I certainly agree that society is involved in pedophilia hysteria, and its attention to the subject is far greater than warranted.

However, the overall allocation of society's concern is not something we can cite in favor of adult-child sexuality. If you are brought up before the judge on a case of shoplifting, you will get nowhere arguing that white collar criminals steal far more and that's where the judiciary should be expending its efforts instead.

True, but doesn't justify ignoring where the major problems are actually coming from, or being complicit or apathetic in opposing the disproportionate amount of attention that the penal and political system puts into certain wedge issues over and above the more substantive issues. That is simple defeatism, and that never wins any battles. When the majority of people refuse to oppose the injustice, it's obviously going to continue. But a large number of voices have to start with a few that get the ball rolling.

If we were a community of swimming pool engineers (or those in charge of regulations for pool operation), we would be concerned about pools. If we were traffic engineers or auto designers, we would be concerned about children's safety in cars. And if we were a society of clowns for hire, we would discuss how to reduce the trauma a child might experience from a scary clown. No matter that the first two are serious risks for children and the latter is (I believe) fairly minor.

But the thing is, youth libbers have concerns that go far beyond the mere sexual issue. They always have, and always will. Those of us in the community who are part of the platform are concerned with every aspect of child safety, and our belief in taking a liberationist as opposed to protectionist stance is the crux of the approach we take in seeking to obtain what we consider beneficial change. Since we care about far more issues concerning kids than simply the argument of their sexual propriety, we are going to express a large amount of ire over the substantive things in society that actually do cause them the greatest amount of empirically provable, demonstrable forms of harm, e.g., Physical and emotional abuse in the home; unwanted sexual advances occurring within the home by parents or stepparents (or older siblings, etc.) who have full legal power over them; poverty; neglect; poor community design that results in an unacceptably large amount of accidental deaths due to automobiles; forced economic dependence on both their parents and the system; being arrested simply for walking down the street past a curfew; being denied the right to vote regardless of their individual merit that leaves them almost politically powerless, etc., et al.

Youth lib is a major concern of the pro-choice segment of the community, which is in fact the majority of the overall MAP community. As true GLers, our concern or interest in kids (specifically girls in our cause, but we do not neglect the rights of boys) is hardly limited to the dynamics of sexual attraction. That is mostly what the general public obsessively focuses upon, but it's not what we solely focus upon. It doesn't define the entirety of our principles, and a big part of those principles is to oppose society's neglect of the many things that cause the most true demonstrable harm to kids in favor of its moralizing obsession on primarily anything to do with sexuality and the expression thereof. Hence, these concerns are not considered off-topic on this forum.

But instead, we are a community of pedophiles. We are a large proportion (though not all) of the responsible adults who, one by one in life situations, will either allow adult-child activity to happen or make sure it doesn't. However much attention society pays to us, it is not evaluating us against the danger to children in auto accidents. It is evaluating the potential harm and benefit to children of sexual activity with adults.

Agreed, and that obsessive focus needs to be opposed. The problem is that society at large doesn't evaluate major dangers from auto or swimming pool accidents, etc., in general, because they are overly concerned with the vastly overstated dangers stemming from our possible contact with kids, and the nature of our feelings for them. Regarding automobile accidents, you don't see rampant media discussions about putting large amounts of taxpayer money into useful and beneficial projects like changing community design; or putting a focus on less dangerous means of mass transportation, etc. Regarding poverty, you don't see rampant media discussions about allocating large amounts of taxpayer money into providing improved economic opportunities to kids, or families with kids, or social programs to support them en masse, etc. In fact, you see little to no media attention or pressure being put on automobile manufacturers, community architects, swimming pool engineers, or politicians to allocate funds into improving these and other areas of demonstrable danger to kids.

Instead, you see rampant media focus on pouring more and more taxpayer dollars into impractical, blatantly invasive, and sometimes outright insane schemes to (as I noted before) detect, stop, and penalize any and all instances of underage sexual expression, regardless of whether it involves a compliant adult or not. Moreover, these measures are not only negatively affecting our kids by neglecting the allocation of resources into ameliorating far more serious and prevalent dangers, and by turning our kids into criminals almost as rapidly as it is to MAPs, but they are eradicating the foundation of our democracy by gradually transforming the nation into a borderline police state and surveillance society. This issue hurts and affects every single adult Non in society who isn't wealthy or in a high political position on a fundamental level every bit as much as it does kids and MAPs. This is what the West's moral obsession over practical issues is leading to.

