"Do we have references on that? I'm not saying that with any particular axe to grind, I just hadn't seen any studies on it or specific claims about it."

I have seen sources, years ago. I'm afraid it is difficult to keep current on all sources for all subjects at all times. ;-)

At this point you can probably find sources as easily as I could, so for the moment I will leave that as an exercise for those so inclined.

"There are some studies suggesting that victims of violent rape or child sex abuse have better psychological adjustment than ones where they apparently consented."

That is quite interesting. Perhaps psychological adjustment is easier in cases where the victim was clearly not at fault than for cases where they may have played some role and have to deal with their social role as victim even as they understand their own responsibility internally?

I can think of some similar instances in my own life, though fortunately with much lower stakes. For example, there were several times as a child when I played at another child's house we would engage in quite innocent play (I can't even recall exact examples, they were so innocuous - on the order of "playing in the back yard") where the other child's parent punished them, but not me, because of house rules I had no idea were in force (or that any rational being would put in force). Although I was not at all culpable in any meaningful sense I still felt guilty because my actions indirectly got the other child in trouble. Fortunately, those children only received a spanking or a short term grounding - I can hardly imagine how guilty I would feel if they had been imprisoned for fifty years while I got off scot free - regardless of the fact that I was innocent. How do we expect a child to deal with that sort of guilt?

We might also consider the gray area in rape cases, where women might justly question whether they led their attacker on - and hesitate to prosecute in such cases. The usual crusaders are quick to claim that there is no gray area and no victim ever bore the tiniest bit of responsibility - but they don't take into account that many victims know better, and that such crusaders are victimizing them a second time by denying their agency.

"I think betrayal of trust can play a big part, and betrayal of implicit expectations."

I do agree that in some cases "betrayal of trust" can play a major role in harm - as in one notorious example of a girl whose uncle distributed photos of her on the internet without her consent or knowledge. In most cases, however, I think it is clear that sociogenic and iatrogenic harm are paramount. Even in that notorious case, I suspect it was the insistence of those intervening that her uncle didn't really love her that was most harmful. If she had been allowed to see the betrayal of trust as a stupid action by someone who actually did love her, her experience might have been far different.

"We all seem united in thinking that sexual activity if it's lacking even apparent consent is wrong. It's wrong whether you can prove harm or not, and that's worth thinking about a little bit. So most of the cases of interest are ones where a child apparently consented."

Certainly no disagreement there - but almost all the anti-pedophile studies lump consensual and nonconsensual cases together. That is something we must keep in mind every time we look at the misleading data these studies generate. Such studies distort everything - they make the harmless look harmful, the deeply harmful look less harmful, and probably generate a fair amount of new harm as well. That's why we always try to keep consensual and nonconsensual cases separate.

"People may not have thought about the ambiguity before, but we can make good guesses of what they'll say it means if you point it out to them, and therefore what they believed all along."

Yes and no. Our presumptions may not merely reflect their likely beliefs, but lead them. If you point out to them that children cannot know all the consequences of their actions, they may agree that they meant informed consent; if you point out that adults also cannot know all the consequences of their actions, they may decide they meant simple consent. With further prompting they might consider that they meant partially informed consent, or consent whose validity is dependent on an understanding of certain short range consequences. I don't think it is clear at all exactly what they meant - though I do agree that there can be ambiguity. Most of all I think they mean that they want children to be healthy and happy, and appealing to cultural expectations of harmfulness can easily cause them to retreat to what they were taught as children, at a time when attitudes towards sex in general were much different than they are now.

"By analogy, no activity is totally safe, so we should not worry about some being more dangerous than others?"

Rather, no activity is totally safe - so we should make decisions based on risk/benefit analyses, based on the best facts we can find rather than on the most partisan religious or ideological beliefs we can dredge up. Especially, we should beware of anything that involves "zero tolerance" thinking.

But, since there are plenty of people who want to take an extreme position that primarily harms the children it pretends to protect, I will do them one better while reminding them of the original purpose of the age of consent - and hopefully spur them to think twice about what they really want and how best to get it.