The Obedient Wives Club

[Vigile]

Yes, to all of you who are pointing out examples where the law seems ridiculous (19 year olds and 17 year olds sleeping together), there will always be what, in analysis, we call "outlying examples". For any rule, there are extremes that fall outside the regular application of the rule, but that doesn't throw the rule into doubt,

 

It certainly does as a matter of law and as a matter of human decency. I see the point you are making, but the reality is, these cases are not outliers as far as the legal system is concerned. There are many cases like this that have been prosecuted. I realize you are discussing this more in the philosophical sense, but the reason I am discussing this is because the philosophical debate pours over to the legal debate and it creates huge problems -- ironically, leading to massive levels of morally repugnant outcomes. A 19 yo sent to prison for something like this is as sick as a dirty old man that molests a young person. It is important to discuss the nuances because your average idiot can't see them and the laws become tyrannical as a result. This isn't just a discussion of potential issues, this is a reality that exists every single day. IOW, it would be far more helpful to discuss this issue in entirely different terms than using arbitrary ages. E.g., using positions of power as leverage, deception of those who are clearly too young to protect themselves, etc... This rules out the 19 yos, et al.

 

I would think, from the position of philosophical thought, what I'm discussing here would be entirely necessary. Otherwise, you would have to admit that all you are doing is bolstering societal moors based on tradition, and not discussing true harm.

 

And I do not agree with the idea that we are fighting nature when we don't sleep with teenagers. Sexual urges are natural, but so are rational thoughts.

 

Really? Sorry if I'm coming off abrasive here. It's not my intention. At all. I'm just a little stumped. If you examine rationality in this context, how is it irrational to desire a person who is in their sexual prime? It's human tradition and developing culture (which I agree with btw) that establishes it is wrong, not instinct and certainly not rationality.

 

Teenagers don't look "tight, smooth, [and] strong" to me; they look gangly, uncoordinated,

 

I say this with only a hint of humor, you clearly haven't been to Russia. And no, I don't desire Russian 16 yos. I've been influenced by my culture and the concept entirely creeps me out. But, I acknowledge this is a product of my culture and not a product of nature, because many of them are on par with 20 yo supermodels.

 

This seems to raise another question, what is it that differs between a 16 yo fucking a 16 yo and a 40 yo fucking a 16 yo? One is accepted, both legally and morally (by rational people anyway), while the other is not. I feel it's wrong too (40/16 that is), but it's my gut feeling, I don't have a logical argument why it's wrong.

[Margee]

I am a singular, material being and my passions and reason are but aggregate parts of myself, which do not war with each other, but rather seek balance between one another.

 

Teenagers don't look "tight, smooth, [and] strong" to me; they look gangly, uncoordinated, and their skin has a "not quite finished growing" look to it that seems almost corpse-like to me. Adults have fully developed reason and should keep their passions in check.

 

Degaul, I say this with all sincereity................you are either a fully evolved human being OR you live in the most remote jungles on earth.

 

Believe it or not -This IS compliment to you..................... I wish more, (including me!) had that balance you are talking about!

[DeGaul]

Vigile, I agree with you that the legal system is full of abuses. If I don't seem keen to address those abuses in the things I post, it is mostly because I hate the government (I hate the very concept of it) and would rather see it taken apart entirely rather than see it reformed. I know that makes me an extremist of a sort, and I know it means that my frustration with the government leads me to turn my back on some of its abuses, but at the same time, I don't feel morally responsible for all the evil in the world. That a 19 year old is sent to jail for sleeping with his 17 year old girlfriend is evil.....but it isn't an evil that I'm going to go out and stop myself. If it was, I would be out petitioning for the law to change. I'm not. Not because I agree with the law, but because my finite resources only allow me to do so much with my time, and it is currently fully occupied trying to take care of myself and my wife during this economic downturn that we are experiencing. But, that being said, without any sarcasm at all, I am truly glad there are people like you who want to address the legal issues involved....I'm just not one of them.

 

As far as the natural urges thing goes, once again you seem to be setting up a dichotomy between sexual urges (natural) and culture (unnatural). This is a false dichotomy, however. Culture is as natural as sexual urges. Both have evolved spontaneously out of human existence. We do not invent our sexuality, but neither do we invent our culture....not really. Culture evolved in response to human history, physical facts, etc., etc. Culture is also natural. Some people try to manipulate culture, but even the urge to manipulate it is itself an outgrowth of cultural practices. Nothing is outside the scope of nature. Everything is natural. (Of course, this kind of talk begins to sound deterministic, but that is only disheartening to those who do not like the idea that everything could be determined. I'm ok with determinism. It fits in pretty nicely with my pessimism and nihilism.)

 

I have seen pictures of Russian teenagers before. I assure you, you don't truly grasps the depths of how distasteful I find the "beauty" of youth. It isn't until a woman starts to get into her late 20s/early 30s that she is really capable of beauty to me. But, that is my own opinion, and not something I need to go into.

