Pesky Age of Consent Issue
It’s an issue NYRA doesn’t touch with a ten foot pole, and rightly so. Yet we get morons on the NYRA forums feeling the need to discuss the age of sexual consent once in a while, as if it’s some major youth rights issue alongside the voting age. Some get rather annoyed that we don’t take it on, feeling like we’re being hypocritical. They feel we’re ignoring an unjust rule that harms youth under the guise of protecting them, and that no youth rights supporter could possibly support it.
Well, that’s just not true.
Personally, I’m indifferent about it. I realize how dumb it is to prosecute a 17-year-old and 18-year-old for being together, as can anyone with half a brain. Duh. However, for the most part, the age of consent is something I think should remain in place, even if with some major alterations. But that’s not really the point I’m trying to get to here. Or maybe it is. I, a die-hard youth rights supporter, believes the age of consent is a good thing (though with major flaws). How is that possible?
First off, it bears a lot of very important differences from other youth rights issues.
In a case where, say, a 25-year-old and a 15-year-old were caught doing the nasty, which one of them gets prosecuted? The 25-year-old. The adult gets thrown in the big house, while the 15-year-old does not, even if she is then subject to a lot of annoying counseling. The forced victim counseling or whatever is a violation of her rights, true, and I’ve heard some horror stories, but that’s a separate issue from the age of consent.
The youth rights element to this situation is that the 25-year-old is prosecuted because the 15-year-old is too young for her word that the relationship was consentual to be binding. Not only that, and this is an important extra. The 25-year-old is prosecuted because the 15-year-old’s parents have decided the relationship was non-consentual. If the parents instead decided the relationship was consentual, then there would likely be no charges against the 25-year-old, though this probably varies by state. So the real issue here is not that this 25-year-old is “raping” this young 15-year-old girl, but that he’s doing so without her parents’ permission. That he’s not having sex with a teenage girl but rather with the teenage girl’s parents’ daughter.
And the issue of kids being property of their parents is a separate issue from the age of consent directly, and much bigger. So what we’re left with is that abolishing the age of consent alone does not save youth from being discriminated against, as they’d still be subject to forced counseling and their parents being the sole decision makers as to what does and doesn’t happen to them. Instead, all abolishing the age of consent would do is save adults. And saving adults, even if the “crime” is youth related, is NOT a youth rights issue!
Those for abolishing the age of consent often say that it’s about a young person’s right to say yes. Even though, as established, it is the young person’s older partner who is saved from incarceration by her having a right to say yes, while she doesn’t go to jail either way. But what they often forget about is her right to say no. They think rape laws already cover this, but they make some very significant omissions in their logic. These omissions being that, well, youth are considered more property than people, that teenagers have the nasty label of being liars.
An often ignored issue with youth having few rights as things are right now is how they are very susceptible to exploitation. Youth laws and policies are set up so that they are kept ignorant and completely dependent on adults, and can’t very well get out of this dependence. And it is a very dangerous and very wrong assumption that adults don’t take every advantage of these ignorant, dependent youth they can.
The aforementioned 25-year-old could very well be exploiting the naivete of the 15-year-old he’s dating, getting sexual favors from her while making ridiculous promises that she wouldn’t fall for if she knew better. Might not sound like much, and this can happen to an adult as well, but it’s not quite the same. The adult isn’t legally trapped in a cocoon of dependence and ignorance, but the 15-year-old is. And abolishing the age of consent would not help her, but would help the 25-year-old exploiting her.
Of course, that relationship could also be perfectly healthy and mutually respectful, in which case there is no problem and no one should be stopping it. Trouble is, how do you tell the difference? An interview with the couple can answer that, but even that system is still ageist, as you wouldn’t ask if they were 35 and 25. But in this case, there’s the concern because the 25-year-old and the 15-year-old are, legally and socially, not equals, and the older one has a great advantage over the younger one. Hence the current need for the age of consent, or at least something, to hold an exploitive adult accountable.
Obviously such a system sucks. But it’s the only way to protect a teenage girl from exploitation because our society dictates that she must be ignorant and helpless and a victim because of her age. OR! We could actually save these girls from being victims by changing society to be more respectful of young people. By like, say, lowering the voting age so young voter turnout would increase and politicians wouldn’t ignore them. Perhaps center things more around educating youth to handle the real world and letting them take the reins in their own lives so they can learn to deal with various situations better and to protect themselves from danger. Expect youth to not be subservient to their elders but equally competent and equally deserving of respect. Make it so discriminating against teenagers is as socially unacceptable as discriminating against black people or women or homosexuals. Then, and only then, can you really be sure that the 15-year-old is in a healthy relationship with that 25-year-old instead of being exploited.
