How exactly do you justify child-adult sex (in scenarios where you believe it would be permissible)?

[John_Doe]

I'm curious as to what the various arguments for child-adult sex being circumstantially permissible are, and I think it's meaningful to talk about defending it as permissible in some hypothetical, if not real-life, scenarios because doing so establishes in which scenarios it would be bad or wrong. I know what my position is but it's not the mainstream view (among 'pro-MAP') people. I also have a clear argument when it comes to the logical contradictions in the conventional view about child-adult sex but it has little-nothing to do with my core position (I'll get into both, if anyone's interested), whenever I critique the conventional view online a big part of it has to do with just wanting credit for being right because the incoherency of conventional attitudes about child-adult sex (and age gap relationships between biological or legal adults) and pedophilia (or older people being attracted to younger people) frustrates me.

Are you coming from a libertarian point of view? A hedonistic consequentialist point of view? A preference utilitarian point of view or at least one rooted in the desire fulfillment theory of welfare? Do you just not think that sex has the inherent meaning that most people take for granted or that the expected risk/harm (in a society where it wasn't stigmatized, at least) is exaggerated or what?

It's funny because even though I have to publicly defend the idea that only suffering is inherently bad or harmful I can at least understand why people would have an issue with my stance on cheating or even the permissibility of a trans woman tricking a cisgendered man into having sex with her under false pretenses in some very hypothetical scenario but I genuinely don't understand why people are outraged at the idea of child-adult sex being permissible in some emotionally harmless scenarios. To put that into context I will outline my most basic position on the issue:

-Children are directly harmed only by felt emotional distress (if we should discourage child-adult sex it should be for the purpose of minimizing suffering alone, discouraging it on the grounds that children might suffer as a result of it is not one and the same with discouraging it on principle. Child adult sex is not suffering, child-adult sex is child-adult sex and suffering is suffering, those two things can exist independently) and whatever sexual pleasure they could experience if allowed to have sexual or erotic relationships with adults would be inherently good (sexual pleasure qua happiness being intrinsically good) even if that needs to be weighed against real-life risks and costs. It is immoral to devalue the sexual pleasure of both pedophiles and children (the mainstream position wants children to be asexual for the sake of being asexual; excluding them, on principle, from something that adults inconsistently value as a source of happiness for themselves. Harm reduction can't explain why people are so hostile toward the idea of pedophilia itself being a legitimate 'orientation' or fantasy scenarios in which children enjoy sexual/romantic intimacy with adults without any long-term suffering (the argument isn't just that one is being unrealistic or overly theoretical, it's that an attraction to children is fundamentally evil).

-There are practical scenarios in which children could enjoy sexual intimacy with adults without long-term trauma. In fact, I think children are generally sexual to some degree by the age of 7. I'm not saying that this justifies not discouraging it in practice (I don't think that there would be a reason to discourage it in a society where it wasn't taboo so children wouldn't internalize the idea that they were wrongly exploited in retrospect but I am open to different perspectives when it comes to child-adult sex as an applied ethics issue), I mostly want to focus on the stigmatization of pedophilia itself and child-adult sex in fantasy scenarios where it is pleasurable for children.

So I don't have a problem with cheating in scenarios where a) one can reasonably assume that their partner would not be interested in an open relationship, they might even be hurt by the suggestion, and b) one can reasonably assume that their partner won't suspect or discover or for whatever indirect reason suffer as a result of being cheated on, and I don't have an on-principle problem with a trans woman having sex with a cisgendered man under the false pretense of being a biological woman in some scenario where doing so caused him no immediate or long-term pain but I can understand why that's off-putting to people because we are necessarily at odds with people who don't respect our desires and preferences (if I think that the rainforest is inherently good and you believe that it is neutral or even negative in value, you are not only invalidating my position but I have to worry that in some scenario where you're in a position to contribute to the decline or preservation of the rainforest you will prioritize some other value over preserving it, if not outright act to eliminate it). If you tell people that you don't value what they value, you're introducing a kind of conflict with them (I won't get into why I think that I'm ultimately justified in defending my 'only suffering is inherently bad' stance). With child-adult sex, however, the injustice is framed as one having sex with a child against their will but if it were true that children could not meaningfully consent to sex (an assumption rooted in the idea that they can't comprehend the 'meaning' of sex that adults have traditionally projected on to it in various religious traditions or in socially conservative cultures) it wouldn't follow that lack of 'meaningful consent' means an active desire to avoid sexual intimacy with an adult at any given moment (I care what children's desires are because the felt frustration of desire is inherently painful). So I honestly don't understand the moral outrage surrounding the issue, even from a perspective that rejects my hedonistic framework. It's very clear to me that only suffering is inherently bad, all/everyone's happiness is inherently good and only the de-valuing of happiness/suffering is immoral.

