posted
I also can't help but compare sex with violence in these discussions. Just because your child has motor skills, should you give them a loaded gun? Do they know, understand, and come equipped to handle the consequences of using a gun?
And sex, much like human sacrifice and violence, can be used as a means to maintain a hierarchy or power structure. And that is something I'm not cool with, in either case.
Did human sacrifice occur? Yes. Do I understand the context? Yes. Am I cool with it? Not at all. Especially since more often than not it was NOT voluntary, and was used to keep the top on top.
Posts: 3936 | Registered: Jul 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
I think that the link about the culture that routinely engages in pedophiliac behavior actually argues more the idea that the act itself is inheretely harmful. In a society where a young man is taught that all good things come from engaging in sexual acts, the boys must be beaten in order to get them to go along. Whatever makes them say no is not coming from society in this case, it is inherent. So, if our society said it was all good and normal, the kids would still feel violated.
Posts: 1001 | Registered: Mar 2006
| IP: Logged |
I had a friend in elementary/middle school named Andrew. He got me interested in Star Wars and Anime, and had a pretty large influence on me. He didn’t have many other friends, and was, looking back, rather strange. The first time I went over to his house, he told me not to look his stepfather in the eye and we took great pains to avoid him at Andrew’s insistence. I thought that his stepfather was just a jerk and didn’t like putting up with the presence of children. Life went on, and his family moved to another town. About a year after they moved, there was an article in the newspaper, turns out his stepfather had been found guilty on charges of child molestation. My parents freaked out. They wanted to know everything that happened there, they wanted to know if he had done anything to me. And he hadn’t. For a moment, I thought about lying to them, because Andrew was important to me, and I wanted my dad to kill this guy. I felt ashamed that I couldn’t protect my friend, but looking at my parents, I would have felt more ashamed that I couldn’t take care of myself. I didn’t really care about the lie, that didn’t bother me, and revenge felt like the right thing to do, but in the end, I was too ashamed by the idea of having my parents believe I had been molested to do anything about it.
I’m certain that a lot of child molestation in this country goes on and isn’t reported, either out of fear or shame. As KoM pointed out, in another culture, it’s possible the fear and shame won’t be there. It’s possible, but I feel it’s unlikely. At best I feel it would be lessened. People are still aware of their bodies, of being in control of themselves, and even if everyone’s doing it and you’re told it’s okay, I feel that on some level a person would still feel violated.
It doesn’t help that most of the more serious sex crimes here in the States are rooted in dominance. When we think of sex crimes, we think of someone wanting to dominate another human being and take away their will, and that category sums up the most common motive for sex crimes. From the sound of it, some of these examples might not be rooted in this desire to dominate another human being, but they seem to be a minority. The second most common motive here in the States is when the molester believes they’re doing the child a favor and that they’re trying to liberate the child and introduce them to sexuality in a way they didn’t get to experience, but as victims can tell you, motives don’t matter; it’s still terrifying and feels like violation.
I think the issue gets clouded the most in steven’s original post because in our culture, for a long time, people were taught to fear their sexuality (remember Sigmund Freud?). After watching the Vagina Monologues (we had a thread about it a while ago), I started to think this was especially true for women. I admit it would be nice if people weren’t taught to fear their own sexuality, if people weren’t taught to be ashamed of their bodies, but I don’t think sexual activity at a young age is the solution (not that anyone recommended that). I also think we’ve gotten better about the issue and that as a culture we’re not as sexually repressed as we were 100 years ago.
Posts: 247 | Registered: Feb 2007
| IP: Logged |
posted
Many people come to these sorts of discussions and ask the question, "Why draw the line here, at this age for these people?"
In my experience, few people asking that question really understand it can just as easily be asked of them: "Why not draw the line here, etc. etc.?" Why is it desirable to cut so close to the bone, so to speak? Why should sexual practices in other cultures be so momentous for our culture?
Looking to other cultures for guidance can get pretty damn messy, unless you're looking to cherry-pick.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
That was a well put post, DevilDreamt. And I agree with a lot of what you said.
I think a lot of those feelings of fear and violation are present in other cultures, too, but it is also normal that the initiated would be told that those feelings were not right, or to repress them.
We hear of this happening in cults within our own society, and with individual victims, and we see how it is wrong - why should it be any different if it happens three thousand miles away, and for hundreds of years? Traditions are not innate, they are learned and/or forced. Culture and traditions have origins, not all of which are savory. I just think it is a dangerous precept to brush anything that is enculturated or traditional with innocence and acceptance.
