Please be careful when responding to posts.
Heheheh... It looks like I may be the only one understanding what you were arguing. I understand you are not equating homosexuality with pedophilia. Of course that doesn't make your argument correct.
as Rrhain pointed out I do not beleve that children are capable of giving consent for sex. I said consentual sexual activity does not cause harm, and that is why homosexuality is different that pedophillia. Because sex with children is harmful, whereas sex between members of the same sex is not harmful.
This is a fallacious argument. You are equating children's lack of being able to consent with inherent harm. Neither are necessarily the case.
1) Ability to give consent. What is necessary for consent? Isn't this an agreement that an action is okay with you? Children can certainly do this. Indeed many children initiate sexual acts with others, and almost 100% do with themselves.
I think what you are trying to get at is that they are not capable of fully informed consent. That is they are not experienced enough to know what repercussions their actions might have down the road. For example a 3 year old will not have a clue what and STD is, and a 14 year old may not realize that 20 years from now they might regret their decision to have sex because a potential partner finds that they had such an experience disgusting.
But the problem is that this is true for anything one does as a child. Fully informed consent requirements make sense for binding legal issues, which would undoubtedly entangle the parents as well, but sex is not like contracts. Or perhaps I should put this in the form of a question.
How does consenting to sex (sexual physical pleasure) differ from consenting to swimming, boxing, going to a picnic, or to a church at that age with someone else (presumably older) such that being fully informed is a logical
legally required step?
And remember you argument was about harm, which brings us to...
2) How does lack of consent necessitate harm being done? This has no logical connection whatsoever. You said pedophilic acts (and let us be clear this means any sexual activity that a child experiences) are inherently harmful. Now the definition has become because lack of ability to fully informed consent=harm.
All this leads to is a potential for harm, but in the same way any activity a child engages in could. A child could consent to go swimming with friends or an adult and end up drowning. A child could consent to go to a picnic with a friend and get food poisoning. A child could consent to go to an adult neighbor's church and start getting taught moral lessons the parent does not agree with, perhaps even frightening antisexual statements which scar the child for life.
Obviously
if harm was done the harmer would/should be held accountable just as in any situation. You will need to argue why sex must be an exception to all other human activities we allow children to experience without fully informed consent.
3) I find all of this interesting as one of the main arguments coming up as a sign that homosexuality is genetic in some fashion is that people feel this from a very early age. They 'know' their orientation. Well it is also pretty well known that kids play around sexually when they are young and have sexual desires when they are young.
How does the sexual attraction kids feel for each other when they are young differ from what an adult feels towards kids, if we are to accept that a child's sexual feelings for same sex individuals is the same as when they grow up?
I would argue that even if there is harm cased by homosexual activity (and let me state again just to make it perfectly clear that I dont think there is) it is greatly outweighed by the harm caused when we deny gays the right to marry, adopt , have sex etc.
There is no indication that children exposed to sexual acts inherently suffer any harm besides those that society inflicts on them... just like gays.
Or are you prepared to show some beyond assertion?
Homosexuaity does not cause harm and is therefore not wrong, Pedophilia can cause harm and is theerfore not endorseable.
How many times will this be asserted before there is any evidence brought forth? I could start quoting psychology and criminology texts pre 1960 which have "evidence" for harm from homosexuality, and it turns out it is the same kind of harm we are talking about with pedophilia.
The maximum difference you will find is that in one case a partner (and indeed it could be both) are incapable of fully informed consent, though they are clearly able to consent in reality... the same way they could consent to box with each other, or go swimming. The actual inherent objective harm is the same.
I think this is where many gays are simply not getting it. Just like pedophilia the point is that homosexuality is considered "wrong" sexual behavior, period. The harm is intangible and stems, circularly from it's wrongness.
For example Rrhain mentioned that children's brains are not fully formed to know what right and wrong means. That appears to imply that when grown they will naturally know it is wrong.
Is it?
How many kids felt homosexual feelings while young and then grew out of them? This usually occurs during experimentation. Yet some do not. Those that do grow out of them sometimes feel, and are socially enforced to believe those initial feelings were wrong.
How does this differ from kids that were interested in sexual activity with grown ups and/or other kids, and during experimentation some grow out of feelings for kids and some do not? Consent does not cut it as a difference here. The feelings and actions are the same.
The only way people can advance the above "children don't know what's wrong" argument is with the assumption that sex when young can be right or wrong completely seperate from harm. Indeed the harm comes from it being "wrong" whether or not there are any other objective physical measures of harm, and in spite of massive evidence to the contrary.
There were cultures and still are where children engage in sexual acts and do not show any harm for this. And of course I will note that everyone punking on pedophilia as "harmful" have yet to explain what the definition of a child is. Even within the US pedophilia is perfectly legal, and not harmful, depending on how one defines child.
In the end the concept of pedophilia as something bad, like homosexuality, is a social and legal construct based on moral decisions not tied to actual objective measurements of "harm".
And this is why anti homosexual people will continue to use this argument, just like bestiality and any other immoral sex act comparisons. It is wrong for the same reason anti-pedophilia gays label pedophilia wrong, because it just is to them.
NOTE: I realize this is all going to make it sound like I think there are no reasons for laws regarding sex and children. This is not so. I think there are compelling reasons, but they are based on social realities regarding parenting/socialization, and
not on counterfactual claims that children are inherently harmed by sexual activity.
holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)
™ Version 4.2
