Re: What age do you think children can consent?

"Whatever the case, there is a strong emotional revulsion in most people towards the idea of sex with young children."

Yes, I used to have it myself. I am still very cautious about putting the idea into practice, because I'm a reasonable person, too, and I don't want to see kids hurt and abused. However, I've gotten over my emotional reaction to the idea. And doing so puts me in a better position to see what's really going on, and understand when kids are being hurt and when they're not. If you see monsters everywhere, you're bound to lash out at your friends.

"Dude, in case you haven't noticed, parents ARE society. You cannot the two concepts that easily."

Thank you very much, dude, for negating my humanity as a member of this society, just because I don't have kids. Moreover, you don't have to be a parent to care (genuinely!) about kids. Even further, not all parents care about kids (including their own).

"Secondly, deep down, you and I both know that the reason people here get so irritated at the very suggestion that MAPs do not always have pure motives is because there is some truth in it."

Didn't you just say in a different post, to Dissident, that he shouldn't speculate about what goes on in your head? Likewise, you shouldn't profess to know what goes on in mine. I get irritated at the suggestion that MAPs do not always have pure motives, not because there is some truth in it (I agree that some MAPs have impure motives), but because it sounds to me an accusation that I don't have pure motives, and that's extremely offensive because it's the same thing the antis shout at me - "you want to hurt kids" - which I know is not true, but hearing it makes it really hard for me to have confidence in myself as a good person who really does care about children, and doesn't just want to use them for my own selfish reasons.

I can't know, so I won't say for certain, but I would suggest that you haven't completely gotten over your reaction to the anti bullshit that being attracted to kids is inherently dangerous to kids, instead of helpful to them, and your own self-loathing. I'm sorry about that, and I understand how difficult it is to get to the point that I currently stand at. But I am not going to stand here and let you persuade me to feel bad about myself. I respect myself too much to let that happen.

"Anyway, even those of us at GC who do not just want to sex up the littluns know deep down that there's bound to be deceivers in our midst with regard to that. And that's why some people here are so insecure about that. They want to reject the very idea that there could be anyone here with less than noble intentions saying the same things they're saying. Think about it."

I've thought about it. And there's more than one conclusion. Yeah, there are shitheads out there. There are freaks who want to kidnap, rape, torture, and murder children. There are also people that are not as bad as that, but who would still manipulate kids to have sex with them. But that is not my responsibility. I am not responsible for anyone else's crimes. Locking kids up in their bedrooms without internet access doesn't prevent them from being raped on occasion. Your concern that letting them out into the street will result in so many more of them being raped is entirely irrelevant, if not untrue.

Preventing me from engaging children in the ethical and caring manner that I desire protects no one, especially not the kids who have to miss out on the positive influence I could have on their lives thanks to my fear of getting too close to them. The "no sex" laws are built on a foundation of believing that if no one gets close to kids, then the bad guys can't get close to kids, and no kids will be hurt. But kids are still being hurt. And in a lot of cases, it's not because the bad guys were able to get to them; it's because the good guys couldn't. The solution to protecting children is to lower the restrictions for the good guys to get closer to them, so they can be better cared for than they currently are. The bad guys? They're gonna get to children one way or another, and even the ones who aren't getting to them now because they're waiting for the laws to relax so they can hide behind those laws, they will be countered by the good people moving into their children's lives to look out for them. You think laws are what protect children from being abused? That's bullshit. It's people who protect them, just as it's people who abuse them (though hopefully different people). Protecting kids means integrating them into society better, and not forcing them away from the people who actually do care about them.

Your hatred of mankind is very unbecoming. I try to be optimistic, but I'm not naive. I know there's a lot of trash in the world, but you know what? It's not my responsibility to clean the streets. Shit goes down, that's life. If a kid gets raped across town, I'm not pushing to enact more laws to restrict kids' freedom and prevent them from living and interacting with people. Interacting with people is a crapshoot. You get the good from the bad. You want to protect kids from life, and you'll probably say that it's some sort of biological imperative or whatever, and that my opinion doesn't count because I'm not a parent, I don't have kids. What, you don't think you can kill a person with bad intentions? Have you ever heard of overprotection? Just because a person is supremely biased toward their own kid's survival does not mean they know what's best for them. And I'm not saying we should tear kids away from their parents and stop them from deciding how to raise their kids. But there are many different ways to go about that, and there are parents into youth lib and just because things are a certain way right now, doesn't mean that they have to be, nor that it's the best way it can be.

You're welcome to keep yourself chained down in fear of how you might behave with children - or, more accurately, because of the knowledge you have that someone else might behave inappropriately with children, and because of that, it's only fair that you don't get an opportunity to interact with children, because better safe than sorry, right? But I'm not gonna live that way. Taking on the sins of all mankind, restricting my own lifestyle not because I'm a bad person but because there are bad seeds out there and I should be punished for it. Luckily, I'm not the only one that feels the way I do, but there are far too many people in the world that feel the way you do.