[paul34]

This seems to raise another question, what is it that differs between a 16 yo fucking a 16 yo and a 40 yo fucking a 16 yo? One is accepted, both legally and morally (by rational people anyway), while the other is not. I feel it's wrong too (40/16 that is), but it's my gut feeling, I don't have a logical argument why it's wrong.

 

In my opinion, it seems to be a difference of psychological maturity. A 16 yo and 16 yo are sort of on the same level, whereas a 40 yo and a 16 yo is pretty different indeed. But fast forward a couple of years. What about a 40 yo and 18 yo? Not my cup of tea, but sure, whatever. I don't care, because I will expect the 18 yo to be mentally mature enough to be aware of what exactly he/she is getting himself/herself into. At least in my experience, there is a significant difference between a 16 yo and 18 yo. Now, of course, nothing is instantaneous - you don't go to sleep the day before your 18th birthday and then wake up an "adult," but for purposes of legal practicality, I guess the line must be drawn somewhere. FL has a "stepped" age of consent as was mentioned by someone else earlier in the thread. An 18 yo having a physical relationship with his 16yo girlfriend isn't illegal around here. I don't think it should be. A 30 yo having a physical relationship with a 16 yo is illegal, as I think it should be.

 

I am 24. I know when I graduated university, I was already changing in my "preferences." I saw all the freshmen girls, and many of them were physically attractive, but they just weren't someone I'd want to have a relationship with. That was definitely a far cry from how I felt when I was a freshman. They still have some of that high school immaturity left in their behaviors. While ethically speaking, I don't believe there is anything wrong with having a relationship with a college freshman, it just didn't appeal to me. I would get annoyed pretty fast because they'd probably remind me of how stupid I was when I was a freshman. Plus, I'm looking for a more mature woman... the days of chasing "girls" are over in that sense. That doesn't mean that someone my age is necessarily going to be mature (and in that case, they'd annoy me as equally). On the flipside, I might mean someone my age who is way more mature than I am, and I'd probably annoy her. The difference between a college freshman and a college senior is huge. It may only seem like a few years, but people go through a lot of change and growth in that period. It's like a gulf, so to speak. My physical preferences also matured. I think that is natural. That is probably why people question old men who have a genuine preference for 17 or even 16 yos. It seems quite strange, and I'm not sure someone that young has the mental maturity to be able to "agree" to a relationship with someone so much older. I'm not sure that older person is really ignoring the fact that at some level, he/she has a bit of advantage because he/she is exploiting that immaturity to gain the upper hand.

 

I would also agree with DeGaulin that yea, 16 yos have that "immature" look that really just makes them look like kids, and thus, unattractive in that way. That's why, to me, an older man going after a 16yo girl is going after a girl (as opposed to a woman). In other words, he's going after a kid. Yes, not on the same level as a child, but still, I consider a 16 yo a kid. I don't see how you could be genuinely attracted to a 16 yo the same way you are to someone your own age.

 

But there are people here who are 22 or so and carry on with say, 16 year olds... because this is Florida, and they're probably in the same classes at high school

 

That doesn't mean I judge someone like Hugh heffner who has a new 23 yo wife every few years. I expect a 23 yo woman of normal mental capacity to be mature enough to decide whether to have a relationship with an old man. I don't blame Hugh either, because at least biologically speaking, those 23 yo playmates have a lot of the aspects a man might look for in a woman from a purely physical standpoint (sort of like how an older woman may lust after a 20-something male cologne model).

[Noumena]

This seems to raise another question, what is it that differs between a 16 yo fucking a 16 yo and a 40 yo fucking a 16 yo? One is accepted, both legally and morally (by rational people anyway), while the other is not. I feel it's wrong too (40/16 that is), but it's my gut feeling, I don't have a logical argument why it's wrong.

 

In my opinion, it seems to be a difference of psychological maturity. A 16 yo and 16 yo are sort of on the same level, whereas a 40 yo and a 16 yo is pretty different indeed. But fast forward a couple of years. What about a 40 yo and 18 yo? Not my cup of tea, but sure, whatever. I don't care, because I will expect the 18 yo to be mentally mature enough to be aware of what exactly he/she is getting himself/herself into. At least in my experience, there is a significant difference between a 16 yo and 18 yo. Now, of course, nothing is instantaneous - you don't go to sleep the day before your 18th birthday and then wake up an "adult," but for purposes of legal practicality, I guess the line must be drawn somewhere. FL has a "stepped" age of consent as was mentioned by someone else earlier in the thread. An 18 yo having a physical relationship with his 16yo girlfriend isn't illegal around here. I don't think it should be. A 30 yo having a physical relationship with a 16 yo is illegal, as I think it should be.

