posted
This is the link. My 6th grade Social Studies teacher was sentenced to 15-19 years for multiple counts of sexual abuse with 10 different boys. I don't know what to say. We all thought he was gay back then, although he eventually got married, and I definitely got a creepy vibe off of him once or twice when I encountered him a couple of years later. I wonder how long he has been doing this. Maybe not that long. According to the local paper, Robert's brother claimed that it was internet kiddie porn sites that caused this to happen. It's sad, man.
The difficulty for me is understanding how I feel about this sort of behavior. I myself have studied traditional tribes and their sexual behavior a fair amount, and many groups engage in practices that we would call horrific child sexual abuse. They don't seem to be any more messed-up, emotionally, than other groups that don't engage in sexual behavior with pre-pubescents, which leads me to the conclusion that this society over-stigmatizes this sort of thing, you know? I don't know, it's a complicated issue. I'd love to hear thoughts.
Posts: 3354 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
I don't wish to shut down discussion, but please be aware that the owners of this site will not allow any thread to continue that involves approval of pedophilia, and it would undoubtedly be deleted rather than locked. You can take that information under advisement, and perhaps decide if it supports your conclusion (that part is up to you).
posted
Well, there's the African group that believes that boys ages 8-14 need to consume human semen in order to grow.
There's a group in South America that marries girls off just before the age of puberty. Once they are married, they practice only oral sex with their (adult) husbands until the age of menarche.
There's a tribe in New Guinea where the mothers practice oral sex on their infant sons. they believe it increases future penis size.
Those are the only examples that come to mind right now, but there are at least a few others. I myself have spent time with a group of Guaymi in Costa Rica; it is very common for men in their late teens and twenties to have casual sex with girls ages 12-13, and, so far as I know, it is not considered wrong, except by the relationship parter of those men, although the relationship partners' objections may actually be a more modern tendency that arrived with Western culture. I don't know. Plenty of groups practice forms of open polyamory, although that's not totally what we're talking about.
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posted
Yeah, how about we go ahead and delete this now, save us all the trouble?
steven, I don't believe any of those are true. Without links to scholarly (not salacious) sources, I'm not going to believe any of those are true, no matter what you say. I think you're 100% deluded and/or full of it.
And even if they ARE true, I don't think hatrack's the place for this discussion. How about you edit your previous post and we let this drop here, and not let it turn messy?
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posted
Those are all things I got from a couple of my anthropology professors in college, except for the part about Costa Rica, which is from my travels there. I don't mind dropping the subject, but I guarantee that there are several people here who took college courses that covered this material. I wasn't really interested in digging up the links myself, because it's a good 20-30 minutes of Googling, but they're there. I don't exactly keep them in my favorites list, because this doesn't cross my mind that often. Seeing a picture of my 6th-grade Social Studies teacher on the front page of the local paper crying into his hand definitely caused it to cross my mind.
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posted
There are a lot of groups that marry girls off before puberty. It's a horrible practice many people are trying to end as it has horrible results. Besides, just because whole groups of poeple do something doesn't mean it's horribly wrong and unhealthy.
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Really, primitive societies (at least, I hope they're primitive) having wildly incorrect folk beliefs (such as puberty being dependent on the consumption of body fluids) does not seem to have anything to do with your topic.
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posted
Here is a link on the Sambia of New Guinea. It's a very brief summary of their practices. It's actually the first Google search result for "Sambian".
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Well, if you talk to the victims of sexual abuse, you can tell that they are seriously harmed by it. I don't think cultural relativity works here.
Is it your position that anything that is considered acceptable in any culture anywhere can't really be wrong? What about human sacrifice or slavery or torture? What about exterminating all the people of an ethnic group you don't like? Those things obviously have been considered fine at various times and places too, in certain societies.
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posted
Yeah, but the boys this man abused were not Sambian, were they? I would think that any thing that goes on in a tribe thousands of miles from them who they have never heard of would have zero bearing on how they relate to what horrific thing they've been through. I'm certainly not going to give them the equivalent of a pat on the head and the message that "Oh, it's okay if other tribes across the world do it."
