There is a point at which you have to give people the freedom to make that choice for themselves. The question is at what age to you draw that line. I think you’ll get a lot more people on board with setting it at 17 or 18 than 16, but maybe I’m wrong. Ultimately we’re asking: When does a child become an adult? Societies have struggled to answer that question for millennia. If there was an easy test for it (like they can commit a crime), the question would have been settled long ago.
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[quote=“GulliverFoyle, post:82, topic:78234”]
The question is at what age to you draw that line.[/quote]
I believe the question is, why does there have to be a “line” (beyond puberty), which prevents us from judging every situation based on the facts and individuals involved? Maybe puberty is that line, and every case occurring in adolescence is dealt with according to the particular circumstances?
But that’s hardly a reasonable criteria. In some places the age would be 21, in others, 12. This is the problem with a “line.”
I’m not sure if that’s the ultimate question, especially since we’ve determined that adolescence is that mysterious place between childhood and adulthood.
And while I completely agree that there are no easy tests, I feel very, very strongly that the idea of putting someone in prison merely for having consensual sex with an adolescent is impractical and cruel.
Then what happens to equality under the law? How is it fair to make every sexual encounter a game of Russian roulette?
Puberty is merely biological maturity, and does not occur overnight. Biological maturity does not seem like a good line for judging the maturity to navigate the world of adult manipulation.
It’s not mysterious, just a continuum. Laws, however, require clear boundaries. Sometimes that means you socially construct them through consensus.
Unless they are near in age, I quite disagree. I think exploiting another person’s lack of experience is a serious transgression that demonstrates sexual predation.
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16 goes into 49 more than three times.
(Though the first time was probably over pretty quick.)
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I don’t understand how judging every situation on its own merits equals “Russian roulette.” This is, in my opinion, hyperbolic fear-mongering. Old people have been having positive, healthy, consensual sex with younger, less experienced people since forever. While not common, this is simply an objective fact.
There are many, many “biologically mature” people who lack the maturity to navigate the world of adult manipulation. Should all people over the age of 80 be treated like they can’t navigate the world of adult manipulation, since they’re more vulnerable to fraud of all kinds? Should a 25 year old go to prison for having sex with a 35 year old person with Down Syndrome?
Treating all people under one, arbitrarily chosen, particular age as if they have the same level of maturity is simply unjust.
That means that the laws in Pakistan allowing 12 year old girls to be married to old men are as just as U.S. laws which put teens in jail for sexting each other. “Socially constructed” laws have a long history of being arbitrary and cruel.
You will never reach a consensus on how old an adolescent should be before you can have sex with them without fear of going to prison. And one problem the U.S. doesn’t have is “not enough people in prison.”
This a very subjective opinion. Laws shouldn’t be based on subjective opinions, but rather on clear, objective evidence of harm. A society that imprisons people for having the “wrong” kind of consensual sex - based on subjective, unscientific opinions - is an authoritarian, illiberal society.
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Not knowing if you will later be deemed to have broken the law when a judge or jury decides whether the person you had sex with was able to give consent basically amounts to making up the law after the fact, in my opinion. Not only is that unjust, ex post facto laws violate Section 9 of the US Constitution.
I think applying different laws to different people based on their perceived maturity is unjust.
I didn’t say all laws were just. I said they are social constructs. That’s not an opinion, merely an observation of what the law is.
That seems an odd thing to say. People reach consensus on things they disagree on all the time. Consensus requires compromise. Otherwise it’s just fiat.
Well, as I said, I’m personally in favor of a legal regime that would put less people in jail, on sex offender registries and so forth. What I’m not in favor of is the United States’ patchwork of differing state laws in the link I posted above. Here it is again.
That discussion was had earlier. As I said, I favor scientific studies to determine a reasonable nationwide age of consent.
Harm is also subjective.
