This is the reason why I believe someone who is not 25 shouldn't be given opportunity to make life altering decisions without adult guidance. The prefrontal cortex is key in deciding who to vote for, who to have sex with, if you should smoke or not, if you should do drugs or not, whether it's a good idea to join the Military.... All of these things require the ability to plan ahead and assess risk.. 18 year old's don't really have a strong grasp on this.

@{CAP}Radeon Yes! 1) Humans are not rational. 2) There is no guarantee any development at all takes place between 18 and 26. Or 13 and 26 for that matter.

any logic behind age of consensus will have holes the size of Hiroshima in it. Its a cut off created because not having one might have unanted consequences. It cant be anchored in ethics in any way shape or form, without massive amounts of exceptions.

To bring it back to the maxwell case; many of the "victims" earned money recruiting new victims after having been subject to "abuse". When reading the victims testimonies, some of them come forth as both calculated and callous.

Unlike Epstein himself, who clearly had the mind of a 14 year old.

I think that misses the larger point that we are addressing here. We are trying to protect children from predators while also not being cut throat about it and trying to have some level of common sense.

To some degree, children inherit mental traits from their parents.. But, more largely, their behaviors in adult life stem from their environment and that affects them in different ways depending on their IQ which is the largest factor. Children with a higher IQ tend to be able to recover from trauma more easily than children with lower a IQ. A major group of people who are sexual predators are that way because of their environment and the way they were raised. Of those individuals, most of them were sexually assaulted when they were children or had parents who were abusive in some way. For instance, a male born to a woman who is abusive runs the risk of becoming an abusive individual as well. In extreme cases they might develop homicidal thoughts toward their mother or women who fit her physical profile. I think it's really important that we recognize how difficult it would be to stop sexual predators before they hurt anyone without violating people's rights.

Its actually one of those correlations that work one way, but not the other.

"own history of abuse" is +2 points on SCR-20 (a tool for calculating probability of repeat abuse), but there is no statistically significant correlation *in populus*

for every molester with own history of abuse there are 120+ victims of abuse who would rather die than repeat what they were subjected to.

Come on! Seriously!

People are different. All you are looking at is abuse. People are different. Girls are different. Boys are different. But I've already said that I'm focusing on girls.

So look at two 14 year old girls. No abuse. Healthy girls with healthy families.

The first girl decided shortly after puberty that she wanted to have sex. After lots of searching, she finds a boy that she wants to have sex with. She does it with him. She likes it. So she keeps doing it with him and others. Having sex with an older man only means it will be in a nice comfy bed rather than the back of a car. There is no emotional attachment to her. For her, sex and love are two different things.

The second girl is very different. Despite her upbringing, she is insecure about her body. She is convinced that she is the only virgin in school. She also has no interest in a career or in home making. To be honest about it, I'm not that sure about the girl. I am pretty sure that if a handsome man with money to spend on her started paying attention to her, she would become emotionally attached to him and would consent to sex so that she would seem grown up to him.

Let's say there is a man. A salesman from out of town staying in a nice hotel with an upscale rental car and an expense account looking for someone to keep the overnight stay interesting.

I do not think we need to protect the first girl from him.

But the second girl does need protection. Unfortunately, there is no way in law to define the second girl. Now, boys her own age are not likely to have the experience or the resources to seduce her in the way the older man can.

I cannot think of any way to write a law that would allow the first girl to choose her partner while protecting the second one. We have to make it illegal for both to protect the second.

Of course, I'm sure someone is going to post that this salesmen having sex with the first girl is equally wrong. I am not expressing any opinion on that one!

can you think of an alternative to legislation, @GregInHouston2 ?

I am. WTF, do u mean the fact they are 14 is irrelevant?

Do u also let 14 y/o girls drink cos they want to try it?

Your argument falls apart in the simple fact that how can a persons mental state be evaluated to decide if they are emotionally mature, or distant (in your example), enough, to make life choices at 14?

14 year olds can drink legally in Benin, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Antigua and Barbuda, Central African Republic, Cambodia, Cameroon, China, Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Indonesia, Kosovo, Laos, Mali, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, Timor-Leste and Togo.

Wow. That sure is a list of slightly-other-than paradise locales. If you're looking for a cheap but memorable vacation, see options above.

China is on that list Chairman. Watch your tongue. @Zuluzeit 😄

You might get dechaired.

Article 177 of the Japanese Penal Code.

oh, damn. I forgot Japan in my list above. The Japanese limit is 13, yes.

So Maxwell did nothing wrong, according to Japanese law.

can you solicit a 14 y.o. in Japan?

Legally?

National law, yes. Precincts have different codes, mostly 16 to 18.

ah, so different precincts create codes on this?

Yeah, so if they didn't have a code the default would be 14.

on solicitation, or on minimum consensual age as well?

Hmmmm consent. Idk about solicitation. I think that is covered in article 176. Still think the cut off is 14, not sure.

Maybe the ancient greeks were on to something with pederasty.

That was a late stage phenomenon.

Symposium started out as an academic exercise.

Then it degenerated into non-academic activities.

The discussion is interesting, though. The intelligent pederast will challenge the ethical basis of these laws, and you cant argue against them without making it "illegal" to date a really dumb girl.

a mental ability minimum would be easier to defend.

A couple of things come to mind. You could give her sugar pills, tell her she has AIDS and that she has to tell anyone she has sex with about it or she will go to prison for murder. That's one.

New children's TV show stars man with huge penis - CNN

https://apple.news/AIvPWf07ITU-Ls2oa2HEOuw

Normalizing pedophelia??

It's really dumb, but normalizing pedophilia? Come now.

Did you ever watch "Summer of '42"?