Pat Kelly

It is difficult for me to believe anyone’s claims they experienced no conscious awareness of sex until sometime after adolescence. This goes against my own personal experience where I was playing doctor by age 5 and probably before. However, if you are claiming you personally experienced nothing of a sexual nature until after you reached adolescence I must accept what you are saying. However, this would by no means indicate it was abnormal for me to be sexual at a far younger age though it might explain how you appear to have come to see all children as nonsexual.

Loren Pechtel

Actually, I think there is a solution: There should be judicial bypass for all age-based laws.

Buddrow_Wilson

Loren, I'm not familiar with judicial bypass. could you explain plz?

Dominus Paradoxum

I did not say that children have no consciousness or knowledge of sex, I said that they are unlikely to have a "sexuality". I think there is a big difference there. If you don't thinks there's a difference between a childs interest in sex before and during puberty I think you're quite mistaken. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I don't think that the child involved in the Mary Kay Laterno scandal was abused, but that is a comparatively rare instance, and you have shown us nothing to make me think otherwise.

Pat Kelly

Well I don’t want to get caught up in semantics here. I take your response to mean you also experienced sexual arousal, interest and sexual behavior as a child and therefore must view such things as a normal part of childhood. Please correct me if I have misunderstood you.

Should I assume your understandings the Laterno incident was a comparatively rare instance, is based upon something other than your own supposition. Not that your suppositions are necessarily invalid, it just makes we wonder a little how you arrived at them.

I base my assumptions that the Laterno incident is not nearly as rare as you appear to believe upon the reality, well established by statistics and common sense, that says all forms of sex are far more prevalent than those that make the headlines. Now to pin you down I would have to get you to commit to a tangible definition of what you mean by “comparatively rare.” Would you call 10 out of a hundred comparatively rare or would 10 out of a million be more in line with what you had in mind.

If you think for one minute that adult/child sex almost exclusively involves older men as opposed to older women you could not be considering the fact there is little real difference between the level of sex drive experienced by the sexes. One thing I can assure you of is that if we ever did do a serious comprehensive study of sexual behavior in 2003, many would be greatly surprised by the results. Then again, that neighbor across the way always seemed a little funny to me and I should not be so surprised to find out his family is just as crazy as ours.

Dominus Paradoxum

Well, I didn't really mean that per se, what I meant was that most children these days know or hear from their friends (and probably from the media) a lot of things about sex without necessarily 'doing anything' themselves. And I seriously doubt that children about eight and under have any kind sexuality. Most kids in that age range don't really have any knowlege of or intrest in sex

I think you misunderstood. In that instance, as I understand it, it was the boy who instigated the relationship, not her. So if you're talking about a child basically seducing or propositioning an adult, yes I would say that's on the order of ten out of a million or far more.

Mike Rosoft

Yes, child abuse is a crime - and rightly so. And yes, children can very easily be victims of coercion and manipulation. But I don't believe that the problem can be properly addressed by seting an arbitrary age limit.

The classical counter-example would be a sexual relationship between a 15-year-old boy (15 years is an age of consent in Czech Republic) and a 14-year-old girl; technically, he is comitting a crime of sexual abuse.

Another issue may be that if it is legal for an adult to have sex with a 15-year-old, does a year (or a few months, or even a few days) make that much of a difference? My answer is no: a 16-year old may be a victim of sexual abuse, and a 14-year-old may be engaging in consensual sex.

I really don't know what the laws should be like to solve this. Loren's proposition - a possibility for a court to overrule an age limit - may be a good idea.


Mike Rosoft

Pat Kelly

Here was an opportunity for you to deal with this issue in a far more concrete manner through answering my direct questions concerning the reality of your own childhood. How did you choose to respond? You decided to keep your own childhood out of it and deal in the abstract of what you assume about other’s childhoods. I find the fact you made this choice rather interesting. I certainly understand you may feel a need to retain a certain identity you may have established in this group that may not coincide with your getting too personal. Whatever. But I don’t want to waste time talking about abstract concepts of childhood if there is no chance of marrying at least some of those concepts with the realities you and I experienced in our own childhoods.

