Mostly I find you making claims about the nature of society and the political forces within it that are just not true. I don't think either of us has statistics to cite, though I think most social scientists would disagree with you.

Everything I stated about the nature of our society and the political aspects is readily empirical, and quite obvious. Whether or not any social scientist would disagree, I'd wager, is what side of the political fence they are on.

I also am strongly motivated to get briefer here.

Ditto. I will strive to do the same.

I wasn't intending to paint them with bad motives, I was just noting that their concern seems focused on their perceived self-interest, which is only natural. Your ideas for reform certainly reach far in many directions within the entirety of the human condition.

But these self-interests are not based mostly or entirely on a desire for sexual contact with younger people. Democratic rights for all is a form of self-interest that benefits everyone, not just one specific group.

I find such a yearning entirely fine and feel it myself. I think such yearnings must not be acted upon with real girls for pragmatic (if enduring) reasons having to do with percentages of harm perpetrated despite the intentions of the men involved. "Diabolical" doesn't enter into my thinking anywhere.

And since there is no scientific evidence for these percentages, and because draconian legislation as the solution to any perceived problem is far more harmful to everyone in a democracy, it requires one to strongly imply in their rhetoric that those seeking certain rights can only be motivated by selfish interests, which is pretty diabolical. That is the problem there.

My position is that engaging in the sexual activity with the underage person was wrong, so the way for the man to stay safe was to not do it.

The first part of your statement is a personal moral judgment that you are entitled to; the second part is definitely true due to the current laws and political climate.

If he goes over the line, he is indeed at her mercy. But she is receiving protection against the "he said, she said" difficulties inherent in adult-adult rape prosecutions.

She is actually prohibited from saying "what he said was true, and I agree I'm not a victim." Absolutist laws that penalize everyone on the basis of "erring on the side of caution" protect no one, least of all a girl who would not want to see a man she genuinely cared for get in trouble. Making such assumptions without evidence is a major injustice to both the hypothetical man and girl, and very condescending to the latter in addition.

But I'm providing a way to forgiveness that will work a large percentage of the time, notably when the man was actually correct in understanding the girl to have the maturity and knowledge necessary for it to work out well for her.

This is why it's much better for something like the Epstein-Dumas Test to make these determinations than simple assumption without any requirement for evidence. Protecting people when they do not want to be protected is not true protection, but a form of repression that moral crusaders are all too fond of.

I should clarify. I mean that it is wrong at the level of shared secular morality. I am claiming it is wrong for you too, not just for me.

But sounds an awful like an assessment made by religous-based moralism. Why? Because it makes an absolutist statement and judgment without even pretending to know the particulars and intricacies of the hypothetical relationship you're talking about, and making assumptions about my hypothetical love interest without the slightest concern for knowing or getting to know her personally. This is why laws founded upon assumptions out of the blue are the stuff of Orwell's famous novel.

As I've said before, I think in society's dealings with minors, moral values are a necessary part of it.

And again, what type of moral values? I can agree with you, but argue that democratic rights, freedom of choice, and objective case-by-case assessments of any given situation for any group of people is a very strong moral value. Unless, of course - and once again - we're speaking of moralism, not morality.

But it has nothing to do with thinking girls are wrong to have sexual desires or want to express them.

No, but it is about thinking that it's inherently and absolutely wrong to allow them to actually act upon these desires if they so choice, regardless of individual circumstance or individual merit. Hence, it's all about ideology, not anything that even considers scientific objectivity.

It has to do with how many girls gnash their teeth at an inability to have sex with grown-ups in comparison to how many women gnash their teeth about being sexually abused when they were young.

And once again, and more importantly I think, it has a lot to do with the circumstances behind those teeth-gnashing, including if they had been "found out" and pushed through the system; if they had an unscrupulous therapist that "convinced" them they were abused when they didn't think they were beforehand because of the therapist's personal agenda; if they were subject to severe condemnation by people they told of a relationship they once thought fondly of; etc., et al. All of the above phenomena are well known and well understood, and were rampant during the decade this hysteria got started, the 1980s. The social workers, police, and media moguls involved are well known to have been responsible for the nation-wide imposition of the Satanic ritual abuse fiasco and now totally scientifically debunked "repressed memory syndrome" nonsense. These people were actually caught on tape bullying kids into making things up based on what these people wanted to hear during the infamous McMartin day care trial, and many unscrupulous therapists were called out during the late '80s and '90s for convincing their patients they had been molested when they actually hadn't been. The former Rosanne Barr is a well known celebrity example of this!

I highly recommend you read the book Satan's Silence by Debbie Nathan and Michael Snedeker. It won't convince you to change your stance (no amount of evidence will, I wager), but it's extremely well researched and will list all of the evidence and facts very thoroughly.

