While we may have touched on this exact situation, our discussions have been on a different, broader aspect altogether. If you want me to dredge that up here, I will. Otherwise, I'll stay on topic.
Allow me. Here is a Trees and Things story where various members (including myself) went into the various legal citations and interpretations. It recaps both ms. sue and my position nicely - in our own words as it were.
Our key disagreement is that adults have no ability to argue that the child gave informed consent (legal concept) because under the law its impossible for a child to give such consent.
Memory is a strange bell, jubilee and knell.
I see that you insist. So be it. Yes, you are basically right about our disagreement. Let me highlight your words to which I still take great exception:
Anyway in re: to favoring no legal sanctions whatsover against adults having sex with children of any age? -- I've tried to explain a more nuanced position. I favor no -automatic- legal sanctions adults having sex with children.
I believe that adults should have the ability to offer a defense/opportunity to prove that the child in question was capable of, and indeed did give informed consent. Currently based on an arbitrary magic age, it is presumed under the law, that a person is incapable of informed consent.
I disagree strongly with this.
The opportunity to offer proof of informed consent should be considered in any case.
Since you would allow for the defense of informed consent from a child of any age, I don't see this as a nuanced position whatsoever. In fact, because I'm too lazy at the moment to rehash this old debate, here was my response way back then, by which I still stand most strongly:
Thank you for your reply. This subthread between us began with my calling you on labeling pedophilia as a mere hang-up and escalated when I realized that you advocate no laws whatsoever to protect children from sexual predators, regardless of the age of the child. If I misunderstand or misinterpret your POV, let me know.
In one post you implied (through sarcasm) that I ignore both human biology and psychology, along with historical human practices. I would suggest, without sarcasm, that you ignore one crucial aspect of all the above and that is modern society's more developed understanding of the differences between young children (even adolescents) and adults. I think you also ignore a basic human instinct to protect and provide for our offspring.
It seems that you believe that your position is the nuanced one, yet your solution, based on an exaggerated absolute either/or as expressed in your last paragraph, hardly qualifies. There are myriad ways to protect both adults and children without totally erasing any delineation between childhood and adulthood.
I would wager that it would be very difficult to find more than a handful of parents -- or those can empathize with them -- who would nod in agreement with your premise that there should be "no legal sanctions" against "adults having sex with children." I suggest that your view -- and the chance that you said you're willing to take -- is not one borne of reality but rather derives from some libertarian notion that is best left as a rhetorical exercise.
That's about it, wetkarma. I'm still unclear as to why you called me into this discussion. Neither one of us convinced the other last time.
There are children, and then there are adolescents who are under the age of consent. It is very hard to think of a situation where sex with a pre-adolescent child should be ok. In fact, I am all for that being illegal.
However, there are 15 year olds who are capable of consent, just as there are 21 year olds whose maturity calls consent into question. The law recognizes that magical age, but consent is possible under the age of consent, the letter of the law notwithstanding.
sierra tango foxtrot uniform
There are children, and then there are adolescents who are under the age of consent. It is very hard to think of a situation where sex with a pre-adolescent child should be ok. In fact, I am all for that being illegal.
So I'm not at all clear, then, as to how your reply is relevant to my post.
My primary objection to wetkarma's POV is that he sees no need for statutory rape laws at all; he sees no age distinction whatsoever in terms of the ability to use the informed consent defense:
The opportunity to offer proof of informed consent should be considered in any case.
When he says "any," he means "any."
While it is despicable for an adult to have sex with a teenager it is a whole other level over and above any other considerations for engaging in sexual relations with someone who is prepubescent. The fact is, once humans hit puberty, it's perfectly natural for them to become curious in exploration and the relatively wide range of consent laws from state to state is demonstrative in its own right of how murky and unresolved society's moral take on the sex lives of 14-18 year olds is.
It is easy to buy small plaster models of what you think life is like.
There is also res ipsa loquitor [the thing speaks for itself] in law that can be applied in cases where it's clearly child molestation or rape of a child as opposed to statutory rape.
In other words, I think that most everyone can agree that a child who looks and appears to be seven should not have sexual advances made by an adult. This is clearly a case where the adult knew the child to be a child...res ipsa loquitor.
However, when a "child" of sixteen, who has been designated a child by societal terms, but who can easily be mistaken for 21 gives consent to an adult, it's a very different case.
Appearances are very deceptive in regards to age. I should know. I am in my mid-thirties and I am still being carded for everything, including cigarettes. I've had people laugh in my face when they see my age on my ID.