I would propose that you are certainly not alone in your reluctance to publicly expose the sexual reality of your childhood and therefore must discuss the subject through your interpretation of other’s childhoods. And what happens is almost everyone is doing roughly the same thing which causes the creation of a phantom childhood that has little genuine relationship to the reality of anyone’s childhood. This is where these nonsexual, purist imaginary images of childhood come from. This is not your childhood or my childhood or even the Pope’s childhood. It is something else.

The reality is all children are sexual; always were and always will be. You only have to think back to your own childhood to confirm this. Again, feel free to correct me if I am wrong here. And the experience of sex from a child’s perspective is not much different from what you or I experience as adults. We both enjoy doing certain types of things to others and having others do certain types of things to us. Though what I do now sexually as an adult may differ somewhat from what I used to do as a kid, many if not most of the fundamentals are the same. This is reality taken from life. It is not some crazy idea that if an adult touched my penis in a sexual manner when I was a child I would have gone into a deep lifelong depression or lost my mind and so on. All such ideas are based upon suppositions layered upon more suppositions about this public phantom child and not any reality I have ever known.

Today when someone expresses sexual interest towards me and demonstrates that interest in a way that gives me physical pleasure, I perceive that experience in a positive fashion and look forward to it happening again. It is not something that causes me pain, discomfort, disgust or regret. It is exactly the same way I experienced sex as a child, without all the witches, demons and old wives tales.


I did not misunderstand you and I am familiar with the case and the movie. On my calculator, I get an entirely different number from the one you have committed to. In fact, though it may have occurred before many began retaining memories, the reality is every child at one time or another flirts with their parents with the express purpose of seeing if they can engage the parent in sexual behavior. This is nothing less than natural behavior and is an expression of the same pleasure seeking behavior we later learn to distinguish as sex. Again, there is nothing wrong with sex but something very wrong with the way we have learned to see it today.

Dominus Paradoxum

No, my childhood was not sexual, and neither was the the childhoods of anyone I've known or conversed with. And I'm not an adut. I'm sixteen. But I thank you for the compliment of thinking that I was.

Well, if you have some statistics to back that up, I'd be glad to see them.

Koyaanisqatsi

So, you accept and understand that children are less mature than adults. Then why, pray tell, do you not act in a mature fashion when it comes to what amounts to, IMO, your nearly sociopathic "philosophy" (if it can be called that) regarding engaging in sex with children?

What does it mean to say that you are more mature than a child if you don't act in a more mature manner toward them and their pleasure seeking?

From reading your posts, you seem to understand fully that children seek pleasure, yet, for some reason, you appear to see nothing wrong in taking advantage of this comparatively innocent exploration to fulfill your own pleasure seeking.

How then does this make you more mature than a child?

"Right?" What "right" would that be and whose rights are you championing? A child's "right" to explore their bodies in any way they see fit, or an adult's "right" to take advantage of a child's ignorance and innocence and explore children's bodies in any way they see fit?

I'd ask if you see the qualitative difference, but, again from what you've written so far, it does not appear that you are even capable of seeing the qualitative difference.

Are you arguing that one has a "right" to engage in sex with children, because, as I'm sure you know, you do not?

If you are arguing that one should have the "right" to engage in sex with children, then I suggest you run for office and see what your community thinks of your platform.

After all, that's how "rights" are determined; by community consensus.

That's a mighty bold claim. I'd ask you for evidence to support such a claim, but, again, from reviewing your posts, you seem categorically incapable of doing such a basic thing.

Let me then ask you a more salient question. Do you think there is anything inherently "bad" in taking advantage of another's ignorance in order to appease one's own desires; an ignorance that is fully understood by the one taking the advantage?

You had brought up a mentally retarded person. Do you find anything wrong with taking advantage of said person's mentally retarded condition in order to fulfill one's own desires?

The question isn't whether or not there is anything wrong with the concept of sex, the question is whether or not there is anything wrong with someone who seeks personal advantage through another's ignorance.

Kindly remember in your response that you have granted that children are not as mature as adults.

