Age! Why does it still matter?

[Daffy Duck]

Originally Posted by newsbone

Age related laws are obsolete and should be done away with, why do they restrict voting until one attains a specific age, is he or she not a citizen of that particular country until he/she attains a certain age?

Four year olds can barely tie their shoes. They have a hard enough time choosing their favorite color. I don't want them voting for the leader of my country and neither do most people.

[newsbone]

Originally Posted by Daffy Duck

Four year olds can barely tie their shoes. They have a hard enough time choosing their favorite color. I don't want them voting for the leader of my country and neither do most people.

Ha! Ha! but can vote for a leader who promises them a lot of sweets and ice cream, just as your choice is the person who you think will do what you want done

[Daffy Duck]

We all vote on what we want, that's true and obvious. And some people do vote for their favorite skin color...

But I hope you can see the difference between ice cream and the issues of our nations.

[aggie]

at this rate...we will all "evolve" back to the beginning of time...newsbone, are you the anti-christ?...

[newsbone]

Issues of the nation begins with one persons need thus a nation is a collective of needy people with personal problems that they need solved, and if the ice cream is a need so be it and this is the beauty of freedom- the right to be a fool and loving it!

[newsbone]

Originally Posted by aggie

at this rate...we will all "evolve" back to the beginning of time...newsbone, are you the anti-christ?...

Ha! Ha! God forbid i tell you am not the seed of rebellion but just someone sharing a premonition!

[aggie]

freedom also involves the rights of other people and you being a fool "and loving it" is not supposed to infringe on other peoples rights and freedoms....so how do you propose we do this?

[newsbone]

Chance favors the prepared mind!

[aggie]

newsbone, now i think you are just toying with me.....

[Daffy Duck]

It seems that Newsbone wants no government. Good luck with that.

[Brutha]

Dangers of sex remain the same, true. But, as a teenager you simply do not have the brain to forsee what those dangers are and what it might mean for your future.
This is not a mentallity issue, but a scientifical issue, because brains simply have not grown enough yet.

If it would be a scientific issue could you cite papers to back that claim up?

What the way you measure in a scientific sense "being able to forsee the dangers" that not possible with any 15 year old but is possible with every 18 year old?

There's good research that adults have inbuild biases that make them overestimate the joy that getting children will bring them.
The reason why two adults decide to have sex is usually not because they made a long rational analysis but because they feel emotions of love.

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.

No, neuroscience isn't as simple and a statement like that should let anyone how knows a bit about neuroscience cringe.

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.

If you in fact wouldn't have made the decision to sleep with an adult I don't see how your personal experience is relevant to the question of whether those children who do want to sleep with adults like lasti when she was 14 should be allowed.

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!

It's interesting what the "right to their own bodily and mental integrity" entail for children.
It's basically about a certain vision of how children should be that's enforced by the state.
According to the universal human rights charta children have the right to compulsary primary eduction.
The philosophy of unschooling goes against the universal human rights charta.
In the same sense children have the right not to be allowed to make decision about their own sexual lifes.

Innocence is has become a major Western value. People want to protect the innocence of children by not allowing them to make bad decisions like not learning math or having sex.

McCain had been regarded as hero because he was a prisioner of war.
After WWII Russians who the Germans took as prisioners of war got sent to Sibiria for letting themselves be captured.

Innocence isn't a value in the Arab world and the Iranians didn't understand why the Brits considered those people the Iranians detained at their borders to be heros after they got released.

I don't know much about African Christian values but I would guess that innocence isn't that big over there.

[Daffy Duck]

Originally Posted by Brutha

People want to protect the innocence of children by not allowing them to make bad decisions like not learning math.

... I'll assume that was a joke.

[Brutha]

... I'll assume that was a joke.

There compulsary primary education in the universal human rights charta to prevent things like unschooling where children might not learn math and all the other important stuff that children get taught in school.
If you look at unschooling threads in this forum, children not wanting to learn math is a primary argument against unschooling because a lot of people think that children wouldn't want to learn it without compulsary education.

That's your human rights movement.

[Daffy Duck]

Ok, I see this as a total separate issue than the "innocence" of children. Having sex and learning math are two totally different things. Putting them in the same sentence seemed like a joke. Being raped could "take" someone's innocence but not learning math would just put them behind in math. That's how the concept goes.

By the way, I was unschooled and I didn't learn math. I had to take beginner math courses when I entered college. Now I'm better than math at most people, but still, it took extra work because I wasn't taught it in childhood. It's also easier to learn certain things as a child when your brain is still developing. For example, language is best taught in the beginning while still developing as it is much harder for a language to become a part of you when you're an adult.

[aggie]

brutha, i think the reason most adults have sex very often has nothing to do with feelings of love, lust maybe, but not love...a 14 year old having sex with a 40 man may be looking for love... but may just have raging hormones....and unless you are dealing with some lolita like obsession...most 40 year old men are not about to fall in love with a 14 year old girl.....

