Age! Why does it still matter?

[newsbone]

Originally Posted by Angela

Well, that's your knowledge, but my knowledge is that I am very grateful to have been protected by the adults around me from being f*cked by an adult when I was a child. I could have handled it, you're right, but not as effectively as I would have liked either then or in retrospect. As I mentioned, even as a child I knew that there was something icky about men wanting to have sex with me, even though I didn't understand exactly what was the ick factor. The ick factor was natural, no societal influence. It was thin-slicing; it was my unconscious mind, with the resources it had at the time, protecting me. And I'm very glad that societal influence and caring grown-ups had my back.

If you, or any other adult, were to justify your having sex with a child by calling it a "natural" impulse, I would have no compunction at all about calling upon societal influence and groupthink to put your ass in jail and throw away the key.

I have no problem with you (by which I mean "one," not you personally) thinking it's natural, okay, or not wrong to have sex with children. You are (one is) perfectly free to use that perspective. And I'm perfectly fine with using my own personal power to either prevent that win/lose sex from happening, or to get the perpetrator of such an action locked up.

And I think you know what happens to that particular kind of perpetrator in jail! More natural urges getting indulged. I'll leave that to others to protect the grown-up recipients of those natural urges.

You have such strong convictions as a result of social upbringing about the same and this is natural. Had you grown up in a culture that allow it you would not have had such strong words to express what your parents warned you about while you were young. Dont do this, dont do that, you are still a young girl!

[Daffy Duck]

Originally Posted by Angela

As I mentioned, even as a child I knew that there was something icky about men wanting to have sex with me, even though I didn't understand exactly what was the ick factor. The ick factor was natural, no societal influence.

Well, perhaps. Society starts conditioning our mind since we're born. By the time you're a child, society has already influenced you to a great degree.

Newsbone, I'm surprised to hear your liberal perspective on this. In some ways, you seem like a hard Christian with rules set it stone, and in other ways you're extremely relative. Go figure.

As for me, I say that anyone who has sex with a young child is a douchebag, and I have no problem with telling them they're wrong. If their (the children) body hasn't even decided they're ready for sex yet (with puberty), then we have no place deciding their mind can handle it. I'd also consider the mere desire to have sex with children to be an odd perversion of a healthy mind.

[Angela]

Originally Posted by newsbone

Why should a specific group of people who hold the power of decision making see it fit to trample on other peoples right just because they assume that they are right and others have no choice but to accept that they are wrong.

If you're talking about the specific group of people who feel as I do, that adults don't have a right to do sex to children, the only reason I can think of is democracy -- a majority of us feel strongly (at least here in the U.S.; I don't know about Uganda/Kenya) and we have structures in place to enforce the majority's position.

I don't think you who disagree "have no choice but to accept that they are wrong." You still have infinite choice. You could have sex with children and pay the consequences of societal influence and still feel right. You could clandestinely have sex with children and not get caught and still feel right. You could feel right and and choose to express your desires in ways that have consequences you can live comfortably with. You could choose to live in a community where it's okay, if there are any left, or try to build one of your own. On and on.. you have loads of choice.

There's a practice in Africa in which men, believing that having sex with a virgin will cure them of AIDS, routinely rape children, ignorantly infecting the kids with the AIDS virus, dying themselves anyway, and thus hastening their groups toward extinction. My guess is that many of them they feel "right" about what they're doing. When I read and hear about such practices, I am very sorry for those people and at the same time very glad to be living in the U.S. where such practices are looked upon by society as barbaric and stupid. At the moment, making a positive difference about such things, in accordance with my views, is beyond my reach for the most part (not entirely), but I have more power to have a voice here in the U.S. on such matters, and so that's where I wield my power to protect, paying forward the protection I'm grateful to have received when I was a child.

But I don't begrudge you your views! Just letting you know mine.

[sirkinm]

Originally Posted by Angela

...but I have more power to have a voice here in the U.S. on such matters, and so that's where I wield my power to protect, paying forward the protection I'm grateful to have received when I was a child.

But I don't begrudge you your views! Just letting you know mine.

From just catching a few of your posts around the boards, I've noticed that you really have a way with words, Angela. Off topic, I know...