All that needs to be done anyway. But even then, you can’t abolish the age of consent. It could be lowered, as at that point it would be quite unnecessary for teenagers. Still have to keep the old perverts away from the young children. Of course, seeing as most young children are victimized by their parents or other well-known adult, the age of consent is rather moot there. 
Just goes back to what I was saying earlier. Abolishing the age of consent only helps adults. Of course, there are cases where adults aren’t involved. Like that thing with the two 13-year-olds who were both charged with statutory rape or something like that because of relations with each other. Making them both victims and predators. Crap like THAT needs to just be done away with. Of course, that’s more for criminal justice type groups to worry about, so I stick by saying that NYRA shouldn’t touch this issue.
In conclusion, that’s why the age of consent isn’t a youth rights issue, not on par with the major ones anyway. Our major goals MUST happen first, as well as many other changes. The idea is to keep youth from being victimized, and to be worrying about lowering or abolishing the age of consent right now would only make it worse. And with or without it, teens and children are still victimized in all kinds of ways anyway. So, seriously, age of consent issues just aren’t anywhere near a priority, not for anyone who truly wants to see things better for young people anyway.
Says the celibate.
Comment by Agnapostate — March 9, 2008 @ 1:00 am
If that’s the best you can do, consider yourself pwned.
Comment by Katrina — March 9, 2008 @ 1:54 am
For a rant that’s supposed to be about how it’s not a YR issue, you sure did a great job of pointing out exactly why it IS a YR issue
It’s a YR issue because of the right to sovereignty over one’s own body; a right that the 15yo in your example does not have. However, as you pointed out (and as I’ve stated before), it’s not an issue we need to take on directly, because it will work itself out as other (more important) battles are won. But to say it’s not a YR issue is nearly as insulting as the AoC itself. Tsk, tsk, tsk….
Comment by Lord Galen — March 9, 2008 @ 12:46 pm
But I covered that about the body sovereignty. How it’s part of the bigger issue in general about how she belongs to her parents, which covers not only this but medical decisions, corporal punishment, etc. Those issues involve her right to her body in regards to not being beaten or having procedures done or not done on her against her will, while age of consent is more a matter of her older boyfriend going to jail, not her. So, yeah, the youth rights issues closely surrounding the aoc are valid issues and cover other areas, but the aoc itself is mostly against adults (in most cases anyway).
Comment by Katrina — March 9, 2008 @ 2:17 pm
In the rant you make it seem as if we all want to lower the AoC right now before anything else, lol.
Comment by Dylan — March 9, 2008 @ 2:51 pm
The argument that because in the case of the young woman who genuinely consents it is her older partner who is punished, this isn’t a youth-rights issue is unsound.
Youth rights is not just about stopping young people from being unfairly *punished*, but about protecting their *freedom*. If a restriction never leads to punishment for any young person, it is nevertheless a restriction and a youth-rights issue.
Consider the case of censorware. Suppose that in a particular case, there is no effort to figure out what sites a particular young person has tried to view: the software blocks his access, but keeps no record; or the record is not traceable to the individual; or no one looks at the record or tries to trace it to the individual. The censorware, in this case, will not lead to any young person’s being punished for trying to view what the authorities think he shouldn’t. Nevertheless, it is a youth-rights issue, because it is limiting young people’s freedom to read.
Likewise the AoC. By threatening older people with punishment, it makes them unavailable to young people as sexual partners. Thus it infringes the freedom of young people to choose their sexual partners. And that makes it a youth-rights issue.
There are more ways in which it’s a youth-rights issue.
For one thing, as applied, it tends to *reinforce* the almost proprietary control parents have over children’s bodies. My understanding is that the people who usually file the complaints and initiate the process are parents who do not like their children’s choice of lover (or who do not like that their children are sexually active at all). Thus the effect is to give parents the power to decide whether their children may have sex with particular adults.
For another, the prosecution has the right to force the victim to testify. Thus a person who was not violated by the sexual act–because it was consensual–IS violated by the state: forced to take her private knowledge, which she should be entitled to keep private, and allow it to be used to ruin the life of a person she may actually still love. In the context of marriage, an individual may refuse to testify *at all* against his or her spouse. But a teenager’s parents may not only prevent her from marrying the man she loves, they together with the state may force her to help put him in prison and on the sex-offenders registry–where he will still be even if he gets out and marries her, thus wreaking having in her life too.