[Brutha]

Ok, I see this as a total separate issue than the "innocence" of children. Having sex and learning math are two totally different things.

The post I refered to spoke about the effect of the human rights movement.
Among the human rights movements the phrase human rights means the human rights that are defined in the universal human rights charta.

Having a bit perspective and knowing where ideas come from instead of just seeing your own arguments helps in seeing why society changes the way it does.

Having sex and learning math are two totally different things. Being raped could "take" someone's innocence but not learning math would just put them behind in math. That's how the concept goes.

That depends on how you define innocence.

I think that it's generally about taking responsiblity for negative outcomes.
Not getting hired because you know no math is a negative outcome.

Being held as a prisioner of war is also a negative outcome and prisioner of war (from Western states) get seen in the West generally more as victims rather then as being responsible for being captured.

[aggie]

are you serious about prisoners of war being responsible for being captured

[Brutha]

brutha, i think the reason most adults have sex very often has nothing to do with feelings of love, lust maybe,

Whether you call those emotions love or lust has is irrelevant when you discuss whether it's reason or emotions.

are you serious about prisoners of war being responsible for being captured

I think that the decision to go to war is a serious moral decision.
I don't believe in punishing people for becoming prisioners of war the Russian way but I also see no reason for treating them as heros.
The possiblity of becoming a prisioner of war is what you sign up to when you go to the military.
100% responsiblity there.

But then my main focus above wasn't in presenting my own perspective but the conflict of values in general and therefore I used the extreme example of how the Russians treated their prisioners of war.
At the time the American administration supported the Russian in that approach by keeping prisioners of war in German prisions imprisioned after they freed the region and handed those prisioners afterwards over to the Russians.

[newsbone]

Originally Posted by aggie

brutha, i think the reason most adults have sex very often has nothing to do with feelings of love, lust maybe, but not love...a 14 year old having sex with a 40 man may be looking for love... but may just have raging hormones....and unless you are dealing with some lolita like obsession...most 40 year old men are not about to fall in love with a 14 year old girl.....

Every one has his/her own reasons of having sex the point is why do we deny the 14 year olds the right to do it with people twice or thrice their age when they can physically handle it! Why is legally forbidden for 14 year old to take beers( which they do anyway). Why do we frown when women mothers choose to dress-up like girls and fathers like boys? Why? Why the age excuse?

[newsbone]

Originally Posted by Daffy Duck

By the way, I was unschooled and I didn't learn math. I had to take beginner math courses when I entered college. Now I'm better than math at most people, but still, it took extra work because I wasn't taught it in childhood.

Nobody forced you to learn math at least there was no general rule that 'you are a kid so must learn math' kind of thing.

[aggie]

why, why the age??? why should a captured soldier be called a hero??? why ANYTHING????...good night all

[newsbone]

Originally Posted by aggie

why, why the age??? why should a captured soldier be called a hero??? why ANYTHING????...good night all

Good morning to me its now 7:32am. But goodnight to you anyway!

[ssandra]

wow... and I´ve only been away for one weekend...

Originally Posted by newsbone

Every one has his/her own reasons of having sex the point is why do we deny the 14 year olds the right to do it with people twice or thrice their age when they can physically handle it!

Because physically handling it doesn´t say anything about mentally being able to handle it.

IF a 14 yr old is ready for sex they can find other 14 or 15 yr olds to have sex with. Like it said, it is about experimentation, learning your body, learning what you like. Not being used by the power an adult has over you at that age.

Originally Posted by newsbone

Why is legally forbidden for 14 year old to take beers( which they do anyway).

Because it f*cks up their brains which are still growing. that they do it anyway is no argument. Might as well say "well.. people kill people anyway.. lets just make it legal.. You see, no logic there..

Originally Posted by newsbone

Why do we frown when women mothers choose to dress-up like girls and fathers like boys? Why? Why the age excuse?

I for one don´t frown on that. If 2 (or more) condesending adults are playing whatever they want to play, be my guest, enjoy! More power to you!


You keep saying that a 40 year old with a small penis does less harm to a 14 year old than another 14 year old, but I have not heard you adress the power issue yet.

Do you think there is no power issue?

Do you think that at the age where somebody can decide that they have a crush on Justin Timberlake and they will just "DIE" if they cannot go to the concert, has the mental capacity to decide that this 40 year old is not using his power, is not manipulating her (or him) but is actually in love and only wants what is best..?

Maybe there are a few. Could be. Too bad for them. Tough luck, sex doesn´t run away, they can have sex with 40 year olds for the rest of their lives after they turn 18.

But for all the others, that cannot see that difference, we need to protect them! because they cannot yet protect themselfs.

[ssandra]

Originally Posted by Brutha

If it would be a scientific issue could you cite papers to back that claim up?