 

I am 24. I know when I graduated university, I was already changing in my "preferences." I saw all the freshmen girls, and many of them were physically attractive, but they just weren't someone I'd want to have a relationship with. That was definitely a far cry from how I felt when I was a freshman. They still have some of that high school immaturity left in their behaviors. While ethically speaking, I don't believe there is anything wrong with having a relationship with a college freshman, it just didn't appeal to me. I would get annoyed pretty fast because they'd probably remind me of how stupid I was when I was a freshman. Plus, I'm looking for a more mature woman... the days of chasing "girls" are over in that sense. That doesn't mean that someone my age is necessarily going to be mature (and in that case, they'd annoy me as equally). On the flipside, I might mean someone my age who is way more mature than I am, and I'd probably annoy her. The difference between a college freshman and a college senior is huge. It may only seem like a few years, but people go through a lot of change and growth in that period. It's like a gulf, so to speak. My physical preferences also matured. I think that is natural. That is probably why people question old men who have a genuine preference for 17 or even 16 yos. It seems quite strange, and I'm not sure someone that young has the mental maturity to be able to "agree" to a relationship with someone so much older. I'm not sure that older person is really ignoring the fact that at some level, he/she has a bit of advantage because he/she is exploiting that immaturity to gain the upper hand.

 

I would also agree with DeGaulin that yea, 16 yos have that "immature" look that really just makes them look like kids, and thus, unattractive in that way. That's why, to me, an older man going after a 16yo girl is going after a girl (as opposed to a woman). In other words, he's going after a kid. Yes, not on the same level as a child, but still, I consider a 16 yo a kid. I don't see how you could be genuinely attracted to a 16 yo the same way you are to someone your own age.

 

But there are people here who are 22 or so and carry on with say, 16 year olds... because this is Florida, and they're probably in the same classes at high school

 

That doesn't mean I judge someone like Hugh heffner who has a new 23 yo wife every few years. I expect a 23 yo woman of normal mental capacity to be mature enough to decide whether to have a relationship with an old man. I don't blame Hugh either, because at least biologically speaking, those 23 yo playmates have a lot of the aspects a man might look for in a woman from a purely physical standpoint (sort of like how an older woman may lust after a 20-something male cologne model).

 

w00t!!

[Noumena]

Hahahaha!

 

http://www.theonion.com/video/justin-bieber-found-to-be-cleverly-disguised-51yea,18178/

[Galien]

There is one thing people are a miss here. A young person may still be at the age of consent no matter which country it is, whether it be 16, 17, 18...what ever, IF they are still being supported and living under the roof of the parents, there is a level of accountability that young person has. Before they engage in ANY sexual activity, they should be able to support themselves or any possible children that could come of that union or a sexually transmitted disease. To not consider that is to place an undue burden upon the parents as they are responsible until they are fully and legally of age. Until that point, the young person's will is subordinated to the parents who are paying the bills.

 

You seem inordinately interested in subordinated wills. Glad you aren't my father. Sure you are not still a christian?

[Galien]

First off, just so I can get it off my chest: Galien, WHAT THE F*CK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? How many children have I raised?! None, I have raised no children. (A fact that I would have thought would be obvious given my past posts on this forum about not believing that the human species should continue, but that is a totally different argument.) But what does that have to do with my disgust for the sexualizing of children by adults? I don't need to have raised kids to be able to look at a 14 year old girl and not want to have sex with her. In fact, it kind of seems like you're implying that if I had raised children then that would somehow give me the ability to look with a knowing grin at a pedophile and say, "Oh yes, I totally see the attraction." I hope I won't have to defend how sick that scenario sounds, because if I do I'll just give up on the rest of humanity and will be forced to conclude that I'm really some sort of alien from Krypton and we apparently are born with heightened moral sensibility on my home planet, along with the x-ray vision and super-strength.

 

 

How you could possibly draw such a bizarre conclusion from my question is a mystery to me. I have raised two children, and that being the case I understand teenagers quite well, watching their behaviour tends to give one a more realistic view of how they operate than reading about it.

 

Tell me, DeGaul, how would you deal with a 13 year old child who couldn't keep her legs together? How would you react every time she was sexually suggestive and aggressive toward adult males? Would you blame them for it, when they had nothing to do with it in the first place? Many teenagers are sexually aggressive, and keeping them away from each other is quite a challenge. To say that they don't behave this way is to deny reality. Teens develop at different rates, the vast majority around the same time, but a handful of "fast trackers" think they are 13 going on 20. You cannot just wholesale apply a theory to group of people and say it always applies on every occasion. If you think ALL 16 year olds are children you are kidding yourself. In your country, 16 year olds cannot sleep with whoever they want. Here, a 16 year old can "fuck whoever they want and it is no one's business but their own", as I recall my daughter telling me. And she is right, it is none of my business when the law says she can do so. I can complain, jump up and down, yell and scream about it, but legally what she does with her private parts are her choice. Neither would I ever be naive enough to assume that any older person she became involved with had some kind of power over her because of the age difference. That is a ridiculous assumption taken to a stupid length because of years of unreported sexual assault and abuse of power over children. As it happens, she prefers older guys and always has. She is now married to one, and no, I don't believe that makes either of them sick.