But the most important reason it’s a youth-rights issue is that it reinforces the idea that a young person cannot make decisions about his or her own body. And it does so in a peculiarly intimate way: It asserts that the right to control the young person’s sexuality belongs not to him or her, but to the state.
Comment by Alexander — March 9, 2008 @ 3:00 pm
Honestly, if you want to have sex and you’re underage: Have sex and don’t tell anyone else about it. Christ. Hey, look the AoC problem has been solved. Go Eddy, go Eddy. Drinking Age? Fuck the law, don’t get caught. Voting Age? It’s easy enough to manipulate somebody else into voting for your candidate. Gulag Schools? Bust some fucking kneecaps, cap some fucking asses if you’re getting sent to a hellhole. Education? Fuck ‘em. Slack in class, pass shit easily. Parents being idiots? Go around them. Juvenile “Justice” unfair? Don’t get caught.
And this is all the shit you can get done by ignoring the stupid parts of the law.
Comment by Eddy — March 9, 2008 @ 9:52 pm
I know, but I covered all that already. Parents’ word being taken over hers, forced to testify because of her age, etc. They are just parts of separate bigger issues. Cure those issues, and the aoc won’t even really exist, for teens anyway.
Comment by Katrina — March 9, 2008 @ 10:16 pm
Evem if anyone would go after the AoC first, it’ll probably be the last thing on lawmakers’ agenda when it comes to achieving legal youth liberation. So it’s a moot point to argue that it shouldn’t be the first thing on the agenda anyway.
Comment by Agnapostate — March 10, 2008 @ 5:01 pm
You still haven’t adressed Alexander’s arguments, which I fully agree with, and I have a few more of my own to add. The age of consent is not “mostly against adults” anyway. These relationships are typically reported against the will of the minor partner, who is thereafter forced into counseling that he/she doesn’t need, and separated from his/her romantic partner, causing plenty of undue emotional distress. To add insult to injury, the minor partner is thereafter brutally patronized by the large majority of society, with their emotional feelings invalidated by being told that they were “molested.” So there you go. Respond, damn it! Grrr!
Comment by Agnapostate — March 11, 2008 @ 4:51 pm
Julian, I addressed Alexander’s arguments, just Eddy’s comment got between them. And I addressed everything YOU just said in the original entry. Learn to read, n00b.
Comment by Katrina — March 11, 2008 @ 5:57 pm
I’m not at all surprised that there are so many comments to this one.
Comment by Adamantaimai — March 11, 2008 @ 10:01 pm
Not taking the parent’s word over the child’s won’t cut it, because it isn’t always a question of credibility — and the parent doesn’t always know what she’s doing. Consider this case: http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Stossel/story?id=4400537&page=1 . The mother who reported the crime in order to teach her daughter a lesson recoiled when she realized the consequences, but it was out of her hands. Her son-in-law will be on the sex offender list for life, if the law isn’t changed. There was no issue of whom to believe or whose decision to follow: The decision was made by the authorities, not by either the parent or the child, except insofar as the parent made the initial decision to report the crime — which she could have done even if the law generally accepted that young people can make their own decisions.
The “victim” is not forced to testify because of her age, except insofar as (a) her age is what made the act to which she is testifying a crime and (b) her age prevents her from marrying the defendant. (A) is the age of consent. (B) is irrelevant except in those cases where the “victim” is so committed to the defendant that she’s ready to marry him. And many, many loving relationships reach a level of involvement where the parties choose to have sex before they reach a level of commitment where the parties are willing to get married. It would be a rather strange situation if to protect themselves from having to testify against their lovers, minors and only minors had to marry their lovers.
And I agree with Agnapostate’s point about the insults from society.
Comment by Alexander — March 12, 2008 @ 12:14 am
Oh. So in that case, maybe teens getting arrested and getting in trouble for drinking is just a problem with the criminal justice system, and not the drinking age.
Comment by Agnapostate — March 12, 2008 @ 12:18 am
Alexander, I did specify “in some states” in the part about the parents having control over whether the older partner is convicted or not. I’ve heard cases where the parents did prevent the adult boyfriend’s arrest and other cases where they had no such power (and in both cases, the girl was pregnant).
As for the sex offender thing for the boyfriend, again, he’s the adult, not the youth, so the adult is the one getting jailtime and sex offender list, which makes that more a sex offender reform issue, which is slightly separate.
The testifying thing is interesting, in that they take the “victim’s” word for it that the relationship occurred but not that it was consentual. What would happen if she denied it or just remained silent?
