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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   26187 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 26, 2024

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I expect pedophilia and bestiality not to get normalized because kids and animals don't actually want to have sex with you, there's an actual victim there

They can't consent to sex. Whatever consent to sex is (not an easy concept to analyse, to put it mildly) it's not the same thing as not wanting to have sex. I definitely wanted to have sex when I was 11 (and pre-pubescent). A cat in heat wants some sexual activity and doesn't particularly care with what. The problem is that children and animals can't engage in consensual sex, whether they want to or not, any more than they can make a mature decision about whether to become addicted to heroin.

They can't consent to sex. Whatever consent to sex is (not an easy concept to analyse, to put it mildly) ... The problem is that children and animals can't engage in consensual sex, whether they want to or not, any more than they can make a mature decision about whether to become addicted to heroin.

This is more than just not an easy concept to analyse. From my comment here a while ago:

When it comes to the question of whether children can consent to sexual relations, the dominant position is that it is just trivial that they cannot. I mean, sure, they can consent to playing tennis just fine, but sex is completely and totally different. Why? I've steeped myself in the academic philosophy literature on this topic, and while it's a thousand times better than the responses you'll get from regular Joe, it still comes in seriously lacking in my mind.

Westen doesn't take a super strong position on the topic, but likely grounds it in what he calls the 'knowledge prong' of what counts as valid consent. A person needs to have sufficient knowledge of... something... related to what sex is, what it means, what the consequences could be, the cultural context... I'm not exactly sure what. I don't think he did the best job of really digging in to details here. This is perhaps the most fruitful line of inquiry for future academic work for those who want to salvage a consent-only sexual ethic, but right now it's seriously lacking. Any work will definitely need to distinguish from tennis, because I see kids out learning tennis at our local courts somewhat regularly, and they can hardly be said to understand the risks/cultural context/etc. of tennis any more than could be said for sex.

Wertheimer, on the other hand, doesn't even attempt a theoretical explanation for why children cannot consent. Instead, he views it as simply an empirical question of whether, in a particular society, children tend to be, on net, harmed by sex. The opinion piece writes:

[A]s categories, we experience [race and gender identity] in large part through the perceptions that others have of us, based largely on our outward appearances.

A disciple of Wertheimer might say that a large part of how children perceive sex, and whether they perceive it as harmful or not, may depend on the perceptions others have of it.

Of course, either of these approaches opens up all sorts of cultural engineering possibilities. If we team up the "sex is like tennis" folks with the "comprehensive sex education as early as possible" folks, it's easy to imagine how society could change to one where children learn the requisite knowledge and are not, on net, harmed by the sex that they do consent to. Some folks might cheer on this result, saying that society would be immeasurably improved to the point that it unlocks this new world of possible good things... but the "it is trivially true that children cannot possibly consent to sex" crowd would certainly disagree.

Your comparison to "mak[ing] a mature decision about whether to become addicted to heroin" is definitely somewhat relevant here, if you read the full linked comment. People think that there's something "more" and "different" about sex and heroin and things like that compared to "normal" things that children can definitely, totally consent to. But the theory here is just completely whack and not at all up to the challenge of explaining why. You can simply ask yourself, "Why can't children consent to sex?" When you do so, you might go down the same road I went down; you might read the same major works by professional philosophers that I read. But I really don't think you'll get a good theoretical answer. It's just sort of an axiom that is held by some. To others, it's just the dogmatic mantra that they were forced to repeat in order to help justify fighting the X-ophobes. But when the same people who convinced you to subscribe to a consent-only sexual ethic and who swear that the thing we need most is early comprehensive sex education to help children understand the sexual choices that they're allowed to make come calling, they're going to ask, "Why can't children consent?" If you don't have a better answer than the professional philosophers who are making the best case possible for a consent-only sexual ethic, you're going to find out that you're an X-ophobe. You're going to get stared at like you're an alien for making outdated assumptions about people. For Sagan's sake, everyone knows that kids are capable enough to choose their gender, have parts of their body hacked off, and keep it all secret from their parents! Of course they're capable of deciding to have a little fun with some friction on the bits.

Of course they're capable of deciding to have a little fun with some friction on the bits.

Just not with adults.

Kid on kid is fine, obviously.

Why not? They "can't consent", he said. What is it about the second player (or maybe second and third, if they're a kinky kid) that somehow converts their inherent ability to consent from a "can't" to a "can"? How does this work? And if there are cases where there's a "can consent", why didn't you jump in to tell @Harlequin5942 that he's just wrong about his broad claim that they "can't consent"?

I’m highlighting that tension between “able to consent” and “but not if an adult is involved” and the giant gray ball of arbitrary murkiness there.

There aren’t clean cut lines here in nature, but we have to have them in the law if we are going to have them.

we have to have them in the law if we are going to have them.

Big Laconian "IF". Hilariously, also a Big Lacanian "IF".

But you've kind of proven my point. You don't really have any way to justify this sort of boundary. So, when they come and ask, "Why can't children consent?" I guess, you're gonna be like, "Well they can, but I have a giant gray ball of arbitrary murkiness, if you'd like to look into it!" And I mean, uh, they're not going to give much of a shit about your giant gray ball of arbitrary murkiness; they're going to hear that you said that children can, in fact, consent, and they're going to view your giant gray ball of arbitrary murkiness as just some superstitious, sex-negative, religious prude bigot weirdness that they can safely ignore, because, "Ew."

Life is full of murky areas where we make arbitrary cutoffs.

We have to make such decisions over what “consent” even means in any given context. “One drink” is a standard some places for lacking the ability to consent, for example.

I’m not trying to defend the specific one here as it is, or attack it, I’m pointing out something like an age cutoff is basically inevitable and that “consent” is both complicated and insufficient as a principle.

Age of responsibility/adulthood issues are their own mess before you even bring in the separate mess of consent.

“consent” is both complicated and insufficient as a principle.

Congratulations! You appear to not be a subscriber to a consent-only sexual ethic. Unfortunately, this probably means that you're a bigot. Right-thinking people know that consent-only is the proper sexual ethic, because that is how we justify our other political positions. As soon as you start letting concerns other than consent into the picture, it's harder to smugly say that any concerns other than consent are just some backwater religious shit.

You are now no longer even relevant to the conversation when they ask the question, "Why can't children consent?" because as soon as you try to pipe up with, "Uh, actually, I have other concerns for my sexual ethic than just consent," you will immediately be deplatformed as an obvious bigot, and the public conversation will just be between people who can at least try to maintain some message purity on the basics of the movement.

The funny thing here is you’re blatantly wrong about the present dynamic among progressives/youngins.

Go read about age gap discourse and get back to me.

Also, progressives already don’t live by a strict consent-based moral framework. They frequently believe the right of consent should be taken away (organ donation for money, and anything else they perceive as involving a potential power imbalance that could involve “exploitation” of the oppressed).

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