 

And if you are concerned about the sexualising of children perhaps you could suggest to their mothers to stop dressing them like baby prostitutes and letting them watch music videos that are little more than soft porn.

[Galien]

There is one thing people are a miss here. A young person may still be at the age of consent no matter which country it is, whether it be 16, 17, 18...what ever, IF they are still being supported and living under the roof of the parents, there is a level of accountability that young person has. Before they engage in ANY sexual activity, they should be able to support themselves or any possible children that could come of that union or a sexually transmitted disease. To not consider that is to place an undue burden upon the parents as they are responsible until they are fully and legally of age. Until that point, the young person's will is subordinated to the parents who are paying the bills.

 

You seem inordinately interested in subordinated wills. Glad you aren't my father. Sure you are not still a christian?

 

My daughter is a top student and is going to go to a university and study Pre-medical and go on to Medical School. She is smart, she is not you.

 

Part of the reason she does well, she knows there is no bullshit that will fly with me or her mother (my wife). She loves learning and she takes pride in it.

 

Well pat yourself on the back dad, I'm sure your peers are all very impressed. Wonder who will pay for her therapy in years to come? I also wonder what the hell she gets up to when you aren't looking. Hopefully one day you will mature enough to realise that subordinating the will of others is in fact a pathology. Well it is where I come from.

[Vigile]

I know that makes me an extremist of a sort,

 

No offense intended, but I believe this makes you naive of sort, not extremist. The government is problematic, but humans are not evolved to the point where they can reasonably live without it. Where there is no government, men create their own. It's called the mafia.

 

I don't feel morally responsible for all the evil in the world.

 

Unless you can address where your philosophy, or opinion if you wish, needs to bend in order to address the not so clear issues I've raised, it seems to me it's rather a blunt object and useless. It makes people feel good to pound their chests and say "no adult should sleep with or be attracted to a 17 yo" but the reality is, this is a meaningless statement unless the nuances are discussed because, as I've pointed out, there are vast differences between circumstances. Pulling the philosophical card doesn't negate them.

 

As far as the natural urges thing goes, once again you seem to be setting up a dichotomy between sexual urges (natural) and culture (unnatural). This is a false dichotomy, however. Culture is as natural as sexual urges.

 

I don't like dichotomies, for as you can see, I pay attention to nuance. I can see where you are going with culture being a product of nature, but again, I believe you are taking a blunt approach here and missing my point.

 

For instance:

 

Both have evolved spontaneously out of human existence.

 

I'm willing to bet you would argue the Burkha is evil, yet it evolved as part of culture just as age of consent. More, including myself, would argue that age of consent is good and the Burkha evil, but they are both products of culture, not of nature. Nevertheless, just because culture is a product of nature, it will not negate the more powerful urges that are at the core of human evolution; namely procreation. Culture is merely a band aid over that tries to somewhat civilize the beasts we all truly are.

[Vigile]

In my opinion, it seems to be a difference of psychological maturity. A 16 yo and 16 yo are sort of on the same level, whereas a 40 yo and a 16 yo is pretty different indeed.

 

I agree, but assuming everything was consensual, it seems to come down to "the 40yo should know better." Harm, or potential harm, wouldn't change in either situation. A 16 yo can be hurt or get pregnant in either case. Let me try this: assume a 16 yo girl is very sexual active and has many partners. This 16 yo seduces a 40 yo. In this case, she truly in no way harmed yet society would still be horrified because the 40 yo "should have known better." It's been a long time since I was 16, but not so long to recall that there were quite a few fairly sexually active teens at that age.

 

Personally, I find it much harder to send someone to prison or just wag my judgmental finger at someone who does something "they should have known better" about, than someone who actually causes someone else real harm. I can get on board with railroading someone who causes others harm, but not someone who is just culturally vile.

 

Compare my example above to a 16 yo virgin who is seduced by a 40 yo. She is vulnerable and risks losing her innocence for lack of a better word. In my mind, there is a vast difference between the two situations; a difference that cannot be easily reflected by rules regarding age of consent. Like I said, I come down with culture on this one, but if you pick at the scab, our (human) reasoning is somewhat arbitrary.

 

but for purposes of legal practicality, I guess the line must be drawn somewhere.

 

Absolutely agree. What I'm trying to do here is point out that I would hope prosecutors, juries, and even us as we think about these issues, not just apply blunt right or wrong rules the way the written law necessarily must. We are smarter than the law can hope to be, so we have the opportunity to apply it more fairly and reasonably.

 

Yes, not on the same level as a child, but still, I consider a 16 yo a kid.

 

I do too.

 

but...

 

I don't see how you could be genuinely attracted to a 16 yo the same way you are to someone your own age.

 

Some 16 yos are not gangly and unless you see their ID, you couldn't distinguish them from an 18 yo or even a 20 yo. I can absolutely see how someone could be physically attracted to some of them. I honestly don't see how someone can disagree with this. Especially when considering men, who are visually stimulated.

