get it to x wrote: ↑Sat Feb 25, 2023 10:25 am
MDlaxfan76 wrote: ↑Sat Feb 25, 2023 9:49 am
Putting that aside, I do think young adults can and do consent to one another to have sex and none of that is automatically abuse. Teenage brains do not process risk tolerance as well as adult brains do, and hormones are ranging, so "consent" is not well-informed, but it's not abuse. The only instances of abuse is where there's a real power imbalance between them.
So are you saying that "Age of Majority" is just some arbitrary number when defining older/younger sexual relations? Not sure what you mean by young adults? A 15 year old girl and a 24 year old man? The push to redefine pedophiles as "Minor Attracted Persons" should never be associated with adult/adult relationships in any way, gay, straight or otherwise.
I suspect you and I will agree on this one, not sure why you excerpted what I wrote.
However one wants to define "adult", (18, 21, 25-age when insurers give better rates) when there's a substantial age difference with someone under 18 there is an inherent power imbalance. There obviously can be other power imbalances in "relationships", but we're taking about pedophiles for this discussion.
How substantial an age difference?
Is an 18 year old boy and a 17 year old girl, or vice versa, too much, no IMO
18 and 16? (I don't think so), but hey, I met my future wife freshmen week in college, both freshmen, she's just "wicked smaht"...I was 2 months away from 19, she had just turned 17 weeks earlier. We were certainly physical quickly albeit we held off full relations for a good long while. Sure seemed long... So, that's my admittedly biased perspective on that age gap.
21 and 16? Yes, too much IMO.
25 and 16, you betcha....easily wrong.
My wife's college roommate was still "dating" a man, at that point in his 30's, the relationship had started when she'd been babysitting as a 14 year old...we were horrified...
32 and 9, string'em up by the balls....or whatever.
I certainly think that the 17 and 16 year old can and do "consent", likewise (but something I think is problematic) is the 15 and 14, even tougher the 14 and 13....but the bigger the gap between minors, the less likely that "consent" is equally informed. The younger any of them is, the less likely of full recognition of risks.
That said, it's important to understand that girls (in general) mature earlier than boys in this regard, so it's not unusual for the girl to be more aggressive in our current society. Teenage boys are less risk averse, but girls are more motivated by social acceptance. Just the ways the teenage brains develop differently. They end up very similarly, but the pattern is different along the development path...different parts of the brain literally light up when addressing various questions.
Totally agree that none of this has to do with sexual preference.
