The Million Dollar Question: Age of Consent

[BLueRibbon]

At Mu, we take no firm position on the pro-c/anti-c debate. However, we do encourage polite debate among community members, especially on our forum.

Fragment and I, as individuals, will be endorsing an Age of Consent of 12 with extra protections. We're still working on the details of how those extra protections might work.

What do you propose as an alternative to a flat AoC of 16 or 18? Or do you agree with the current system?

[Fragment]

There are two questions I'd like people to think about depending on their contact stance?

To anti-c people:
What do you think is a fair and just punishment for an adult who has non-forced sex with a competent minor?

To pro-c people:
What do you think is the biggest factor that makes consent difficult for a minor to give freely to an adult?


I honestly think these two questions get ignored by each side. Having a little more humility about our own positions and answering these questions may lead us to more of a middle ground.

[BLueRibbon]

One thing I've been thinking about is how people talk of a power imbalance in AMSC. It may apply to young children, but I don't think it applies to teens. As I will explain in an upcoming essay:

One of the arguments used against AMSC is that there is a power imbalance. It is said that children are eager to please, powerless against adult authority, and easily manipulated. While this may be partly true when talking about children, these are not traits that we typically associate with teens. Except when we talk about AMSC, adolescents are generally described as disobedient, rebellious, antagonistic, unwilling to yield to authority figures, and highly skilled at manipulation.

On the question of vulnerability to power imbalances, children and teens are simply not in the same league. Given the highly anti-social traits of teens, the likelihood of the exploitation of a power imbalance is no more of a risk than it would be in many adult relationships. Indeed, there are many countries that still have horribly poor attitudes to women, where men are firmly in charge, and these countries do not outright prohibit sex between men and women.

Why do people pretend that teens are like children, and so vulnerable to adults?

[Artaxerxes II]

One thing I've been thinking about is how people talk of a power imbalance in AMSC. It may apply to young children, but I don't think it applies to teens. As I will explain in an upcoming essay:

One of the arguments used against AMSC is that there is a power imbalance. It is said that children are eager to please, powerless against adult authority, and easily manipulated. While this may be partly true when talking about children, these are not traits that we typically associate with teens. Except when we talk about AMSC, adolescents are generally described as disobedient, rebellious, antagonistic, unwilling to yield to authority figures, and highly skilled at manipulation.

On the question of vulnerability to power imbalances, children and teens are simply not in the same league. Given the highly anti-social traits of teens, the likelihood of the exploitation of a power imbalance is no more of a risk than it would be in many adult relationships. Indeed, there are many countries that still have horribly poor attitudes to women, where men are firmly in charge, and these countries do not outright prohibit sex between men and women.

Why do people pretend that teens are like children, and so vulnerable to adults?

Probably because:

1) They never met an actual teen, so their conception is based upon media stereotypes
2) They lie to themselves about teens being vulnerable so that they can keep believing in falsehoods
3) Going back to point 2, pretending that all under-18s are the same in terms of cognitive capacities allows them to keep up with the myth that teens are very vulnerable to adults.
4) The myth of the "brain development stops at 25" has caused people to see anyone below the age of 25 as being too mentally impaired for anything, not least for sex.
5) Standard pre-occupations about teen pregnancies and how that means the only solution is prohibiting intergenerational sex (at least for antis).

I could cite more reasons, but they go back to pretty much most if not all of the 5 points that I've enumerated here.

[Fragment]

I actually think how many antis related to children is inherently disempowering and they raise lying and people-pleasing children/ teens.

Some teens probably do have a hard time contradicting an adult to their face (of course, many adults do with same age peers, too), but I think this is partly caused by parents that have raised them with a strong vertical hierarchy. Raising kids capable of giving consent (or not as the situation may be) has benefits that go far beyond just sexual contexts.

[Rin]

One thing I've been thinking about is how people talk of a power imbalance in AMSC. It may apply to young children, but I don't think it applies to teens. As I will explain in an upcoming essay:

One of the arguments used against AMSC is that there is a power imbalance. It is said that children are eager to please, powerless against adult authority, and easily manipulated. While this may be partly true when talking about children, these are not traits that we typically associate with teens. Except when we talk about AMSC, adolescents are generally described as disobedient, rebellious, antagonistic, unwilling to yield to authority figures, and highly skilled at manipulation.

On the question of vulnerability to power imbalances, children and teens are simply not in the same league. Given the highly anti-social traits of teens, the likelihood of the exploitation of a power imbalance is no more of a risk than it would be in many adult relationships. Indeed, there are many countries that still have horribly poor attitudes to women, where men are firmly in charge, and these countries do not outright prohibit sex between men and women.