[Angela]

Originally Posted by newsbone

You have such strong convictions as a result of social upbringing about the same and this is natural. Had you grown up in a culture that allow it you would not have had such strong words to express what your parents warned you about while you were young. Dont do this, dont do that, you are still a young girl!

Well, I think that's very presumptuous of you, and not entirely accurate.

It's probably true that there was lots of societal influence on my child self, but what I was talking about was not that "don't let men touch you" training. It's the self-check of thin-slicing -- that sense that even underneath what mommy taught me, it just didn't work for me somehow that this adult man was interested in intervening with my body. I rejected it as not working well for me at the level of the unconscious prime directive of preserving and maintaining my well-being, that translates in a little girl's mind as "ick" -- get away.

And, as I mentioned, I was glad to have societal forces aligned with my unconscious prime directive, and I'm fine with being that societal force myself now, as an adult.

I'm sorry you have a problem with societal forces that rob you of the right to have sex with children if you see fit, but I'm not sorry to actually be part of your problem.

[Angela]

Originally Posted by sirkinm

From just catching a few of your posts around the boards, I've noticed that you really have a way with words, Angela. Off topic, I know...

Thank you, sirkinm.

[Angela]

Originally Posted by newsbone

You have such strong convictions as a result of social upbringing about the same and this is natural. Had you grown up in a culture that allow it you would not have had such strong words to express what your parents warned you about while you were young. Dont do this, dont do that, you are still a young girl!

Speaking of Africa, there is a cultural imperative -- a "rightness" -- for young girls to have their clitorises sliced off and their vaginas sewn nearly shut, causing excruciating lifetime pain, trauma, and eliminating sexual pleasure, all for the "good" of the assurance of female faithfulness and desirability as a wife.

And I understand from many women who have experienced this that they had, at the time the "surgery" was being performed, a sense of very extreme wrongness that could not be reconciled with any rightness being perpetrated on their young bodies. Many of those young girls grow up to be adult women who, in turn, perform the surgery on their own daughters. Part of that is surely cultural influence, and I'm pretty sure that even more of it is old stored-up negative emotion, being expressed in this brutal, and I feel, very inappropriate way.

Again, I'm glad to be part of your problem of "societal influence" that prefers to educate and influence tendency towards freedom from what I see as oppression, although I recognize you might not see it as such. So be it.

It's okay with me that you don't agree with my views on this subject. Just sharing my strong preferences, since you asked.

[James81]

Originally Posted by Angela

Well, that's your knowledge, but my knowledge is that I am very grateful to have been protected by the adults around me from being f*cked by an adult when I was a child. I could have handled it, you're right, but not as effectively as I would have liked either then or in retrospect. As I mentioned, even as a child I knew that there was something icky about men wanting to have sex with me, even though I didn't understand exactly what was the ick factor. The ick factor was natural, no societal influence. It was thin-slicing; it was my unconscious mind, with the resources it had at the time, protecting me. And I'm very glad that societal influence and caring grown-ups had my back.

If you, or any other adult, were to justify your having sex with a child by calling it a "natural" impulse, I would have no compunction at all about calling upon societal influence and groupthink to put your ass in jail and throw away the key.

I have no problem with you (by which I mean "one," not you personally) thinking it's natural, okay, or not wrong to have sex with children. You are (one is) perfectly free to use that perspective. And I'm perfectly fine with using my own personal power to either prevent that win/lose sex from happening, or to get the perpetrator of such an action locked up.

And I think you know what happens to that particular kind of perpetrator in jail! More natural urges getting indulged. I'll leave that to others to protect the grown-up recipients of those natural urges.

I wasn't talking about adults having sex with children. I too am glad that that barrier is in place.

I'm talking about the idea that 18 is the age at which we are designed to have sex. Personally, I think it's more like 15 or 16 because that's typically when our bodies develop to maturity. And again, I don't mean 50 year olds having sex with 15 year olds either.

I'm talking people within the same age group.

[TaylorLord]

I'm talking about the idea that 18 is the age at which we are designed to have sex. Personally, I think it's more like 15 or 16 because that's typically when our bodies develop to maturity.

Yeah SoulsAsylum, 15 and 16 year old teenagers are really ready to have babies.

