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Culture War Roundup for the week of February 2, 2026

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My problem with this idea is that legality, while originally designed to reflect morality, inevitably influences it. Both in the "illegal, thus immoral" direction, and, what's more important in this case, "legal, thus moral".

This might be literally a first-world problem, since countries with less pervasive state influence do not conflate legality and morality equally easily, but in a place like the US I'd rather have more fine-grained AoC laws, so that fathers don't have to resort to moral, but illegal acts to keep scumbags away.

The law mainly functions to prevent loving, family-condoned relationships between 20-something men and teenage girls.

Mate, please stop explaining. You just sound more and more creepy the more you go on about older men and younger girls. Seven year age gaps can be a huge gulf, or not so much, depending on the age of both parties. 15 and 21 are two different phases of life. 22 and 29 are getting nearer in experiences. 30 and 37 are fine.

10 and 17 is not fine. 12 and 19 is not fine. And I've found that arguments around "why not 15?" tend to drift downwards rather than upwards in the "if 15, why not..." later development of the argument. If 15, why not 14? If 14, why not 13? If 13, why not 12 - after all in the Classical world 12 year olds were married! (as you have used as an example yourself).

As to "family condoned", that depends on the family. Were I the parent of a young daughter, I'd be highly suspicious of any 20-25 year old guy sniffing around my 13-15 year old daughter.

Why are all the guys so eager to fuck teenage girls also so insistent that these girls be virgins?

Serious question, bub: You keep talking about your "lived experience." So I assume you are not a virgin. I'm not going to ask if you've ever banged an underage girl, but I am going to ask: assuming you have had sex with a virgin, why didn't you marry her?

Why are all the guys so eager to fuck teenage girls also so insistent that these girls be virgins?

Half the point of dating a teenager is that she is much more likely to be a virgin.

And the other half is wanting a weak, pliable and easily manipulated barely-not-a-child. Which is why I think men who do it are disreputable if not contemptible, and I feel not a lot of sympathy for the poor guy who thinks it's unjust that it's illegal to fuck a 15-year-old.

Plus, while our alt-friend claims to have married the one teenager he ever fucked, most dudes carrying this flag are not looking to do that. They just want to bang teenagers.

Do also note that some men want a lot of kids (without going through multiple women), and a younger wife very mathematically means either more kids or the ability to wait longer between babies (thus reducing the stress).