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posted
steven, I really don't think your sick and twisted (and I feel really good saying that, by the way) former Social Studies teacher is comparable to a tribe in a different country. Maybe in his demented mind he thought he was participating in some ritual or some such other not cool activity.. that doesn't mean in ANY way his behavior is acceptable, defendable or even remotely o.k.. Blaming a website for something happening is ridiculous, too. This skeevy person didn't HAVE to go to the website.
As for your questioning if this society over stigmatizes this type of behavior, allow me to tell you that you're wrong. Kids brains don't even think like that yet (at the ages you're referring to). How about let them grow and expand how they will, without having demented grown-ups perverting their innocence.
I'll stop now.
I'm a lover not a fighter. People like that, though, test my resolve.
Posts: 1355 | Registered: Jul 2006
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posted
I'm always impressed when a group manages to discuss controversial practices from a purely observational and/or culturally relativistic standpoint, but if this happens to involve The Pedo does that automatically cause a thread to get bricked here?
but okay thoughts
quote:The difficulty for me is understanding how I feel about this sort of behavior. I myself have studied traditional tribes and their sexual behavior a fair amount, and many groups engage in practices that we would call horrific child sexual abuse. They don't seem to be any more messed-up, emotionally, than other groups that don't engage in sexual behavior with pre-pubescents, which leads me to the conclusion that this society over-stigmatizes this sort of thing, you know? I don't know, it's a complicated issue. I'd love to hear thoughts.
Look, when you analyze those tribes that have practices that we 'would call' horrific abuse, you get a lot of things in common. Most often:
1. Stupid juju crap, and/or 2. Practices which involve the inherent sexual and social subjugation of children, which is usually part of 3. A lifelong cultural subjugation of women much in the fashion of exchangeable commodity.
Since we as a modern and very much not stupid culture (yes, screw relativism) are all about gender equality and concepts like an 'age of consent,' the cultural prerequisites necessary to create an environment where prepubescent kids are essentially traded around for favors or as sexual property make it so that we don't even reach the point where the acceptability of quote-unquote-in-huge-brackets "smaller" issues like "trading kids around for sex acts" even begin to come into play for a society I would begin to consider vaguely tolerable and equitable. Even if you haven't personally had any way to see how or why the sexual acts, specifically, mess up a kid who is chained to a cultural practice that makes it commonplace and shameful for the victim to reject, you shouldn't give it any consideration as 'maybe not as bad a thing as we think it is' because of the societal structure that equips it in the first place. To do so like you did could be essentially saying (for examples like the 'A Group In South America Tribe') "These prepubescent girls are traded off as property to older men and they don't ever act up about it, so are we overstigmatizing <related act or portion of practice> ??"
Also -- lest we forget -- the compelling factors that make these kids think that they should have to do these things at all in the first place are rooted in the aforementioned stupid juju crap, like how boys are feared into performing oral sex on men because their society has raised them literally to actually think "oh crap, I gotta do this or I'll be a spindly runt forever" or how too many of these societies teach their women stuff like "you gotta do everything the man we're selling you to wants you to do, or Harvey the Invisible Rabbit will not give us good crops next year as punishment for the infidelity of our girls."
I mean, really, think about it. We even have a 'western' parallel: the FLDS. They easily qualify as a group who essentially did (do?) the same sort of 'engage in practices that we would call horrific child sexual abuse' thing and the stories of the women who had to escape that structure should provide all the evidence you need about why these practices have no place in a free society.
It's not suddenly okay when other groups do it just because they're not in the united states or because they still hang out in huts or whatever. The only real difference is that the victims of these customs are less readily able to impart to western outsiders any damage being done to them, emotionally or otherwise, by a structure that makes them sex toys. Besides that, there's no mythical degree of separation that makes them fundamentally unlike the victims of the FLDS because they're "tribal." You will see the same problems with the same practices. Practices which are stigmatized here.
And "Is The Pedo too stigmatized in America?" is bottoming out on my list of things I can see myself having true concern about.
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quote:Originally posted by Tatiana: Well, if you talk to the victims of sexual abuse, you can tell that they are seriously harmed by it. I don't think cultural relativity works here.
Is it your position that anything that is considered acceptable in any culture anywhere can't really be wrong? What about human sacrifice or slavery or torture? What about exterminating all the people of an ethnic group you don't like? Those things obviously have been considered fine at various times and places too, in certain societies.