 

because this is Florida, and they're probably in the same classes at high school

 

LOL

[paul34]

You are correct. I do agree with your points, Vigile. What I really meant to say with that comment is going after 16 yos who look like 16 yos.

 

Speaking of the ID thing, I have heard (but admittedly, not personally verified) stories of guys meeting girls in clubs, them looking over 18, them SAYING they are 18 or over, and just to be on the safe side, the guy will ask for their ID. Ok, things seem ok, until a few days later when the cops show up. Turns out it was a fake ID. In those cases, I think the guy genuinely believed the person was legal and made a good faith effort to verify. While technically a crime was committed, I don't know if there was intent to do wrong. Sorry if I'm not being clear - I'm sure there are legal terms for what I'm trying to say. But anyway, I don't think the guy should really be punished in such cases.

 

The problem always comes in the "he said, she said" department.

[Suzy]

It's interesting how different the age of consent is in different countries and cultures:

 

http://www.avert.org/age-of-consent.htm

 

(In my country (Hungary) it's 14. Interesting that in the Vatican it's 12. )

 

 

[DeGaul]

Vigile, I really don't say this to be insulting, but I think you might be missing the nuances in my stance. I am not being blunt at all. If you will look back at the things I have said in this thread and put them together, you'll see that I'm not advancing anything like an unsophisticated position. I have stated that I hate the government and don't want it to exist anymore. This is not a naive statement, because I didn't follow it up with a plan for how to get rid of the government. I also don't believe the government is going to go away, I simply wish that it would. I have stated that I find 40 year olds having any kind of sexual fixation with teenagers sick. That is my moral opinion, as all moral statements are just that: opinions. But, just because that is my moral opinion does not mean I have a responsibility to dig into the details of that opinion. I would dig into those details, if I thought such digging would be productive in anyway, but I don't have the kind of influence that could change the abuses that happen in the law, and frankly, neither do you. So, how useful is it really for you to discuss these details you are referring to if you don't seriously intend to do anything about them? (And, let's be honest....you don't intend to do anything about them, just as I don't intend to do anything about them. Neither of us is walking away from this conversation to go out and start protesting for changes in the law, so the whole discussion is academic and therefore the details are pretty irrelevant.)

 

As far as your assertion that sexual urges are somehow more primal than cultural urges: What solid evidence do you have of that? What makes one more primal (powerful) than the other? As a matter of fact, sexual urges and rational thought come in a variety of different forces in all kinds of different people. Some people are completely asexual, with no sex drive to speak of. Are they outside the realm of nature somehow? And overly aggressive sex drives are not always advantageous from an evolutionary perspective. In certain species of monkey, when a monkey is born who is overly aggressive and commonly tries to have sex with as many females as possible, that monkey actually ends up being ostracized by the group and dies alone and childless. The sex act is a necessary cause for the production of a new life, but it is not a sufficient cause for the continuation of that new life and therefore the continuation of the species. We cannot live by sex alone, as it were, and so I think it is rather naive to preference the sex drive as somehow being more basic. Biological beings (at least at the human level) are not that simplistic.

 

 

I'm willing to bet you would argue the Burkha is evil

 

I would say that I am of the opinion that the Burkha is evil. I would not make the claim that the Burkha is objectively evil. Nothing is objectively evil. Good and evil belong to the realm of human opinion, not to the world of facts.

 

they are both products of culture, not of nature

culture is a product of nature

 

You are not proving to be very nuanced in the above. You cannot hold that culture is a product of nature and then claim that the products of culture are not products of nature. That is self-contradicting.

 

 

As for what you wrote, Galien, I'm not going to play the game of telling you how to raise your children. I don't care how you raised your children. You and your family are no concern of mine. I don't care about you or them. All I have done is simply stated what I think is morally sick. If you disagree with me, that is fine. I have zero interest in changing your mind. If being judged by me bothers you, perhaps you should really be looking at yourself and asking what it is about you that makes you care whether I judge you or not.

[Vigile]

So, how useful is it really for you to discuss these details you are referring to if you don't seriously intend to do anything about them?

 

Personally? It's interesting to discuss, it helps develop reasoning skills and it helps uncover weaknesses in my own patterns of thinking.

 

As far as your assertion that sexual urges are somehow more primal than cultural urges: What solid evidence do you have of that? What makes one more primal (powerful) than the other?

 

Simply observation of nature. We are animals, animals eat, shit and procreate. Not all animals develop culture. In my mind, that makes it more base. Could be wrong. Moreover, culture restrains, but I doubt most are ever tempted by culture. Certainly not in the way loins tempt.

 

Again, I find nothing wrong with your opinion. I think it's sick too, but I'm under no illusion that my thinking isn't influenced by culture. Animals just fuck when they reach physical maturity. We develop rules, such as age of consent, because we wish to live at a higher level than our base selves. Perhaps you're right that that urge to live better is also natural, but I find it hard to prove in a meaningful and completely objective way and if it can be, I don't see how it negates the idea that one urge is more powerful than the other; this is not self-contradictory as you suggest.

