Why does it seem that whenever a serious debate gets going on this board, the people defending the "pro adult/child sex" side of things put up a tonne of conditions that they then fall back on and say "in this case, this situation - there is no harm whatsoever, therefore my point is valid"?

I don't ask for a "tonne" of conditions (as if you can measure progress metrically)--I ask for only one, essentially--that organized religion drop dead. All the other societal/cultural problems stem from organized religion, as far as I can see.

And, it will happen--likely a century or so from now, religion as an instituion will be a thing of the past. We've been moving gradually in that direction for decades, or perhaps centuries (though slow progress, for sure), and we occasionally swing back to religious thinking, such as in recent years. But, such "movements" are really short-lived, because people are no longer stupid enough to buy into the fear tactics and guilt trips Christianity, et al rely on to make people conform.

Then people wonder why no one takes us seriously. They are going to laugh at you if you say "in a society where children are totally liberated, and adult/child sex is acepted, adult child sex will not be harmful".. why? Because that is Very much detached from reality as it exists today as to be totally hypothetical, and when it comes to serious debate, hypothetical utopian scenarios have no weight.

Oh, I think people take us quite seriously. If they didn't, do you think they'd go to all the trouble they have to destroy and defame us? They pretend to ignore us vocal peds at GC, but I guarantee you they are paying attention, and many of them are listening.

And actually, it's not as far-fetched as you seem to think. Society can change very quickly if it wants to, and it occasionally does make such leaps. Think about how homosexuality was viewed in the 1950s as opposed to how it is viewed now, a mere 50 years later. Considering the hundreds upons hundreds of years it was considered one of the most horrible acts imaginable in the Western world, it is obvious that people are aware that the same thing can happen with pedosexuality and will.

It is inevitable. Perhaps not in my lifetime, but I'm okay with that, as long as history justifies my life and my decisions to stand up for what is right.

No one is asking for a utopian scenario here--it may seem that way to many here, since adult-child relationships being legal would seem like a dream come true. But I'm not so naive as to believe our happiness rests solely on this one thing. We are like anyone--complex and multi-faceted, with lots of problems and issues outside of our sexuality. But, it certainly would ease the burden for everyone, including children, to have the entire spectrum of sexuality legitimized.

The same with the recent, "If the adult and child are Fully informed of the reaction of society to their relationship and continue to go into it anyway, if society finds out about the relationship the child does not have to be brainwashed into believeing it was abuse".... When it comes to adult/child relationships of a sexual kind these days, most of them are intrafamilial because frankly - police dont seem to give a fuck. In other situations, the adult loves the child and the child loves the adult, the issue of "society finding out later" never comes up - why? Because it may not be the first thing on their mind, nor may it be relevant to the adult.

Hmm, on this point I actually agree somewhat. There is no guarantee that an informed child won't feel traumatized later at the influence of society. Even a powerful love between a child and an adult may not be strong enough to overcome all of the negativity from society. However, that doesn't illegitimize the relationship.

I do think your point about "society finding out later" not being a concern for us is a low blow, and pretty much wrong for most of us. The point were making, though, is that that our desire to protect children from emotional harm (and any adult's desire to protect children from such harm, for that matter) is irrelevant and does not give us the right to interfere with the child's wishes to learn about and experience sexual pleasure with persons of her choice.

In my mind, the larger harm is the absolutely wrong-headed notion of guilt and shame attached to sex, period, which originates right from Judaism and Christianity. Far, far more people are affected by this harm than children who experience shame and guilt after having consentual sex with an adult.

In fact, I believe that most child sexual abuse results from the sexual repression, which causes some to snap like a taut rubber band in the opposite direction of what they go to such great lengths to pull away from, and the taboo, which makes children the most irresistable sex toys for some people because it puts them on a pedestal of untouchability, which them all the more desirable.

Note that in these cases, the abuser does not see the child as a person but as a sexual object, not because they would have initially, but because, by making them off limits, it is society who fetishizes children.

But beyond that, far too much harm has been caused in the name of religion when it comes to sex--broken marriages and adultery because of the unrealistic expectations of monogamous, life-long relationships (which also can harm kids through divorce); the shame and secrecy that has created fetishes and pushed many sexual paraphiles underground, including us; all of the gays, peds, etc. murdered or otherwise persecuted by people in the name of religion or morality (or, more usually, both); the millions of unhappy marriages that result from people holding such unrealistic expectations as well; all of the violence that has occurred because of sexual repression, etc. I could go on and on here.