I think you've just invoked [url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law]Godwin's Law[/url] . The fact of the matter is: it's THEIR culture. I find it hard to believe that I just read lines akin to "Just because it's part of their culture doesn't mean it isn't wrong!" on this, of all forums. That's self-righteous to the extreme, and though I'm sure it's not intentional, it was actually bigoted.
How many things that we do on a daily basis are considered taboo to other cultures? Look no further than your TV, because on it, you'll likely notice a people who believe that all westerners should burn in hell; and they're only a culture away.
If you lived in one of the afore-mentioned cultures in which this sort of thing were ok, then you probably wouldn't have a problem with it. Here's the clincher: The children involved might not have a problem with it either being that they were never taught that it was wrong. People saying otherwise are projecting a western point of view on to the subject. Their were times, not to long ago on the Human spectrum, where 12-13 was the a marriageable age. I'll admit that I haven't looked into the subject very much, and their may very well be a mountain of scientific reasons why this practice isn't recommended, but that's not what we're talking about. This post is addressed to the people putting their morals (read: Opinions) forward as fact. (read: Politics)
Go read Speaker for the Dead again. I think you missed something.
(now I get to sit back and see how many people accuse me of supporting pedophilia)
Posts: 636 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
Funny how steven went from being something like an expert on the subject ("I myself have studied the sexual behavior of primitive tribes") to a well-meaning half-rememberer ("well gee I seem to recall that my professor told me") in the span of about 10 seconds.
quote:They don't seem to be any more messed-up, emotionally, than other groups that don't engage in sexual behavior with pre-pubescents, which leads me to the conclusion that this society over-stigmatizes this sort of thing, you know?
"I'm not the one who's sick! Society is sick! Why, in Biblical times, they married 12 year-old girls! Right now in some barbarian tribe in some jungle somewhere, [insert abnormal sexual behavior] -- don't you see? It's natural. It's human. It is only our deprived, puritanical small-thinking, you know, culture that causes us to falsely believe this behavior is wrong. Step outside of that box they've put you in, bud. Sex with children -- that's a false stigma. It's actually normal. Anyone who knows anything about history knows. It's actually normal."
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posted
Well, yes. It is normal, or at least it was. But let's not get hung up on loaded words, eh? Slavery was normal too, not to mention casual rape whenever you happened to catch a woman alone. All that business with chaperones wasn't just to protect a future husband's valuable commodity.
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posted
Take it out of quotation marks, and say it from somewhere besides that high high horse of yours, and you may be on to something. One more thing though: stop putting it into terms of "Right and wrong". Morals have no place in an anthropological discussion. Also, stop cherry picking and taking out of context (that seems to be the latent motif of the internet these days). Stop trying to rally the forces of morality against something you are ignorant of.
It's called an objective point of view, and you can apply it to ANY subject. We could just as easily be talking about cannibalism or euthanasia/suicide, or abortion, or the Death penalty. Just because you use a sarcastic tone when you say it isn't relative, doesn't make you right, because it IS relative. That's kinda the point I'm trying to make.
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sylvrdragon: I'm glad you're so open minded about the practices of other cultures.
In my culture, for example, it's perfectly fine for me to take all your belongings and make you my indentured servant. It's awesome that you see how right that is for me.
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quote:The fact of the matter is: it's THEIR culture. I find it hard to believe that I just read lines akin to "Just because it's part of their culture doesn't mean it isn't wrong!" on this, of all forums. That's self-righteous to the extreme, and though I'm sure it's not intentional, it was actually bigoted.
I do not find "It's THEIR culture" a very compelling omni-excuse for anything that a culture may be practicing. How is it fundamentally bigoted or self-righteous if a person isn't going to automatically give the A-OK to things like slavery or arranged child marriages just because they occur in a different country?
Total cultural relativism is some pretty crazy stuff, mang -- it's a dicey proposition to go and throw out a bunch of phenomenally negative labels at people just because they're against some stuff categorically, with little or no regard as to whether or not it happens in Vermont or the Kamchatka peninsula.
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quote:Originally posted by sylvrdragon: Take it out of quotation marks, and say it from somewhere besides that high high horse of yours, and you may be on to something. One more thing though: stop putting it into terms of "Right and wrong". Morals have no place in an anthropological discussion. Also, stop cherry picking and taking out of context (that seems to be the latent motif of the internet these days). Stop trying to rally the forces of morality against something you are ignorant of.