[Angela]

Originally Posted by James81

I wasn't talking about adults having sex with children. I too am glad that that barrier is in place.

I'm talking about the idea that 18 is the age at which we are designed to have sex. Personally, I think it's more like 15 or 16 because that's typically when our bodies develop to maturity. And again, I don't mean 50 year olds having sex with 15 year olds either.

I'm talking people within the same age group.

Yes, I think 18 is an arbitrary number, and it's not really possible to pinpoint the exact age when a body and mind is mature. 18 works pretty well for me as a legal point of protection. And I certainly agree that it's natural for kids to reach for each other and experiment sexually -- which is definitely a different thing than what the OP was talking about, which was that adults having the "right" to have sex with kids or kids having the "right" to choose to have sex with an adult. As another member mentioned, it's a whole different balance of power.

I don't believe it should be a *crime* -- you know, with legal repercussions -- for under-18s to have sex with one another. But I do think it's good guidance to really educate kids about what's likely in store for them if they do. And I REALLY believe that kids should receive relationship education, even starting as young as kindergarten. I think that would make a very positive difference in the world, if we made interpersonal relationship education at least as important as the ABC's.

[lasti]

I admit that I have a personal "problem" with this debate. I've always been attracted to the beyond-30-year-old (even when I wasn't older than 14).

That's why I personally think it's stupid to wait till your 18 while all the other teenagers can legally have fun.

Just wanted to make sure that you also understand my perspective in this thread.

[Angela]

Originally Posted by lasti

I admit that I have a personal "problem" with this debate. I've always been attracted to the beyond-30-year-old (even when I wasn't older than 14).

That's why I personally think it's stupid to wait till your 18 while all the other teenagers can legally have fun.

Just wanted to make sure that you also understand my perspective in this thread.

I understand your perspective, lasti, and I have no problem being part of your problem, either.

[Strawberry]

It's good that you mentioned that, Lasti. I also recall having a thing for a few 30-year-olds when I was 14. I remember in my most rebelious phase even meeting up with a 34-year-old to get to "know" him. It was at night and we met at a well lit street corner next to a not-so-well-lit park. He brought a few friends and invited me to join him in the park. All my instincts at that point said "NO WAY!" I politely declined and returned home, checking periodically to make sure he didn't follow me. I think that was probably the most lucid and wise decision I made at that point in my life, amidst all the other stupid decisions. If only more teens made smarter choices.

Sadly for those of you who would wish otherwise, I must second the opinions of Ssandra and Angela.

1) It has been scientifically proven that teenage brains are run by the amygdala, the emotional center of the brain. They primarily make emotional decisions.

2) Thank heavens we have society to protect those who are most vulnerable.

3) The reason that societies (the good ones, anyway) protect the vulnerable is because they are run by people who have their moral compasses pointed in the right direction, not because they were conditioned to think a certain way. If that were true, then societies would never have evolved, and would not ever change. It would always be more of the same. Many values that we shared yesterday are outdated today because some person or group of people came along and said "we wont put up with the status quo!"

To take some recent examples in US history, with which I am most familiar, I point to the feminist movement, civil rights movement, and most recently the environmentalist movement. And to take one international example with which I am familiar, the HUMAN RIGHTS movement. Children all over the world should have the right to their own bodily and mental integrity until such an age as they are capable of making their own decisions! In which case they still keep their integrity because they are consciously making decisions and considering the repercussions.

[Angela]

Originally Posted by Strawberry

Many values that we shared yesterday are outdated today because some person or group of people came along and said "we wont put up with the status quo!"

Indeed, and I think that may be what newsbone is trying to do here -- objecting to and examining the status quo. That's fine with me. I just happen to think this particular status quo is just fine -- it's congruent with my societal indoctrination and my internal check.

[Strawberry]

Originally Posted by Angela

Indeed, and I think that may be what newsbone is trying to do here -- objecting to and examining the status quo. That's fine with me. I just happen to think this particular status quo is just fine -- it's congruent with my societal indoctrination and my internal check.

Good point. He is doing exactly that. I was refering to the immoral aspects of the staus quo, which violate others' rights to dignity and integrity. Not his, or any other person who may sympathize with his, ideas to probe the moral aspects of the status quo in order to find justifications to violate anothers' right to those same integrities.