As for insults from society, well, that’s not age of consent. That’s just societal aversion to age disparate relationships, as people would insult the union of a 20yo and a 60yo, for example. The part about the forced counseling was already covered in the original entry, which is a youth rights issue since they are forced because of their age, but age of consent is only one of many causes for that. Even without the age of consent, parents would still be able to send their teens into counseling and psych wards against their will, and perhaps a reason they do that is they disapprove of the person their kid is in a relationship with.
Drinking age is quite different from this, in that, as said, teens get arrested for underage drinking while they’re not the ones who get arrested for age of consent, unless it’s the situation with two teens “molesting each other”. And that case, if you recall, I did say was age of consent and youth rights, but because of the “same person is victim and perpetrator” issue, is a criminal justice flaw, regardless of age. But, examining even that one closely, their arrests were not because they were teens but because their partners were teens, even if with the silliness of being each other. Which really just makes it all the more very strange!
So is age of consent a youth rights issue? I said both yes and no in the original entry! But the youth rights aspects of it are parts of other, bigger youth rights issues, and once those are taken care of, age of consent impact would be dwindled very significantly if not done away with in the process anyway, and it couldn’t very well be lowered or abolished beforehand, or at least it wouldn’t matter. Without the age of consent, all those other ills, such as forced counseling and parental control (where it makes a difference) and other related issues, would still be in place, so in reality it wouldn’t really make any difference. Except, of course, the adult would not be arrested, going back to the point about abolition alone benefiting just adults. But if parents don’t want him near their young daughter, they’d still have lots of other legal tools at their disposal to prevent that relationship. If parents are fine with it, and in cases where their approval would not keep the older boyfriend out of jail/sex offender registry, don’t be dumb enough to tell anyone! LOL
But, seriously, the idea behind the age of consent is to protect those legally forced to be vulnerable and easy to victimize… and, of course, it fails miserably at it. Sounds like a good idea, but just doesn’t work, since good relationships get messed up and abusive ones don’t get caught. Not to mention the penalties are WAY too stiff, but blame that one on hysterical media and politicians and how they are with youth issues in general (except when the parents are the perpetrators, in which case they couldn’t care less, sigh).
Comment by Katrina — March 12, 2008 @ 6:11 pm
But the drinking and smoking ages spring from the same root argument as the age of consent, that being the claim that youth deserve bodily sovereignty. I find it extremely unlikely that someone would believe that youth should be permitted to drink and smoke but is opposed to them having the right to sexual freedom. What I do find likely is that someone would refuse to acknowledge the validity of the youth right to sexual freedom merely because it is an unpopular sentiment to express.
Comment by Agnapostate — March 13, 2008 @ 12:21 am
And the censorware argument still stands. A youth is forbidden to view certain types of media because they are supposedly “harmful to minors.” But a youth viewing such things would most likely not be criminally prosecuted; there’s a far greater chance that an adult who furnished such materials to a “minor” would be charged. Since youth aren’t being criminally prosecuted now, and if the law changed, the adults would not be criminally prosecuted either, you could just as easily claim that censorware is not a youth rights issue. But censorware is not such a volatile issue as the age of consent. It’s similar, but it’s really much lighter. And you have less of a chance to be branded a “child molester” for supporting the elimination of censorware; you would merely be branded as being “irresponsible.” Since you claim that censorware is a youth rights issue, it would seem that your argument relies on fallacious logic, and you’re merely covering up your real objection to espousal of age of consent lowering/abolition, which is that it’s an unpopular sentiment to express.
Comment by Agnapostate — March 13, 2008 @ 2:52 pm
Julian, if I gave a crap about the unpopularity of AoC, I never would have even written this entry, regardless of my stance.
As you said, though, censorware is different in that it’s a much lighter thing, but not lighter in the sense you were talking about. There’s a world of difference between a minor looking at a picture of a sex act and engaging in that sex act IRL. No harm could possibly come from the former while harm and exploitation is at least possible in the latter. Not to mention censorware is a free speech violation, which is not the case with age of consent.
(makes it all the more amusing that in many places, the age of consent is LOWER than the age to view pornography!)
Drinking and smoking age, well, you’re right. They are similar in the body sovereignty thing. As well as anyone saying the ages should be lowered gets accused of wanting to cause health problems for kids. However, there is one important difference. Kids get arrested for underage smoking and drinking. They don’t if they have sex with an adult, despite all the other shit they still have to go through when that happens. They are considered the criminals in underage drinking and smoking, but if they have sex with an adult, they’re just a “victim”. Even in the absurd cases when two teens who were with each other both got convicted, each was convicted for “violating” the other one, not his or her own self. Strange circle.