It's called an objective point of view, and you can apply it to ANY subject. We could just as easily be talking about cannibalism or euthanasia/suicide, or abortion, or the Death penalty. Just because you use a sarcastic tone when you say it isn't relative, doesn't make you right, because it IS relative. That's kinda the point I'm trying to make.
I think you're fighting a losing fight, sylvrdragon. I applaud your effort though.
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quote: I find it hard to believe that I just read lines akin to "Just because it's part of their culture doesn't mean it isn't wrong!" on this, of all forums. That's self-righteous to the extreme, and though I'm sure it's not intentional, it was actually bigoted.
Maybe I AM self-righteous and maybe I AM bigoted, but I still believe some cultures are better than others.
I believe a culture that lets people decide when they are going to get married, and to whom, is better than a culture that forces people to marry at a certain age and to a certain person.
I believe a culture that throws people in jail for sexually abusing kids is better than a culture that says it's okay.
How can you move forward as a culture if you don't condemn cultural relativism? How can you have any sort of moral code if you believe it only applies to some people?
quote:Go read Speaker for the Dead again. I think you missed something.
I don't think OSC believes in cultural relativism either. When the piggies murdered other members of their community, it turned out it WASN'T murder, but another stage in their life cycle. When the buggers killed humans, it turned out they didn't think of it as murder, because killing other buggers WASN'T murder.
The piggies and the buggers were ALIENS. Of course they are going to be vastly different from us.
People from other cultures are HUMAN, and I think we can easily imagine how ANY little boy is hurt by sexual abuse, whether they were born in Europe or some ancient tribe in Africa.
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MightyCow: If that happened, and I were a member of the Culture that allowed that, my reaction wouldn't be "This is wrong! This is an outrage! How can you all stand around and let this happen?!". No. My reaction would be "That sucks for me." and I might even try to fight back, but not for reasons of morality. Which is the only point I'm trying to make. It would be like getting audited, only longer lasting.
I'm just saying that people should never apply their own definition of right or wrong onto someone of another culture. You don't have to give the A-OK, but neither do you have the right to step in.
I'll admit right now that I'm nervous as hell playing Devil's advocate in a discussion that started about pedophilia. So strong is the taboo of this subject, that I don't even want my anonymous internet handle associated with the POSSIBILITY of condoning it. However, so strong is my resolve to insist upon an objective point of view, that I won't back down voluntarily.
When you can discus this, of all topics, without breaking out the torches and pitchforks, then you can actually get somewhere in a discussion.
I don't actually care about this particular subject that started this. My real concern was that Steven was getting attacked right off the bat for even SUGGESTING discussing it. The truth is, if someone ever touched my future children, or the children of anyone I know, I would probably hospitalize them, but that wouldn't keep me from talking about it.
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quote:Take it out of quotation marks, and say it from somewhere besides that high high horse of yours, and you may be on to something.
quote:Stop trying to rally the forces of morality against something you are ignorant of.
Interesting how, in your view, if someone disagrees with your perspective, it is only because of their ignorance. Funnily enough, I seem to have parroted the argument comvincingly enough for you to agree with it -- yet, in your view, I don't understand the argument.
Your tactics in arguing your point, here, are as preposterous as the point itself.
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sylvrdragon: Well, I think theft and slavery are universally wrong, regardless of cultural standards.
You seem to agree that slavery would be wrong to be inflicted upon you. If it's wrong, it's wrong - obviously the people who are enslaving others don't want to say it's wrong.
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posted
sylvrdragon -- It's good that you have the courage to argue your point. That's what we do here at Hatrack. We're not breaking out torches and pitchforks (at least I'm not).
It just so happens that on this topic, lots of people disagree with you. That's all there is to it.
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quote:I'm just saying that people should never apply their own definition of right or wrong onto someone of another culture. You don't have to give the A-OK, but neither do you have the right to step in.
