very confused

im quite confused how an adult liking someone whos 16-17 is wrong. unless of course they act on it.

i sometimes like guys that are 16, once it happend but only once.

also my bf has a crush on this girl from a movie who is 14.

also me and my best friend both has crushes on talor laughter in twilight lol

if they are gone through puberty i really dont see how this is a problem.

if your liking under 10 than it definately wrong, because they are considered children.

i keep seeing posts like this and i am very confused.

I haven't been able to find any rational reasons for why people below a certain age cannot / should not have sex with people above a certain age.

It used to make me think that there was something fundamentally wrong with my cognitive abilities, and / or I was drastically more mentally ill than I thought I was.

Then I realized that people - even supposed professionals - are a whole lot dumber and more intellectually lazy than I wanted to face and accept.

If anyone here has a non-circular explanation for WHY people below the age of "XX" years cannot consent to having sex, please do present it.
And if anyone knows when puberty ends, please do tell.

controversyqueen wrote:im quite confused how an adult liking someone whos 16-17 is wrong. unless of course they act on it.

Personally I don't think it's wrong to 'like' anything. You can be sexually attracted to trees, so why not people? In my opinion it's acting on your attraction when the other person is below age of consent that is the problem, not the attraction itself.

Alevi wrote:If anyone here has a non-circular explanation for WHY people below the age of "XX" years cannot consent to having sex, please do present it.

Drawing the line in the sand is often difficult. Here the maximum speed limit on roads is 110 km/hour (but most roads have lower limits.) Why 100 km/hr? Why not 120 or 100? Was it decided to prevent harm, buy votes, or increase Government revenue from speeding fines?

Alevi, would you agree that some people are not capable of giving consent? Say maybe consider a one-year-old or a severely mentally disabled person. If you can agree that they cannot consent, then at what age/point do you think a person can give consent? I agree that age is a contentious issue, but I strongly believe in having age of consent laws.

Platypus wrote:Alevi, would you agree that some people are not capable of giving consent?

I think there are plenty of 13-year-old girls who have sat in court, crying and trying their very best to have the judge not send their twenty-something year old boyfriend to jail.

So if you by using the word "consent", think about whether some people are not legally capable of giving "consent", then I must confess I think the law in many anglo-saxon nations is quite a bit unreasonable when it comes to sex.

Now if you are talking about giving consent as in one person agreeing to have sex with another:

Platypus wrote:I agree that age is a contentious issue, but I strongly believe in having age of consent laws.

I disagree, I think that AGE of consent is ridiculus when what we actually are discussing is CONSENT.
Implementing age of consent laws is not only lazy, but it also ignores the fundamentals of the issue.
HUMAN BEINGS. That's the fundamentals of the issue.

And it is NOT that much harder for a court to consider whether there has been coercion on the part of the older person. Just to pick some numbers, if we are talking about say a 20-year-old and a 10-year-old, it could for example be that in 99.99% of the cases, there was coercion.

But for sake of the human beings in that 0.01%, who actually loved eachother, I would not want those to be punished for being human, just to assert and placate some simple people.

No, I think humans are more important than the law.

Alevi wrote:I disagree, I think that AGE of consent is ridiculus when what we actually are discussing is CONSENT.

Cool, so if you disagree with age of consent laws on principle, how would you determine whether a person is able to give consent?

Platypus wrote:Cool, so if you disagree with age of consent laws on principle, how would you determine whether a person is able to give consent?

Same way the court does it when it needs to consider if a person is sane and / or mentally mature?

Call in somebody who actually has it as their profession to try and understand people, and does more than just look at birth certificates.

That way you consider the actual person, not just the age.

EDIT:
About your speed-limit analogy.
What do you think about some insane dude turning on cruise-control in the middle of the city, so that his vehicle is running at a constant speed all the time, and going screaming around each corner and roundabout "###$ all of you I am obeying the law ###$ muhahaha"?
Where I live, we are ALL taught that the number one principle behind driving properly, is to do so considerately.
So I think limits are fine, but I also think that they should not be followed blindly, but considered in the context of reality.
Say if the map and the terrain are different, you don't claim that the terrain is all wrong.
And if the speed-limit is 90 and it starts raining and everybody lowers their speed to 70, you fit in and lower your speed accordingly.
One final thing. On some roads, the speed-limit is dropped from 60 to 40.
Not because of some sort of easily identifiable, expressible malice or conspiracy.
In some cases because too many people had died on a badly built road and there was no will to improve it.
In other cases because the funds for maintenance weren't available.
Yet in other cases because the road construction bureau wanted to make a statement.
In all of the cases, because of the System.

And that's what I think we have here with age of consent laws: The System.
It doesn't care about human beings of flesh and blood, it only pretends to care.
And if few raise their voices against its sometimes inhumane, sometimes cruel, sometimes illogical and sometimes insane laws, nothing is done to change the Law.