Adults yes, children no. There is a fundamental difference between children and adults. Adults are citizens and should therefore be accorded all the rights, privileges, responsibilities and risks of citizenship. Children are citizens-in-waiting. Every society in history has recognized that there is an age before which it is unwise to extend to children the same sexual freedom as adults. To call all of those societies authoritarian and illiberal for doing so is to render those terms meaningless. The differences have been the standards for adulthood. I’m fine with that; there’s nothing wrong with it, no one right answer. But pretending a sexual relationship between a child and an adult is the same as one between consenting adults is simply unrealistic.
And yes, laws will be guided by opinions and compromise. A rational society will strongly consider scientific studies. But science is not morality. The universe has no inherent value system. At some point societies and their lawmakers must decide what values to represent, how to balance liberties, what is harm and how far to go in protecting who from that harm. Science is an essential tool in lawmaking; it is not by itself sufficient.
What I find a bit odd about your positions is that you seem to be treating adolescents as just smaller adults (and I’m sorry in advance if I’ve misunderstood your stance) when they are not yet that.
As to protecting adults with mental disabilities from exploitation from other adults, while I’m not convinced there is never a time when that is true - someone on prescribed mind-altering medication might not be for a time in a frame of mind to give meaningful consent - we must be far more careful about circumscribing the rights of adults to consent than children. Childhood is a point in time along a continuum, arbitrarily defined as legal terms of art for freedoms such as consent, driving, drinking, conscription, voting, ect…but nonetheless a condition that ends in adulthood. To limit their freedoms is a necessary and temporary condition to prepare them for a condition of sharing the same freedoms as adults. To limit the freedoms of adults in an unequal manner is far more perilous and, to use your own terms, authoritarian and illiberal.
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Older people have predated on younger people sexually since forever as well, this is simply an objective fact. For every “healthy” relationship, there are probably 10 or 20 skeevy grandpas paying 16 year olds to sleep with them.
Otherwise, we get NAMBLA.
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Interesting question, thank you. For sure there can be always an abuse of power, but in the end any relationship (that I’ve been in) is also in the very beginning a struggle for dominance, that will usually flatten down until both partners found their respective positions to each other (maybe comparable to two magnets that will align themselves after being put next to each other). Any relationship can be abusive, if one of the partners is exceedingly too strong for the other. Any relationship - independent from age - can be manipulative from one side, which is (not necessarily but often) not good for the one at the lower end, for the one who’s getting manipulated.
In my opinion a sixteen year old should usually be able to decide if sexual intercourse with someone else is good or bad for him/her. If an obviously dominant partner (a teacher, a doctor) abused his or her power against someone who’s less dominant and/or younger should be examined case by case, in my opinion. I dont want to go too far, but for example if a fifteen year old falls in love with her/his teacher and they start a relationship it is possible that - even though this fact looks outrageous to the bystander - they genuinely fall in love, without any (destructive/manipulative) abuse of power involved (even though their standing in the social hierarchy or the age difference might give a different impression). I think that if there’s an age or power -difference that indicates an abusive relationship (or an abuse of power) it needs to be examined case-by-case. The age can only be an indicator. To draw a line and say: from this day you can fuck whoever you want, but before that day you can’t is just stupid, because a human being just doesn’t change from one day to the other. We are no clockworks.
Abuse is always wrong, independently from age. An obvious age-difference or a big difference in the social power-structure can be an indicator, but it should IMHO not automatically be an illegal offense. The age between fourteen and eighteeen is - in my opinion - a grey-zone regarding sexual relationships: abuse from someone who’s older or more powerful is possible, but examined case-by-case it might not necessarily be so. I think that there are possibly fourteen years olds that might be able to decide by themselves what they want to do with their bodies, but there also possibly might be 18 years olds who are actually not able to decide if a sexual relationship to someone else might be good or bad for him/her. I’d say it depends on the case, a generalisation is maybe not possible,
PS: just to eliminate any wrong impression: Im a 42-year old male and my partners have always been around my age (in one case my partner was 47 when I was 23 though). I have absolutely no interest in anyone who’s younger than (roughly) half plus seven years of my age and I personally don’t understand how someone who’s above lets say 30 could possibly be attracted to someone who’s less than 20 years old (jee… what are you talking about at the breakfast table with someone so young? The Simpsons!?) But just because I dont understand it does not mean that it automatically should be illegal.