Curious that you see fulfilling one's own needs in this instance is "wrong," yet you do not equally see that taking advantage of another's ignorance to fulfill one's own needs is not.



Does it matter to you that your "philosophy" is therefore hypocritical?

No argument here. Repression of a person's own sexuallity is, indeed, quite debilitating.

What has this to do with whether or not a more mature adult, however, has the "right" to engage in sex with comparatively immature children in order to fulfill the adult's--how did you put it--own needs?

You're absolutely right and I'm glad to see that you admit it is an obvious fact that children are harmed at least on one level. It is not simply a matter of the obvious fact children can be harmed because society condemns it; it is also because of the obvious fact that children can be (and are) severely psychologically damaged by adult/child sex.

So, my next question to you would be, are you also willing to admit that children can be harmed in far worse ways through adult/child sex, or does this encompass the extent of your critical analysis of the subject of the potential (and actual) harm such activity causes?

I ask this of a mature adult, of course, who fully understands the comparative immaturity of children and the countless documented cases of the almost irreperable psychological and physical harm that has been inflicted in the past on such children whose ignorance toward their own sexuality has been taken advantage of by comparatively more mature adults.

Or is it that your argument attempts to equate "social condemnation" of sex in general with the specific case of a more mature adult taking advantage of a child's comparative immaturity (i.e., ignorance) when they engage in sexual contact with children and that the only psychological harm inflicted by such contact is the fault of society condemning it?

If so, as a mature adult, I would suggest you discuss this topic with clinical psychologists who speciallize in such issues to see whether or not your claim can be substantiated. Or are they all a part of some social conspiracy to stop one's "right" to engage in sex with children?

You are categorically incorrect (as well as guilty of deliberate obfuscation; since the question isn't about a child's own sexuality, it is about one's alleged "right" to take advantage of their sexuality for one's own needs). Again, I would direct a mature adult such as yourself to actually ask any local psychologist with some experience in treating the victims of adult/child sex to substantiate your claim.

After all, I'm sure an intelligent, mature adult such as yourself would never attempt to make unsubstantiated claims hidden within deliberately vague or general terminology when the issue in question is clearly delineated now, yes?

I would suggest a mature adult wouldn't want to appear to be justifying one's own needs over the needs of somebody like one's own daughter, for example, yes?

Possibly, but since this, again, has nothing to do with the question of whether or not taking advantage of a comparatively immature child's sexuality for one's own needs is harmful to the child or not, I suggest you cease making irrelevant (unsubstantiated) observations of this kind, since the issue is by now abundantly delineated, yes?

The question isn't about a child's sexuality; the question is about a comparatively more mature adult's sexuality and how that adult goes about fulfilling his or her own needs. That's what a discussion about adult/child sexual activity is about, after all; the child and the adult.

You seem to consistently ommit the comparatively more mature adult's responsibilities in the matter. Why is that?

I'll assume you mean 60% of adults who have "experienced" one or more sexual encounters with a child under the age of 14, yes? What adults do you know that are under the age of 14?

That seems like an extremely high number of allegedly "mature" adults having "experienced" one or more sexual encounters with comparatively immature children, don't you think?

Perhaps the discrepency lies in the use of the word "experienced," seeing as how it implies a benign, consensual event, which, as a mature adult, you know could not be the case, considering the comparative immaturity of a child, yes?

I guess it all comes down to how one rationallizes away such terms as "forced" or "coerced" or "rape" into a more passive term like "experienced," right? Boy! The human language and its capacity for obfuscation. It never ceases to amaze me.

But, luckily, since we're both mature adults, we know better and can account for such ignorance and act in a mature fashion by not taking advantage of such comparatively immature obfuscation of the facts in evidence.

You know, like the facts one might find if one were to actually engage experts in the field who deal on a daily basis with the effects of such physical and psychological trauma? Like, say, a psychologist or psychiatrist or even a sexual abuse therapist?

After all, no mature adult would ever want to base their unsubstantiated claims on spurious, deliberately disengenuous terminology that doesn't address the actual, salient issues involved in something so clinically documented, just to fulfill one's own needs, right?