I would rather be a child who experiences pleasurable sexual intimacy with an adult than one who suffers from sexual frustration (ironically), anxiety, depression, body dysphoria, humiliation and shame, grief, boredom, physical pain, etc. The former is not a real problem. Real problems cause people pain. I don't mean that it's not a real problem in that it's comparatively trivial or minor either, I mean that the 'harm' of pleasurable exploitation is incommensurate what with what is self-evidently bad (pain). The counter might be that many things are harmful but suffering has nothing in common with those things that could make them both or all inherently harmful. I genuinely don't understand how people who don't feel the slightest guilt or remorse about causing, celebrating or being indifferent to real pain or trauma think that some guy fantasizing about mutually pleasurable sex with a child he's attracted to is just the harshest most sociopathic thing ever. I can't even put into words how bizarre conventional morality is to me.

[Not Forever]

I believe that up to a certain point, not even suffering is necessarily problematic, nor is the absence of explicit or implicit consent: the real problem is the social context.

If a person lives in a social environment where undergoing or performing certain actions is considered deplorable, those actions will become problematic. If broccoli were regarded as something socially disgusting, then eating broccoli could develop into a trauma as the child grows up and comes to realize what they experienced.

Of course, there are forms of suffering that are problematic: but these are the contexts where we’re dealing with repeated actions, conflicting communication, physical harm, and so on... I believe there is some elasticity in this matter as well.

In itself, I don’t believe there is any behavior that is intrinsically negative if it is presented and framed in the most appropriate way, if it exists within a context that allows for it.

But what if that context does not exist?
Let’s say we live in a homophobic society: should a homosexual couple have the right to adopt a child if it is known that the child will suffer in society because of being raised by a homosexual couple?

I could argue both for and against, but to me the problem essentially remains society: many things are harmful simply because people see them as harmful.

My position is that to make an omelet you have to break a few eggs, and honestly I’m not a fan of prevention; I prefer instead that those who have caused proven harm be punished. I consider myself fairly liberal in this regard, and I believe that people have the right to be scandalized in the same way others have the right to ignore those who are scandalized.

So, quite simply, every relationship is legitimate as long as it does not involve coercive or abusive dynamics. Whether it’s eating broccoli, going to school, or anything else.

(If I’m beating around the bush, it’s because I’m using a translator and I don’t want it to complain about the content of what I write. Haha.)

[PorcelainLark]

I think a good starting place is what Bill Maher said:

However, when I was 12 years old, I was beaten on the playground. ... I was held down and somebody just punched me in the face while other kids watched. And if I could go back to 1968 and trade that experience for being gently masturbated by a pop star - I would do it in a second. Frankie Valli could jerk me off. Gary Puckett of the Union Gap. The Allman Brothers, if we could go back in time. Marvin Gaye.

The claim that nothing can ever be worse than AMSC under any circumstances is untenable.

In an ideal world, I think AMSC would be morally permissible under the following conditions: 1. there's no conflicts of interests (e.g. not a parent, family member, or a teacher of the minor); 2. the relationship is non-coercive (i.e. the minor isn't pressured or forced into a sexual act); 3. the minor understands what the adult is getting out of the act (i.e. isn't lied to or mislead into doing something gratifying for the adult); 4. those who are responsible for the minor's well-being (e.g. parents) are aware that the relationship is occurring (however there are circumstances where this can fail; e.g. if the parents don't raise objections simply because of being neglectful).
Besides that, all the standard rules apply - enthusiastic sexual response from the minor, not putting your sexual partner's health at risk (e.g. by having unprotected sex while having an STD), being willing and able to stop if your sexual partner doesn't want to continue, not violating the partner's privacy, etc.

[Bookshelf]

I just don't think sex is that big of a deal. It's a physical action that triggers certain reactions in the body. People treat sex like it's some otherwordly ritual that needs years of training and expert precision to accomplish otherwise you'll summon forth an eldritch creature.