Where you have gone terribly wrong in your thinking, here, of course, is that you are railing against an argument that no one made. No one advocated "stepping in" to right the wrongs of another culture. And clearly, it is steven who introduced cultural relativism in his original post, and it is this that we have been reacting to. You are treating it as though we introduced the subject and it deserves a counter-argument. What is wrong, and rather silly, is the concept that the values of our culture are amiss because we don't think it's okay to have sex with children, when certain other cultures do. In short, you seem to have misunderstood the entire discussion.
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posted
Ok, well, some people ARE breaking out the pitchforks. Oh well.
No, I think where sylvrdragon went wrong was the entire argument, not that he/she misunderstood the discussion.
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quote:Take it out of quotation marks, and say it from somewhere besides that high high horse of yours, and you may be on to something.
quote:Stop trying to rally the forces of morality against something you are ignorant of.
Interesting how, in your view, if someone disagrees with your perspective, it is only because of their ignorance. Funnily enough, I seem to have parroted the argument comvincingly enough for you to agree with it -- yet, in your view, I don't understand the argument.
Your tactics in arguing your point, here, are as preposterous as the point itself.
This just proves that you don't know what my point IS. Society won't even allow the serious discussion of this subject unless you're condemning it (see post number 3). It probably won't even allow neutral, objective comments on it (hence why I haven't really made any except from an anthropological point of view)(read: Covering my ***). Several of the people on this thread thus far are just demonstrating WHY. The rejection of this subject is so ingrained into this society (and not through scientific reasoning) that everyone here recognizes that I've lost before I've even begun. (and trust me, I haven't)
THAT is what I don't agree with, and THAT is my point.
Posts: 636 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
Well, if someone tries to argue that randomly beating people on the street is cool, because it's a cultural norm, I'm going to disagree with them strongly, because I don't think there is ever an excuse for randomly beating people.
If you try to make the argument that it's OK for some countries to randomly beat people, I would indeed say that you've lost before you've begun, because by definition, the people haven't done anything to deserve a beating, so there is no justification for one, regardless of what the culture believes.
Similarly, I would say that it's never OK to force people into slavery, even if it's some sort of sexual slavery and even if the culture says that it's part of growing up. No, it's not a rite of passage, it's slavery. It won't ever be right, no matter how many people imposing the slavery say it's right.
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
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posted
Ok, you can stop covering your *** now. I'd sincerely like to hear more about WHY you think it's okay for cultures to do harmful things to their members.
I mean, who is it who can really decide what's right and what's wrong? We have no way of knowing this. But the only way to have a serious moral code, I think, is it base it off what hurts other people and what does not.
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quote:Society won't even allow the serious discussion of this subject unless you're condemning it (see post number 3). It probably won't even allow neutral, objective comments on it (hence why I haven't really made any except from an anthropological point of view)(read: Covering my ***). Several of the people on this thread thus far are just demonstrating WHY.
I will tell you that in my experience, all of these points are fully untrue. For instance, I have put on a fully objective hat and discussed everything from cultural sex slavery to clitoridectomy. I can and do discuss these things without condemning them where it is important and relevant to the query.
steven's query in no way necessitates fully objective description. He's asking for our thoughts. He is asking that his interpretations of the ramifications and judgments of certain actions create a discussion on the matter, which can (and will!) involve moral and subjective opinions because it's about pedophilia and sex slavery. If you want to find someone reproachful because they're condemning an act categorically without regard for 'whose culture' does it, you've found exactly the wrong place for it.
And, to reiterate, your point about society and our microcosmic demonstration of it is still all wrong. It's silly to suggest that by taking a stand on an issue, I'm unable to allow serious discussion of it without condemnation. It's even sillier to say that our 'self-righteous' acts prove the rejection of a subject.
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posted
I think there is the possibility of an interesting discussion here, but clearly, in the Western culture that everybody at Hatrack is more-or-less a member of, this is a vastly touchy subject. So, carefully, carefully, with the posts.
The point I wish to discuss is that of psychological harm; I think this may also be what steven was touching on. Let me try to make a subtle distinction, Dagonee-style: For any act we wish to judge, there are two questions to consider; one, was the act moral; two, how much harm was done. Now these are clearly correlated. Generally we condemn acts that have a strong chance of leading to harm; and a large part of the debate over abortion and gay marriage (just to touch on two more inflammatory topics, sigh) is that one side perceives harm where the other does not. But I do not think the correlation is perfect. We do sometimes condemn acts that do little or no harm, even in the eyes of the condemner. In particular, we tend to condemn acts that override the free will of another, even if the other is not harmed thereby. The phrase "it should be their own choice" tends to pop up in such discussions. And of course, this is precisely where the issue of sex with children comes in: A child cannot meaningfully consent to such an act because they are not equipped to understand it, so their choice on what should be an extremely personal matter is being made for them. This is wrong whether or not harm results from it.