 

Nothing is objectively evil.

 

Then we are finally on the same page.

 

You are not proving to be very nuanced in the above. You cannot hold that culture is a product of nature and then claim that the products of culture are not products of nature. That is self-contradicting.

 

I doubt I made such a claim. This may be how you understood it, but I'll just let this go as I don't really care that much about getting into the semantics of the issue any deeper than I've already done. Too many rabbit trails.

[Galien]

 

 

As for what you wrote, Galien, I'm not going to play the game of telling you how to raise your children. I don't care how you raised your children. You and your family are no concern of mine. I don't care about you or them. All I have done is simply stated what I think is morally sick. If you disagree with me, that is fine. I have zero interest in changing your mind. If being judged by me bothers you, perhaps you should really be looking at yourself and asking what it is about you that makes you care whether I judge you or not.

 

 

Why not mate, you think you know how everything should be done better than those who are actually doing it.

 

What makes it bother me mr. I don't care about anyone other than me and mine, is that one of us still has a heart. And it isn't you.

[Legion]

If you don't see me as being a kind person,

I'll break your fucking neck.

If you don't envision me as sweetness and light,

Your face will hit the deck.

[Galien]

There is one thing people are a miss here. A young person may still be at the age of consent no matter which country it is, whether it be 16, 17, 18...what ever, IF they are still being supported and living under the roof of the parents, there is a level of accountability that young person has. Before they engage in ANY sexual activity, they should be able to support themselves or any possible children that could come of that union or a sexually transmitted disease. To not consider that is to place an undue burden upon the parents as they are responsible until they are fully and legally of age. Until that point, the young person's will is subordinated to the parents who are paying the bills.

 

You seem inordinately interested in subordinated wills. Glad you aren't my father. Sure you are not still a christian?

 

My daughter is a top student and is going to go to a university and study Pre-medical and go on to Medical School. She is smart, she is not you.

 

Part of the reason she does well, she knows there is no bullshit that will fly with me or her mother (my wife). She loves learning and she takes pride in it.

 

Well pat yourself on the back dad, I'm sure your peers are all very impressed. Wonder who will pay for her therapy in years to come? I also wonder what the hell she gets up to when you aren't looking. Hopefully one day you will mature enough to realise that subordinating the will of others is in fact a pathology. Well it is where I come from.

 

Galien,

 

It is sad, there is a difference between where you stand and I do. There is something called ADULT maturity and RESPONSIBILITY. You see, I don't give a shit what anyone does so long as they don't make me pay for THEIR fuckups. My daughter can do what ever she wants so long as she can pay for the fuckups. She has been taught to be RESPONSIBLE and not expect everyone else to pickup for her when shit hits the fan. Just because you are angry at the world does not change the issue. There is a saying here...'You break it...you buy it'. If you are responsible for any kids and they are in your custody, YOU are responsible, therefore if they break it....guess what....YOU BUY IT.......

 

I don't expect the government and everyone to come pick me up because of any whining anyone does. We all make decisions. The only think you HAVE to do is live and die, all other things are a choice. The one question is, which choice will you make?

 

Where I stand is in the real world where shit happens every day. My daughters have been taught exactly what yours has, and they operate on that understanding. As much as I would like the world to be the way it "ought" to be, I have to deal with it the way it is, and so do you. You can try and bend it to your will as much as you want, doesn't mean that will happen.

 

I have no idea where you reference to your government comes from, or your odd reference to paying for the mistakes of others. Seems a bit of an obsession of yours, this paying for other people thing. For you maturity and responsibility sound an awful lot like control.

[AlphaToOmega]

What a fun little thread.

FWIW I agree with Vigile and to a large extent Galien mainly because there is no clear defined line but rather a blur of different bell curves interacting.

Can a 17year old not be an idiot?

Absolutely.

There are not many of them around but the bell curve tells us that there will be 17year old's with the maturity and wisdom beyond adults far older than them.

Are there adults who's mental capacity at a physical age of 40 is more like a normalised 16year old.

Sure there is too.

 

For those who think a 40 year old with a 16year old is immoral, which part is immoral?

The physical age difference or the mental age difference?

Most of the arguments I've heard so far are based on the notion that a 16year old cannot understand adult concepts. That being the case, there should be no problem with a 80year old man with the mind of a 16year old having sex with a 16year old with the mind of a 23year old. Works for Hugh except I'm not sure he actually has sex.

 

Would a guy who is 25 and having sex with a 30year old woman who has the mental age of a 14 year old be statutory rape? Does it change if I tell you his mental age was 12?

 

But I do find humour in the absoluteness of the law. Lets say an American girl born in Hawaii goes on vacation to the East coast of the USA to celebrate her 18th birthday and gets laid by a 24 year old at 1am EST.

