A lot of people, or rather select individuals, seem to be very confused by what I mean when I say I am against age of consent laws, so I’ll let this person explain.
Long story short, four ideas are essentially perpetuated here; the boogeyman of the pedophile, statist invasion, adherence to the status quo, and minors don’t have rights.
You’re making things a bit difficult for me here. Anyway, I might have more confidence in this piece, if the writer of it was capable of proper spelling and grammar.
There is so much the author of this piece fails to mention and it is hard to see as much more than a rant.
What is their view on Romeo and Juliet Laws?
What about ten year age buffers with judicial discretion in states like California?
What about the fact that the most common age of consent in the world is 16?
What anarchist frameworks is it they wish to put in place?
What alternatives to the “nuclear family” do they wish to put in place?
Abolish is vague and not much better than the slogan “Defund the Police”. It doesn’t tell me anything. Do they mean this literally?
There are many alternatives which are in place which address / partially address some of their concerns and are far less controversial. For instance, the United Kingdom decided 16, with caveats regarding figures in positions of authority, was the proper balance to strike regarding this. This allowed them to minimize the harms and set a lower age of consent than it would otherwise be.
American AoC laws always strike me as being incredibly weird.
Here in the UK the AoC is 16, so a 16 year old can legally have sex with a 30/40/50 year old, for example (people don’t have to like it, but it is legal); but in the U.S. it’s like: “In this state it’s 17, but there’s extra terms and conditions applied to it!” (Like being around the same age.)
Literally no other country does this afaik.
And then you’ve got states where it’s 16/17, but if a person - let’s say a 17y/o - moves to another state where it’s 18 and they’re just under that it makes even less sense since in one instance they’re deemed mature enough to make that decision, then suddenly they’re not.
Personally I’ve always felt that AoC laws need one global worldwide standard. (Probably 18.)
Ah, whataboutism; a classic!
Without a concrete proposal, particularly a framework which acts to avoid abuse, these ideas aren’t worth the bytes used to store them. Idealist views of wouldn’t this be nice are little more than a daydream.
You can’t criminalize your way out of crime.
You can’t prevent your way out of crime.
You can’t liberate your way out of crime.
You can’t pray your way out of crime.
You can’t educate your way out of crime.
You can do your darndest to try, but there are realistic constraints to each model.
PIE had advocacy for “liberation” type approaches in the United Kingdom. Their libertarian allies balked at the idea of reducing it to their ridiculous wishes, but compromised around 12? 13? This became a wash when real world cases of abuses started to trickle in, and society realized that “liberation” was a flawed endeavor.
If you don’t have realistic ideas, other than, let everyone do whatever they want, I’ll conclude this thread doesn’t have anything meaningful to add to the existing body of discourse. The enthusiastic push towards “liberation” and the negative associations from that entrenched attitudes against meaningful age of consent reforms for decades.
In the end, teenagers have paid for this by having consensual relationships with peers criminalized, and even sexting with peers.
I’ll draw a comparison.
We could bring back child labor.
Children have the right to be able to make money and buy whatever they please. They should be able to live their lives as they see fit, drink booze, and drive a car. This is a similar idea without focusing on the very specific sexual aspect. Some countries like China allow teenagers to drink alcohol, but most Western cultures do not.
Restrictions are usually there for a reason. To reduce risk to a vulnerable group. It isn’t put there for fun by some tyrannical authoritarian.
It is important to curb pointless restrictions, and incursions onto liberties. But, by saying some may benefit from it, would be like leaving half your house burning and chilling in the other as if nothing is happening. It takes a very individualistic view on things.
America is sex negative and has too many restrictions. There are realistic ways to offset that.
America is too punitive on crimes. There are realistic ways to offset that.
Is the idea to effectively move down the age of majority?
This sort of wishful thinking is as bad as communism. Communism relies heavily on “wouldn’t this be nice?”.
children can never consent to sex it’s very simple u are just a predator
I’m more of the opinion he is an internet troll.
I’m not comfortable with this topic, but I will say that AoC laws are valid and deserve to be preserved. Minors below the age of 18 are not able to reasonably consent to sexual conduct with persons who are their senior, it’s for their protection.
Why 18? 16 is much more common and seems to work fine. Why is 18 better than 16 or vice versa? Both are relatively meaningless choices, what happens at that specific age? I feel 16 is a better fit but I don’t really have strong feelings against it being 18 as long as there are proper exceptions in place. (I’m not really arguing at all just bringing up the question of why we choose one specific age over another)
I personally disagree with this principle. I see the age of consent as not really being about consent, and more as a preventative means to protect those more easily exploited.
Well that’s also the main point. I do support 18 as the age of consent because the degree of physical and mental maturity between a 16 year old and an 18 year old is as apparent as between a 14 and 16 year old. 2 years makes a big difference in that respect.
Sure, it has been inconsistent from country to country, but it’s a good idea. All the more reason to standardize it, in my opinion. I don’t think it’s in the best interest of a teenager to be able to have carnal relations with an adult.
Not really. Whatever the age of consent is for the state, it’s legal for anyone over that age to have any consensual sex with them. The “extra terms and conditions” are for certain cases involving someone under the age of consent, i.e. 15 is under the AoC, but a 15 and 17 year old isn’t automatically statutory rape.
Even if you were someone who thought teenagers shouldn’t be having sex with each other, do you really want the police getting involved in this business? It could destroy their lives forever. It’s a very complicated problem.
Someone flagged this thread, but I’m going to allow it. However, for the benefit of the antis whom we know watch this forum, I’ll just underline the obvious point that Prostasia does not support the elimination of the age of consent. The only age of consent reforms that we support are those that would reduce the criminalization of young people for age-appropriate relationships with peers. Here is a post in which we covered this topic.