AASECT discussion of agency and autonomy

[Fragment]

From their page on consent. I don't agree with everything they say about consent.

Consent must be freely given, reversible, informed, enthusiastic, and specific - meaning that all parties involved are free to give consent, revoke consent at any time, are informed about what they are consenting to, enthusiastic about the activities that they are going to engage in, and know specifically what they will be doing and with whom.

I don't think all of those factors are absolute requirements for sexual consent. Obviously I think the more factors achieved, the better. But I think when all of them are required and without even one of them you go to prison, that's setting the bar too high. For either adult-adult or adult-minor sex.

However I think their discussion of agency and autonomy are good:

Understanding the difference between agency and autonomy are essential to the conversations on consent. Autonomy is the ability to make a decision independent of others. Agency is the capacity and the capability to put into effect an autonomous decision. Capacity is defined as the mental, emotional, and physical awareness to make an autonomous decision. Capability is defined as the ability to make a decision without the fear of reprisal, loss of social status, violence, and being ostracized socially and professionally.

I don't see why adolescents would be considered incapable of consent based on this. Nor do I see any inherent reason to limit the choices of adolescents to near-age peers. In a very real sense we could say that the agency of adolescents is being arbitrarily take away as they are not granted the ability to make sexual decisions without the fear of reprisal. Nor are MAPs, for that matter.

[PorcelainLark]

I've been thinking lately that consent might be a red herring. I was talking on ATF today about why anti-contact MAPs still tend to judge AMSC as severely as non-MAPs. In other words, just because you think AMSC wrong, does that necessarily mean people are being proportional in their judgement of it?
I kind of feel like, even if you had solid evidence of minors capacity to consent, people would still justify their disgust of it. Maybe, like with homophobia, there could be a connection between the object of attraction and the object of repulsion: a masculine woman would be unattractive to a homophobic straight man. A teleiophile is potentially disgusted by MA because they are attracted to features of maturity. They can't disconnect their judgement of the attraction, from considering it from the first person themselves (e.g. I don't want to have sex with a man because it's disgusting, so no one else should want to either).

[Fragment]

I agree. I've been thinking for a while that the consent argument isn't really worth much and at best it's premature. The anti response isn't logical, it's a disgust response. If it were logical there would be more nuanced answers, but there aren't. Basically everyone is a mix of pro-c and anti-c after all. "Regular people" tend to agree with an AoC line at 16 or 18, but they're still drawing a line between "able" and "unable". Even the most extreme pro-c people don't usually advocate for penetration of babies, so even if they don't want the line drawn by age, they still agree with a line drawn by "capacity". I don't think anyone can be totally confident of where they draw their line, though. Even if "sex with minors" is harmful, is it as harmful for a 15 year old as an 8 year old? Why does it suddenly become harmless at 16? When are minors sexually interested? What is a healthy level of sexual engagement based on that interest? If an adult and teen are sexually active together, what level of punishment is proportionate to the harm? Focusing on an ephemeral concept like "consent" when there are other, more concrete questions that can't be answered, is strategically flawed. Even when talking about adults no-one knows what the fuck consent is any more.

Then, there's the disgust factor. Teleiophiles don't want us looking at kids' underwear catalogues to fuel our sexual fantasies. Even though that's legal and victimless. They don't want us looking at loli and shota. Even though it's victimless. They don't want us using AI to generate nudes of imaginary kids. Even though it's victimless. They don't want us buying child sex dolls. Even though they're victimless. Because all of that is disgusting. "Who would even do that?" That's where, even though I kind of agree with a post on fedi the other day that said "Prostasia are class traitors" I wonder if they're necessary. One of their main missions seems to be promoting victimless sexual outlets for MAPs. Unless our "disgusting" attraction can be accepted there will be no reform.

I think we need to find ways for people to accept our attraction without thinking about it too much, like they did with gay people. If people consciously thought of gay sex as "and then they eat the poo poo" all the time, sodomy and gay marriage would never have been legalized. But focusing on creepy "but little girls are so adorable and sweet" messaging won't help either, because it's outside of how they experience minors in their world. The more we can explain our attraction in terms similar to theirs, the more effective our messaging will be. But we do need to find effective ways to defuse the "but it's not the same because you're attracted to someone who can't consent" line that often comes out.

[PorcelainLark]

I think I mostly agree. (Though I would hesitate about the question of when minors start to be sexually interested; since people always have the unassailable claim that sexual interest is the result of early exposure to sex, i.e. something external*. Also, is it wrong to talk to asexuals about sex? If not, what difference does it make whether there is an internal interest in sex?)

I think maybe starting to use cognitive behavioral therapy on the disgust of antis against MA might help. Like questioning what makes sexual contact so terrible? This article talks about applying CBT to homophobia, perhaps we could adapt it for applying it to antis?
https://cbtgym.com/overcome-homophobia-with-cbt/

However, it's a bit of a digression from the topic at hand.

* You could flip the argument. Aren't we trained from an early age to avoid anything sexual: to be clothed at all times, not to spy on the naked bodies of others, not to touch our genitals? Is the innocence of sexuality really a natural state, or something conditioned?

[Lennon72]

What is AASECT?

[Fragment]

What is AASECT?

American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists

They're not explicitly pro-MAP, but they're sex-positive including for "age appropriate" minor sexuality. I assume some of their members even understand that adult-minor sexual contact isn't inherently harmful, too.