There's a legal screw up in the making. Is she 17 or 18? Is it legal or illegal? Is it moral? The legalities would be concerned about time zones and ages yet have nothing to do with maturity yet it is mental maturity that everyone is concerned with.

 

Reminds me of a Christmas with my family at my aunties place years ago.

They kept wanting me to go get married. My auntie asked me I wasn't married. I replied that I was having too much fun going out. Had a 36year old the other night. When they all looked a little suprised at my words I added, yep, two 18 year olds.

Never got asked again about my sex life or my single status.

 

There are pretty clear moral infractions based on the society you're raised in and they constitute pedophelia not statutory rape. The distinction starts to blur rapidly as the ages raise.

[Vigile]

Good to have you back AtoO.

[AlphaToOmega]

Good to have you back AtoO.

 

Thanks mate.

Moving countries takes some effort as it turns out. Still settling in here.

 

 

 

[DeGaul]

People are asking too much of morality on this thread. There seems to be a general feeling that a person's moral sensibility can be grounded in some sort of fact about the world, but anyone who has taken a second to read David Hume should know that values do not (and cannot) follow from facts. A person's moral perception is more akin to a person's aesthetic perception. I may love the paintings of Van Gogh, and I can give you reasons why I love his paintings, but at the end of the day, those "reasons" that I give don't "prove" the aesthetic value of Van Gogh's work, they simply illustrate why it is that I love Van Gogh. Perhaps people who listen to me speak about Van Gogh will be moved to love him too, but I can't say that if they are moved to love him that I have "proven" his work is beautiful, I have just persuaded them that it is beautiful. I have perhaps helped others to see the sense in which I value Van Gogh.

 

Moral sensibility is the same way. When it comes to moral conversations, we don't prove....we persuade. So, if I wanted to persuade someone that it is wrong for 40 year olds to sleep with teenagers, I would go into a series of reasons which illustrate what I find repellent about it: I find teenagers to be physically unattractive. I find teenagers to be mentally under-developed. I find 40 year olds who believe teenagers are attractive to have a warped sense of aesthetics and stunted mental development. No matter how precocious, I have never found a 17 year old who is the mental equal of a fully intelligent adult, nor have I ever been impressed by the "wisdom" of a 17 year old. These facts lead me to consider the problems I see developing with power relations between a teenager and an adult, etc., etc., etc.

 

Now, saying all that, as anyone can see from this post, it is perfectly possible to come up with counter-arguments to anything I have said. That, in and of itself, does not mean that my own moral perception is somehow failing to fit with the facts, it just points out the very fact that moral perceptions do fall within the realm of persuasion, and if you are not persuaded by me, then we simply don't share a moral sensibility.

 

Moral sense, like aesthetic sense, does not have the added "objectivity" that comes from material force (I'm speaking of force here in the sense of the physical sciences.) The law of gravity, for example, is not just a matter of persuasion. If you jump off a cliff, you will die (as long as it is a high enough cliff); no matter if you have been persuaded that gravity isn't an issue. Morality doesn't carry that kind of weight. If a person isn't persuaded that theft is wrong, stealing will not cause the person's head to explode. Instead, the weight of morality lies in the pressure that comes from our fellow human beings and our combined moral sensibility. Theft might not cause a person's head to explode, but other human beings can certainly put a thief in jail.

 

Moral force comes from society, not from any facts about the world. At the end of the day, everyone who makes a moral judgment is really just asking his or herself the great Kantian question, "Would I want to live in a world where everyone does this?" So, I ask myself, would I want to live in a world where 40 year olds and teenagers routinely shacked up? No, I wouldn't. So, I pass judgment upon such action and call it sick and unacceptable.

 

 

[DeGaul]

Galien, I have to admit, you have motivated me to perhaps clarify a few things: Let me start by saying, I am not heartless, despite what you may feel. I have a rather large heart when it comes to the people who are close to me, my family and friends. What I am is unwilling to be dishonest about anything. When I say that I don't care how you raise your children, for example, it is not because I am expressing some sort of heartlessness or hatefulness toward you, it is because I genuinely don't spend any of my energy thinking about how I would raise your children.

 

What I am trying to combat in the way that I live my life is the pervasive tendency in our culture to cling to the idea that we must love, accept, and concern ourselves with everyone. I do not love everyone. I feel very little, if anything, for most other human beings. And what I truly believe is that if everyone would just be honest about it, very few individuals actually love or concern themselves with everyone. What would it mean to say that you love everyone? That kind of a statement is nonsense. To someone who tells me "I love everyone.", my only response is, "No, you do not." People in our society have turned the word "love" into a lip service, a sort of superstition, which we use to try and cover over the fact that for the most part, we as human beings often disagree with one another and, on a day-to-day basis, hardly concern ourselves with each other at all.

 

I would like to trade the false sense of security that comes from the "universal love" doctrine for the reality of a world in which differences are clear. Let each person love who they love and hate who they hate. Let each person be free and open about his or her judgments and let each individual stand firm in his or her convictions. Only once we can practice that kind of universal honesty can we actually get a clear picture of where everyone stands and how to move forward from there.

