I used to disagree with the notion that teenagers where children. Heres what changed my mind
Posted: Sat Sep 06, 2025 5:41 pm
I, like many other maps, used to see teenagers as adolecents or young adults, but because of this reddit post on the youth rights forum, I have changed my mind. It actually benefits are cause, espcially for those of us into prepubscent children who also want more rights for prepubscent children, to consider teenagers children.Heres the reddit post.
“I'm more interested in why adults (including some of you here) think children are inferior to teenagers. Why you so keen to maintain the difference? a difference which is artificial btw - just like the adult/child patriarchal construct.
and if you say "because puberty" I wonder why you're so keen to let a sexual process that often begins around 8, sometimes earlier, happens to everyone at different times over a number of years be some kind of defining difference?
like why are you so hellbent on defining people by biological processes they have no control over? Have you learned nothing from trans people? Or racial phrenology? This has never ended well for humanity ever.
Is it because you're attached to the idea? Maybe because it's all you know? What's the point when everyone under 18 is considered property and thus oppressed?
You're also ignoring the potential BENEFITS to teens being considered / or recognized as children. To be a child means to be oppressed. it's to have your world controlled and your mind and body owned. It's objectively a *good* thing to recognize how this still applies to teens imo.
Teens don't have autonomy, are still considered property, and whatever incremental agency they are granted - if at all - is conditional and can just as easily be revoked.
The point remains that yes even at 17, you are still closer to "child" status than "adult" because that's how brutally oppressive being property is.
I get being concerned in the context of using the "child" definition to further strip rights from teens - and it's a legit convo that needs to be had.
but in terms of definitions, i urge all of you to ask yourself why it's so important to cling to the "teenager" concept? If children were liberated, "teenage" as a construct would have little distinguishing factors beyond simply being a numerical descriptor (assuming we still measure age in a chronological way - it will probably be seen as old fashioned to by then)
anyway, to answer your general question - an increase in absurdity with oppressors takes is to be expected and represents the outflow before the youth liberation tsunami.
Whenever oppressors become conscious that they're in the wrong and there's a chance of the oppressed rising up they tighten their grip. They start to push for even more preposterously oppressive ideas (i don't necessarily think recognizing "teens" as "children" is always that... I think it's more a result of people waking up to how oppressed teens are) it's a sign they know what's coming and that they're losing control. They know it's coming because kids have phones and can organize and connect like never before.
The oppressed also feel this shift, and some will also double down on justifying their oppression - because it's familiar and feels "safe" despite them knowing deep down it isn't, it just feels like the lesser of two evils. adult supremacy is all encompassing so the rationale becomes "what choice do we have" "just sit it out because I will have rights eventually" etc
but no-one can stop youth liberation, the backlash to the takes that annoy you so may get less attention but they are always be bubbling under the surface will only grow - because they are true and kids can see that.”
“I'm more interested in why adults (including some of you here) think children are inferior to teenagers. Why you so keen to maintain the difference? a difference which is artificial btw - just like the adult/child patriarchal construct.“
This sentence right here is what changed my mind. The redditor is 100% correct. A “child” is an artficial, arbritray, and constantly changing and evolving social construct that hasnt even existed for the majority of human history. Same with the concept of “adult”. For most of humanity, there was no distinction between “child” and “adult”, we were just people. A “child” is just as much of a made up concept as an “adult”. It isnt even consistent. Not culturally, not biologically, not legally.
Some people will say that childhood should be a biological distinction, but
1.Biology is constantly changing. In some parts of history, and in some countries, the normal age for puberty is 10-12 In others, it is 15-17. In modern day America, the normal age to get your period is around 12, in the past people didnt get their periods on average till 16. Not to mention, what is classified as “biologically” a child is constantly changing. Some people classify a biological child as anyone who isnt fully grown in the sense of puberty, so someone who hasnt finished puberty. Some people classify a child as someone who isnt fully grown in the sense of full physical growth(as in, every single part of your body is fully grown), and in that case, anyone under 25 could be classified as a child, since your wisdom teeth can take up to your mid twenties to grow in. Some consider a biological child to be someone who hasnt even reached puberty. These classifications are all artficial.