Comment by Katrina — March 13, 2008 @ 5:59 pm
This is lulzy. Please continue. :popcorn:
Comment by Adamantaimai — March 13, 2008 @ 9:31 pm
What? No :popcorn:? :shame:
Comment by Adamantaimai — March 13, 2008 @ 9:31 pm
What? No :shame:?
Comment by Adamantaimai — March 13, 2008 @ 9:32 pm
At least there’s an
And to the…uh…author of this…thing…did you even read what I wrote?
Comment by Agnapostate — March 14, 2008 @ 4:58 pm
Katrina, you are an excellent writer who writes with brilliant moral clarity. I’d love for you to help us over at Perverted Justice with this issue; you seem like a supporter. Please contact me at Admin@perverted-justice.com to help us out.
Comment by Xavier Von Erck — March 14, 2008 @ 5:45 pm
Of course, I read it. Did you read what I wrote?
Or can this go on forever? LOL
Anyway, congrats guys. This entry has broken the record previously held by the Suicide entry of entry with the most comments.
And it both, the comments were mostly people arguing with me and wanting me killed for daring to say offensive things.
Comment by Katrina — March 14, 2008 @ 10:00 pm
Who wants you killed? I don’t want you killed. I just think you’re mistaken about this issue.
Comment by Alexander — March 15, 2008 @ 2:08 am
It was a joke, dude.
Comment by Katrina — March 15, 2008 @ 1:39 pm
Aw…what happened to Xavier VE’s comment?
Comment by Agnapostate — March 15, 2008 @ 11:37 pm
Hadn’t approved it. LOL, there you go. Number 23.
Comment by Katrina — March 15, 2008 @ 11:41 pm
You’re gonna help him out, I’m sure.
Comment by Agnapostate — March 16, 2008 @ 3:23 pm
Except it was really Galen.
Comment by Katrina — March 16, 2008 @ 3:51 pm
I see what you did there, Galen.
Comment by Adamantaimai — March 16, 2008 @ 6:28 pm
What the hell? It was me! I never get credit for anything around here.
Comment by Agnapostate — March 17, 2008 @ 8:03 pm
Aha!
Comment by Katrina — March 17, 2008 @ 8:44 pm
You’ve been fooled.
Comment by Adamantaimai — March 17, 2008 @ 9:56 pm
You’re still wrong.
Comment by Agnapostate — March 21, 2008 @ 2:57 pm
NO U!
Comment by Katrina — March 21, 2008 @ 4:34 pm
You still fail.
I hereby declare your censorware argument null and void. I dispute the idea that significant psychological harm can come from sexual expression as a youth any more than it can come from viewing images of such acts. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Comment by Agnapostate — April 6, 2008 @ 4:46 pm
It’s not sexual expression I’m concerned with, moron. It’s sexual exploitation.
Comment by Katrina — April 6, 2008 @ 5:20 pm
It’s too bad you decided to focus on the age of consent instead of sexual exploitation then, moron.
Comment by Agnapostate — April 10, 2008 @ 1:45 pm
Okay, you’re just bored now.
Find a hobby. May I suggest stamp collecting? Perhaps flying a kite, preferably during a thunderstorm (totally safe, I swear!). Maybe you could make a quilt. I don’t know, something.
And, whoa, cool! Comment 40!
Comment by Katrina — April 10, 2008 @ 5:03 pm
Comment by Agnapostate — April 10, 2008 @ 7:59 pm
An ordinary person would support their claim that no harm can come from viewing images of a pornographic nature, yet substantive harm can come from participating in the activities visually displayed in said images.
Comment by Agnapostate — April 11, 2008 @ 4:18 pm
So I guess John Holt and Richard Farson are just ignorant and misguided for calling the age of consent a youth rights issue, eh?
Comment by Agnapostate — April 29, 2008 @ 10:42 pm
Are you obsessed with this entry? This is teh lulz.
Comment by Katrina — April 30, 2008 @ 7:02 pm
I see the facade of even semi-legitimate responses has vanished.
Comment by Agnapostate — May 1, 2008 @ 11:15 am
Are you saying that Sure, Why Not? is becoming like the NYRA forums? Oh noes!
Comment by Katrina — May 1, 2008 @ 4:55 pm
A rebuttal could be on the way if Galen accomodates.
Comment by Agnapostate — May 13, 2008 @ 4:51 pm
He’s too busy losing electrical fights with tornados.
Comment by Katrina — May 13, 2008 @ 5:33 pm
Damn him.
Comment by Agnapostate — May 13, 2008 @ 7:37 pm
The Age Of Consent law doesn’t exist at all to protect young people from exploitation. Exploitation and coercion laws exist for that.
