If you're a typical pedophile it would be natural to conclude from GC that these two things are linked -- the wise folks who have discovered that adult-child sex will be OK in a better world have also discovered that children are seriously oppressed and need to be liberated.

I say there is no necessary linkage, and that possibility deserves to be openly considered here at GC. It is a perfectly sensible position to think that children are not oppressed in some profound way, but that a small change is appropriate. For instance, argue that kids have the maturity at any age to consent to sexual activity, and society should grant them that right. It's a limited change.

You could argue you don't need to argue youth liberation in order to argue for child sex. But that turns it into a specific argument for a specific activity which is being defended on narrow merits. That is not inherently wrong, but it makes it easier to argue, as you do, that it's no big deal. Same as would be, imho, for the argument against spanking. I don't see how it can be argued easily that children not be beaten without making a strong case for body autonomy as a inherent, natural right.

Otoh, if you believe in youth liberation, both spanking and sex become just particular cases of a more widely reaching theory about what status youth should have in society vis à vis adults.

Now, unusual opinions are expressed here by a few -- that girls really ought to get married when they are very young, or that parents really do own their kids and in principle at least should be free to kill them if that's what they felt like doing. But others argue against them and they remain marginal opinions. Though I haven't personally seen it, we could also have devout religious people who would argue adult-child sex is good because the Hebrew bible is the word of God and it allows for it. Muslims could also argue that Mohammed's life shows in concrete terms that adult-child sex is just fine. We could have those who embrace the coming singularity of computer intelligence find some reason to approve of it. I suspect that few would agree with any of them, and that in particular the established "idea people" Dante and Dissy would argue against them.

Oh well, I thought I was prominent. Or maybe I should feel glad I am not.

The idea that parents should be free to kill their children is really the one position coherent with parental rights. Many anti contacters, you among them, claim to be for parental rights, but actually follow nothing of parental rights theory. I don't need to agree with Goethe's model of parenthood to see how his position is much more coherent than that of anti contacters who say "not with my children because I'm the parent and not with yours either even though you are the parent" and its inherent hypocrisy.

I am personally religious and I am not indifferent to the religious arguments. I would resort to them, and do, if arguing inside specific religious communities. But GC is not a religion specific space. Any religious argument I use has no weight qua religious. So they are particularly weak in convincing someone who is not already converted to the the religion they spring from, except, maybe, as anthropological evidence of historical societies which tolerated child-adult sexual contact. But that in turn can be done without appealing to the religion itself.

And... yes, I am a very prominent apologist for child marriage. That is no secret. I have spoken before about the reasons. Won't repeat it here. And no, it doesn't contradict youth rights anymore than gay marriage contradicts gay rights.



But... although you are right that it could be possible to argue sex-alone and not argue youth liberation in toto, it remains so that constructing particular arguments for particular areas of activity and experience is more cumbersome, more resource wasteful, and ultimately weaker, than applying a parsimonious general theory which proves successful to particular cases. (Which is essentially what Dante argues for, upon mentioning that youth liberation is not in itself a new theory but simply bringing youth into the coverage of the "free men" clauses of the original Western natural rights theorists, same as poor White men, women, Blacks, and gays, once were) And a successful general theory often works so well that you can convince people by applying it to the particular case even if you cannot convince them of the general theory itself. (Say, "ok I see kids can consent to sex... but you're crazy if you think they can own assets in their own name" -- of course the opposite is equally possible)



Cuteness is to die for
Cuteness cannot fail
Cuteness knows no limit
Cuteness will prevail