Legally a child is constantly changing as well. In puerto rico, I would be a child since im under 21, but in Virginia, I would be an adult. In cuba, I wouldve BEEN an adult since 16.
Culturally, it is also arbitrary. In the past days of Europe and America, the age of adulthood was 21. Teenagers werent considered children, but before the 1800s, they weren't considered adolescents either, because like with childhood and adulthood, the concept of “adolescents” is a made up cultural norm(thats why it is constantly changing and varying between culture in time period, why in some countries and tribes it doesnt even exist, in others, it is 12-17, and in western countries, adolescents is now being classified till 21 or even 24, it doesn't mean anyone is wrong, it just proves that it is a made up construct based in social norms instead of a physical reality). So you have a group of people who are fighting in wars, getting married, participating in politics, tending to the family farm, who arent considered adults in the legal sense but are viewed as adults in general society. It was until the 1800s that femminists started fighting for teens to be viewed as adolescents or even children. (Not to mention, in some cultures, adolecents is an inbetween stage between adulthood and childhood, in others, it is young adulthood, in places like America, it is viewed as a form of childhood).
So like the redditor said, the difference between a “child” and an “adult” is completely artficial, and you are running in circles trying to catch your own tail if you try to solidly define what a child is an adult is. It makes the most sense to just go by what the dominant definition in your country is. And in my country a child is anyone under the age of majoirty, 18. The only thing I disagree on is that is a “patriarchal” construct. I dont know what modern day leftists hate boner is with the patriarchy, they just blame any and all things that they dont like or find oppressive on men and men being in positions of power. They act like we would all be happy little hippies without a care in the world if society was run by women instead, it makes no sense.
Especially not in this context, when it was the women, the femminists, who fought so hard to create a strict black and white line between childhood and adulthood and continue to fight for increasing laws to make children and adults even more seperate. So if anything, child/adult is a matriarchal concept, not a patriarchal concept. But anyone, the point is, being child doesnt mean shit about who you are as a person and your capabillities, neither does adult. All these sterotypes and myths about children being “innocent”, “pure” “naturally dependent”, are just that, myths. They arent true, not even for actual prepubscents. That would only apply to infants and maybe toddlers. Theres 6 year olds who shoot up schools, 8 year olds who commit suicide, 10 year olds who rape and kidnap toddlers, 5 year olds who torture small animals.
Theres 9 year olds in war torn countries looking out for themselves, not dependent on any adult, taking care of their own needs completely on their own. I think thats why people, espcially MAPs, fight so hard against the notion of teens being children, because they have this sterotype in their mind that children are incapable, naturally inferior to adults, and “innocent” and “asexual”. Which just isnt true no matter what age group of child you refer to(except for like, babies and toddlers ig). But hanging on to the stereotype that children are inferior to adults and “pure” and “asexual” does absolutely nothing to benefit our cause. Because children of any age break those sterotypes day by day, and both MAPs and children are opressed based on said sterotypes, so why are we upholding them?
Yeah the difference between an 18 and 17 year old is arbritrary, yeah 17 year olds are completely capable of being independent and are sexual beings who are artificially restricted based on ageists myths and feminist infantilization, who are restricted from life saving information because it is “inappropriate”, who aren't given responsibilities that they are more than capable of handling based on bs myths, who get a slap on the wrist for their shitty actions despite being fully capable of understanding the consequences of their actions and facing said consequences, which is why it is so IMPORTANT for us to call them children, because that is the reality of what being a child is. Being restricted and opressed and sheltered and seperated from the “real world” based on made up and culturally enforced sterotypes about your age group. If calling teens children is what it takes to point out how ridiculous the concept of childhoodis, at least modern day childhood is in the first place, then I fully support it.