It is another power-trip cultural law created to make sure that young people won’t have sexual experiences until the system have carefully indocrinated them about the right why to have those experiences. As Faoucault have explained properly in his researches these laws exists to defend the status quo and are born from the needs of aristocrats to prevent their kids from becoming anything except white middle-class catholic straight respected members of the society.
Such concepts have spread to the poor classes as well but the premise is the same. In fact the whole notion and invention of childhood is based on the need to prevent a free individual to make a choice until the system has brainwashed and manipulated him/her enough so that the choices he/she will make are those of the system itself and those that advances the system. That’s why suddenly at 18 we become able to choose, why the state is so opposed to homeschooling (expecially if not based on school curriculums) and why “youth rights” are not just important to minors but to whatever person of whatever age as you can’t have free individuals unless you have free minors. They have been called “formative years” for a reason! Children and adults are two artificial categories creating and shaping each other and at the end destroying the real freedom of whatever person. Because for an example an “adult” that doesn’t conform to what specific limiting power-dense cultural roles society associates with such label is discriminated as much as the young person who doesn’t conform.
The Age of Consent is another youth normative thing just like a lot of current systems in our society are adult normative things. They’re there to prevent the natural disintegration of these artificial categories and their limits. The Age Of Consent exists to prevent the young person from having one kind of freedom (the freedom over his or her body) and according to many social critics curtailing body freedom is the most efficient way to curtail the other freedoms as well and sedating a sense of freedom in general.
That the adult person goes to jail instead of the young person is just a facade. They’re not punishing the older person for having desired that relationship with the younger person, they’re punishing the younger person for having stepped out of his/her cultural limits. And it’s the same thing that happened with women that had relationships with black people. The black person was incarcerated but they were actually punishing the woman, admonishing her for not conforming to the role that have been imposed to her (for power political reasons of course) It’s the young person which is prohibited from having any kind of sexual emotion not only experience. The older partner is free to have sex. It’s the younger person the fulcrum of the Age of Consent not the older person.
It’s like when white people would hide black people and help them to run away toward the west. When they were caught the black person went back to his slavery plus endured some more brainwashing and castigation from the boss and the white person served time. But do you really think that just because the white person was incarcerated the law was against the white person as such rather than against the black one? Incarcerating the only people that respect you and really care for your individuality is more of an act against you and against your dangerous self-determinationg not against those people.
The status quo needs people to pass though a huge manipulating programmation before they can start to freely interact with the world or other human beings and that’s the only way to make sure they will have learned to interact in a way which is of benefit to the status quo rather than against it. This is why childhood exists, this is why adulthood exists and this is why age based laws and streotypes exist. This is why parents are blamed for people who don’t conform to such programmation and why they have been historically blamed for the homosexuality of their children. This is why the natural human self-determination and rebellion against such programmation that young people manifest but which belongs naturally to every individual of whatever age is sedated through drugs, reformation camps or simply dismissed using pseudo-scientific flawed concepts about biological growth and hormones. This is why young people can’t have battles of ideas with older people but only intergenerational conflicts where they’re the ones to blame. This is why we really believe in the nonsense that there have young-behaviors that older people don’t have and adult-behaviors that young people don’t have.
Clearly addressing the Age Of Consent without addressing the rights of young people to be individuals would be retarded. In fact even addressing the right of young people without addressing how they’re interwined with the inventions of these categories (adults vs children) and the artificiality of the properties and characteristics associated to them would be. Even addressing the right of young people without addressing how they exist not to limit young people but to limit whatever person of whatever age and how their importance encopasses everything would be stupid.
But addressing the slavery and manipulation of young people and fighting for their rite to vote, drink, drive, work, emancipate thelsemves from their family and failing to address the importance of having the right to own their own body and to have intimate relationships with whoever they want is completely nonsensical.
Claiming that such right have nothing to do with youth rights is unbelievable.
The Age Of Consent law can’t rationally be considered a law influencing and addressing the older person more than the young one. If such were the case the law would state that a person over 18 can’t have sexual relationships with someone younger than 18 as that would not be positive for the social well being of the older person.
But the law actually states that a person below a certain age doesn’t understand consent (which is actually a pretty straighforward concept even more than voting and driving and so by itself is the most important insult to the intelligence and maturity of a young person) and therefore isn’t unable to have intimate relationships, sexual play. Of couse the truth is that the young person doesn’t understand sex in the way the status quo needs him/her to understand it and no human being of whatever age would understand it that way if it weren’t for the cultural brainwashing we are forced to endure.