Posts: 3936 | Registered: Jul 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
CT, I would personally recommend eliminating marriage completely. I feel that it's cruel and selfish to ask another human being to give you all of their love unconditionally. That's not how love works. I can't believe I'm quoting the Bible on this, but love is not selfish. Love is kind. Too often I see marriages struggle because the people involved are possessive, selfish, and cruel, in the name of love. That's not how things should work.
It's very sweet and romantic to give your heart to someone else, and to receive theirs in return, as mutual gifts, freely given. This often does not happen in marriage. Perhaps it's supposed to, but so many people don't understand what it means to do this when they take their vows. Some people can fall in love deeply enough to live forever in a world where there are only two people. But not everyone is cut out for that lifestyle.
The kind of love that exists in that world of two people, that world no one else can enter or understand is a deep love. I feel that even deeper still, love begins to multiply, to grow beyond this boundary, and the more people you let it encompass, the better off you'll be. I can see how the process of marriage and having children can lead to this type of deeper love, but so often I see marriage fail to reach this potential, and I think our society might be better off without it, or at least with a simpler form of it. I think we need to seriously re-evaluate what marriage means for us, as a culture. We really need to change how it works and the expectations that go with it, or get rid of it entirely, since it no longer serves its primary function (the creation and celebration of love beyond the love of self).
Posts: 247 | Registered: Feb 2007
| IP: Logged |
posted
I've always seen marriage defined as a legally recognized union between two people who intend to be spouses and all that entails.
Religiously, I've been taught that marriage is an ordinance of God, and that it can be eternal and ever-lasting.
While the function DD mentions can easily be included under both definitions, I don't think I agree that it's the primary element of either. An important one, but no more than the other parts.
Posts: 6689 | Registered: Jan 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by DevilDreamt: I feel that it's cruel and selfish to ask another human being to give you all of their love unconditionally. That's not how love works.
Agreed. Of course, I don't know of any marriages that work this way, so maybe the point is moot.
Posts: 9945 | Registered: Sep 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
Yes, I misread what you said, however. You asked what the legal age of consent should be, if not 18. I thought you had asked what the legal age for marriage (without the need for parental consent) should be.
I am fully aware that not everyone believes that is the function of marriage. I guess, given my parents relationship, the climbing divorce rates, and many of my friends and family that have ended up in really terrible relationships but refused to leave "because they're married" and feel they have a responsibility to stick it out and change the person they're with... I don't know, I hate to see my friends and family be miserable in relationships. If you're with someone, and they make you feel like crap and hate your life for several years, why would you stay with them? But people do, because they made a commitment when they married, and perhaps because they are in love. I guess my beef with it is mostly based on personal experience and the experiences of my friend's.
Too often I see marriage bring more misery than joy into people's lives, and I think we'd be better off in a society where people aren't expected to marry, or where marriage simply doesn't exist. Or at least a place where marriage wasn't viewed as a life-long commitment, anything to make it easier for people to get out of bad situations without guilt, shame, or negative social repercussions.
(Edit: Sorry to have wandered so far off topic.)
Posts: 247 | Registered: Feb 2007
| IP: Logged |
posted
Just a thought on the parenthood and marriage issue.
I think current divorce rates the entailing baggage of abuse and such have more to do with our current societies general attitude towards personal gratification and lack of selflessness than any inherent problem with the institution of marriage. There is to much "I deserve" in our culture.
Posts: 686 | Registered: Sep 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
The problem with saying that the failing is with the individual is that you often end up with an institution that everybody hates, versus a society that you don't like. What goes in, must come out, to some degree. Probably we'd have a lower divorce rate if we all raised our kids Catholic. That doesn't mean I'm going to raise my kid Catholic. It's a tough issue. I sure don't know the answer.
Posts: 3354 | Registered: May 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
It's like the thing I said in another thread about the fact that you'd be less likely to pick up an STD or a cocaine habit at Pensacola Christian College or Bob Jones U. That doesn't mean I'd be happy for my daughter to go either of those places for college. It's not an easy issue, though. Common sense goes a long way.
Posts: 3354 | Registered: May 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by calaban: I think current divorce rates the entailing baggage of abuse and such have more to do with our current societies general attitude towards personal gratification and lack of selflessness than any inherent problem with the institution of marriage. There is to much "I deserve" in our culture.
posted
I don't expect my wife to give me all her love. She loves her parents, her family, and Disney, as well as me.