Which goes a long way to explaining why sometimes nothing is being done, such as not allowing gay marriage and so on.

EDIT2:

Platypus wrote:Cool, so if you disagree with age of consent laws on principle, how would you determine whether a person is able to give consent?

Re-reading this makes me suspect maybe you meant how would I personally?
...is that what you meant, because I'm not sure I want to go there.

controversyqueen wrote:im quite confused how an adult liking someone whos 16-17 is wrong. unless of course they act on it.

What is wrong with acting on it? That is the AoC in many US states and European countries, even 15 or less in some.

if your liking under 10 than it definately wrong, because they are considered children.

i keep seeing posts like this and i am very confused.

Yes, it is very confusing. How could liking somebody be wrong?

Alevi wrote:I haven't been able to find any rational reasons for why people below a certain age cannot / should not have sex with people above a certain age.

Yes, there are no magic birthdays.

And if anyone knows when puberty ends, please do tell.

Puberty ends once one has reached Tanner Stage V. (Don't mind the site; the info is accurate.)

Platypus wrote:In my opinion it's acting on your attraction when the other person is below age of consent that is the problem, not the attraction itself.

Since the AoC varies according to the jurisdiction, and status changes upon reaching the magic birthday, your logic leads to the bizarre scenario in which something is wrong and a horrible crime leaving victims scarred for life on one side of a border or a minute before midnight, but step across that border or wait one minute and it suddenly becomes a wonderful, beautiful, loving experience. It is just bizarre.

If age of consent laws were abolished, forcible rape laws would still be in effect to protect people of ANY age. There is no downside to abolishing them.

Alevi wrote:And it is NOT that much harder for a court to consider whether there has been coercion on the part of the older person. Just to pick some numbers, if we are talking about say a 20-year-old and a 10-year-old, it could for example be that in 99.99% of the cases, there was coercion.

But for sake of the human beings in that 0.01%, who actually loved eachother, I would not want those to be punished for being human, just to assert and placate some simple people.

Your percentages are way off, but otherwise I agree completely.

Platypus wrote:Cool, so if you disagree with age of consent laws on principle, how would you determine whether a person is able to give consent?

Call me crazy, but here's a wild idea: ask the person!

Alevi, good analogy.

Shrink Rap wrote:If age of consent laws were abolished, forcible rape laws would still be in effect to protect people of ANY age. There is no downside to abolishing them.

I think there is a downside to abolishing age of consent laws. The AoC laws protect young people - if they are sexually abused or raped, the only thing that has to be proven is that sex happened. Without the AoC laws, the victim has to prove that there was force involved. Without bruising, defensive wounds, or other visible marks, there is nothing to stop that person from being repeatedly abused.

Shrink Rap wrote:

And if anyone knows when puberty ends, please do tell.

Puberty ends once one has reached Tanner Stage V. (Don't mind the site; the info is accurate.)

"Growing up in the Lord"? Lol.

Anyway, "Tanner Stage" is great and all but as it relates to outwards apperances it is irrelevant when it comes to puberty which is a complex physical process.
In this context, the maturity of the cerebral cortex and its contribution to assessing risks and consequences has been quoted as the primary reason why one cannot give consent before a certain age, trouble is that that maturity process doesn't end until the early-mid twenties, and given that the sexual lust precedes that, you just CANNOT refuse people to have sex before they are 25.

So the "second-best" solution becomes denying them the right to self-determination in sexual relations when they do not have a voice.
Take note of that part, please.

Also, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanner_scale:

The scale has been criticized by the pornography industry for its potential to lead to false child pornography convictions, such as in the case when government experts used it to claim that porn star Lupe Fuentes was underage. Fuentes personally appeared at the trial and provided documentation that showed that the DVDs in question were legally produced.

Thank God for pornstars with a heart of gold.

-- Mon Jul 11, 2011 11:56 am --

pheonixrise wrote:The AoC laws protect young people - if they are sexually abused or raped, the only thing that has to be proven is that sex happened.

Oh really.

What about the OTHER party in the phrase "young people"? The one FALSELY accused of rape?

pheonixrise wrote:Without the AoC laws, the victim has to prove that there was force involved.

I know that the mosaic law required a victim of rape to have visible marks or be stoned for adultery, but I did not know that America used the same criteria to determine if rape had taken place.

if your liking under 10 than it definately wrong, because they are considered children.

i keep seeing posts like this and i am very confused

.

Ummm please explain how liking someone is wrong ?
And btw in some countries liking a person who is 16/17 would put you in the same category as me.

I think there is a downside to abolishing age of consent laws. The AoC laws protect young people - if they are sexually abused or raped, the only thing that has to be proven is that sex happened. Without the AoC laws, the victim has to prove that there was force involved. Without bruising, defensive wounds, or other visible marks, there is nothing to stop that person from being repeatedly abused.

I think if a child was rapped and/or abused by an adult it would be clearly visable in the same way you wouldn't snuggle up and give kisses to your rapist.