But the law subtly implies also that the person doesn’t have sexual feelings, doesn’t deserve the control over his or her body and shouldn’t even think about sex. Actually the law even more subtly states that sex is dirty, corrupted, harmful and sick. A book could be written on how the discrimination toward the sexuality of young people is a consequence of our anti-sexuality, our fear and disgust of sex. Fear and disgust that have developed throught the cultural brainwashing we had to endure because of the young people slavery we fight against. Fear and disgust that historically have been instilled into us for political reasons. Are we really so naive to believe that we don’t carry through over-18 the mindset of being controlled, limited and controlling and limiting others after having been brainwashed for 18 years with the specific goal of making us bring those limiting ideas and sense of submisiveness into “adulthood”?! Are we really so nainve to believe that 18 years of our life living as slaves has no effect on the kind of people we will be, the kind of fears and ignorance we will have and the kind of stereotypes we will believe for the rest of your life?
The implications are huge and young people are subjected to imuliation and therapy even for masturbating or reading erotic stories. Age Of Consent laws replace the brutal torture young people had to endure when they masturbated or talked about sex. Even before having anything to do with potential older partners the Age Of Consent have to do with preventing the young person for even having his or her sexual thoughts and feelings recognized and respected for the simple fact that they’re dangerous for the status quo and its maintenance.
When an older person is involved the Age Of Consent law has to do with the “relationship” in itself. It’s the relationship that is punished as a whole not the older person. The young person is scolded by the system while the older one is brought away from the younger one. And if we reflect on the political nature of the invention of age based laws and social “children” we can see that what happens when an intergenerational relationship breaking the AOC law is discovered is identical to what happened when relationships between two people of different social classes were discovered.
And we can see strong similarity between the mother of the higher social class lover claiming “you’ll be punished and you’ll never see that person again!” and the imprisonement of the older partner. The young person doesn’t have completed the status quo training and so is given a second chance. What the young person did is a punishable mistake. The older person instead should have internalized and conformed to such training but apparently something didn’t work and is therefore hopeless unless reformed by a structure which is so similar to the structure that will try to the reform the young partner as well!
Reflect again about how the white person who helps the black slave escape goes to jail while the black person is sent back to work.
The point is that the black person, the woman or the young person all remain imprisoned within a structure that can still attempt to manipulate, brainwash and eventually reform them. The white person and the older partner instead are emancipated from such structures and won’t have a chance to be “changed” and “reformerd. In other words the older partner goes to jail but the young partner is already in such a jail! They both must be forced to change their point of view and show to be nice society puppets that never rebeal against the status quo. If the young person wasn’t imprisoned in such structure, he or she would be sent to jail too, be sure of that.
In the past when an intergenerational relationship was discovered both the older partner and the younger partner where tortured, umiliated and inprisoned. The young partner could be tortured brutally till she or he admitted that what he or she had done was bad and a sin. Sometimes thig resulted in the younger partner becoming unable to move, or losing one eyes and getting blind or losing hands faculties. The torture went on for days since the younger partner didn’t want to betray the consent and love she or he felt.
If you knew what happened nowadays to the younger partner when such relationships are found out you would not only see that little is changed as far as the torture is concerned but you would also see that behind the facade of protection (a modern trick used by an authoritarian and hierarchical system that was losing its grip as people of whatever age were becoming more and more rebellious and self-determined) the premise of the punishmnet of the younger partner are the same as in the past. The victimizer and the victim is just a myth and the law is not based at all on such archetype. They’re both dangerous transgressors to be reformed.
But since such relationships will keep occurring no matter the Age of Consent or whatever other law, a youth rights activist should care about such law if nothing to address the age-based torture of the younger partner. The activist might claim that nothing would change anyway but dismissing completely the struggles this law causes for young people can’t be condoned.
Besides even if it were true that the older partner is the one having the worst punishment it still should be of concern of the youth rights activist that an age-based law implies the message that loving young people as individuals is dangerous and that everyone should respect their inferiority and slave condition if they don’t want to suffer serious consequences.
We must also realize that the Age of Consent does nothing to prevent genuine non-consensual abuse because they’re not meant to do anything about those. Rape laws exist for that.