“Teens don't have autonomy, are still considered property, and whatever incremental agency they are granted - if at all - is conditional and can just as easily be revoked.
The point remains that yes even at 17, you are still closer to "child" status than "adult" because that's how brutally oppressive being property is.”
Another good point that highlights that there is no real distinction between a “child” and an “adult” that is not abritrayr and culturally influnced. It has no strict biological basis, legal basis, or cultural basis. A child is whatever the majoirty of your culture says is a child. Your a child when you are considered a child, you are an adult when you are considered an adult. Sometimes this is based on biology, sometimes this is based on cultural status, sometimes this is based on hard legal lines. In the modern day, it is based on hard legal lines, but no matter how you base it will be an artficial and arbritray classification with plenty of excpetions. In the past I would have said that a 17 year old is closer to a 21 year old then a 3 year old, but after really doing some hard thinking on how society classifies children and adults, and how obssesive antis are with the “minor” label, and how society treats minors vs legal adults, I was wrong. Obviously a 17 year old has slightly more legal and cultural rights and rsponsibillities than a 5 year old, but because of the hard legal line between a minor and a legal adult, and how much westerners worship said hard legal line as a objective truth, it really isnt the case at all. Espcially nowadays, as each decade, femminists raise the age for certain rights and repsonsibillities formly awarded to minors higher and higher. The answer isnt to go “teens arent children so they deserve basic human autonomy and rights”. The answer is “teens ARE children, which is why they deserve basic human autonomy and rights, just like children of any age”.
Some will say that sexual maturity makes a huge difference which is why teens should be seen seperately from prepubscents despite being on pretty much the same level legally and socially. But I disagree, at least when it comes to the 21st century, with modern advancements like abortion and birth control. With trans adults artficially going through puberty with hrt and preteens and teens artificially stopping puberty with puberty blockers. Wether you can bust a nut and get a chick pregnant, or get pregant, USED to be a HUGE DEAL back before condoms and birth control and puberty blockers, which is why becoming physically capable of doing such a thing was used as the marker of adulthood. But modern science has leveled the playing field.
And also, the seperation between childhood and adulthood? How comes adults are expected to slave way at corporate hell with no play until 60 or 70 when they are expected to just lay down and die, but children are allowed and even encouraged to play? How come adults arent allowed to express their emotions freely but children are? How come adults arent given real legal and social protections but children are? How come adults face more consequnces than children, despite age not defining how serious your action was or how well you repsond to the punishment? Now you could say “well adults are more devloped then kids” and to that I say, not necessarily, there are plenty of exceptions, and even the non exceptions are molded by the culture and social expectations of their society. And also, just because I have been alive for longer means I dont get to play? That I dont get to explore or have fun? That I dont get to be emotional? That I automatically desrve less social and legal grace and support? Why am I being punished for being alive for longer? How come saying “a child was murdered” deserves a more drastic and emotional response than “an adult was murdered”. Are the lives of adults less valuable and important than the lives of children? How come children get to be a precious and valuable resources when adults get to be thrown away as disposable objects in cases like war or prison? Who's really oppressing who?
“but in terms of definitions, i urge all of you to ask yourself why it's so important to cling to the "teenager" concept? If children were liberated, "teenage" as a construct would have little distinguishing factors beyond simply being a numerical descriptor (assuming we still measure age in a chronological way - it will probably be seen as old fashioned to by then)”
I agree, being a teenager used to be more culturally sugnificant a couple decades ago, but now teens are loosing their rights, and we need to acknowledge that and get ALL children rights instead of clinging to the idea that teens arent children and thus are the only group of minors that deserve rights or shouldnt be minors in the first place. Ith the way minors are opressed in society, id argue that NO ONE deserves to be a minor. Its such an unatural, hypocritcal, and abusive position to be in, but id also argue that being a legal adult isnt much better. No legal or social freedom but no reponsibillities and full support and grace, vs some legal and social freedom but full responsbillities and no support or grace. Hell, the concept of a “teenager” didnt even exist before the 1900s.