As I pointed out in my 3rd arguement above, it is the people who have a good moral center that move society in the right direction.

[aggie]

some age related laws are made to protect the possible law breakers as well as those that might be affected as well. i personally think that men and women who have sex with children (regardless of puberty or what they may look like or portray...are probably dysfunctional or at least have ego issues and don't have the maturity to have a relationship with someone more age appropriate. i don't think you can put a disinct, exclusive age when children know right from wrong in this situation...they are pretty savvy. and let's face it girls (and guys) can lie about their age or may intentionally seduce or allow themselves to be seduced by someone much older...today, girls especially have learned the power they wield with their sexuality. someone and i would like to think it is the adults need to be responsible.....would a 30 something or 40 or even 50 something man or woman has sex with a 13 or 14 year old....like their son or daughter doing it? i am tired of the biological excuse also...we are living in a supposedly advanced, progressive, civilized society...we no longer are dealing with a tribal mentality....

[Strawberry]

In addition, it is the reason that most of us are indoctinated in this fashion.

[newsbone]

Originally Posted by Angela

Speaking of Africa, there is a cultural imperative -- a "rightness" -- for young girls to have their clitorises sliced off and their vaginas sewn nearly shut, causing excruciating lifetime pain, trauma, and eliminating sexual pleasure, all for the "good" of the assurance of female faithfulness and desirability as a wife.

And I understand from many women who have experienced this that they had, at the time the "surgery" was being performed, a sense of very extreme wrongness that could not be reconciled with any rightness being perpetrated on their young bodies. Many of those young girls grow up to be adult women who, in turn, perform the surgery on their own daughters. Part of that is surely cultural influence, and I'm pretty sure that even more of it is old stored-up negative emotion, being expressed in this brutal, and I feel, very inappropriate way.

Again, I'm glad to be part of your problem of "societal influence" that prefers to educate and influence tendency towards freedom from what I see as oppression, although I recognize you might not see it as such. So be it.

It's okay with me that you don't agree with my views on this subject. Just sharing my strong preferences, since you asked.

This explains either how little you know about Africa or how prejudiced you are about us, as i have noticed a lot of personalization of issues as far as most of your posts are concerned. Let me educate you a little bit; out of over 450 tribes that inhabit Africa only about 15 are known to prefer FGM that is Female Genital Mutilation to you. I happen not to condone this practice that limits a woman’s right to sexual advantages, my fathers tribe the ITESOTS do not practice FGM neither do my mother's people the LUOS nor my wife’s tribe the LUHYAS. So please when you choose to always try to make a fool out of me I think a little bit of research would help, you posts have never been friendly in all the threads i have posted in this forum I thus assume you don’t like my kind, why don’t you just shoot OBAMA and get it over with!

[newsbone]

Originally Posted by aggie

some age related laws are made to protect the possible law breakers as well as those that might be affected as well. i personally think that men and women who have sex with children (regardless of puberty or what they may look like or portray...are probably dysfunctional or at least have ego issues and don't have the maturity to have a relationship with someone more age appropriate. i don't think you can put a disinct, exclusive age when children know right from wrong in this situation...they are pretty savvy. and let's face it girls (and guys) can lie about their age or may intentionally seduce or allow themselves to be seduced by someone much older...today, girls especially have learned the power they wield with their sexuality. someone and i would like to think it is the adults need to be responsible.....would a 30 something or 40 or even 50 something man or woman has sex with a 13 or 14 year old....like their son or daughter doing it? i am tired of the biological excuse also...we are living in a supposedly advanced, progressive, civilized society...we no longer are dealing with a tribal mentality....

When we mention laws as a means of protection it is kind of admitting that we determine what a specific age group should be doing with disregard with the supposedly free societies we readily propagate. My question then is, why do the adults choose to use fear instead of relevant information about these supposed dangers mostly imagined? A 40 or 50 years old with a feeble penis is better than an active 16 years old when it comes to damages done to a vagina of 13 or 15 years old girl. Most of the things we say are wrong are not, it is only that we are small gods that make the rules as we determine what is to be or not to be done, even God is more liberal if compared to us.

