Perhaps we won't go there since most child-lovers and all others seem to disagree on the abilities of some to fitfully consent.

Obviously one of the two sides have a strong bias, since both can't be right. The consensus opinion would be to accuse the CLers of having that bias for what amounts to selfish reasons--except the scientific evidence collected thus far does not back up the beliefs of the consensus. As just one prominent example, the 1998 meta-analysis known as the Rind Report, which was conducted with objective and legitimate scientific methodology by three MHPs [Mental Health Professionals] who are not MAAs, concluded quite clearly that common beliefs on this subject are not consistent with scientific data. Further, he noted that children of about six and over are capable of what MHPs term "simple consent," meaning they are capable of telling the difference between experiences that are pleasurable to them and those that are not, and that adults who had these experiences as children--and who were not "found out" and forced into receiving "therapy," or weren't sociogenically conditioned to believe they were "victims" by a host of peers and adults who derided them for not feeling "victimized" by the experience if revealed to such people--insisted in retrospect that they were capable of consenting to the activity. Further, they showed no obvious signs of psychopathology, which you would clearly see with people who were suffering from Stockholm Syndrome. The Rind Report's conclusions were fully replicated in a duplicate study conducted in 2005 by an entirely different group of MHPs, led by Heather M. Ulrich, as reported in an essay appearing in the Fall/Winter 2005-06 issue of The Scientific Review of Mental Health Practice.

Hence, the fact remains that the science does not back up the consensus belief, meaning that it is, plain and simply, a belief, even if a very pervasive one. Then again, false beliefs concerning homosexuality, black people, and women were once pervasive beliefs, as well, thus making it clear that what we consider the conventional wisdom of any given era is not always right. As another modern example interconnected with the subject at hand, the idea that the adolescent brain is inherently "faulty" and inclined towards incompetent decisions is presently a pervasive belief, yet much scientific study over the previous decade has effectively refuted that claim--though not the pervasiveness of the belief.

You may want to check out my essay "The Importance of Truth":

http://newgon.com/wiki/Essay:The_Importance_of_Truth

This essay of mine was extensively researched and very heavily cited with links. It's quite long and thorough, so if you want to read it (and I highly recommend that you do), then I suggest you do not try to do so in a single sitting, but read it in bits and pieces as your time and tolerance for sitting permits, which shouldn't be too hard because I divided the essay into different sections, each tackling a specific myth relevant to this topic.