Even when it comes to blatant infantilization. Ive seen people calling 15 year olds prepubsecent and calling 16 year olds little girls in response to “sexualization”. The answer isnt to go “teens arent prepubscent or little girls which is why they can consent and it isnt wrong to find them sexually attractive.” The answer should be “yeah, sure they are little girls, and little girls can consent.” “Yeah, and prepubscents are still sexual people and theres nothing wrong with finding them attractive”. When someone calls a 17 year old a “child” in response to them being sexual, your response shouldnt be “they arent children so its ok to sexualize them because unlike children they are sexual beings and sex wont harm them. The response should be “they are children, and its ok to sexualize them because children ARE sexual beings and sex wont harm them”.
Teens arent special or deserving of special rights and reponisbillties compared to prepubescents just because they have started or finished puberty. Especially since ages of puberty vary from person to person, culture to culture, time period to time period, and in the modern day, can be artficially stopped or extended with things like hrt or puberty blockers. Teens arent extra special and deserving of more sexual autonomy just because they have started or finished puberty. Children who haven't started puberty can be just as sexually capable and sexually interested as children who are going through it or have finished it, the only exception being pregnancy, which once again, isnt even significant in a world of birth control and abortions. So I urge you to stop using the “biological” definition of childhood, because there is no “biological” defintion of childhood, since biology is constantly changing and constantly classified as different things, and childhood is based on a social construct, not on biology, at least not in the modern day, and you arent “more” or “less” deserving of autonomy based on your biology in the first place. So yes, teenagers are children. Should they be considered children? Thats a different question. Should you have less rights and autonomy and reponsibility just because you are a child? Thats an even better question thats more important than the question of wether teens are children or not. If calling teenagers children is what it takes to point out the absurd and abusive legal and social rules placed on minors, if calling teens children is what it takes to even the playing field between prepubscents and pubscents/postpubsecents, then I am all for it
“I'm more interested in why adults (including some of you here) think children are inferior to teenagers. Why you so keen to maintain the difference? a difference which is artificial btw - just like the adult/child patriarchal construct.
and if you say "because puberty" I wonder why you're so keen to let a sexual process that often begins around 8, sometimes earlier, happens to everyone at different times over a number of years be some kind of defining difference?
like why are you so hellbent on defining people by biological processes they have no control over? Have you learned nothing from trans people? Or racial phrenology? This has never ended well for humanity ever.
Is it because you're attached to the idea? Maybe because it's all you know? What's the point when everyone under 18 is considered property and thus oppressed?
You're also ignoring the potential BENEFITS to teens being considered / or recognized as children. To be a child means to be oppressed. it's to have your world controlled and your mind and body owned. It's objectively a *good* thing to recognize how this still applies to teens imo.
Teens don't have autonomy, are still considered property, and whatever incremental agency they are granted - if at all - is conditional and can just as easily be revoked.
The point remains that yes even at 17, you are still closer to "child" status than "adult" because that's how brutally oppressive being property is.
I get being concerned in the context of using the "child" definition to further strip rights from teens - and it's a legit convo that needs to be had.
but in terms of definitions, i urge all of you to ask yourself why it's so important to cling to the "teenager" concept? If children were liberated, "teenage" as a construct would have little distinguishing factors beyond simply being a numerical descriptor (assuming we still measure age in a chronological way - it will probably be seen as old fashioned to by then)
anyway, to answer your general question - an increase in absurdity with oppressors takes is to be expected and represents the outflow before the youth liberation tsunami.
