if they think that 16 year old is not easily influenced, and to me it would be a situation of taking advantage of a person most likely not as capable of making "adult" decisions.

We all know that many if not most countries have a variety of flawed laws, yet law seems to be the basis for your view. According to what I found the age of consent in Spain is 13 unless deceit or mental deficit is involved. If you had a 13 year old daughter in Spain and a 30 year old man was attempting to get her in bed do you claim you would be fine with that?

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Originally Posted by airshifter

A quick search will show that Europe and for that matter much of the world has different ages that are the legal age of consent. Just as with the US they often have exceptions for certain circumstances.

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Indeed. The age of consent in Europe varies widely and this varies even more once you look at the whole world.

In Britain the age of consent is 16 but for medical treatment doctors can take consent from a much younger age after a precedence case about 20 years ago provided they believe that the minor is capable of processing complex information and making a rational decision. For sex 16 is a hard limit legally but there is considerable freedom for both the Crown Prosecution Service and judges to choose either not to prosecute or to limit the level of punishment for those involved depending on the circumstances. There is a good deal of hypocrisy around this, recently the Home Minister Ken Clarke got a lot of public criticism for stating the obvious, that a guy raping a woman at knife point is not the same as a 17 year old having sex with a 15 year old within a relationship and punishments should be and are proportionate under the current system as it stands. This is still very much a taboo subject politically.

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Originally Posted by airshifter

Personally I would think regardless of law that any person more than a few years older than a 16 year old is indeed a sick individual if they think that 16 year old is not easily influenced, and to me it would be a situation of taking advantage of a person most likely not as capable of making "adult" decisions.

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There are plenty of people over 30 years old who can be easily influenced, as well as there are people who are 16 years old who know very well what they want. So what should we do? Move the age of consent to 40 or more, and age where most people might have lived enough to understand the world?

Most countries go for 16 years as age of consent and have legal means in place to abrogate that right for people who are deemed not to be able to make a decision themselves (mostly for aged people who lost contact with reality).

IMO people make mistakes all the time, no matter the age, the smart ones will learn from other people's mistakes, the less smart will learn from their own mistakes and the dumb ones will never learn no matter what, it's how it works it always was and it will always be.
Trying to protect people from themselves is stupid and counterproductive in that it will result in people who will never learn from mistakes and even worse will never learn to take responsibility for their actions.
Just my opinion.