Age of Consent actually promotes genuine non-consesual abuse by making feel the young person unable to report an abuse like whatever person of whatever age would do. The law make them feel different and unable to represent their own rights. The Age of Consent law promotes abuse by focusing the problem of non-consensual violece on the age of the victim rather than on the violence itself. If abuse laws were age-blind and a “woman” of 40 could sit in the same room with a “woman” of 12 waitiing to fill a report for a violence they experienced there would be far far less abuses in the world. The best protection against abuse are not laws. Laws don’t protect, laws allow the victim to stop the abuser once the abuse has already occurred. The best protectiong is the freedom to choose your life circumstance so you can avoid abusive ones. Such circumstances include also intimate physical and sexual circumstances. The Age of Consent dosn’t prevent abuse because it can’t. It promotes abuse by focusing on the meaningless factor of the chronological age of the partner and hence ignoring the real abusive circumstances and factors and at the same time decrease the attention of abuse of older people by convincing people to lose a lot of time into imagining abuse everywhere, except where it really is. A stronger anti-abuse law that doesn’t fool stupid people into believing that it can prevent abuse but that would treat people of whatever age the same as far as their right to report an abusive experience is concerned would stop all these dispersion of resources, would empower the potential victims and really focus on the real victimizers.
The Age of Consent is a huge youth rights issue and have so litte to do with older people that in the majority of the cases the negative effects of the law entails a situation where an older partner doesn’t even exist.
Age of Consent abilition can’t exist without youth rights and youth rights can’t exist without Age Of Consent abilition. The latter is just a joke that just convinces people that the whole yought rights issue is full of contradictions. The former would actually be an abusive ridicolous concept.
Comment by David — June 11, 2008 @ 10:38 am
Holy fuck! Long comment is long!
I agree with the vast majority of what you said, at least in theory. You are quite preaching to the choir. But I think you misunderstood what I was saying. Near the end of it, I even did recognize that the age of consent is at best useless. The thing about exploitation, though, was just pointing out a rather prominent grey area in this, as exploitation is not nearly as easy to recognize as one might think.
However, as I did say, it would do no good to work on it right now. You said yourself how demonized sex is in our society. The second we even come close to saying we wanted to lower or abolish the age of consent, everyone would stop listening to us. Even our organization’s nice non-sexual positions get us a lot of flak on their own, and we don’t need to add to it. Let ASFAR or Planned Parenthood or other such groups worry about the age of consent. NYRA will worry about the voting age and drinking age, etc. If we were to touch AoC, it would be political suicide, as nobody would ever listen to anything we had to say, we’d be the lunatics who want kids to have sex, and, the most important part, the kids would not be helped at all. Especially since the voting rights efforts would be dragged to a halt, so they’d be in an even worse position if we took it on.
Hence my saying that I agreed in theory with some of what you said, but in practice, have to be careful with how things are done.
Comment by Katrina — June 12, 2008 @ 5:37 pm
I don’t think the Age of Consent should be an emphasized point.
But I think it would be hypocritical to fight for lowering voting, drinking and legal emancipation age without referring at least to body rights. Do people really believe that a young person who is able and free to vote would still be legally forbidden from having self-determined sexual experiences? Being able to vote and to make a difference in the system is the biggest form of emancipation and you can’t have such emancipation without body and sexual emancipation as well. A person might be allowed to vote and desire no sexual experience, but a person who is allowed to vote but is not allowed to desire and have a sexual experience would be a very strange being never seen before.
Also since I believe that emancipation of this kind can only occurr through social rebellion (as history showed us) with the voting issue we can associate with the youth rights position by siding with the rebellious. For example if a young person would find a way to illegally vote and such new would become public I would take advantage of such circumstance to point out how I think arbitrary age limitations for voting are injust and how I defend what that person did.
I think that we should be able to do the same with situations involving young people freedom to own their body. So whenever a new comes up about two 13 years old having sex or sex play and being reported and sent to counseling or a consensual intergenerational relationship I think we should be able to side with the rebellious young people, or rebeliious younger and older partner, and pointing out how we think that it is totally injust and stupid that such relationships and games are turned into crimes and hell for the people involved just because of youth stereotypes and age based laws without even trying to analyze the situation per se but just labelling it arbitrarily.
I just couldn’t feel good with my consciousness if I said nothing, if I didn’t side with the victims of the system and if I pretended that yes I want young people to be treated as human being and free to vote but it’s okay if their relationship are destroyed and their bodies profaned because of a law which is based on the same assumption the voting age law is based upon.
I don’t think we should campaign openly for the Age of Consent or emphasize it. But I don’t think we should disregard completely the issue of sexual freedom expecially when it’s not up to us whether to discuss it but a necessity mediated by circumstances of injust treatment of young people and their relationships. A youth rights activist can’t hide the head in the sand when those things happen and should openly point out the blatant injustice since it is not different from injustices corcerning drinking or voting or curfew at all. If nothing is even a worse injustice and way more traumatizing and abusive than the other ones.
Comment by David — June 12, 2008 @ 7:48 pm