An advanced, progressive, civilized society should always use freedom of choice as its backbone and not rules that do not have any biological evidence. The only evidence being repeated here is the brain as having not developed well, which I think with good information provided early enough this arroyo can crossed, but do we want that? NO.

[James81]

Originally Posted by TaylorLord

Yeah SoulsAsylum, 15 and 16 year old teenagers are really ready to have babies.

And that was my original point....15 and 16 year olds were ruling kingdoms back in the old days. In another society with different social norms 15 and 16 year olds COULD probably handle raising babies. Hell, in OUR society they seem to do ok about half the time.

[newsbone]

Originally Posted by Daffy Duck

Newsbone, I'm surprised to hear your liberal perspective on this. In some ways, you seem like a hard Christian with rules set it stone, and in other ways you're extremely relative. Go figure.

I already did figure it all! Is it thumbs up?

Originally Posted by Daffy Duck

As for me, I say that anyone who has sex with a young child is a douchebag, and I have no problem with telling them they're wrong. If their (the children) body hasn't even decided they're ready for sex yet (with puberty), then we have no place deciding their mind can handle it. I'd also consider the mere desire to have sex with children to be an odd perversion of a healthy mind.

Some years back people said and thought the same about homosexuals, it was said that the anus wasn’t meant for pounding and people where called perverts because of it.

[Angela]

Originally Posted by newsbone

This explains either how little you know about Africa or how prejudiced you are about us, as i have noticed a lot of personalization of issues as far as most of your posts are concerned. Let me educate you a little bit; out of over 450 tribes that inhabit Africa only about 15 are known to prefer FGM that is Female Genital Mutilation to you.

Looks like someone may be looking in the "personalization" mirror! Perhaps it sounded to you like I was saying that ALL of Africa condones female genital mutilation, but what I actually said was that there is a cultural imperative there that condones and perpetrates female genital mutilation -- something that you have confirmed here is true. (15 tribes out of 450 I wouldn't call "only," by the way.) (There is a cultural imperative in the U.S. to have voicemail, but that doesn't mean everyone does, and that doesn't mean anything about me personally.) I was drawing a parallel between what I see as three related forms of grown-ups power-over children. It was up to you, not me, to make it all about you. I'm sorry if your mistaken belief that I was speaking of you personally, your parents, your wife, or every last person in Africa, when I mentioned those two practices, had you feeling bad.

So please when you choose to always try to make a fool out of me I think a little bit of research would help

I feel no need to try to make a fool out of you.

you posts have never been friendly in all the threads i have posted in this forum I thus assume you don’t like my kind, why don’t you just shoot OBAMA and get it over with!

I don't notice any resemblance between you and Mr. Obama. In what way are you two of a kind?

(I'm pretty sure that promoting the assassination of the president of the United States is against law, by the way, or at least the forum rules. Just a word to the wise. And anyway, if I were to do that, I'm not clear on how would that get my unfriendliness over with.)

[newsbone]

Let us stick to the thread please, Angela.

[Angela]

Originally Posted by newsbone

Let us stick to the thread please, Angela.

Does that mean you're done with your personal attack, and inciting of violence? Great!

Exactly on topic -- this question of age -- why does it still matter. Certain people (not newsbone) advocate the agonizing physical disfigurement of children's genitals, or the rape of virgin children in the ignorant belief that it will cure the rapist's AIDS. Those people feel they have the "right" to do these things; they strongly feel they should have the freedom of choice to slice clitorises and rape children.

To me, when you advocate the right or freedom of choice of adults to have sex with and impregnate children, that sounds exactly as advanced, progressive, and civilized as advocating the right and freedom to pursue a cure for disease by raping a child, or to cut off a girl's vulva and sew her vaginal opening shut. All of these practices, in which adults exploit power-over children, are in the same family of behavior to me -- barbaric -- and just as you (newsbone) feel compelled to expressing your opinion of how a proper society should include one of them, I feel compelled to express just as loud and long my opinion that all three have the same degree of properness -- which is to say, none at all.

[Daffy Duck]

Originally Posted by newsbone

I already did figure it all! Is it thumbs up?

"Go figure" isn't meant to be taken literally. It's a saying. It basically means, "That's ironic."

the anus wasn’t meant for pounding and people where called perverts because of it.

