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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026

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What I quoted is the kind of thing people say when they are trying to push an agenda. Specifically the agenda that older men should be allowed to sexualise and have sexual relations with people under the age of 18. There is a clear taboo against this in modern society, and for good reason. So when someone starts to undermine this taboo through their arguments it is going to result in alarm bells.

This is a very online thing, where people conflate the indeed very sharp and absolute threshold of 18 for porn, with the age of consent for sex that isn't recorded and distributed. In many European countries the age of consent is 14, in some it's 15 or 16. Of course there are other constraints like being in a teacher or similar role, in which case it will not be allowed.

Very online people are simply unable to tell the two apart because they rightfully know that in porn it would be the absolute toxic sludge and nuclear waste to come into contact with such material, and they generalize this to IRL relationships.

So, again, people are allowed to sexualize and have sexual relations with people above 14 in much of Europe. It may be disapproved socially by people in their lives, but it isn't disallowed per se.

Sure, but the reason for the low age of consent in Europe is generally not so that grown men with careers can have sex with high schoolers. It is to decriminalize sex between teenagers. The social convention for adults not to abuse this is quite strong, so it is pretty rare that it happens.

What's your evidence for this? Because I don't think you need an agenda to want to set the facts straight, especially if the wrong claim unfairly demonises you.

Declaring something sacred and therefore any opposition to related claims automatically invalid and evidence of bad faith is not valid epistemics. You can be wrong while thinking it's for a good cause, and people can correct you without being motivated by a bad cause. I don't believe in taboos. If the reasons for the taboo are good enough, the position will be able to withstand counterarguments and the taboo isn't needed.

It's not like the age of consent is a law of nature either. In Germany, for example, it's 16 (with the exception of power-imbalanced relationships like teacher/student), and it's a priori not clear that's a worse solution. Or the 17 in some US states. If you want to argue 18 is the right number, that needs to be based on facts, not bulverism.