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This is probably true for some 14 year olds, but not others.
Do you value virginity at marriage? Most people don't. Let's say the hymen doesn't matter, and sex is fun and it feels good. Most people believe this. Obviously, the sex with the 14 year old is voluntary, not forced, or else it would constitute rape. Why do you need staturtory rape laws? On the basis of what harm? The problem is that when it comes to everything but the age of consent, men lose out because „the hymen is a social construct,“ „it can be broken by a bicycle,“ „Onlyfans at 19 is a human right,“ but when it comes to the age of consent it's suddenly Great Harm if a girl consents to sex and then regrets it. What great harm? The law does everything it can do to make sure her virginity is blown out by another man at marriage, but suddenly if she loses it to a loser man who is not her age, it's Big Bad. Why? What harm?
I'd be hard pressed to find a 14 year old for which this isn't true. For it to be false, they would have to be already financially and emotionally independent, mature enough to know the full consequences of sex, have the self-worth and courage to say no, etc. which are all traits that vanishingly few 14 year olds have, if any.
The harm when a minor agrees to sexual acts without fully internalizing what they entail and then being too scared to say no once it starts.
I don't agree with the existence of Onlyfans.
I'm not aware of any laws in Western countries that prohibit premarital sex between consenting adults.
It was true for me.
I don't know what emotionally independent means, financial independence doesn't matter, 99% of people don't have this.
I hope all 14 year olds understand pregnancy and STDs. Is there any other harm? If a man wears a condom, what's the big harm exactly?
Great.
I think you misread me, I was complaining that they don't prohibit it.
Having a strong sense of identity, of self-worth, being able to handle big problems like running out of money, not having to rely on your parents for typical socialization or emotional support. Things like that.
Are we speaking past each other? By financial independence, I mean not being dependent on anyone else for money, and the typical signs of this are things like having your own job and owning your own place. I bring up financial independence because a classic groomer tactic is to shower a child with gifts they wouldn't be able to attain themself. An adult is financially independent and can just buy whatever they want so such a tactic would not work on them.
I find it hard to believe that you at 14 years of age could just buy whatever you wanted and wouldn't be susceptible to a grooming tactic like that.
Sex is a hugely emotional and intimate act and there's more to it than just wearing a condom. A child is highly likely to feel complex emotions they hadn't felt before if they end up in a sexual encounter, and highly likely to want to back out and stop, but also highly likely to be too scared to say no. The harm is in having sex with the child when they don't want it, and the subsequent emotional damage, feelings of powerlessness, lowered self-worth, etc. not uncommon when someone gets raped.
Arbitrary line.
How is this different than the usual courting of women by well-off men?
Okay, then prosecute for forced rape then. If it's not forced rape, what is the issue? Even causing emotional damage, feelings of powerlessness, lowered self-worth is not a felony level harm. Intelligent motte commenters and society make me feel like that all the time. Am I raped?
So is every other law. That doesn't mean they're not useful or worth keeping around.
An adult doesn't place the same value on gifts as a child would. A child would do literally anything for a copy of the latest hot video game franchise they enjoy. An adult knows there's more to life than shiny video games and if given the same gift, sure they might feel obligated to do something in return (such as sex) but it's not as overwhelmingly likely as a child would. In other words, an adult is mature.
Rape, by definition, is forced. There's no such thing as "non-forced" rape. This is a confusing term to use.
I don't think Motte commenters and society in general would cause (to a reasonable person) the extreme level of emotional damage, powerlessness, and lowered self-worth that someone gets from being raped. Is it a nonzero amount? Sure. Is it close in orders of magnitude? Not even in the same ballpark.
They vary in their cost/benefit and arbitraryness, and my position is this law is all cost, no benefit, and the most arbitrary one every dreamed up. So it's not worth keeping around.
Okay but then I wasn't a child at 14 because I wasn't like this.
Then there's no victim and no crime.
How would you know? How did you measure feelings? The one study on this topic says trauma from consensual sex is fake.
The benefits are that 14 year olds don't get raped. What are the costs, exactly? That adults don't get to fuck 14 year olds? I think most adults are fine dating someone their age and not having sex with children. I don't think that people are entitled to sex in general nor should they be.
Society and laws are not like math where if you find one counterexample the entire premise is invalid. If you weren't like that at 14, then good for you. You were still a child, though, and that doesn't mean that the vast majority of children aren't susceptible to grooming tactics.
The good thing about having a standard based on a reasonable person is that there's no need to measure the feelings of anyone to prove that a crime happened, we can just refer to what a reasonable person would feel instead. So if someone gets raped, we don't have to attempt to measure how exactly raped the victim was feeling by using brain scans or whatever science you think is applicable. We just say that a reasonable person would feel extremely traumatized and emotionally damaged from rape, and prosecute the crime accordingly.
Which study? And just because there may be only n=1 study in a topic doesn't mean it's accurate or reliable.
But we already have laws against real rape.
Innocent people are put in prison for doing nothing wrong, more people are discouraged from reproducing. The main cost is to young men. People put in prison for this are mainly under 21 (!), and almost all are under 25, so, basically kids themselves, just older. And they are put in prison because following the law can be costly for them: if you are a 20 year old man, and you have the preference that your mate be younger than you, which is a pretty universal preference, you face an extremely unnaturally restricted pool of available mates. The most fertile age gap in marriage is 6 or 7 years, so in nature, 20 year olds will date down into the early teens. In many places, they are restricted from going 18, and they face reductions of more than 50% of their dating pool in most places, even if they can go slightly under 18. Whereas for „creepy old men,“ the law is extremely lenient. They can be in their 50s and date their daughter's high school friend, as long as she turned 18 a few months ago. Then it's all clear!
They are if the laws and society are reasonable. If they are fundamentally unreasonable, then yes, they lack that property. But laws that are unreasonable are unjust and a society that is unreasonable is wicked and stupid and should lose political power.
I haven't seen any evidence that the vast majority of 14 year olds are susceptible to grooming tactics. The only evidence I'm aware of regarding this was denounced by the US Congress for showing that sexual trauma from underage sex is a myth. Isn't weird that a bunch of politicians thought they could denounce an empirical study? Might as well denounce 2+2=4 or the existence of matter. It was published back in the 90s I think in a leading psychological journal by real academics. Since then, no evidence to the contrary has been produced. Do you know what that looks like?
I don't think a reasonable woman feels raped from voluntary sex at 14. Tons of people agree with me, which is why the majority of polities on Earth allow 14 year olds to consent to sex with somebody. Some let it be anybody, most allow a small age range. If she isn't traumatized by banging a 16 year old then she won't be traumatized by banging a 20 year old. If anything, 16 year olds treat girls like shit while 20 year olds commit more.
It was an N=8500 meta-analysis. Yikes.
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