What I think Furcifer meant...

...when he put the word "abuse" into quotes was not to deny the existence of actual abuse, but to highlight the fact that every single time a legally designated minor chooses to have sexual intimacy with a much older person, it's automatically considered "abuse" in a purely legal sense--and as far as the majority of people are concerned. Hence, much reported abuse is not actually "abuse" in an intrinsic, realistic fashion. This is not to say that no real abuse occurs against minors, because no GLer on this board has ever suggested that it doesn't. What we do often point out, however, is the statistical fact that the bulk of all real physical, emotional, and sexual abuse directed at minors occurs in the home, by parents, stepparents, grandparents, and other older relatives, and not by typical MAAs.

Now, as for this:

but if you question the status of 'minor', being a person of reduced understanding, reduced competency, reduced responsibility and even reduced rights, you have to find some other way to account for the situation of a child dependent on adults. what way would that be? the child is a prisoner? a hobby?

For the same reason that women were once totally dependent on men and were considered of inherently lesser competence regardless of what their indvidual level of competency may be. So yes, many kids today can indeed be called prisoners, because their status is entirely dependent upon their chronological age alone, with no individual factors being taken into account. Those we today designate "minors" should be freed from this form of control and prison if they can prove their competency in front of an impartial and knowledgable body of adjudication. I also believe that minors are educated in such a way that deliberately prolongs their status of dependency, largely for reasons that have nothing to do with their competency, but for reasons that have to do with keeping them out of the labor market and forcing them to be indoctrinated with status quo defending "education" throughout their formative years.