OK.

Well. I don't have any animosity towards you.

But you do hold some pretty strong opinions about what you hate. And I don't always think that you fully understand those things you hate.

Sorry. But while I don't think that GC posts should always be fuzzy-wuzzy hugs and kittens. If I hear someone condemning or blaming, and I see bad info or a flaw in their reasoning, I'm probably gonna end up sounding a lot harsher than if they like kittens without fully reasoning through why.

I really don't tend to think a whole lot about the Amish; except that Danielle Panabaker ⚠️ ↗ made a much better one than Kelly McGillis ⚠️ ↗. ( But hey, Panabaker's are always superior; even in dreadful films. )

And yes, I am like that to other people. When someone condemns things without fully understanding them I get a bit testy. The thing is, most folks don't notice it unless its their posts I'm addressing. But you are at least the third person who has told me that its "only you." Though you should take it all with a grain of salt. I'm not really all that.

The digressions about ancient Albanian moral codes were only brought up to point out the strangeness of expecting other cultures to be driven by things outside of their views.

Now I do believe we can judge other cultures by standards outside of theirs. That, say, slavery was and is wrong regardless of whether the culture its in endorses it or not. But I wouldn't expect a slaveholding culture to be responding to my motives ( positively or negatively. ) They might, they might not. I couldn't know unless I ask.

I can't see child-marriage as some sort of solution. We find some cultures throughout history allowing pre-pubescent children to engage in sex-play with adults if they choose. But I'm hard pressed to find a culture which allows a pre-pubescent to freely choose marriage with an adult.

Plenty of cases of biological adults being allowed to marry. Plenty of cases of arranged marriages where parents or uncles are trading offspring like property. Plenty of cases where an arranged marriage is contracted for infants; who then don't actually set up household or have sexual relations until biological adulthood.

And it seems to me that if we, as GirlLovers, want the girl to be free to choose, then the Youth Rights path is a better approach than holding up cultures which suppress a girl's right to choose.

( Here I'm really hoping that someone will provide the counter-evidence of a culture respecting a girl's right to freely choose marriage as a child. 'Cause I haven't seen it. )

Part of the reason we can't respect the "child-protectionists" when they attack child marriage as it exists is because they aren't actually supporting the child's right to choose. They are merely condemning other cultures as a proxy-war against child sexuality and the rights of minority cultures to differ from them. When girls are actually rescued it is incidental to them; because their rhetoric would also "rescue" a girl from the free exercise of her rights when they contradict the "protectionists."

But this isn't the same as actually finding a culture we'd like to trade into; where girls can choose whatever they wish for themselves.

I'd like to believe that we can build one. But from where we are now; the right to be sexual precedes the right to marry. It was historically otherwise for the majority; but it seems to be this way for the minority.

And why should we expect it to be otherwise? Sex was regulated by the State on religious grounds. But as states become secular, they start getting a lot less fussy about who is getting it on with whom and how. Essentially it becomes a privacy issue; and the State removes itself from the bedroom.

Marriage used to be a private religious thing; with the State taking a church's word that the event had happened. But as the State tracks us, taxes us and gives ( or withholds ) benefits from us differently based on our marriage status; it has become impossible to see marriage as something the State doesn't define.

Right now religious marriage is, for all intents and purposes, a Civil Union with vestments and scripture thrown in. And unfortunately, what the State regulates, it shapes and restricts.

Gays could f*ck who they like, but they're still struggling to get wed.

Unless something radical shifts in how the State views marriage, we might see lower AoCs than Age of Marriage laws.

And I really don't mean to upset you. Feel free to ignore me, or assume that I'm being pissy.

I believe that your posts find your intended audience. And you do get a lot of positive responses. Even some from me.

I think we all want the same thing; even if we take different paths to getting there.

Dante