Originally published at: A primer on consent - Prostasia Foundation
For younger adults, exploring dating and sexuality can quickly turn dangerous without the benefit of comprehensive sex education that includes consent. Because consent is largely skipped over in schools, and debates around the topic in public discourse aren’t always well-informed, many people enter their early adulthood not knowing their rights to bodily autonomy and how…
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I have to say I totally disagree with prostasia this time.
For starters this thing about power imbalance is not something about young vs old, is something about human vs human. And I guess someone probably will use the probability argument here. And for that, I have to say that statistically speaking is easier than a young person getting a traumatic experience with the relationship with another young person than with an older one.
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I’ve always found the phrase “come back when your 18” very odd personally especially when you are to some degree familiar with that person.
It almost becomes a sort of Ship of Theseus situation where instead of determining at which plank replaced does the ship cease to be the original, you are instead looking at what point in time does this person that you’ve known flip from being incapable of making informed decisions, to being very much capable of doing so.
I think 18 is a good number in that feels pretty reasonable, and codifying it into law relieves us of the above mental burden by simply allowing us to assume that the latter is the case. Is it dogmatic? Yes. But I think it’s a necessary dogma given the realities of our modern world.
I can see why a set age is important, but it no doubt causes mass hysteria as well. Many people attribute it magical capabilities, so much so that a 19 year old dating a 16-17 year old is somehow abuse (Carlson).
It’s awfully dishonest and the same people wouldn’t mind having a “challenged” 18 year old, because hey she is 18.
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