Prepubescent Children and Informed Consent to Sexual Acts

Hmmm...

While I can see how in a perfect world prepubescents would have no reason to turn to such lengths to meet their needs. I also think that we are far from that. And I live in the EU, there are much worse places.

From the other thread, many had the opinion that one should "Turn around and run!" when approached by a underage. But will that really help anyone? ( Yes, in a perfect world children would never feel the need to do so, and yes, in the current society you will risk jail for it. ) Because in the short term it certainly doesn't, you increased the number of adults that ignored she/he by 1. It might not make things worse though.

The long term effect is much harder to predict, but I don't think that these situation are even close to outright forcible rape/molestation. Hypothetically it could have a positive long term effect on both parties.

And in extreme cases, where they are doing it to meet their basic needs (food/shelter), it becomes even more complicated. But lets just hope that in the US/EU this isn't relevant.

I don't think there is really any need to debate this.

Kids are not, generally, smart. Yes, they may "consent", to something (in this case sex) because, at the time, it feels good. They may also consent to Heroin, because it feels good. Doesn't mean they truly understand the implications, and it CERTAINLY doesn't mean the adult should encourage this.

And before you say sex can't be compared to heroin, whilst it isn't as immediately destructive there's a high chance it'll ###$ them up mentally years down the line. Balancing that against the benefits - sexual gratification for the adult and maybe the child? , then I don't see the importance of whether the child can, or cannot consent, because either way the result is likely to be the same - an event that screws the child up years down the line.

EDIT: I thought about this post a bit and realised that, thankfully, I don't think anyone on this board would advocate sexual acts with children, so this post was probably a bit vehement.

I can't believe you all are starting another one of these "can children consent" threads, as if the first 50000 of those weren't enough

But really, I agree, there's no need to debate this. We know where everyone here stands on the issue already.

A conclusion on who is right and who is wrong certainly won't be met unless each side changes the way they present their arguments and drop some huge revelation.

Mustelidae wrote:A conclusion on who is right and who is wrong certainly won't be met unless each side changes the way they present their arguments and drop some huge revelation.

Yeah honestly, the way I see it, there isn't any absolutely scientific conclusive proof that children can consent or children can't consent. This argument can never really be won with the evidence we have right now.

Some pro-contact people will say children could potentially consent, they are just harmed by our society. It's hard to prove this one way or another since we can't exactly change the world in the blink of an eye to remove this "societal harm factor" and see what happens. I mean, there are some very isolated tribal communities out there that you could argue are outside of our society and could maybe be a way to investigate without having societal bias against pedophilic relationships as a confounding factor. But they're so culturally different from us I'm not sure if you could compare the two and accurately predict what would happen here if the social stigma was removed.

On the other hand, the staunch anti-contact people are so harshly opposed to doing any sort of investigation on the subject, how can they know they're absolutely right? I usually like to look at evidence on things and draw my own conclusions, it would bother me if I argued by just saying "of course I'm right, the rest of the world agrees with me, how can you not see I'm right?!" I just can't argue that way, really, I absolutely have to investigate and know the truth. I guess some people are easily appeased though.

This is just my take on it and trying to look at both sides. Anyway, I see things go back and forth so much in these threads with no real resolution. I don't think science has a real conclusion for this either. There are some people who say they were harmed by sex with an adult, then some people who say they weren't. I think some of it depends on the child and the encounter itself, honestly.

Mustelidae wrote:A conclusion on who is right and who is wrong certainly won't be met unless each side changes the way they present their arguments and drop some huge revelation.

Which won't happen, since often one side sees the issue as related to protections, whilst the other sees it as related to freedoms. But why would this impact paedophiles, since what children do has little to do with the sexual attractions of adults, although it is often presented as such.

The problem I have is with the evidence presented by paedophiles when much of it is not directly related to sexual expression in the young but rather about what adults do or have done in the past. For example, it is not as if children in the past or elsewhere today had or have much of a voice. I'm all in favour of listening to, and respecting the young now, and always have been, but to imagine they ever had a voice in the past is ludicrous. Hence my doubt about the role of child marriage in the past and now - the children still have no voice - and they are, and were, just the property of their parents. I am sure many will simply ignore the 'evidence' from the paedophile side when they cling to such 'evidence'.

YouthRightsRadical said that he would wait for RecoveringSO to present his argument before he would respond. Some other people have presented some arguments so I wonder if a discussion will get started soon or not.

souvlakispacestation wrote:Kids are not, generally, smart. Yes, they may "consent", to something (in this case sex) because, at the time, it feels good. They may also consent to Heroin, because it feels good. Doesn't mean they truly understand the implications, and it CERTAINLY doesn't mean the adult should encourage this.

I do not agree that children are not generally "smart". You bring up a good point that children may "consent" (I would say "capitulate") to sexual activity because "it feels good"; but if they don't truly understand the implications of that capitulation, it can't be called "consent".

I think we should define "consent" and a couple other posters indicated likewise. To that end, I think that the RMSC (or whatever it was; I'll find it again) that YouthRightRadical posted and linked in another thread is a very comprehensive (maybe overly-comprehensive) list of factors involved in informed consent.

I'd also like to drive a stake in the ground. We're not discussing hypotheticals. We're discussing that in this current world, as we sit, right now, can the children in our neighborhoods and the young children in our families give "informed consent"?

Can we agree to that? That hypothetical societies and futures and our incomplete understandings of the cultures of ancient civilizations do not apply to the discussion? That what does apply to the discussion is our current environment?

Mustelidae wrote:YouthRightsRadical said that he would wait for RecoveringSO to present his argument before he would respond. Some other people have presented some arguments so I wonder if a discussion will get started soon or not.

I really hope not. How many more arguments about childrens' consent do we need?? I mean, unless someone has something EXTREMELY groundbreaking. But why do I get the feeling that that's not the case....

Skeleton-countess stated " I don't think science has a real conclusion for this either. There are some people who say they were harmed by sex with an adult, then some people who say they weren't. I think some of it depends on the child and the encounter itself, honestly."

You make it sound like it's 50/50. Are you kidding me?? REALLY? The number of children harmed by sex with an adult, and I mean SERIOUSLY harmed, far, far, far, far outnumber those very few who say it didn't harm them. Come on now. Let's be realistic. Ask any therapist, psychologist, teacher, parent, policeman who has dealt with the victims, with the casualties of this type of thinking. Years later, these abused children, now adults are still suffering.

Your way of thinking on this is part of the problem in my opinion. It's as bad as saying, Oh, rape isn't so bad. Maybe even worse because children can't speak up for themselves and refute what you just said.

Honestly, some of you need to visit the Child Abuse Forum. It might give you some insight which seems lacking on here. Abusers have distorted thinking. If you allow yourself to believe this distorted thinking (Well, this child wants it and won't be hurt) you are at great risk of offending, in my opinion.