Whenever oppressors become conscious that they're in the wrong and there's a chance of the oppressed rising up they tighten their grip. They start to push for even more preposterously oppressive ideas (i don't necessarily think recognizing "teens" as "children" is always that... I think it's more a result of people waking up to how oppressed teens are) it's a sign they know what's coming and that they're losing control. They know it's coming because kids have phones and can organize and connect like never before.
The oppressed also feel this shift, and some will also double down on justifying their oppression - because it's familiar and feels "safe" despite them knowing deep down it isn't, it just feels like the lesser of two evils. adult supremacy is all encompassing so the rationale becomes "what choice do we have" "just sit it out because I will have rights eventually" etc
but no-one can stop youth liberation, the backlash to the takes that annoy you so may get less attention but they are always be bubbling under the surface will only grow - because they are true and kids can see that.”
“I'm more interested in why adults (including some of you here) think children are inferior to teenagers. Why you so keen to maintain the difference? a difference which is artificial btw - just like the adult/child patriarchal construct.“
This sentence right here is what changed my mind. The redditor is 100% correct. A “child” is an artficial, arbritray, and constantly changing and evolving social construct that hasnt even existed for the majority of human history. Same with the concept of “adult”. For most of humanity, there was no distinction between “child” and “adult”, we were just people. A “child” is just as much of a made up concept as an “adult”. It isnt even consistent. Not culturally, not biologically, not legally.
Some people will say that childhood should be a biological distinction, but
1.Biology is constantly changing. In some parts of history, and in some countries, the normal age for puberty is 10-12 In others, it is 15-17. In modern day America, the normal age to get your period is around 12, in the past people didnt get their periods on average till 16. Not to mention, what is classified as “biologically” a child is constantly changing. Some people classify a biological child as anyone who isnt fully grown in the sense of puberty, so someone who hasnt finished puberty. Some people classify a child as someone who isnt fully grown in the sense of full physical growth(as in, every single part of your body is fully grown), and in that case, anyone under 25 could be classified as a child, since your wisdom teeth can take up to your mid twenties to grow in. Some consider a biological child to be someone who hasnt even reached puberty. These classifications are all artficial.
Legally a child is constantly changing as well. In puerto rico, I would be a child since im under 21, but in Virginia, I would be an adult. In cuba, I wouldve BEEN an adult since 16.
Culturally, it is also arbitrary. In the past days of Europe and America, the age of adulthood was 21. Teenagers werent considered children, but before the 1800s, they weren't considered adolescents either, because like with childhood and adulthood, the concept of “adolescents” is a made up cultural norm(thats why it is constantly changing and varying between culture in time period, why in some countries and tribes it doesnt even exist, in others, it is 12-17, and in western countries, adolescents is now being classified till 21 or even 24, it doesn't mean anyone is wrong, it just proves that it is a made up construct based in social norms instead of a physical reality). So you have a group of people who are fighting in wars, getting married, participating in politics, tending to the family farm, who arent considered adults in the legal sense but are viewed as adults in general society. It was until the 1800s that femminists started fighting for teens to be viewed as adolescents or even children. (Not to mention, in some cultures, adolecents is an inbetween stage between adulthood and childhood, in others, it is young adulthood, in places like America, it is viewed as a form of childhood).
So like the redditor said, the difference between a “child” and an “adult” is completely artficial, and you are running in circles trying to catch your own tail if you try to solidly define what a child is an adult is. It makes the most sense to just go by what the dominant definition in your country is. And in my country a child is anyone under the age of majoirty, 18. The only thing I disagree on is that is a “patriarchal” construct. I dont know what modern day leftists hate boner is with the patriarchy, they just blame any and all things that they dont like or find oppressive on men and men being in positions of power. They act like we would all be happy little hippies without a care in the world if society was run by women instead, it makes no sense.