 

The hippies got it dead wrong, "All you need is love." is utter bullshit. "All you need is honesty." would have been the kind of rallying cry that might have made a great generation.

[AlphaToOmega]

People are asking too much of morality on this thread. There seems to be a general feeling that a person's moral sensibility can be grounded in some sort of fact about the world, but anyone who has taken a second to read David Hume should know that values do not (and cannot) follow from facts. A person's moral perception is more akin to a person's aesthetic perception. I may love the paintings of Van Gogh, and I can give you reasons why I love his paintings, but at the end of the day, those "reasons" that I give don't "prove" the aesthetic value of Van Gogh's work, they simply illustrate why it is that I love Van Gogh. Perhaps people who listen to me speak about Van Gogh will be moved to love him too, but I can't say that if they are moved to love him that I have "proven" his work is beautiful, I have just persuaded them that it is beautiful. I have perhaps helped others to see the sense in which I value Van Gogh.

 

Yet you are clearly repulsed by certain things that others are not. You call it aesthetics, I call it personal morals.

 

Moral sensibility is the same way. When it comes to moral conversations' date=' we don't prove....we persuade. So, if I wanted to persuade someone that it is wrong for 40 year olds to sleep with teenagers, I would go into a series of reasons which illustrate what I find repellent about it: I find teenagers to be physically unattractive. I find teenagers to be mentally under-developed. I find 40 year olds who believe teenagers are attractive to have a warped sense of aesthetics and stunted mental development. No matter how precocious, I have never found a 17 year old who is the mental equal of a fully intelligent adult, nor have I ever been impressed by the "wisdom" of a 17 year old. These facts lead me to consider the problems I see developing with power relations between a teenager and an adult, etc., etc., etc.

[/quote']

 

You need to get around more then. I've met 17year olds with wisdom and adults who can best be described as idiots with high IQ's.

The fact that you have not met any does not mean there are in fact none. You simply need to look at the normal distribution curves to see that they are rare but not non existent.

 

 

Moral force comes from society' date=' not from any facts about the world. At the end of the day, everyone who makes a moral judgment is really just asking his or herself the great Kantian question, "Would I want to live in a world where everyone does this?" So, I ask myself, would I want to live in a world where 40 year olds and teenagers routinely shacked up? No, I wouldn't. So, I pass judgment upon such action and call it sick and unacceptable.

[/quote']

 

You've stated your position on wanting humanity to end so I don't particularly find this at all surprising.

 

No one has claimed that 40year olds should routinely be shagging 17 year olds.

What was mentioned was that there are cases where 40 year olds shagging 17 year olds can be seen as acceptable and cases where it is clearly not. No where did anyone make a claim that this should be the normal age difference for sex or that it be routinely practiced (which would make it normal).

 

 

 

 

 

[DeGaul]

AlphaToOmega, I'm well aware that people aren't suggesting that 40 year old and 17 year old sexual relations be the norm, but when we are talking about moral statements, we are talking about norms. I simply state that I find such practices sick. That is my moral norm. I don't need to state that there maybe exceptions to the case. There are always exceptions to the case, but fortunately for me I don't need to live my life qualifying everything I say to everyone I speak with. That explicit qualification of my position is unnecessary, as I have already established that I am a fully functioning, rational agent and therefor I can make judgments on a case by case basis, when it is appropriate. To make sense of what I'm saying, you simply have to take another moral norm as an example: "It is wrong to kill." Most of us accept this moral norm. And we accept it without having to bring up all the situations in which it might not hold every time we assert it. It is not a requirement of moral conversation to discuss each and every case of application that is possible for a moral rule. Speaking of being 17, I actually used to do this when I was 17. Whenever I was in a moral discussion with someone and a norm was brought up, I would immediately go on a tirade about all the possible exceptions to that rule. At the time I thought I was being very smart and seeing sides of the argument that no one else could see. Now I realize, I as just being annoying. Everyone already understood that there were exceptions, but as it would be an impossible task to write down every possible exception to a rule, no one bothered and just played the stuff by ear, as the situation dictated, allowing the explicitly stated norms to guide their reasoning. (It is worth noting that I was such an annoying 17 year old precisely because I was precocious and my level of academic learning was not on the same level as my life experiences. I was smart, but lacked any kind of practical understanding. I was not the equal of a fully intelligent and rational adult. And indeed, I still hold that no 17 year old is. Certainly, there are 17 year olds who are smarter and wiser than relatively unintelligent and foolish adults, but I fail to see the value in comparing a 17 year old to an idiot and saying, "See, what a smart 17 year old....by comparison." I know any number of dogs that are more intelligent than some small or mentally challenged children, but that hardly makes me feel like I need to point that fact out if someone tells me that humans are more intelligent than dogs. Once again, it is an example of discussing exceptions that aren't so much relevant as annoying.)