By insisting on considering all of that irrelevant, you should understand you're playing a game of dirty pool to fit your ideological goals by insisting that every "teeth-gnashing" woman who makes such a claim should always be considered, without question, to have come to that conclusion entirely on their own, with no influence from any aspect of society, including the social workers, the police, the media, societal reactions, personal license to behave as they wish (of the manner in which Astrologer mentioned in his response to you), etc. And yet you have admitted the reality of iatrogenic - and by extension, sociogenic - harm in the past. If you do actually accept their existence, then you can't turn around and say they are totally irrelevant to all of these claims, because they are a huge factor. And if you acknowledge their relevance, you can't argue that society and the system has a major degree of responsibility for all of this. Otherwise, you look guilty of calling upon or ignoring any specific point you can think to make an argument in justification of your ideology being enforced on everyone.

It sounds like an interesting case. I'd like to learn more about her if you have links to news media, for instance. Obviously the treatment you describe is horrible. But the idea that we have significant numbers of terrified schoolgirls whispering about their oppression because they can't even advocate for their right to sex with adults just doesn't ring true.

Because you never hear it personally? Because these girls never confide in you and other like-minded adults about it? Or, maybe for the same reasons you wouldn't have heard chattel slaves on the old Southern plantations whispering about their oppression? They were raised and conditioned not to see themselves as a legitimate minority group who was oppressed, but rather to view themselves as filling their "natural" place in society. But they showed their disatissfaction in many other ways, such as deliberately damaging their masters' tools and livestock when they weren't looking; attempting to run away on many occasions, etc. Well, guess what? Adolescents often do the same types of things when it comes to "acting out," such as running away from home; getting into huge arguments at home; attempting to find work behind their parents' back; refusing to listen to their orders when they aren't around, etc. That type of rebellious defiance is readily observable, and it doesn't suggest happy contentment with their position in society.

And again, you keep trying to make this solely about girls wanting to have sex with adults, and no other aspect of freedom. Girls famously hang up posters of attractive adult celebrities, and often talk about teachers, coaches, etc., whom they think are "hot." This strongly indicates that you may be very wrong in your combination of projections and assumptions. Further, as I've stated before, it's about the principle of choice; assuming any group of people wouldn't care about being prohibited from making a certain choice simply because they didn't personally want to make that choice makes about as much logical sense as various conservatives I know who ask me why I support gay rights so stringently when I, myself, do not have a desire to have romantic relations with other men. If I was only concerned about legal rights that specifically apply to me, then not only would I truly be selfish, but extremely counterproductive for my own self-interests in the future as well. You're cutting many girls short by assuming the vast majority care nothing about principle.

I wouldn't mind giving the vote to even young children. But starting with what we know about voting participation rates for youth presently and how few people are in the 13-17 age cohort, I am fairly confident that very little would change.

Very little is changing when older people vote, because statistically, they tend to be inimical to change and routinely vote against their own interests because they often know little to nothing about the issues of the politicians they vote for. Younger voters have most often voted for change, including third party candidates, which makes it clear how many of them who do vote are politically aware in compared to older people. This is the real reason our gerontocentric lawmakers do not want to people younger than 18 the vote. The wealthy and powerful have it made it this particular status quo, and do not want any significant change.

I'm not sure where you're going here. I've allowed for the fact that much may have been stirred up by social overreaction. Are you expecting I will find that it will ALL go away if I ask questions hard enough?

I am expecting you and everyone else would be amazed at the actual reasons behind all this "teeth-gnashing" you describe if you asked these questions, rather than considering them irrelevant.

It's not an argument based on logical form, as I think I've made clear elsewhere. It's the weighing of costs and benefits -- the comparison of fairly rare serious negative outcomes compared to very small positive benefits.

Very small positive benefits? Again, how could you speak for everyone who may engage in such relationships, and those who have done so in a mutually consensual manner? I think you are thinking about how "small" those benefits would be for the status quo and ideology you support, not for any people. It's been shown all throughout history - including in the previous century - that the cost and benefits of choosing draconian measures over that of democratic solutions to any perceived problem does not lead to a sane, safe, or happy society.

Marriage aside, reproduction itself has all kinds of perils, but the benefits are sizable, including not going extinct.

And freedom of choice leads to a society where simply reproducing and keeping the race from going extinct is not the most important consideration in the world. It also means the ability to pursue your own destiny in life, and to work towards creating a better society... not simply becoming baby-making machines. Telling everyone, in an arbitrary manner, what their place in society has to be, and what their choices are limited to, based on what group demographic they belong to resembles nothing less than a fascist blueprint which treats different groups as if they were all mindless cogs in a machine rather than autonomous individuals with the right to self-determination. I certainly don't want to live in a world like that.