Re: the right to sext

"Kids really used to be like possessions that could be traded around. But you admit things are much better now than they've ever been."

Non sequitur. Learn 2 logix.

And........ history is not directed nor reified. We aren't its culmination. Ergo, the long hard slog of previous work is only proof that those who previously back-patted and believed the job was done were wrong on that.

Since we aren't exceptions, all we can assume is that there is more work to do. And yes, there is more work to do.

"What's more, we sometimes trust the word of kids too much, so for instance that if a child says a man did something sexually with them against their will, society can give the man a really hard time even if he did nothing -- maybe even send him to prison for life. The child's word can somehow get more power than an adult's word."

Unless their word differs from the State's script. Ergo, it isn't the child's words that have power, just the State's.

The child has no legal status as an agent. Their disagreement with the narrative is immaterial. Neither their belief that nothing wrong happened nor their preference not to send him away for life will change a thing.

Every time you claim potential future regret as a valid reason to block, you affirm that the State is right to do this. Every time you claim that you know she doesn't believe what she says when it is a choice to exercise her right but believe her when she chooses to decline, you affirm that the State is right to do this.

"The state will take kids away from parents who abuse or neglect them, if the evidence is good enough."

And if they let the child walk home from the park. And if they find that the parents were using the wrong intoxicating substances rather than the right. And if the parents are in the wrong religious cult rather than the right one.

But, what is guaranteed is the massive failure rate of the foster care system to protect them from future abuse. Prior abuse is often an ill-founded allegation ( as Markaba says, "Better safe than sorry. ) But subsequent abuse is just luck of the draw. Even for the highest profile cases where you'd think--with the spotlights on them--they'd be doing their level best ( Masha Allen, anyone? )

"I say it's time to talk about incremental improvements."

Say, outreach to slavers about how to be more ethical in their treatment of their property?

Lets see, working to death is wrong, but limited flaying is OK. Selling off children in other states is wrong, but selling children to planters within the same county is OK.

Many times "incremental" is just the ethically illiterate response to the hunch that there is something wrong, combined with the piecemeal application of bandaids to the most egregious wounds. Its the sort of patchwork solution you do when you can see the symptoms but are unwilling to do anything about the disease.

And often, as haphazard as the quick "fix's" are, the pattern of wounds all point to the same source.

"Even after getting rid of some extra hysteria we have today, society still will not like the idea of small girls saying they were forced into giving blowjobs, men saying they consented at the time, and the girls being out of luck because of reasonable doubt. (This applies when it has been proven that sexual activity took place -- unlike the earlier case.)"

Argumentum ad populum again. Learn 2 logix.

Since everyone is already agreed that forced BJs are wrong you are strawmanning desperately here as you have been doing from the start.

If the Satanic Panic taught us nothing else, it is that children are the first victims when reason and doubt cease to be options. They are the ones stuck with the guilt that their parent's death in jail was upon their testimony. They are the ones who, despite seeing the proof that their rape/torture never happened continue to have flashbacks to the horror of an implanted memory.

We accept, in all manner of other things which HAVE a proven mechanism of harm and where some harm is a very likely outcome that the accepted balance of consent and the accepted remedies against coercion are OK. Why something with a missing mechanism and no necessary risk should be held to a higher degree of accountability is beyond me.

At some point, society may decide to stop patching the wounds, particularly when it sees just how many ones its laws are inflicting. No, things aren't "better than ever." The laws are getting steadily more punitive over lesser and lesser degrees of harm.

Already those parents in whose name sexting was turned into a life-sentence, are beginning to wonder why they ever agreed to throw a child's future away over this. And when the incrementalists offer to make the 14yr old exempt so we are just destroying the 9yr old, their ethical illiteracy will be even more clear.

Children are already doing all manner of things. Most of which have no demonstrable mechanism of harm and no necessary link to harm. Maybe we should focus more on giving them an actual say in the matter to prevent coercion instead of grooming them to accept coercion. ( Her body, her right. ) And maybe we should focus less on punishing her for choosing to exercise her option than assuming making an example of her will somehow prevent others from choosing the same.

And please, get over yourself. Her right to sexual self determination has nothing to do with what turns you on. So punishing her over making choices that arouse you is very sick indeed. Flagellate yourself in privacy, but please don't drag her into it just because a free choice might result in someone somewhere choosing, as a minor, to be sexually expressive with an adult. She's not to blame for your orientation. Its not all about you.

Dante