Even if we consider the risk of STIs (which are generally zero with most forms of sex a MAP might perform on someone much younger), it's not even the most dangerous thing we subject kids to— a regular trip to McDonalds yields more risk and more potential for long-term harm through the possibility of car accidents on the way there and back, and the complicated health risks around unhealthy nutrition intake.

There's no "deeper meaning" to comprehend. There's no way to determine how mature someone is to meet the arbitrary experience requirements to understand it (eg, a 16 year old that's spent the last 2 years having safe legal sex with multiple peers is more experienced with sex than a 27 year old, socially isolated virgin; yet the latter is still somehow more mature and experienced and it'd cause irreparable damage only to the former if they were to have sex? Makes no sense).

In short, I justify it just because it's something people can do with one another that isn't any different than anything else we already do with one another. Hugging, playing games and sports, eating dinner, etc. Why is it totally legal for me to drive a boy around in a 2000kg metal box that kills, permanently maims and traumatizes children on a daily basis, but it would be illegal for me to pull over to a stop and go down on him?

[mushy]

If the goal is to minimize suffering, then it would seem that the right approach is to work towards acceptance of AMSC while abstaining from it since there is a risk for secondary harm. The problem with this however, is that the people willing to abstain from it are generally speaking more compassionate, so the statistics will make it seem that it's more harmful than it is, which slows down progress.

Another problem is the question of whose fault it is. If an adult has a sexual relationship with a child and the child is harmed by the shame from society but not the sex itself, should the blame be put on the adult or society? The adult can not know what the outcome will be, but they can know if the child is enjoying it or not in the moment.

[JGHeaven]

You could argue that denying children the right to enjoy their own body and sexuality is harmful, like denying the child the right to go for walks or swimming. The denial of something can itself be physically and psychologically harmful and a form of abuse.

I would argue that all things by default should be considered non-harmful, then a case built to prove that something is harmful before it should be considered harmful. A case must be scientifically sound and based on data and neutral interpretation of the data.

Is child-adult sex harmful?
There will be cases where that can be proven to be the case, and there will be cases where it can be proven that it isn't the case. I've spoken to people who had sex as a child any reported positive experiences and I know there are documented cases to this effect.

To remove all risk of it ever being harmful you can blanket ban it, but then you have to evaluate the flip state, what is the negative consequences of blanket banning it, what new risks or harms arise? There are negatives. There are cases of lovers being torn apart when discovered resulting in long term psychological damage. There are people including young people criminalized. There's the problem with relationships being hidden which can result in pregnancies, disease and actual abuse going unreported. There are impacts on freedom of speech and expession and civil liberties. There will be other negatives as well which should be considered and measured.

It's like if you decide there's a risk of children playing parks might be abducted then you can ban children from parks but then they get less exercise, stay at home, become isolated and develop health problems.

I don't think the counter argument is ever really considered in a neutral way.

[John_Doe]

I appreciate all of the replies. I'm not going to address a lot of points or necessarily go in-depth on the ones I do.


"Another problem is the question of whose fault it is. If an adult has a sexual relationship with a child and the child is harmed by the shame from society but not the sex itself, should the blame be put on the adult or society? The adult can not know what the outcome will be, but they can know if the child is enjoying it or not in the moment."

I have to disagree with you here. I think the adult has a moral responsibility to consider how the child will actually be affected, even if s/he isn't causally responsible for the context that will prime them to have a negative emotional response to something that they wanted at one point. A loose moral parallel was posed on another board years ago- does a slave have a responsibility to consider that other slaves will be punished if he runs away? It doesn't necessarily tip the scale but not at least factoring that into consideration is inexcusable, in my view. I don't want children to suffer so whether or not I can rationalize not being 'the bad guy' if one suffered as a result of consensual intimacy with me is really besides the point (and I would argue that not considering the suffering that a choice might cause others is immoral, even if the pedophile or MAP is just being circumstantially inconsiderate or negligent or lacking in appropriate risk aversion and the anti-pedo/MAP people are inherently immoral in devaluing children's sexual pleasure or trying to prime them to feel bad about something that might otherwise not cause them pain; something other than someone devaluing their happiness/suffering which we should condemn even when it doesn't 'bother' us. It's not lost on me that the pedophile/MAP might just not be very good at 'calculating' practical long-term consequences as opposed to being 'inconsiderate' but if he is a decent person he has to want to avoid contributing to child suffering), will my choice causally contribute to actual suffering that would not otherwise exist were it not for other people but also if not for my choice?

