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I've always found this an awkward topic [message #64209]

Mon, 04 October 2010 19:56

timmy

Has no life at all

Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13751

It's a serious discussion and one not to be dismissed lightly based on prejudice. So I will reveal my prejudice first and answer the topic second.

My views on relationships between older and younger, especially those above and those below the age of consent are coloured by my own physical revulsion as a teenager for considering any approach by an older boy, let alone an adult. I would have run a mile, screaming, had a boy physically older than me even come on to me. Such relationships are not right for me

That out of the way I recognise that there are boys who wish for, perhaps crave, the attentions of an older person, and I recognise that these boys are sexual beings and have considered, albeit within their shorter lives, the ramifications of such a relationship. Indeed for such boys the relationship will be good. But this does not excuse the adult who coerces, manipulates or grooms a child for sexual purposes, nor one who lies and says "But he wanted it."

I am most worried for the younger person when the relationship is consensual. The older is not always the initiator, and is by no means morally criminal whatever the law may say.

Take a situation where there is true mutual consent and the sexual acts are discovered by a parent. One is 14, the other 20. The 20 year old is jailed. the 14 year old is labelled a victim. And the 14 year old loses his lover and blames himself, the more so if he initiated the events.

Society has ruined two lives.

I find that hard to live with, yet I also recognise that we need rules.

I have had http://iomfats.org/resources/ageofconsent.html on the site for many years which addresses some of this.

[Updated on: Mon, 04 October 2010 23:22]

Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School

Re: I've always found this an awkward topic [message #64220 is a reply to message #64209]

Tue, 05 October 2010 07:27

saben

On fire!

Registered: May 2003
Messages: 1537

I find heterosexual relationships quite revolting and can never quite understand how anyone could find the vagina attractive. Yet my preference is my preference.

I don't think it is right to dictate to anyone who they should be attracted to. Allowing close-age exemptions for age of consent laws is a start. But I think there's some fundamentally weird thinking going on when we say "teens are sexual beings and should be able to make choices about sex, but those choices should be limited to a list of people who are under a certain age".

99% of teens might never countenance the idea of a relationship with someone older than 20 and it's possibly that the majority of sexual encounters between adults and minors will fall into Hermes' category 1. But no-one is saying that category 1 should be legal.

I'm strongly of the opinion that while laws exist to punish rape, and while rape is understood to be a breach of informed consent, that should be sufficient. I don't believe age of consent laws protect anyone that needs protection and wouldn't be protected by rape laws.

Look at this tree. I cannot make it blossom when it suits me nor make it bear fruit before its time [...] No matter what you do, that seed will grow to be a peach tree. You may wish for an apple or an orange, but you will get a peach.
Master Oogway

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