ABC's 20/20 Report Next week: Age of Consent

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ABC's 20/20 Report Next week: Age of Consent - 3/7/2008 11:10:25 PM

SugarMyChurro

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Joined: 4/26/2007
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[Topic disclosure: I normally really despise John Stossel's work. I think he's an asshat. I have no real opinion at this point on the special next week. I don't even know if I'll be able to watch it or even want to. But...]

This will play on Friday, 14 March 2008, 10 pm/9c

Here's the main link (there are many other links there):
http://www.abcnews.go.com/2020/AgeOfConsent/

Here's the voting link (options from no law, 15-18, and the current results look odd):
http://www.abcnews.go.com/2020/popup?id=4408595

I might have more later. I'm gonna go read the website first.

Also dinner...

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RE: ABC's 20/20 Report Next week: Age of Consent - 3/8/2008 12:47:49 AM

CuriousLord

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So there was four years of difference between their ages? And that's a crime and worthy of the "sex offender" label when they had consentual sex inside of a relationship? But it's cool that many businesses proudly advertise 18-year olds having sex on camera for money?

I lose a bit of my credibility each year I get older in saying this, but people are sexual creatures and many are ready long before 18. Of course, my argument was more credible back a couple years ago when I was 15 myself. Not that anyone cared, because I was a kid, and it was all, "You simply don't know what you're missing." Well, damn it, I'm 21 now and I still don't know what I was missing back then.

Thankfully, I also lose concern as the years go by; since I'm now "legal", I grow a bit more apathetic to the past repression as the time gets further from it. I just remember the outrage at how stupid it was to think that, in highschool, adults considered it to be healthy for us to view our own sexual nature as something dirty and disgusting. Just like how the Catholic school used to tell my middleschool class that masturbation was a sin and we'd all burn in hell.

I'd rant about that, too, but I'm trying to cut back on any attachment to posts lately. But do you know how much it fucks with a kid's head when you tell him that touching himself is the ultimate evil of all perversion and sickliness? Or was that the point.. to make people so desperate to be redeemed of their allegedly sick ways that they'd fall for any religious bullshit they through our way?

Alright. [/rant]

Read CL's Random Rants next week for a scope out of why he's pissed off about not being allowed to take real courses without filling all the god damn busy-work prereqs!

< Message edited by CuriousLord -- 3/8/2008 12:50:20 AM >

(in reply to SugarMyChurro)

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RE: ABC's 20/20 Report Next week: Age of Consent - 3/8/2008 4:08:15 AM

sharainks

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My state has what they call Romeo and Juliet laws. However that applies to those with less than a 4 year age difference. To me there is a huge difference in what goes on with these young people having sex and a 40 year old pedophile preying on 12 year olds. There is a huge difference between rape and what goes on with these young people. The main difference is that the traumatic aspect is not there is a consenual relationship.

What does traumatize them is the reaction of the legal system and the destruction of their relationship and their lives. Some states including my own before the Romeo and Juliet laws went into effect prosecuted high school boys for having sex with their under 16 girlfriend. They were placed (several times that I know of) in adult prisons where they are targeted for violent rape by older inmates.

Tell me-whats right about that?

(in reply to CuriousLord)

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RE: ABC's 20/20 Report Next week: Age of Consent - 3/8/2008 5:11:11 AM

Foititis

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Speaking as one of 'these young people' I frankly cannot fathom why a 19 year old would have any vested interest in a 15 year old.
This is why we have age of consent laws, because the young men and ladies aren't competent enough to make the right decision when they're being pressured by someone older (hell there are enough people who still can't make the right choice well into their 20's).

Personally I think the age of consent should be 16.

(in reply to sharainks)

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RE: ABC's 20/20 Report Next week: Age of Consent - 3/8/2008 5:28:59 AM

LadyEllen

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Age of consent is something which is determined by the culture. Whilst we in the west raise our young with the best nutrition and healthcare, the chances are that they will be biologically ready some years before the age of consent which as a culture we have set because of our cultural imperatives (such as the need to gain an education) - and so we do not raise our young to be emotionally ready or socially and financially independent (able to take care of themselves) until years after they are biologically ready.

Other times within our culture have varied, and other cultures today and throughout history have varied on when our young are ready, according to the imperatives of time and place. However, this doesnt mean that we should discard our ways as relative, but rather means that alike with other times and places we have to work it out like they did according to the circumstances.

The real problem for us is that to set a framework suitable to our culture and circumstances, we rely on age criteria and then make laws based on them which we apply to all; the age of consent, the legal age for alcohol etc, which because we vary enormously as individuals are not universally valid guides. Some can be trusted to behave more responsibly as children than many adults do. Yet there is no culturally acceptable way to determine majority than to rely on age, and at the same time arising from that, than to criminalise those who may well be more developed people than those criminalising them.

E

_____________________________

In a test against the leading brand, 9 out of 10 participants couldnt tell the difference. Dumbasses.

(in reply to Foititis)

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RE: ABC's 20/20 Report Next week: Age of Consent - 3/8/2008 5:40:14 AM

pahunkboy