Why are there laws against paedophilia?

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At the teen level there are different motivations. The fertility issue you mention, of course is one. Another - we have a friend who for years made moves on the significantly younger. In his case, not so much creepsville as that HE did not - DOES not, he is older as me - want to grow up. My sister has that too, in her case she wants to be about 11. The friend - once he could not pass for in his 20s he upped his target age, and again when NOBODY was going to believe this balding guy was under 30.

Actually, we do have a very ephebophilic culture.

Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera were once hot; now they are has-beens.

Miley Cyrus is approaching the age where she will no longer be taken seriously. The Disney Corporation is presently grooming some younger talent.

Late teens would be when females would be the most impregnable, especially since the average life expectancy for our species was less than 40 years for most of our species' existence.

Nowadays, many women wait until they are past 40 to start having babies. They have plenty more complications at that age.

A high school teacher in my area just got in trouble:

http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2011 ... abuse.html

These topics in PPR so often veer off into discussions about semantics and hairsplitting on legalities that the real issue gets set aside. I felt compelled to post this. Read his suicide note if you want to know if sex with children should be legalized.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/0 ... 05689.html

I conclude that where nature does not provide a line in the sand sometimes it is desirable for mankind to draw one.
I have learned a valuable lesson!
<bows>

Re: the sexologist John Money, he held a fairly radical position on paedophilia: that only some adult-child sexual relationships are damaging, while others are neutral or even beneficial. It is entirely possible that he was right, and I've heard a bit of ancedotal evidence to support him, but even if he was, there's a significant distance between recognizing that some paedophilic relationships aren't damaging and deciding to condone or legalize paedophilia. I've never heard of a sufficient legal mechanism for separating the good relationships from the bad, if indeed such non-harmful relationships do exist in any significant number - nor have I heard of a change in the social constructs that would allow such safe relationships to reliably be formed.

For what it's worth, Dr. Money was definitely wrong on at least one issue, that of gender being more or less completely socially constructed: he treated a boy whose penis was accidentally destroyed during circumcision by performing sex-reassignment surgery on his genitals without his consent, and instructing the parents to raise him as a girl. He reported the operation as a success, but the child, David "Brenda" Reimer, never identified as male and suffered lifelong gender dysphoria and depression until suicide at the age of 38. Although Money greatly improved our understanding of gender, transsexuality and intersexualism, he also destroyed at least one person's life.



Re: the whole concept of "perversion," there are uncommon sexual preferences which are harmful if acted out, and those which are not. The term "pervert," unfortunately, does not seem to distinguish between harmful and harmless, acted upon and not acted upon, or compulsive and controlled, but rather condemns all people with unusual sexual desires.

For that matter, I'm not sure that paedophiles per se should be condemned - it is when they act on their desires that they become monsters. People who have such desires and manage to restrain themselves their entire lives are to be commended, not condemned.

There shouldn't be laws against paedophilia, but laws to protect children against sexual abuse. The problem is, that children generally can be more easily manipulated than adults and that they often doesn't realize the possible consequences of sexual contact and public opinion. While some people can be ready pretty early, other can be mature enough pretty late. It would be very problematic to judge the maturity of each person, so there is an age limit, which is simple and works for most cases.

The question is what the age of consent should be. Here in Czech republic it's 15. In US I find the laws of some states stupid, because the age of consent is 18 and I think average age of first sex is about 17 in US. This leads me to conclusion, that a lot of Americans violate the law despite the fact, that they risk serious legal consequences, like imprisonment and being registered as sexual offender. (If I am wrong at this, please correct me, I don't know US law so well.)

I look at it from two different perspectives. First, I think sex should only be between two consenting, married adults. End of story. You avoid a lot of problems that way, assuming, of course, that the relationship is a solid one. And I have no problem admitting that this idea is rooted in faith, but I think it's also important to note the practical wisdom of it.

Second, you can't legislate morality without legislating morality. In other words, sex regardless of age is a matter of morality and we have the troublesome task of tiptoeing around where morals come from. Do morals come from God? If so, how do we reconcile God-given morality with a pluralistic society? Do morals come from society? Society is fickle and often wrong.

Which is why laws regulating sex are so stupid. And I'm dumbfounded every time I hear about the latest Mary Kay out there. There's that guy teacher who quit his job to be with his 18yo girlfriend, and they've been doing everything they can to break up the relationship or get this guy behind bars (because he MUST have done something evil before she turned 18 and while he was still teaching). Heck, I even heard recently about a school secretary, NOT EVEN A TEACHER, who got busted for having sex with 18yo's! Ok, so she's a slut. So what??? Are we all of a sudden going to wake up now, apply Christian morals and start arresting every woman out there because she's a slut? I'm sorry, but...does not compute.

I understand that we believe that children below a certain age are not to be held responsible for adult behavior and consent laws exist to protect them from being manipulated by adults. So why is it when a 13yo gets pregnant, nothing happens? This is particularly true in lower-income areas where parents are relatively uninvolved or they tacitly encourage them to make babies for the welfare money. If we treat tween sex as child abuse, then someone needs to go to jail or one/both of the parents needs to be locked up for endangering their children. And the girls who get pregnant need to be placed in some kind of supportive foster care that will make sure it doesn't happen again.

And then there's the complexity of the laws themselves. If both kids are between the age of consent and majority age BUT there's an x-years gap between their ages, it's still against the law. If you want to criminalize underage sex, just do it!

Or...

Just don't have sex.

Seriously, the inconsistencies and unenforceability of many sex laws make even defining things like statutory rape and pedophilia absolutely absurd.

The Bible doesn't prohibit pedophilia. The Bible prohibits coitus between various pairs of people (for example, any male-on-male stuff; you can't do your mother, grandmother, sister, or daughter. You can't do like Jacob and marry your wife's sister while your wife is still alive). But, if you own a slave girl, then you may do with her as you wish. Just ask Thomas Jefferson.

Pedophilia/child molestation/sex with a child should be illegal for the following reasons:

1) A child's brain is not yet matured (neither is an 18-year-old's) enough to understand the gravity of such a decision. One could wind up pregnant (which a child's young teen's body is not designed to accomodate) or contract an STD.

2) As I have mentioned earlier, their bodies aren't designed for intercourse. There are several instanced when I interned at a correctional facility where inmates caused severe injuries to infants, toddlers, children and young teenagers after having sex with them. An infant even died as a result.

3) Children tend to dislike being molested/having sex with the perpetrator. Often the perpetrator groomed their victims and told the victim they "owed" them something in return. The victims expressed a sense of dread regarding the act that was to occur. There is a reason it is called child sexual abuse.

Note that I attempted to avoid bringing ethics/morals into the issue, since that is the easiest way to lose credibility in an argument.