Now, with this understanding in mind, we can consider how much harm is done. Let's try to keep in mind that there can be degrees of hurt. It is not the case that everyone who is raped is thereby shattered for life. Certainly, there are many women who have great difficulty after a rape; I have no wish to minimise their struggle. I do wish to point out that recovery speed varies, and that some women might recover quite quickly.
So, back to the children. Having acknowledged that sex with a child is wrong regardless of actual harm, can we say something about how much harm is being done? I think this is where culture comes in. The damage done is primarily psychological; shame, guilt, difficulty knowing where the boundaries of the self are. But in a culture where sex with children is usual, the first two, I would think, do not apply. Why should there be shame? Everyone does it, it wouldn't occur to anyone that it's wrong.
Thinking about it, that may not be true. It's quite possible for a normal act that can be performed in the open to nonetheless be shameful for one side; the example I thought of is bullying. Bullying happens, everyone knows it does, within strict limits it's even condoned. But it's not very nice to admit you were a victim. So child sex could also be a sort of perpetual bullying, with the difference being that the child can at least look forward to taking his turn at being the bully.
Anyway, I'm arguing both sides now. The point I wanted to make was that it's possible for sex with children, in a culture where this is considered normal, to do less psychological damage than the same act would in the West. I do not assert that such is the case for any particular culture, especially ones I know fourth-hand from vague mentions on Internet fora. And harm or no harm, to override choices about the body is wrong, period. I am merely saying that it's possible for such a culture to produce reasonably well-adjusted adults.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
If I'm to discuss this, then I feel that I must clarify something (as a friend pointed out to me). The age range I'm talking about is teen and up. Namely, 13-17. And although I knew some sexually active 12 year olds growing up, I'm gonna have to draw the line at 13 with this one. Any younger than that would introduce obvious PHYSICAL and SCIENTIFIC reasons for it not being right. Not to mention, I'm still in cautious mode.
The first question in my argument is: How do you feel about sex between two young teens? We'll say two 13 years olds, to get the lower range out of the way.
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quote:Ok, well, some people ARE breaking out the pitchforks. Oh well.
Ouch. I thought I was going out of my way to be nice.
quote:Society won't even allow the serious discussion of this subject unless you're condemning it (see post number 3).
Here's the thing. That's because, in our society, this is not a serious subject. With all your ranting about how we must be fair to other cultures, you're leaving something out, and that is that our culture deserves to be treated fairly too. And in our culture, as you point out, this is simply not a subject that we're open-minded about. So there's a little bit of a blindspot in your vision, I think.
quote:The rejection of this subject is so ingrained into this society (and not through scientific reasoning) that everyone here recognizes that I've lost before I've even begun.
1. Are the practices of the cultures which engage in this behavior based on scientific reasoning?
2. Why is it reasonable, to you, to support the right (there must be a better word) of another culture to practice child sex, but to become upset by the idea of our culture exerting its right to reject the idea -- to be closed to it?
clarification edit: When I talk about "this subject" not being a serious subject in our society, I am not referring to the discussion of the practices of other cultures, that is fine, I think we can all talk seriously about that -- what I am referring to as being un-serious is any attempt to use moral or cultural relativism to decry our society for rejecting, as wrong, child sex.
Posts: 2267 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
I think it is easier for us to admit that stoning a woman for being gang raped is wrong than it is sexual practice of cultures we are not intimately familiar with. As an anthropology student I recognize the importance of avoiding ethnocentricity; but as a human being I recognize the important of abhorring and discrediting any practices, no matter how institutionalized, that promote the exploitation and sexualization of children.
Just because you can convince yourself that something is okay, doesn't make it okay. There have been through the ages many institutionalized practices that are incredibly unjust, unhealthy, and inwardly damaging. And I *do* feel a right in making those sorts of judgement calls. Children are no different, no matter what part of the world they are born in.