Especially not in this context, when it was the women, the femminists, who fought so hard to create a strict black and white line between childhood and adulthood and continue to fight for increasing laws to make children and adults even more seperate. So if anything, child/adult is a matriarchal concept, not a patriarchal concept. But anyone, the point is, being child doesnt mean shit about who you are as a person and your capabillities, neither does adult. All these sterotypes and myths about children being “innocent”, “pure” “naturally dependent”, are just that, myths. They arent true, not even for actual prepubscents. That would only apply to infants and maybe toddlers. Theres 6 year olds who shoot up schools, 8 year olds who commit suicide, 10 year olds who rape and kidnap toddlers, 5 year olds who torture small animals.
Theres 9 year olds in war torn countries looking out for themselves, not dependent on any adult, taking care of their own needs completely on their own. I think thats why people, espcially MAPs, fight so hard against the notion of teens being children, because they have this sterotype in their mind that children are incapable, naturally inferior to adults, and “innocent” and “asexual”. Which just isnt true no matter what age group of child you refer to(except for like, babies and toddlers ig). But hanging on to the stereotype that children are inferior to adults and “pure” and “asexual” does absolutely nothing to benefit our cause. Because children of any age break those sterotypes day by day, and both MAPs and children are opressed based on said sterotypes, so why are we upholding them?
Yeah the difference between an 18 and 17 year old is arbritrary, yeah 17 year olds are completely capable of being independent and are sexual beings who are artificially restricted based on ageists myths and feminist infantilization, who are restricted from life saving information because it is “inappropriate”, who aren't given responsibilities that they are more than capable of handling based on bs myths, who get a slap on the wrist for their shitty actions despite being fully capable of understanding the consequences of their actions and facing said consequences, which is why it is so IMPORTANT for us to call them children, because that is the reality of what being a child is. Being restricted and opressed and sheltered and seperated from the “real world” based on made up and culturally enforced sterotypes about your age group. If calling teens children is what it takes to point out how ridiculous the concept of childhoodis, at least modern day childhood is in the first place, then I fully support it.
“Teens don't have autonomy, are still considered property, and whatever incremental agency they are granted - if at all - is conditional and can just as easily be revoked.
The point remains that yes even at 17, you are still closer to "child" status than "adult" because that's how brutally oppressive being property is.”
Another good point that highlights that there is no real distinction between a “child” and an “adult” that is not abritrayr and culturally influnced. It has no strict biological basis, legal basis, or cultural basis. A child is whatever the majoirty of your culture says is a child. Your a child when you are considered a child, you are an adult when you are considered an adult. Sometimes this is based on biology, sometimes this is based on cultural status, sometimes this is based on hard legal lines. In the modern day, it is based on hard legal lines, but no matter how you base it will be an artficial and arbritray classification with plenty of excpetions. In the past I would have said that a 17 year old is closer to a 21 year old then a 3 year old, but after really doing some hard thinking on how society classifies children and adults, and how obssesive antis are with the “minor” label, and how society treats minors vs legal adults, I was wrong. Obviously a 17 year old has slightly more legal and cultural rights and rsponsibillities than a 5 year old, but because of the hard legal line between a minor and a legal adult, and how much westerners worship said hard legal line as a objective truth, it really isnt the case at all. Espcially nowadays, as each decade, femminists raise the age for certain rights and repsonsibillities formly awarded to minors higher and higher. The answer isnt to go “teens arent children so they deserve basic human autonomy and rights”. The answer is “teens ARE children, which is why they deserve basic human autonomy and rights, just like children of any age”.
Some will say that sexual maturity makes a huge difference which is why teens should be seen seperately from prepubscents despite being on pretty much the same level legally and socially. But I disagree, at least when it comes to the 21st century, with modern advancements like abortion and birth control. With trans adults artficially going through puberty with hrt and preteens and teens artificially stopping puberty with puberty blockers. Wether you can bust a nut and get a chick pregnant, or get pregant, USED to be a HUGE DEAL back before condoms and birth control and puberty blockers, which is why becoming physically capable of doing such a thing was used as the marker of adulthood. But modern science has leveled the playing field.