Why do people pretend that teens are like children, and so vulnerable to adults?

That is a narrative that NGOs are spreading for the sake of the UNCRC, it is completely intentional and they themselves have said that their intention is for all societies to see all people under certain ages as children, mainly by principles of "social equality".

[WandersGlade]

The question is, what is for a person to have the capacity to consent? If we take the bare minimum of 12, it roughly corresponds to what Piaget calls the "formal operational stage".

The final stage is known as the formal operational stage (early to middle adolescence, beginning at age 11 and finalizing around 14–15): Intelligence is demonstrated through the logical use of symbols related to abstract concepts. This form of thought includes "assumptions that have no necessary relation to reality." At this point, the person is capable of hypothetical and deductive reasoning. During this time, people develop the ability to think about abstract concepts.
Piaget stated that "hypothetico-deductive reasoning" becomes important during the formal operational stage. This type of thinking involves hypothetical "what-if" situations that are not always rooted in reality, i.e. counterfactual thinking.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piaget's_ ... onal_stage

If you look at Shauna Rae, who stop developing from the age of 8 due to a form of cancer, it suggests that limitation may not be about physical development. Perhaps changes in education could lead to children cognitively developing faster.

[Artaxerxes II]

I get what you're saying, but I wouldn't rely on Piaget's studies alone too much, since he had his own biases plus his research was conducted on a small sample of exclusively western youths, meaning that it can't be generalised to the general global population. And besides, his findings on toddlers has been questioned. Take a look at this article. By Piaget's findings, one would have to conclude that children younger than 12 can't think in abstracts or philosophise, and yet that's not the case here:

https://archive.ph/AvtJK

While I get what you're saying, I thought that this would be a helpful reminder on Piaget.

[WandersGlade]

I get what you're saying, but I wouldn't rely on Piaget's studies alone too much, since he had his own biases plus his research was conducted on a small sample of exclusively western youths, meaning that it can't be generalised to the general global population. And besides, his findings on toddlers has been questioned. Take a look at this article. By Piaget's findings, one would have to conclude that children younger than 12 can't think in abstracts or philosophise, and yet that's not the case here:

https://archive.ph/AvtJK

While I get what you're saying, I thought that this would be a helpful reminder on Piaget.

I tried to find an alternative before using Piaget, but the point of my argument is that his cognitive functions can occur earlier than he said. I used this because I couldn't find any evidence of exact brain differences once children are older than three (i.e. it's all mid points through a continuous process of development after that). I'm mostly interested in Piaget for the terminology he develops from the describing cognitive functions, not because I necessarily agree with his theories.
Generally my approach to problems is to try to be very conservative in my answers (e.g. I'd give a lowest estimation of numbers of MAPs in the population) and to try to make tough cases first (e.g. making the case that statutory rape is discriminatory towards MAPs, because I think if you can successfully make that case, every other argument becomes easier). I want to "checkmate" the people we're arguing with.
For my purposes, it doesn't really matter that his theory is based off of only a Western sample, since I would have used evidence from non-Western cultures to show that children could display cognitive I had found it. There was one poorly digitalized study that showed Ethiopian children displayed the formal operational stage by the age of 10, but I didn't include it because the copy I found was hard to read and 10 isn't much different from 11. My intuition says displaying the traits of the formal operational stage should be possible a lot earlier.

As for what it has to do with consent, initially I was trying to work backwards from why a person would say 12 should be the age of consent. My current theory (although not one I'm hugely invested in) is that consent has to do with counterfactual reasoning. Like considering if you would regret having sex later, considering potential consequences of participating in a sexual act, etc.
Ultimately I had hoped to provide an argument for the age of consent to be 7 or 8, but because I couldn't point to any specific brain difference that develops at that point, I had look for other ways of describing the differences children display as they get older.

[Fragment]

In my case 12 is largely anecdotal and coincides with the end of elementary education. And it roughly correlates with an age where most youths have started maturing sexually (puberty). And it's the age that exists as an absolute age of consent in multiple English-speaking jurisdictions already.

If you ask "when do some kids naturally start playing around sexually?" most progressively minded people will admit that it starts to happen "around 12".

There are, of course, debates to be had about earlier ages. Some non-Western tribal cultures have practised sexual acts with pre-pubescents with no observable harms. Yet in our western context "12" is a pretty big deal. The Netherlands set it at 12 for slightly over a decade and the political move to change it from that "12" was not based on harms caused by the old system, as far as I'm aware.