And as a young woman, I can also guarantee that most sexual acts with an adult male before you have even reached puberty (and sometimes after, actually) is terrifying and confusing, no matter what you've been taught.
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Here's where it looks to me like it's going. You'll say what about 13 year olds, we'll say it's unadvisable but sometimes happens. You'll ask if it's some kind of offense, some kind of perpetration for one 13 year old to have sex with another who consents. We'll say no, and from there you'll attempt to make the tired argument that age of consent morally (with science!) should be age of puberty, and that there is relatively no difference between kids consenting with each other and kids consenting with adults.
At least, in the past, that's where I've seen people who pose the same question take this argument.
I will assume you've already heard the usual responses and deconstructions. Feel free to answer the questions I asked a few posts ago at any time.
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quote:The first question in my argument is: How do you feel about sex between two young teens? We'll say two 13 years olds, to get the lower range out of the way.
I believe that sex between 13 year-olds, or any teenagers under 18, can't be condoned because of the emotional immaturity that is inherent in adolescence. I do think that teenagers that young can understand a romantic relationship. That understanding needs to be started somewhere, but sex is too emotionally complicated for someone so young to begin it then.
In another culture where sex, or marriage, at the age of 13 is expected, and may even be a rite of passage, the children could probably understand and prepare, but that doesn't mean they are ready. It may even be quite frightening depending on the child.
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posted
That's the last step of this line of reasoning, yeah. The middle steps were: What about a 13 and 15 year old? 13 and 17? 16 and 18? 16 and 25? 17 and 40? etc. Where is the magical line? The downward limit, as you pointed out, is obvious, and natural: puberty. What's the upward limit? 18 and 90 are fine with society, even if they look at you funny. Why do we go nuts about 17 and 20 though?
Your last assumption is wrong, however. I haven't discussed this with anyone before, and so I don't know the usual counter-argument.
The next logical argument for the other side is most likely going to be education. "Teens don't understand the consequences!", to which I reply, why do you assume that? Not to mention, I think that it's pretty obvious that if the age of consent were lowered, the age of sex education would be lowered as well. The truth of the matter is, I've seen some better 16 year old parents than some of my 24 year old friends are doing now.
Of course, that last is assuming that pregnancy is one of your major arguments, which I probably shouldn't assume. What about recreational sex with contraceptives/birth control?
Posts: 636 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
Just about all lines are arbitrary, but in order to make rules or have discussions, they have to be made. They are still useful, despite their apparent vagueness and/or arbitrary nature.
You can't point to a specific moment when an acorn becomes an oak tree, but we still identify acorns and oak trees.
There is nothing about a person in the moment just after he or she receives a medical degree which makes him or her now a physician, but that line is drawn at a specific point, too.
Of course, that doesn't rule out some very good possibilities for discussion about which arbitrary/vague lines to use. However, I doubt there are many such lines which don't have some element of arbitrariness or vagueness, and I bet that none of us get through the world without using them anyway.
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Edit for clarity: I rarely if ever see a "magical line" for any demarcator of different states on a continuum, but that's okay. That's just how the world rolls, you know?
However, I have no problem with discussing whether a given (to some extent arbitrary and/or vague, just like the rest of them) line of demarcation works better or worse than another. I'm not terribly excited to do it right now myself, but I don't see a problem with that type of discussion per se.
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posted
The age of consent law is, as Claudia noted, a line drawn in the sand by law. It is not a magical line. It is a line that we use by common cultural agreement, essentially.
It would be great if we could find or otherwise apply a magical line that fit everyone perfectly but we really can't, and that doesn't mean that we shouldn't have a line at all. It's like saying that the voting age being 18 makes literally no sense if even a single person is mature enough to vote when they're under 18.
There's plenty of time and plenty of good reasons for arguments as to where we place these legal lines and whether or not they are too late or too early based on human developmental cycles or the relative unfairness of being 20 and wanting to drink with your friends but being unable to due to some interstate highway strong-arming legislation from before you were born (which is in all fairness an epic, scarcely imaginable unfairness) but the lines don't pretend to be perfect and they're just a system we use.