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Yes, it is, but it’s not a justification for automatically putting someone in prison for having consensual sex with an adolescent.
You make excellent points. I actually do believe that it’s precisely because adolescents are unique individuals, many of whom are more mature, more intelligent than large portions of the adult population, that we should look at each case individually. But you’ve made a good case as to why this wouldn’t work.
That said, in this particular case, in which a much older woman had consensual sex (as far as we know) with an adolescent who had reached the age of consent (an age of consent agreed upon by that state), prison would be cruel and unjust. Her career as a teacher, however, is justifiably over.
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Which will haunt you for the rest of your days no matter the situation or even if the judge handing down the ruling desires it given it’s mandatory. I like your proposed gradiants precicely because it takes into account age, relative age, and the possibility of being removed from the ‘nobody will ever fucking hire you again’ list.
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Somewhat related: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZnQPLJi2t4
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No but it is justification for laws restricting such behavior.
You also realize that in some professions, such as therapists and the like, if you sleep with a patient, you’ll be thrown out. I think this should apply to school teachers working with minors, at the very least.
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Certainly she should only be punished for laws she actually broke, not future laws.
Agreed, presuming the court decides she’s guilty for the crime she was arrested for.
I find the idea of an age difference statutes to be even more strange than the differences in age of consent. Somehow we’ve decided that a 17 year old is able to give consent to sleep with an 18 year old, but not with a 40 year old.
Does being 40 year old mean somehow you’re able to pressure a 17 year old more than one of their peers? My memories of peer pressure in school definitely don’t back that idea up. If anything, I was far more willing to exert peer pressure as an 18 year old.
It just seems like agism to me.
To me a matter of the forty year old more likely to know how to psychologically manipulate the younger party or somehow have connection to people that could put pressure on the younger party in non-trivial ways if they do not comply.
At least that’s my take on the generalities of the argument. Here specifically it is the kid’s teacher doing it, someone that very much is in a position of direct authority over the person.
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That seems like a pretty big stretch. If that was true, wouldn’t we see a ton of 40-year olds sleeping with 18-year olds?
I would think it would be harder in general for a forty year old to psychologically manipulate the younger party. Psychological manipulation isn’t something many adults practice particularly often, they don’t often share a similar culture, there are taboos against the relationship, they don’t share many common interests. The only thing the 40 year old really has going for them is money and the feeling of experience.
An 18-year old on the other hand has just spent the last decade+ of their life playing peer pressure games. I know I was pretty good at psychological manipulation when I was 18 of my peers and they were good at doing it to me.
It just seems… backwards.
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In complete fairness, I’m the last person you want to talk to about how to do the whole social thing. I am not a well adjusted individual.
The end statement about this specific instance feeling wrong to me because teacher/student stands however. That’s just… no. Even if they were similarly aged (say she were in her mid 20’s and fresh out of college with a degree/certifications) it would still be wrong due to a direct ‘boss/underling’ dynamic.
The idea is that if an adult sleeps with a kid, that’s exploitative, and the adult should know better. If kids sleep with each other, that’s nature, and legally punishing them for it is wrong, because they really don’t know any better and neither have the self-control we rightly expect of an adult.
Pressure doesn’t have to be a part of it. A kid that wants to sleep with an older adult should not be able to give consent to do so.
This is not at all uncommon. That it may happen less than people sleeping within their own peer group doesn’t change that it happens. If it’s wrong, it wrong however frequently it occurs. But as I said, at some point you have to acknowledge the full adulthood of a person and let them make that choice for themselves. I’d set it at 17, some would prefer 16, others 18. But it should be set, I don’t think very many people at all in our liberal Western culture is okay with a 40 year-old sleeping with a 12 year-old. And wherever we set it, it should be the same across the United States, which it currently isn’t and that’s a problem considering the severe punishments breaking those laws can trigger.
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