Indeed. As I understand it, the comparatively immature children are typically far too psychologically traumatized to report such abuse. That and the fact that most pedophiles take further advantage of a child's immaturity by threatening them in various ways if they tell "their secret."

Pedophile's are clearly dangerous predators, which is, of course, why we have laws and enforcement to punish their criminal actions.

I'm sure you, as a mature adult, agree that taking advantage of another's comparative immaturity in order to fulfill one's own needs is deserving of the most intense and unpleasant incarceration possible. Thank goodness that when most pedophiles are caught and imprisoned, they are treated like the children whose innocence and ignorance they so blatantly took advantage of, just to fulfill their own needs, right?

Thank goodness for prison justice! Payback's a bitch, right .

Still, as a mature adult and father, you know all too well what punishment is deserved of anyone who would have taken advantage of your daughter when she was say, eight years old, or the like. I know you already responded "like a father" when she was twelve and realized the error of your ways was to take the law into your own hands, because you were only thinking of your own needs and not the needs of your daughter, but then she was fully mature at twelve. I mean, it wasn't as if her natural, sexual curiosity had been taken advantage of when she was younger and far more immature, right?

And lord knows that a 30 year old man taking advantage of, say, a 6 or 7 year old girl's innocent sexual exploration for the 30 year old's own needs, for an abhorrent example, would understandably be brutally gang raped repeatedly in prison, most probably by criminals who themselves had been victims of such obvious physical and psychological abuse.

Thank goodness nobody in here ever needs to worry about that!

Personally, I'd live in constant, abject terror of such a thing, but then, like you, I'm a mature adult who understands that being a mature adult means I would never take advantage of an immature child's ignorance in order to fulfill my own needs. I know you haven't explained this yet, but I'm sure you will agree with me by now that this would be the very definition of what it means to be a mature adult.

To protect the possible harmful side effects of a child's immaturity and ignorance in regard to their own sexuality, right?

Isn't that what a mature adult does? Protect a child against somebody who would prey upon their immaturity and innocence? You know, like the visceral, tacitly understood feeling you had as a father protecting his daughter, no matter how wrong it may have been for you to have taken the law into your own hands like that?

Thank goodness for such intrinsically understood instincts pointing the way to what is "wrong" and what is "right."

And murders too! Sadly, there are all kinds of horrible, horrible crimes that are committed behind closed doors.

Thank goodness yet again that you and I are both mature adults and therefore understand that part of that maturity is to protect our family from such harms and not inflict them to fulfill our own needs, right?

After all, that would make us sociopaths in need of serious psychological help and by no means mature adults.

"Came in contact with?" Careful, there's more of that deliberately benign, misleading, obfuscation terminology I was talking about earlier. Why don't we use the real terms, like "rape" and "molestation" and "coerced sex" so that no one misunderstands your position to think these abuses were all the informed consensual activities of equally mature individuals, yes?

Our own maturity demands it, don't you think?

Right, but again, let's cease making these kinds of off-topic observations of one's own sexuality, since what we're discussing is the taking advantage of an immature child by a comparatively more mature adult for the adult's own needs, remember?

We wouldn't want to hide our true understanding of the salient issues in this manner, or we might be considered grossly hypocritical, immature individuals who are seeking only to rationalize our sociopathic tendencies.

Also true, but again, having nothing to do with the question at hand; the abuse of an immature child by a comparatively mature adult for the adult's own needs.

As a mature adult, I know you now see what it is we're actually talking about, so this smokescreen, while informative, only serves to hide the facts and the serious issues involved.

And focus instead on the actual problem of someone older deliberately taking advantage of a child's immaturity for sociopathic desires.

Good, we're in agreement. The real issue has nothing to do with a child's own burgeoning, ignorant sexuality and everything to do with an adult's mature, fully understood sexuality and the abherrent mental condition that would allow an adult to think it is acceptable to prey upon a child's innocence for the adult's own desires.

As a like mature adult, I know now that you will always do everything in your power to protect any child against such sociopathic behavior in other immature adults, since that is, of course, precisely what it means to be a mature adult.