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quote:That's the last step of this line of reasoning, yeah. The middle steps were: What about a 13 and 15 year old? 13 and 17? 16 and 18? 16 and 25? 17 and 40? etc. Where is the magical line? The downward limit, as you pointed out, is obvious, and natural: puberty. What's the upward limit? 18 and 90 are fine with society, even if they look at you funny. Why do we go nuts about 17 and 20 though?
A lot of that has to do with the limit set by law, which is why "society" is fine with 18 and 90. There is nothing that can be done legally, even if the 18 year-old is still confused and emotionally immature. Of course the law isn't your argument. You want to know why we are so squeamish.
Teens do understand the consequenses, but many don't care. I'm sure that most teenagers are aware of the dangers of disease and pregnancy, but the effect of hormones and the conscious desire for sex often overtake whatever concerns they might have.
Even with contraceptives and birth control, the emotional effects are big, and hard to control for people so young.
There is a stronger argument to be made for my point, but I can't make it. There are people here who can, so I'll be watching this thread.
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posted
Why 18? I can understand why it's suggested (if a woman gets pregnant before she completes her education, then he chance of completing that education are likely reduced dramatically), just not why it's taboo.
I also find it funny how the main focus of this subject is with women. I don't think most people are nearly as concerned with teenage boys having sex as they are with the girls, which is ironic considering how many times I hear that women mature faster than men, both sexually and mentally (supposedly). I can't tell you how many times I hear about a high school boy having sex with a female teacher and the reaction of the guys around me is: "Awww, that poor kid. He's losing his favorite teacher!"
Posts: 636 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
I kind of agree with ClaudiaTherese. There is a continuum, but because of individual differences, we as a society have agreed upon these lines of demarcation like the legal age of 18 in order to have overall civility. That is the way the world rolls, and why we make laws.
quote:Originally posted by sylvrdragon: Why 18? I can understand why it's suggested (if a woman gets pregnant before she completes her education, then he chance of completing that education are likely reduced dramatically), just not why it's taboo.
Which age would you suggest is reasonable instead; i.e., which specific age does not suffer from the same problems that "18" does?
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Ack! I'd hazard a guess that you need to hang out with some new people.
Edited to add: I don't mean that last part to be dismissive or snarky -- it would make me uncomfortable, too.
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posted
I'm among the ones laughing actually CT. After all, I'm here now saying the age of consent is questionable. A teenage boy having voluntary sex with his teacher isn't wrong because of the AGE (IMO), but rather because she's his TEACHER and that could create favoritism and whatnot.
The tone that I get from the men around me concerning the subject is: For teenage girls, is a "Daddy's little girl" approach, and they'll kill any man that comes near; but for teenage boys, it seems more like "That's my boy." or at the very least "Boys will be boys.". That's not to say the parent of that SPECIFIC boy. THEY'RE probably thinking "If she's pregnant, I'm going to kill him."
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posted
People are generally more concerned about protecting women in all cultures and without necessarily reflecting on the qualities or capacities of womanhood it does seem like women are receptive of victimhood in various forms from men and this may factor into it.
There are also no end of cultural double standards involving female sexuality.
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posted
I'll freely admit that my Archeology class was several years ago, but I thought the point of social relativism was that a society's actions should be examined from within the framework of their own beliefs and history.
For example, Bob the Mayan Sacrifice Priest should be viewed as a powerful member of his own society performing a vital service, not as the freak-o wack-job he'd be doing the same thing here in the US today. I don't remember anything about not recognizing actions or behaviors as harmful, just that it didn't serve any scientific purpose to do so.
Posts: 2283 | Registered: Dec 2003
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posted
I have said this in at least a dozen other threads, usually about teenage sex and pregnancy.
Teenage sex is a bad idea in America because there are no social infrastructures in our culture or society that prepare, protect and aid said teenagers experiencing the consequences of sex such as pregnancy. This is because, unlike some other cultures where marriage is acceptable at 14, we have a culturally and socially advocated adolescence. You are being taught about adulthood, but are not an adult.
This is a separate argument from the one presented in the initial post, however. They relate at some point, but not immediately.
I believe that pedophilia and it's practices exist objectively, and are objectively harmful, regardless of cultural tradition. Seeing as i vividly remember my childhood and that children are not in a place of power in this world, I doubt there would be an argument that could sway me from this belief.
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