This was a really good response, Furcifer. You pretty much took the matter of girls who are 11/12-16 pretty well. But in regards to younger children than that? I still see some measure of bias and assumptions in your conclusions, so let's take a look at that in comparison to historical viewpoints concerning how children were treated in the past:

Quite frankly, if the test for legal emancipation is properly developed, they're not gonna pass. They may be fully mature or even above-average in many domains, but not all.

The problem with this statement is that the same is often going to be true regarding older adolescents and adults. This is why Epstein insists on no age limits in taking the test, so that youths under 12 can prove their competence in any given area if it exists. And I agree with Markaba's previous statement that there is no reason why, if the Epstein-Dumas Test of Adulthood or something very much like it is adopted, youths cannot achieve a partial emancipation covering certain areas where they were able to prove competence in, instead of treating the test as an all or nothing sort of deal, and then perhaps in six month increments, be able to re-take the portions of the test they previously didn't pass for the chance to achieve a full emancipation certificate, or at least a higher certification degree granting them more freedoms.

And how many 10 year olds from good families want to leave their parents already? (If they have shitty abusive families, that's another issue entirely.) So basically, this is a non-issue.

It's largely for the kids who have shitty/abusive families that these rights need to be established for all kids. And it's not entirely a non-issue for 10-year-olds who have good families either, since the freedom of choice is still available to them. Whether or not, or to what degree they are likely, to exercise that choice is not relevant to the importance of having the choice available.

In essence, there exists no convincing rationale to legally extend preteens complete sexual freedom. That doesn't mean they shouldn't be able to learn and experiment in that realm - but ultimately, that's a cultural change, not a legal one. The parents have to be cool with it.

Once again, that is assuming parents are often capable of being un-biased and objective when it comes to some emotionally based decisions of this nature, and it also comes down to whether we accept that parents have a right to a type of ownership over their kids. For example, what if the parents deny their kids a choice to experiment with an adult friend they really care about and trust who is a genuinely decent person but happens to be a member of another race? Or belong to a benign group the parents disapprove of for reasons that have nothing to do with, or effect upon, the guy's character (e.g., the older friend is a beatnik or into the goth scene)? Or what if the parents belong to a religion that forbids sexual experiment in all cases, and thus do not care a whit about either what their child wants or how decent a person their older friend may be. You need to consider these things when you come to such conclusions, Furcifer, and not assume that most parents are likely to be as open-minded as you are about these things.

This is why I think there should be a degree of full community involvement in such situations that the child in question can go to if they truly feel their parents are not capable of being objective, or are being unfairly biased for some reason. The entire community watching over the welfare of the child could quickly intervene if the adult turned out to be bad, or if the parents turned out to be abusive and needlessly oppressive--and also intervene on the adult's behalf if the child turned out to be bad and attempted to blackmail them (which can and does happen).

When I am a parent, my well-educated and responsible 12 year old can do as she pleases, and will have multiple people that she can go to for advice if she's unsure or uncomfortable about anything. But I will damn well better know what she's up to when she's 10 - she might be quite smart and mature, but until I know she has the full biological capacity to think and reason as an adult, it is my responsibility to guide her growth and learning.

I fully agree that as a parent, your job is to guide the growth and learning of your child...but a guide is not the same thing as control, and we need to consider the possibility of our own biases overcoming our good judgment in situations where our children may truly need objectivity to make the best decision for themselves. Also, using specific age numbers to make certain judgments is still very arbitrary, which is why Epstein does not support age restrictions on taking the competency test. What if your daughter demands to take the test and she proves you wrong? Remember, there are times when the best interests of the child actually conflict with the best interests of the parent(s), and this why an objective body of mediation must be there somewhere.

So if she has a "special friend" who is a decent, loving, respecting sort of fellow, and they want to do some touchy-feely stuff, I'd be comfortable okaying that. But I do think it is important that a parent is there to intervene if an adult is being too pushy and harassing a child who hasn't yet hit that stage of experience and biological maturity that would enable them to tell douchebags to fuck off. But I don't want the law telling me what my kid can or can't do either.

The law would claim they know best, and the parents could claim it was they who knew best. What this actually comes down to is a war over which adult party should have greater power over the child, and both the law and parents have specific reasons to be biased when making such decisions, which is why I do not take the side of one over the other in this particular issue, which is a tug-of-war between two adult agencies over who deserves control. Both may have agendas that have nothing to do with what are truly the best interests of the child. Experience and "biological maturity" can be relative, and this is why education from an early age is important, and why it's also important for children to be allowed to experiment within reasonable parameters, otherwise their ability to acquire invaluable experience will be retarded and stifled. There can be any number of ways a community in a sex positive society can develop ways for children who are curious to experiment in ways that are safe and productive for them.

One reason that the smarter, more reasonable antis are opposed to young people having freedom to date older people, btw, is that they fear biology will overwhelm their rational side, and they will get into a relationship that gets in the way of their long-term personal goals. So, our hypothetical Epstein-inspired test has to account for this, *somehow*

And a relationship with a peer can't conceivably cause the same problem? And who exactly gets to determine an adolescent's long-term goals in the first place? The antis who make such statements are clearly not as smart or reasonable as you give them credit for.

Btw, an observation: I notice you generically refer to bad people as "douchbags."

This was an overall good evaluation, though I still encourage you to do more research when it comes to pre-pubescents.