True

I'm sure you of all people have some idea where the idea of childhood innocence came from. Religion! Well, I'm not positive on that, but it appears to have to do with 'original sin' and coming of age where a child is now responsible for his/her actions. Let's take a look at the definition from dictionary.com:

in·no·cence
[in-uh-suhns]
noun
1.
the quality or state of being innocent; freedom from sin or moral wrong.
2.
freedom from legal or specific wrong; guiltlessness: The prisoner proved his innocence.
3.
simplicity; absence of guile or cunning; naiveté.
4.
lack of knowledge or understanding.
5.
harmlessness; innocuousness.

Pretty interesting, eh?

From what I can see, none of those definitions prove or imply that a person who is assumed innocent should not be allowed to have sex, or that sex will be damaging to them and their perceived innocence.

This is just another area where Antis are wrong and misinformed in general, and helps to expose the stupidity and harm in what they believe.

I do think some of this "innocence" bit comes from the fact that children are generally more naive, gullible, ignorant, etc. Are children "innocent" in that regard? Perhaps. But I get the feeling that isn't what most people are thinking when they call children innocent... I'm not sure they even have an idea what they're thinking, rather they're just repeating what other conformists say about children. It's robotic thinking. Either way, the question still remains why we shouldn't empower children, inform them, and educate them so they are capable of protecting themselves from harm and making their own choices, rather than needing other people to make those choices for them? There are big parallels here to the woman's movement, and I'm sure we'll hear more about empowering children in the future. It could be the next "big thing".

As for when a child moves from "innocent" to "not innocent", don't you know? It's the magical age of 18 ;-)