When someone argues that the blame for the harm cannot totally rest on a society that makes it taboo, due to the adult knowing this is taboo yet still going through with it - making a hypothetical jump through hoops 5 point "if they match all of these then my view is correct" argument, carries no weight.

This is actually a clever kind of circular reasoning, but circular reasoning nonetheless. What you're essentially saying is, you can't advocating having sexual relations with a child in more acceptable conditions because we don't exist in those acceptable conditions. The answer to this is, as JD pointed out, beyond obvious--you change the conditions to so as to make them acceptable. That is what we're doing here, by extolling the virtues of such a sexually open culture and by pointing out what is wrong with a closed culture and why (like all the reasons I listed above, and many more I have listed in the past).

But your response to this notion of change is, you can't change the conditions. And why? Because, according to you, by attempting to change the conditions, you are risking harming the child, which is how your argument comes full circle. You are suggesting that advocating child-adult sexual contact (or CASC, as I call it) causes people to act out, and thus the potential for harm occurs.

I maintain that, yes, the potential for children to be harmed is there, and that bothers me, but my sadness and anger at children being abused does not give me the right to stand in the way of a child's happiness and desire to learn the most important relationship skills she'll ever need to know--dating, negotiating with her partner and learning to compromise, learning to live with and please him or her and find happiness herself, and, of course, sexual skills.

Children have a right to learn these skills as much as they have a right to learn reading, writing and arithmetic--in fact, they should have an even greater right to learn them, because they are far more likely to use such skills in the future than they are a knowledge of algebra or Shakespeare. And yet, you and your compratiots, the moralists, rob children of this precious knowledge until you feel they are ready for it.

Hence, many children are thrown out into the shark-infested ocean at age 18 or whatnot without the slightest understanding of what to expect and what they are supposed to know about men and women. And you all wonder why the divorce rate is so high? It's because people go into marriages to sate their long-repressed sex drive and have no idea what the hell they are doing, not really knowing their partner at all. Marriage is considered the only legitimate means of expressing sexuality by many, and so many young people rush into it, have kids, buy houses, etc., and when the sexual sparks are gone, what they have left is a spouse they don't really know at all, a child or children who will be hurt when their parents divorce, a house payment they dont want, an so on.

My point is, yes, there is some amount of risk in all relationships, whether society advocates them or not, but society makes it unnecessarily hard on children and peds, and, to a lesser extent, gays, and to an even lesser extent (but still quite significantly), everyone else. This indirect harm is far more damaging in the long run than the emotional harm that can result from consentual relationships between adults and minors, and more than that, children have every right to make mistakes, learn and grow as everyone else does.

You, me, the moralists, whoever, may not like it when they do get hurt, but if anything, children are more resilient than adults, and imagine how much self-knowledge and knowledge of relationships they will have when they are ready to settle down and find a life partner?

Ideally, a girl will have already learned what it is they like in bed, what their partner might like (and the requisite skills), how to negotiate and communicate with their partner, what it's like to live with someone as an equal (on a limited basis, perhaps), etc., all without having to consult Oprah or Woman's Day on every little aspect of understanding men. Girls should have that right if they are interested, and I'll bet many of them are--in fact, I know many of them are.

Children have a right to be prepared in advance for making a major commitment like marriage or living with someone, and part of that is experimenting with sex and relationships when they are ready. That's what you deprive children of--protecting them from themselves is okay if they don't know what they're getting into and the harm is real and gaugable (if that's a word), like a toddler stepping into moving traffic, but beyond that, children have a right to learn to live their lives, and part of that is making mistakes so they can learn and grow. Keeping them away from that only infantilizes them and makes them dependent on the gov't and those who wish to exert power over them. It does them a disservice.

Have you ever heard the phrase, if you love something, let it go? That is the difference. Keeping a butterfly in a jar because you love it and want it close to you is not really love if the butterfly desires to fly away and is miserable in the jar. Pretending the butterfly is happier in the jar or forcing the butterfly to be happy through unnatural means (like brainwashing) is what society does to children.