Hence, refusing to look at this bigger picture, and the underlying motivation of the intertwined pedo hysteria and 'war on underage sexual expression' (combined with other such democracy-diminishing programs like the "war on drugs" and the "war on terror"), we are overly simplifying the issue and doing a major disservice to ourselves, the kids, and what is left of our democracy.

Moralism and prudishness can certainly warp society's attitudes. But I maintain that even if/when that is taken away in the hoped-for iatrogenic housecleaning, the risk of adult-child sexual activity to the girl outweighs the benefit. I still see the girl who is terribly upset because she has had sex with a man who is going to desert her, even if his intentions are good. (That's not the only danger I see, but I use it as one important factor.)

I have to be frank here for a moment, Ethan (not rude, don't worry). That concern is so incredibly overstated that it's almost beyond belief, let alone an actual reason for legally prohibiting freedom of choice in the matter on both hypothetical participants. You are operating from a few assumptions that have absolutely no empirical basis in fact.

For one thing, the assumption that any young girl who gets romantically involved with an adult - a man, in this case - is going to fall permanently and immutably in love with him, for as long as she lives, and that she will be devastated beyond description - also for the rest of her life - if he eventually moves on (you used the word "deserted" for the extra emotional "punch" it carries, so I simply went with the less emotionally charged term to put this discussion on a more equitable level). Ethan, are you aware that young girls very rarely fall in love with just one boy during the course of their youth, and they have made a veritable social art form out of very mutable relationships? And that they are often the one to lose interest in these relationships after a short time, not the boy? What evidence is there that this would somehow be very different in a romantic situation with a partner who is significantly older? None, there are only assumptions based on no substantive evidence. Is there any evidence against this out-of-the-wall assumption, however? Yes, there is, and I encourage anyone who cares to examine it to read Chapter 7 of Susan Thompson's thoroughly nuanced and extensive study of young girl sexuality and experiences, Going All the Way.

For another thing, it's based on the assumption that young girls do not usually move on first, ignoring how much more quickly they change and how limited their romantic attention span is on average compared to older women, and how they tend to fall out of love with someone as fast and as suddenly as they fall into it. You need only observe their relationships with peers to see how bereft of merit and empirical evidence that assumption is. Then you need to provide any remotely logical evidence that this would somehow be the exact opposite sort of situation with an older relationship partner. In fact, one thing you can do to find the lack of merit in this assumption is to do with I regularly do as a legal alternative: Date much younger women in the legal age range of 18-mid-20s. As wonderful and fun as these younger women are, they tend to be very fickle, and they change very rapidly and fall out of love and move on very quickly. Some relationships with older men do last, of course, but it's totally untrue that the younger girl or woman in these situations are taking the bulk of the emotional risk.

For another thing, there is the false idea that a hypothetical MAP relationship partner would simply "desert" them, as you put it, and would totally lose all interest in them as she got older. Most of us are not jerks like that, and romantic love is not the only type of love we are capable of having for a girl. In fact, Lewis Carroll remained close friends with pretty much all of the young girls he once loved as more than friends for the rest of their lives, including the lovely Alice Liddell. There was never the slightest sign that she was devastated beyond all recognition from the change in form, nor were many other girls he loved and remained in contact with as they grew up. Charlie Chaplain, famous thespian hebephile, remained married and deeply in love with the much younger woman he married when she was a teen, because the many positive life experiences they had together ended up leading into the lasting, nurturing type of love that you see with many older couples who stay together. Further, MAPs and youths in a youth liberated society would develop a sense of dynamics in such a society that worked best for their specific type of relationship.

Yet another thing, the huge assumption that lifelong monoamory is the only legitimate form of romantic relationship, along with the related assumption that young girls are going to want and prefer this type of arrangement on a vast scale when this isn't the case with their peers, and are so emotionally fragile that they will "break" beyond repair because they fail to acquire this from the first man (or woman?) that they happen to become romantically involved with. Which is, also quite frankly, very insulting to them, and certainly goes against the evidence that Susan Thompson uncovered in the comprehensive study I mentioned above. In a future youth liberated society, we should not assume or expect that the current normative model expected of adults will be the one that will typically be chosen by intergenerational couples.

Hence, all in all, this stance is heavy on assumptions, and bereft of substantive evidence. This is the main reason I feel it has no place in my principles.