The anus really isn't meant for "pounding." Chances of pain and injury are much higher than vaginal intercourse...

Homosexuality is between two consenting adults. Most children do not have the physical or mental maturity to make sexual decisions. Heck, many adults don't either.

[newsbone]

Originally Posted by Daffy Duck

"Go figure" isn't meant to be taken literally. It's a saying. It basically means, "That's ironic."

How did I miss that? Anyway am now one step closer to full understanding of English.

Originally Posted by Daffy Duck

Homosexuality is between two consenting adults. Most children do not have the physical or mental maturity to make sexual decisions. Heck, many adults don't either.

If so why the conditions? Most adults I have met or associated with are prone to very childish decisions (do’s and don’ts based on age) me too! The problem is that the kids don’t posses the mechanism to reprimand us for trespassing on their socially and legally acceptable behaviors; remember the adults make all the decisions.

[newsbone]

Originally Posted by Angela

Does that mean you're done with your personal attack, and inciting of violence? Great! .

Sshhh! You might wake up the kids!

Originally Posted by Angela

Exactly on topic -- this question of age -- why does it still matter. Certain people (not newsbone) advocate the agonizing physical disfigurement of children's genitals, or the rape of virgin children in the ignorant belief that it will cure the rapist's AIDS. Those people feel they have the "right" to do these things; they strongly feel they should have the freedom of choice to slice clitorises and rape children.

Go save a whale or the Amazon forest for a change! Oh there are a lot of homeless people in the most powerful nation on earth and sorry, why is it that taxis do not stop to pick black passengers in Washington D.C at night? Don’t tell me that the GREAT NATION does not have skeletons in its closets. We have ours you know about them but mostly based on ignorance which why we are working hard to cure it by provision of accessible and affordable education and given time it will not be the bane of our society.

And for your information I think rape is not a right even in Africa, but FGM is an acceptable practice even beyond the Dark Continent which is done to reduce a woman’s libido, therefore I strongly advice you to go for it as I cant help but notice your fascination about sex in this thread that otherwise should be covering a wider perspective of freedoms.

What am talking of is the right for people to make choices without first finding out if it is acceptable within the specific age group. The girls who are raped do not participate in making the decisions that leads to being raped, the rapist’s right to unilateral control of the decision making process is the typical thinking you seem to propagate. I advocate for ‘inclusivity’ you are still tied down to your exclusivity, the right for the eldest to make unquestioned decision and usurping the power of the youngest; this is wrong!

[newsbone]

Originally Posted by Strawberry

Good point. He is doing exactly that. I was refering to the immoral aspects of the staus quo, which violate others' rights to dignity and integrity. Not his, or any other person who may sympathize with his, ideas to probe the moral aspects of the status quo in order to find justifications to violate anothers' right to those same integrities.

Quite funny how you got me all figured out already! i once watched a movie where one of the 'bad' guy's line was " Assumption is the mother of all f*** ups" and i think you are kind of guilty in that respect.

Originally Posted by Strawberry

As I pointed out in my 3rd arguement above, it is the people who have a good moral center that move society in the right direction.

Who determines 'the' good moral center here, is it not the Adults?

[aggie]

newsbone, you have mentioned that children don't have the mechanism to to deal with adults tresspassing on their legally and socially acceptable behavior...we would not need a government, we would not need law enforcement, we would not need schools, we would not need social "rules" for lack of a better world....heck, we wouldn't need parents!...let's just get out the petry dishes and test tubes, grow children and let them have at it with all the adults who don't want to trespass!....i hope you don't take this personally, or racially or anything else...but if you believe so strongly in some of the things you think are ok....then you really need to live somewhere where others believe it is ok....you can't make the majority of this society believe that we should change to this "freedom" that you are offering.

[lasti]

Originally Posted by Strawberry

1) It has been scientifically proven that teenage brains are run by the amygdala, the emotional center of the brain. They primarily make emotional decisions.

That's for example like no argument to me. Why should an emotional decision be the wrong decision?
And, by the way, everybody makes emotional decisions because thought is never free from feelings - even when they're just in your subconsciousness.

I'm not against the "protect the weak"-attitude by the way. I'm against the "protect the dumb"-attitude.