That's an interesting point, JGHeaven. I lean toward discouraging it in practice but without government coercion. I don't know if that sounds wishy washy. I would not have sex with an interested prepubescent child (if I were even physically capable of that, and I have to be honest my non-exclusive general preference would be for girls/women in their teens, twenties and thirties anyway), and I would advise other adults to avoid sexual relationships with children as well (one possible exception might be if there is an already established relationship, so it seems to me that if it's going to be harmful that's already been set in motion. I don't know if that makes sense). Sexual frustration is something to consider and I acknowledge that you can just as well regret the absence of childhood or adolescent sexual experiences. I'd also add that there's probably no practically possible society in which I don't think we should discourage parent-child sex (when the child is a dependent. There was this controversial story years ago about an Australian woman who started a relationship with her biological father whom she met for the first time as an adult. That is a non-issue as far as I'm concerned and definitely not what I'm talking about), and maybe teacher-student sex as well, not because parent-child sex is inherently bad but because of the various risks that come with that relationship (I am too lazy to spell some of them out at the moment). At the same time, the last thing I want to do is to promote the idea that child-adult sex is inherently bad (with the extremely hypothetical girl who was interested in me, for example, I would say that I don't think our being intimate in that way would be inherently bad but I wouldn't want to do something that might end up hurting her. It is strange to me that I might receive some backlash if I said something like, "you are a beautiful girl, but I would never want to hurt you" because just acknowledging the attraction is taboo, and in this scenario it's not likely to make her uncomfortable if the attraction is mutual). I don't know what my practical age limit would be (an 18-year-old could, in retrospect, come to see herself as having been exploited by me, even though she's probably cognitively sharper at 18 than I am at 39, and at least the 'official' stance as represented through the law is that it is permissible, although it's still taboo as a general cultural norm). I'm open to a lot of feedback about this.

One thing that bothers me about the stigmatization of pedophilia itself is that cognitive development has nothing to do with the physical features that make someone sexually attractive (a man could use a real-life child's likeness to create a fantasy person who had full adult cognition, in the same way that when he fantasizes about a character in a movie or tv show he's thinking about the character and not the actress who plays her), which, again, has nothing to do with my core stance on pedophilia and a lot of pedophiles will have crushes on the actual girls they're physically attracted to or be turned on by their actual personalities etc.

Another thing that makes no sense to me is the stigmatization of relationships between minors or young adults and legal adults or older adults when the minor or younger party is at an age where it's socially acceptable for them to be sexually active, just not with adults or older adults (people generally don't have a problem with 16-year-olds, or 18-year-olds at least, having sexual or romantic relationships with similar-aged partners so if the stigma is rooted in harm reduction, I don't see why young people having sex full-stop is considered fundamentally benign or inappropriate based on the age of their partner. If heroin is bad for you the age of whoever sells it to you is irrelevant, even if they should know better which makes it more unjust that has nothing to do with an agenda of harm reduction ultimately. Not only are power imbalances not inherently implied by an age gap in a vacuum but they're only a problem if the more powerful party uses their power to harm the less powerful party, and they're generally unavoidable because even within age groups people have different strengths and weaknesses).

There is something genuinely harsh to me about telling a middle-aged or elderly person that they shouldn't have a crush on a 13-year-old or privately entertain certain sexual fantasies about them. This is honestly so brutal to me, I can at least understand asking that they keep their feelings/desires/fantasies to themselves or not act on them to avoid hurting people or making them uncomfortable.

[PorcelainLark]

I just don't think sex is that big of a deal. It's a physical action that triggers certain reactions in the body. People treat sex like it's some otherwordly ritual that needs years of training and expert precision to accomplish otherwise you'll summon forth an eldritch creature.

I think there's certain behaviors surrounding AMSC that are worth pushing back against. Once we get a sense of how those relationships can be moral, standards don't need to be as strict. I think first we need to demonstrate what healthy boundaries look like, and what's unacceptable; further down the line I think enthusiastic engagement might be the main thing that matters.

I think the taboo on (and criminalization of) AMSC has had a harmful effect on those relationships when they do exist. For example, lying about the nature of sexual act as a way of keeping it secret.

If people can get an intuitive sense of what these relationships should look like when they're healthy, then we can be more liberal. Though I do agree, in principle that people over complicate sex.