Don't take that as snide, please, as it wasn't intended that way. I just don't think that loving one person completely is the same as not loving anyone but them. But marriage is not just about love, it is also about commitment....to yourself, to the other person, and to the life you two will lead.
I have loved several people over the years, but it would have been a complete, unmitigated disaster for me to marry any of them but my wife. Loving someone and agreeing to be in love with them for the rest of your life are two completely different things, and a lot of divorces happen (IMO, of course) because a lot of people don't distinguish between them before they make the commitment.
quote:Originally posted by DevilDreamt: Some people can fall in love deeply enough to live forever in a world where there are only two people.
That sounds like a description of an extremely unhealthy relationship. It certainly isn't any ideal of marriage I've ever heard of. Marriage is about learning to love one another so deeply that you can reach out together in love to the world.
Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
| IP: Logged |
(i just wanted an excuse to use 'psych' in a post)
and edit to say: “Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking together in the same direction.” ~Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Posts: 1355 | Registered: Jul 2006
| IP: Logged |
quote:"Why draw the line here, at this age for these people?"
A case in point, similar to DevilDreamt's story:
A girl I grew up with was molested by her stepfather from the time she was about 7 years old. During that time she was lead to believe that her mother would disown her if it was found out that she had "come between" her mother and her step father.
The molestation got worse as she grew older, but it continued after she reached the age of 18. IIRC, she was 20 when she finally told her mother what was going on, which is when it fainally stopped.
According to her molester, she was a full partner in a consensual affair. After all, she was an adult.
The way I view this, she didn't reach the age of consent until she was mature enough to tell him to stop, which was older than the legal age of consent.
But what would the law have said if he had merely groomed her for molestation before she reached the age of consent, and then engaged in actual molestation after she reached the age of 18? If, at the age of 20, she finally told him to stop, would she have any legal recourse?
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Kwea: Loving someone and agreeing to be in love with them for the rest of your life are two completely different things, and a lot of divorces happen (IMO, of course) because a lot of people don't distinguish between them before they make the commitment.
Excellent point, and well said.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by calaban: Just a thought on the parenthood and marriage issue.
I think current divorce rates the entailing baggage of abuse and such have more to do with our current societies general attitude towards personal gratification and lack of selflessness than any inherent problem with the institution of marriage. There is to much "I deserve" in our culture.
I suppose that's true to some extent. Often times, in the case of a divorce, one person might have way too many "I deserves" going on for the marriage to survive.
For example, a person might think things like, "I deserve to live a happy life" or "I deserve to be treated with respect" or "I deserve to have a spouse who treats me like an equal partner in marriage."
With all that deserving going on, all that need for gratification instead of selfless giving, it's no wonder the whole country isn't filled with people in loveless, abusive, mutually destructive marriages. Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
It depends...."I deserve to live a happy life" is a questionable one, actually. Not that they don't, but that can be an excuse for some really selfish behavior at times.
If most of their internal thoughts are about "I,I, I", then there is more than one problem.
Marriage takes work, and it is amazing to me how little work some people are willing to put into it at times.
Actual abuse notwithstanding, a lot of people have a lack of communication from the start, so most of their problems are at least half their own fault. If they were honest with themselves and their spouses, that would go a long way towards resolving their problems.
Posts: 15082 | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
I don't think I have a better suggestion for the Age of Consent. I'm pretty sure I defeated my own argument on the first page when I mentioned the age of consent coinciding with Education. 18 is a logical choice considering that it's when most people finish high school. As far as a universal age goes, there really isn't much of a case against 18. The only thing a person could try to say is to base it on the person, but obviously that's dead before it leaves the gate.
I'll be 100% honest and say that I wasn't all that interested in this particular subject in the first place. The only thing that got me posting here was the throwing around of the terms "Right" and "Wrong", and the like, when they were used in a context to outright damn the practices of other cultures. At that point, the issue hadn't really been discussed, and so nobody really had grounds to just outright condemn another people.
Posts: 636 | Registered: Apr 2002
| IP: Logged |
quote: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.
Favoritism is the least of the concerns associated with a teacher having sex with a student. The problem is one of authority and the difficulty in evaluating "consent" in such situations.
In many or most states, a teacher having sex with one of her students is committing a crime even if the general age of consent law is not violated. Even if criminal liability does not attach to such actions, I doubt there's a school district in the country that doesn't prohibit such interactions.
quote:The only thing that got me posting here was the throwing around of the terms "Right" and "Wrong", and the like, when they were used in a context to outright damn the practices of other cultures. At that point, the issue hadn't really been discussed, and so nobody really had grounds to just outright condemn another people.
