FairBlueLove wrote: Wed Sep 04, 2024 9:30 pm
It's kind of funny... Choice n.2 didn't receive any vote, yet - assuming I understood it correctly - that reflects how we treat children in many accepted instances (school, religion...).
I voted for #2. I am ultimately only concerned with suffering and happiness.
Because the experienced non-fulfillment of desire is inherently painful (if it doesn't cause actual pain at any given moment, it necessarily primes us to respond negatively to it) the bare minimum is that the child does not have a desire to avoid sexual or physical contact with the adult. People clearly define 'consent' in a way that transcends whether or not a child has a desire to have certain actual physical intimacy with an adult at any given moment (the context that they supposedly don't understand is the 'meaning' of sex, that or the long-term emotional consequences which are impossible to predict even for adults and if they've ever masturbated they know what orgasm feels like). I would consider how the perception of not having legitimately consented to something in the past affects someone but, again, I am ultimately concerned with felt emotional harm. Causing someone unnecessary pain with their full consent is wrong, causing someone pleasure that they haven't consented to is good.
It complicates things a little if we get into the differences between bad, wrong and permissible. You can't eliminate the possibility of harm but I think the assumption has to be that the risk or cost is relatively low or that the possible benefits are worth it (and that includes the 'negative benefits' that come with not forbidding a relationship). It's easier to just say that child/minor-adult sex is bad if children/minors suffer as a result because some people might read the worst into "it's the wrong choice to make (in terms of actual consequences) if it causes *unnecessary* suffering" (they might assume that I would defend some practically ridiculous scenario where raping someone could be justified because the rapist would benefit so much more than the victim would suffer; people might accuse me of being overly concerned with the theoretical in defending child-adult relationships in some fantasy scenarios at least but the difference would be that there's no hypothetical scenario where causing anyone any degree of pain wouldn't be a bad thing, even if it could be justified, so there's a reason to prefer that 'rape' could never be justified and no reason to prefer that children could never engage in harmless, mutually pleasurable intimacy with an adult or one another. To add on to that- with this specific scenario, the rapist almost certainly could not value their victim's happiness if their suffering doesn't bother him or her enough for him or her to be 'turned off') and in general something being bad (i.e. causing pain to someone) can be known by at least one person, but there could always be some unresolvable debate about which choice in practice would have been best or the long-term benefit etc. and we have to act on the options available to us (who knows what we could do that we're not aware of) etc. You can conk someone on the nose and claim that it's for their long-term good, it may or may not be, but one of the appealing features of (hedonistic) consequentialism is that it puts some respect on the suffering that the patient in any given scenario actually feels regardless of the actor's intentions or whether or not the choice that has caused them harm is ultimately justifiable.
I think it would help if we were brutally honest about the reasons why people (adults included) tend to regret certain sexual experiences. What comes to mind is:
-the post coital hangover
-not being as physically attracted to one's partner as you assumed you would be
-your partner might not be someone you would want to be emotionally intimate with if you were approaching things with a clear mind so when actual desire fades you're stuck with having been intimate with someone you don't like
-the shame of having done something that one has been 'brainwashed' into viewing as inherently dirty or inappropriate (deep down inside, I think most people see sex as 'unwholesome' by default at least, although the context that might justify it is marriage or a committed long-term monogamous relationship)
I think the post-coital hangover (which wouldn't last long just from a hormonal standpoint, I don't experience it personally) would be helped by 1) not having affection-less sex with someone you can't see yourself sharing some emotional intimacy or basic friendship with in the absence of sexual desire and 2) letting go of the idea that harmless sex between people who value each other's welfare is inherently dirty, unwholesome or inappropriate, that covers the last and second-last points as well.
I vaguely remember that I used to feel a little guilty after I masturbated and that stopped when I adopted my basic worldview (all happiness is inherently good, only suffering is inherently bad). I regretted the first sexual experience I ever had because I wasn't as physically attracted to the girl as I assumed I would be (I couldn't get hard enough for vaginal sex so we mostly just made out and performed oral sex on each other); even though I was on friendly terms with her and talked to her online long after, the second woman (escort) used a fake picture but I was still relatively attracted to her (and she was a nice woman), but she had a no-kissing policy and I remember regretting it as well immediately after (even though it's the only semi-positive sex memory I have now. Sex without kissing isn't something I would be interested in though, I wouldn't knowingly agree to that), I wasn't remotely attracted to the third woman (another escort who used a fake picture) but maybe because she was open to kissing I don't remember regretting it immediately after (in fact, I felt more affectionate and empathetic the day/s after because of that basic human affection. It's the same thing with the first girl, even though she wasn't my type I remembered that I actually enjoyed kissing her on some level) even though, in retrospect, it is the single least favorable sex memory that I have now.
Even when we talk about prostitution, the arguments against it tend to center around the idea that hetero-sex is inherently degrading to women (because who really cares about male escorts) without redeeming context. We're never honest about why prostitution might be a high-stress job (beyond the physical danger that can come without it not being legal)- the mostly likely reasons (that I can immediately think of) being the internalized shame of doing something so degrading and inappropriate and 'immoral' and the disgust you might feel as a result of sleeping with people you're not physically attracted to, but what about attractive clients? Is it deeply exploitative then? What about other high-stress jobs that most people find disgusting (e.g. sewage work or whatever), is that exploitative albeit to a lesser degree?