And also, the seperation between childhood and adulthood? How comes adults are expected to slave way at corporate hell with no play until 60 or 70 when they are expected to just lay down and die, but children are allowed and even encouraged to play? How come adults arent allowed to express their emotions freely but children are? How come adults arent given real legal and social protections but children are? How come adults face more consequnces than children, despite age not defining how serious your action was or how well you repsond to the punishment? Now you could say “well adults are more devloped then kids” and to that I say, not necessarily, there are plenty of exceptions, and even the non exceptions are molded by the culture and social expectations of their society. And also, just because I have been alive for longer means I dont get to play? That I dont get to explore or have fun? That I dont get to be emotional? That I automatically desrve less social and legal grace and support? Why am I being punished for being alive for longer? How come saying “a child was murdered” deserves a more drastic and emotional response than “an adult was murdered”. Are the lives of adults less valuable and important than the lives of children? How come children get to be a precious and valuable resources when adults get to be thrown away as disposable objects in cases like war or prison? Who's really oppressing who?
“but in terms of definitions, i urge all of you to ask yourself why it's so important to cling to the "teenager" concept? If children were liberated, "teenage" as a construct would have little distinguishing factors beyond simply being a numerical descriptor (assuming we still measure age in a chronological way - it will probably be seen as old fashioned to by then)”
I agree, being a teenager used to be more culturally sugnificant a couple decades ago, but now teens are loosing their rights, and we need to acknowledge that and get ALL children rights instead of clinging to the idea that teens arent children and thus are the only group of minors that deserve rights or shouldnt be minors in the first place. Ith the way minors are opressed in society, id argue that NO ONE deserves to be a minor. Its such an unatural, hypocritcal, and abusive position to be in, but id also argue that being a legal adult isnt much better. No legal or social freedom but no reponsibillities and full support and grace, vs some legal and social freedom but full responsbillities and no support or grace. Hell, the concept of a “teenager” didnt even exist before the 1900s.
Even when it comes to blatant infantilization. Ive seen people calling 15 year olds prepubsecent and calling 16 year olds little girls in response to “sexualization”. The answer isnt to go “teens arent prepubscent or little girls which is why they can consent and it isnt wrong to find them sexually attractive.” The answer should be “yeah, sure they are little girls, and little girls can consent.” “Yeah, and prepubscents are still sexual people and theres nothing wrong with finding them attractive”. When someone calls a 17 year old a “child” in response to them being sexual, your response shouldnt be “they arent children so its ok to sexualize them because unlike children they are sexual beings and sex wont harm them. The response should be “they are children, and its ok to sexualize them because children ARE sexual beings and sex wont harm them”.
Teens arent special or deserving of special rights and reponisbillties compared to prepubescents just because they have started or finished puberty. Especially since ages of puberty vary from person to person, culture to culture, time period to time period, and in the modern day, can be artficially stopped or extended with things like hrt or puberty blockers. Teens arent extra special and deserving of more sexual autonomy just because they have started or finished puberty. Children who haven't started puberty can be just as sexually capable and sexually interested as children who are going through it or have finished it, the only exception being pregnancy, which once again, isnt even significant in a world of birth control and abortions. So I urge you to stop using the “biological” definition of childhood, because there is no “biological” defintion of childhood, since biology is constantly changing and constantly classified as different things, and childhood is based on a social construct, not on biology, at least not in the modern day, and you arent “more” or “less” deserving of autonomy based on your biology in the first place. So yes, teenagers are children. Should they be considered children? Thats a different question. Should you have less rights and autonomy and reponsibility just because you are a child? Thats an even better question thats more important than the question of wether teens are children or not. If calling teenagers children is what it takes to point out the absurd and abusive legal and social rules placed on minors, if calling teens children is what it takes to even the playing field between prepubscents and pubscents/postpubsecents, then I am all for it