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It makes sense once you figure out it's never been about protecting children. (Death threat = topic is governed by conflict theory.)
It's about protecting old women from the competition [for men and their resources] young women inherently provide, in co-operation with a subset of old men [fathers] being able to credibly threaten to lock up whoever their daughters are dating. Whether this is a good or bad thing is out of scope.
All of the other stuff it's claimed the blanket approach protects against is already covered by existing laws (rape/kidnapping, extortion, and anti-incest for the rest of it), so by POSIWID that's not what the AoC is for.
You are not convincing me of the rightness of your views here: "yeah, given my druthers, I'd much rather a hot little 15 year old than that 30 year old hag, I'm only 46, I'm in my prime!"
Which is a situation that "30 year old hag" (in your words) would naturally like to avoid. By cutting the top competitors out of the market, the rest of the competitors stabilize their positions.
Yes, the best men (from the most mercenary "sex for resources" perspective) are still going to select right at the limit. But since that market is artificially limited, the total supply of women is constrained, thus the definition of any given quality of man "settling for" becomes a correspondingly older woman (as that's what they can afford; age is usually a proxy for this, which you acknowledge). If no AoC, "settling" would be 20 (or a 8/10), but with the limit in place "settling" may be 25-30 (or a 5/10).
In this way, the AoC protects the sociofinancial interests of all women over it, at the expense of men (in the "not allowed to fully utilize resources for sex" sense, typically rationalized in some form of "men are objectively better than women and so have a duty to them") and women under it (typically rationalized as "too immature", but importantly the AoC doesn't actually prohibit these women from having sex, it just makes it so that the only men they can sell sex to can't afford to buy it).
Is this an overly simplistic model of how men and women form relationships? Sure- most people aren't quite that mercenary- but there's always some element of this present in every relationship (and is the fear keeping the relevant actors up at night).
On the contrary, I think you are already convinced. It's not a crime to be on the high side of political power.
Let me assure you, 30 year old women are not thinking of 15 year old girls as sexual rivals and competitors, they are thinking guys who want to fuck girls that age when the men are the same age as the 30 year old woman are disgusting creepy predators.
Are you, at whatever age you are now, really scared that a 15 year old boy is going to out-compete you in the employment marketplace? The men on here who argue about "all women have of value are their tits and cunt, and that's all they have to sell, and as soon as they're over 20 they're undesirable, so they want to ban nice ordinary normal men who have perfectly natural preferences for 15 year olds from getting access to 15 year olds" are not coming across as rational giant brains, they're coming across as "welcome to the inaugural meeting of the Mensa branch of PIE".
And if it wasn't obviously in their interest to publicly believe this, I might believe this as well. Half the problem with the "debate" is that this claim isn't being made in good faith; you acknowledge this yourself through your last sentence despite you already having established in previous comments that you know drawing that equivalence is wrong.
So, when everything anyone will tell you is going to be biased in their favor in some way, what else can you do but return to
monkeinitial conditions and reason about what people will say about this topic now assuming those initial conditions remain valid (ignoring stuff like technologies [contraceptives, all known STDs of consequence cured except for one] with which human instinct is not natively compatible)?And the women on here argue that "all men have of value is their ability to physically produce, and that's all they have with which to buy" (or "what price they can fetch on the employment marketplace"). Given gender equality, both should be valid.
The reason for the emphasis on this is that it's the only part of the dynamic we can actually control and measure, much like 6/6/6 is for women (but somehow that's acceptable, which again is why I believe women who do this while believing it's evil when men do it are mistaken at best and actively lying at worst). And every relationship is affected by these dynamics to some degree; there's no getting away from it, we're all human, we like good things, and may God have mercy on our souls.
Is it the full picture? Of course not; people marry their friends all the time to the point it's a meme, women actually seek out casual sex (contrary to an asymmetric biological imperative that they shouldn't), men actually seek out commitment, etc.- but to say that an age beginning with 1 or 2, or a total income that has 5 zeroes in it, isn't a measurable starting point at least some of the time (or at least an attractor, if not the primary one), and isn't the dominating portion of it from people who are working in a way compatible with their instincts? I think that's likely to be destructive.
They'll outcompete me in the dating marketplace for cougars and tomboys (if male sexuality in a woman, then they're probably looking for someone young in that unrealized-potential-is-attractive way); why even live?
if you honestly think forty year old women want fifteen year old boys, I don't know how to continue this conversation. Yeah, there are female predators out there as there are male ones, and they're both sick and depraved, not "this is simply evopsych in action".
I do have to wonder, how many of the gentlemen on here with wives/partners, are willing to go into real life and not just argue on The Motte with "Let's face it, honey, if I got the chance and I wouldn't end up charged with statutory rape, I'd dump you in the morning for a fifteen year old to have my babies and cook my meals. That's just evolutionary psychology, science has proved it! And then when she ages out at nineteen or so, I'd dump her for a newer model in her turn. After all, over twenty in a female is going from 8/10 to 5/10 for guys, sad but true, nothing I can do about it".
A long time ago I used to follow the Youtube channel of The Young Turks. (Bear with me please.) The host Cenk Uygur was commenting on the clearly accelerating social trend of relatively hot female high school teachers in their 30s and 40s seducing their male students. He offered an explanation that seemed to be right on point. There is only one thing in this world that a teenage boy can offer a grown woman but a grown man will never do so: undivided attention. It's a temptation many of them can't resist, as their lives are deeply frustrated in that area.
There does seem to be a worrying increase in this, and I don't think it's "because my male students can give me undivided attention" (have you ever tried to teach a class of teenage boys?)
It's a combination of stupid idiot mentally ill women taking advantage of boys who are (due to modern standards of living) tall enough and physically developed enough but not emotionally or mentally mature enough for sexual relationships, to be fooled into "I really love you" and where societal standards do tend to laugh about it happening to boys and make salacious jokes about "I wish my hot teacher had hit on me when I was that age".
It's not funny and it can be every bit as traumatic as if it was older man/younger girl or older man/younger boy. Again, I see a lot of complaining on here about the attitude that Women Are Wonderful, and this is one area where it does damage: it is not taken seriously because even adult women are probably not capable of physically over-powering a teenage boy, so the view is "if he really didn't want it, he could fight her off". That's not how manipulation works!
Predictably, the thirsty betas repeating those jokes also fail to comprehend that boning the high school teacher will not actually elevate your status among your peers as a male student. You'll just be known as that weirdo whom that weirdo teacher woman invited between her legs and manipulated.
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