1. There is an inherent problem with his usage of a telepathy dependant definition of consent. To any reasonable observer consent itself constitutes the proof of desire and therefore Rind et al and Sandfort can reasonably be read as presenting evidence of desire. Albeit not compared to non-desire; on that much Ethan is right. But as long as he defines consent in a telepathic way he can always fall back on the claim that consent does not prove desire.

This is because Ethan's chosen ideology does not accept that gerontophilic feelings and desires on all levels can be anything other than extraordinarily rare, to the point it need not be so much as acknowledged or considered the least bit legitimate. Thus, he and others of his ideological ilk must assume that most kids who are consensually intimate with adults think the sexual activity is, at best, "OK," i.e., simply tolerable enough that they will go along with it in order to keep the adult in their life for whatever "actual" reason they want him present. But he insists they actually cannot have any actual desire, because that doesn't serve the purpose of his belief system.

And since the laws and the heavily culturally enforced age segregation in our society ensures that almost no such relationships can be conducted in public; and because it also insures that people over 18 and those below that age cannot spend any degree of unauthorized socialization with each other, Ethan and others in the anti-choice camp conveniently cite this as "proof" that children and younger adolescents almost never have any natural attraction to people outside their general age group, nor any real desire to be in romantic relationships with them. In the instances where such clandestine mutually consensual relationships are uncovered, he will simply feel safe to assume the younger person didn't actually desire the sexual intimacy they consented to because, you know, it's just that unlikely they could have possibly found their adult partner attractive "in that way."

If the anti position cannot prove or rest on asexual innocence as being a natural state of being for children and young adolescents, then the "next best" claim is to insist that intergenerational attraction is almost exclusively one-sided, and that kids under 18 lack the diversity of attraction that is readily recognized in adults. Which means every pubescent girl with a poster of George Clooney taped to her bedroom wall must really desire him only as a father figure, or as a platonic mentor; that's what she actually means when she says that she thinks he's "hot." Even if she may not actually be aware that's what she actually means, of course.

2. I have not made citations on this thread. You are probably thinking of Entelechy.

Yes, my bad.