I think the principle objection to your statements was to the unstated assumption that any discussion of other cultures needs to be done through the non-judgmental filter of anthropology.
quote:But what would the law have said if he had merely groomed her for molestation before she reached the age of consent, and then engaged in actual molestation after she reached the age of 18? If, at the age of 20, she finally told him to stop, would she have any legal recourse?
The law might have been able to do something depending on the state. See this case, for example.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by sylvrdragon: I don't think I have a better suggestion for the Age of Consent. I'm pretty sure I defeated my own argument on the first page when I mentioned the age of consent coinciding with Education. 18 is a logical choice considering that it's when most people finish high school. As far as a universal age goes, there really isn't much of a case against 18. The only thing a person could try to say is to base it on the person, but obviously that's dead before it leaves the gate.
I'll be 100% honest and say that I wasn't all that interested in this particular subject in the first place. The only thing that got me posting here was the throwing around of the terms "Right" and "Wrong", and the like, when they were used in a context to outright damn the practices of other cultures. At that point, the issue hadn't really been discussed, and so nobody really had grounds to just outright condemn another people.
This brings up all kinds of "riding a fine line" possible situations. I wonder, for example, when pornographers claim their models are "barely legal" if there is an implication that the girls were groomed prior to their 18th birthday. To what extent is that legal?
I've never bought the constitutional justification for pornography as free speech anyway, but the printing of a picture, and the methods used to generate the picture are two different things.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged |
quote:only thing that got me posting here was the throwing around of the terms "Right" and "Wrong", and the like, when they were used in a context to outright damn the practices of other cultures
And again, I'm not sure that really actually happened.
Posts: 2267 | Registered: May 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:only thing that got me posting here was the throwing around of the terms "Right" and "Wrong", and the like, when they were used in a context to outright damn the practices of other cultures
And again, I'm not sure that really actually happened.
What? Did you read the first page again before you posted this? I saw at least 3 examples between the original post and my first appearance on the thread, and I didn't have to look very hard.
Posts: 636 | Registered: Apr 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
No, syl's right. Most of us just happened to agree that sex with kids is wrong regardless of culture.
Again, right and wrong aren't scientific questions, though archaeology does seek to understand why a culture does what it does and why it chooses to change. I would assume anthropology is the same. I'm not even sure after catagorizing the causes and effects of a behavior it would be bigoted to label it harmful or nonharmful. The moment you slap a little emotion into that, it's going to look an awful lot like right and wrong. I don't see a problem with that myself.
Posts: 2283 | Registered: Dec 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
I suppose "bigoted" was a strong word to use for it. I'll say "nonobjective". The only reason I ever insisted upon an objective tone was because it is obviously needed to carry out the type of discussion alluded at in the original post. The ending of any OTHER type of discussion is obvious. Nobody here is going to even consider downplaying that crime without being objective. It was merely entertaining a notion; nothing more.
Posts: 636 | Registered: Apr 2002
| IP: Logged |
quote:The only reason I ever insisted upon an objective tone was because it is obviously needed to carry out the type of discussion alluded at in the original post.
Perhaps the disconnect you're having. The original post in a thread doesn't determine the type of discussion we have here.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
It's a website that hawks girls as young as 14 for marriage after payment of "bride prices" as high as $99,995.
I'm kind of at a loss for words. I know dowries and bride prices are traditional in many couples, but seeing pages of girls listed like on eBay--very creepy.
Posts: 6316 | Registered: Jun 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: I think the principle objection to your statements was to the unstated assumption that any discussion of other cultures needs to be done through the non-judgmental filter of anthropology.
This was my objection to sylvrdragon's framing of the debate. Cultural relativism is a useful, maybe necessary tool or frame of mind for academics but it's only one way to view and analyze cultural practices.
Posts: 6316 | Registered: Jun 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: I think the principle objection to your statements was to the unstated assumption that any discussion of other cultures needs to be done through the non-judgmental filter of anthropology.
This was my objection to sylvrdragon's framing of the debate. Cultural relativism is a useful, maybe necessary tool or frame of mind for academics but it's only one way to view and analyze cultural practices.
Mixing a little etic with your emic ain't no thang.
Posts: 3936 | Registered: Jul 2000
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
)
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