What the way you measure in a scientific sense "being able to forsee the dangers" that not possible with any 15 year old but is possible with every 18 year old?

I alreayd posted the link, somewhere on the first page.

There is a world of differerence between a 15 yr old and an 18 year old. In manners, in thinking, in forseing what is the result of your actions etc.

Not every 18 year old, probably. But you have to draw the line somewhere. And I happen to agree with this line...

[aggie]

look how wonderfully we are all doing WITH some boundaries in our society.......we have a world of ills to heal...and for some odd reason i don't think anyone of any age having sex with minors or minors drinking and driving or a lack of any kind of rule or law or regulation is going to make things better.....

[Aware]

Originally Posted by ssandra

Puberty comes at a different age for everybody, but on average between 13 and 16 (or 18, I don´t remember). Therefor there are laws to protect children who scientificly cannot make a right decision yet.

Puberty usually starts around age 10/11 but can start as young as 8 or 9. Where did you get those averages from? Are you talking about full development or the start of puberty?

[ssandra]

I´m sorry, my bad.

I ment to say that it starts around 13, and ends around 16 or 18.

I got those averages from my own experience when I was young (i´m 27 now).

It could start around 9 or 10, but that was early for most. Normally shouldn´t it be around 12/13?

Maybe it changed in the last few (plenty ) years.

[aggie]

hormones in meat (given to livestock to grow faster, produce more milk, etc) has caused it (puberty) to be younger and younger....menses onset can be as young as 9...(and i certainly don't think that would qualify as criteria to have sex with a 40 yo)

[newsbone]

Originally Posted by ssandra

wow... and I´ve only been away for one weekend....

Yeah couldn’t wait for you though

Originally Posted by ssandra

Because physically handling it doesn´t say anything about mentally being able to handle it..

I thought that the mental faculty has a lot to do with the way we physically handle situations ssandra? The brains in away predetermines if the body in a position to absorb the phallus if a 40m year old, that is if she has made a personal decision to engage in the act. Or are you saying that 14 year olds cannot differentiate between pain and pleasure?

Originally Posted by ssandra

IF a 14 yr old is ready for sex they can find other 14 or 15 yr olds to have sex with. Like it said, it is about experimentation, learning your body, learning what you like. Not being used by the power an adult has over you at that age..

What I know is that unless it is rape where one party forcefully exercises potent power over another I think the only notable difference between a 14 year old and a 40 year old is experience otherwise they have equal power based on give and take. If you talk of learning/experimentation I believe an experienced tutor is well placed to guide you through the basic steps than a fumbling teacher who does not understand what it is in the first place.

Originally Posted by ssandra

You keep saying that a 40 year old with a small penis does less harm to a 14 year old than another 14 year old, but I have not heard you adress the power issue yet.

Do you think there is no power issue?

My 3 years old daughter influences most of my decisions to her favour everyday, am convinced that manipulation is an inbuilt mechanism is women that all they might initially lack is the knowledge of their power over men, but this does not stop them from unconsciously doing it now and then. In all relationships that I have witnessed or participated women irrespective of experience have power over men with sex as the preferred weapon of choice.

Originally Posted by ssandra

Do you think there is no power issue? .

Power herein lies at the hands of the provider and in this instance am convinced via experience that the women irrespective of age can make any man kill for sex! And they always both knowingly or unknowingly wield and use what they have to get what they want; this is real power!

Originally Posted by ssandra

Do you think that at the age where somebody can decide that they have a crush on Justin Timberlake and they will just "DIE" if they cannot go to the concert, has the mental capacity to decide that this 40 year old is not using his power, is not manipulating her (or him) but is actually in love and only wants what is best..?.

Ssandra are you saying you no longer have any kind of crush of the opposite sex who you find to be physically attractive to you? Me thinks you are more experienced in understanding the futility of the feeling rather the absolute lack of it.

Originally Posted by ssandra

Maybe there are a few. Could be. Too bad for them. Tough luck, sex doesn´t run away, they can have sex with 40 year olds for the rest of their lives after they turn 18.

But for all the others, that cannot see that difference, we need to protect them! because they cannot yet protect themselfs.

Why do we adore those who have become millionaires at a very young age and consider them as role models but abhor those who experience ‘physical sex education’ at what we consider an (mentally) immature age? If the issue is as you have put it, that sex ‘wont run away’ why then delay the inevitable?

[newsbone]

Originally Posted by ssandra

I alreayd posted the link, somewhere on the first page.

There is a world of differerence between a 15 yr old and an 18 year old. In manners, in thinking, in forseing what is the result of your actions etc.

Not every 18 year old, probably. But you have to draw the line somewhere. And I happen to agree with this line...

The same applies to; 25yr old and 30yr old, 45yr old and 55yr old and even 70yr old and 85yr olds. It is not unique to only one age you know! It all about experience and expectations.