Thread: The War on Child Porn: A witch hunt?

Originally Posted by Syme

Yeah, that may be, but that law can't work that way for obvious reasons. The law has to pick some magic number, whether it's 16 or 18 or 21 or whatever, when people are entitled to be considered an adult under the law. I know it's arbitrary, but what's the alternative? Have every person reach legal adulthood at a different age, based on when they reach a certain point in their sexual or physical development? Who evaluates that? And what exactly would be the magic point in the gradual process of sexual/physical development that defines sexual/physical adulthood and therefore legal adulthood? You'd have to pick one, and ultimately it would be just as arbitrary as picking a magic age... except it would be a lot more of a hassle to determine when each person had passed that point.

I agree, I'm not amazing at thinking of alternatives, but how it is currently just doesn't seem to be working that well. Though it isn't very hard to judge such things, there doesn't have to be a particular cutoff point. People have lots of differences from birth, so why not base it on what its purpose is intended for in the first place?

Originally Posted by Syme

Arguably, the right to make adult decisions should be based on mental development, not physical sexual development. Why does it make sense that the state of your reproductive organs should be what determines whether you are an adult or not? Isn't the state of your mind much more important to your decision-making? It's pretty well established that a person has some degree of mental adolescence well into their 20s, even if they are physically adults by their early- to mid-teens. Your conviction that a person is an adult once they've completed puberty is just as arbitrary as the laws saying that a person is an adult once they're 18 years old.

Ultimately, "adulthood" as a legal and social term is, itself, arbitrary. It's socially constructed; it's whatever we agree it to be. Acting like sexual maturity is the "true" or "proper" definition of adulthood in this sense is just absurd.

I'm not sure why it's so absurd. If someone's not mentally able by the time their body is, then they have much bigger problems to worry about. The point is that it's not the state of the reproductive organs solely, but that the mental development goes along with that. People are really capable at any double-digit age of understanding everything involved, it just depends on what discussion they are exposed to and if they actually think about things. So by the time they are developed sexually they very much ought to be mentally ready to make the decisions. Perhaps its harder now in a culture where we are saying that you can be a complete dumbass up until your 18th birthday and you won't have to worry about having your pictures spread around because anyone that does so will be put in jail and get tons of unnecessary hate from people about it.

Switching, however, to a mentality that allows people to make these ridiculously basic decisions will in turn make them capable of making these very basic decisions before 18 (assuming they're not able already).

Originally Posted by UnreasonablyReasonable

I'm not sure why it's so absurd. If someone's not mentally able by the time their body is, then they have much bigger problems to worry about. The point is that it's not the state of the reproductive organs solely, but that the mental development goes along with that. People are really capable at any double-digit age of understanding everything involved, it just depends on what discussion they are exposed to and if they actually think about things. So by the time they are developed sexually they very much ought to be mentally ready to make the decisions. Perhaps its harder now in a culture where we are saying that you can be a complete dumbass up until your 18th birthday and you won't have to worry about having your pictures spread around because anyone that does so will be put in jail and get tons of unnecessary hate from people about it.

It is a little bit different depending on the culture you're in. Most of the 'mentally unprepared for sex' stuff deals with the social ramifications, and some of it is improperly using sex for something, either as a tool for manipulation, or as a route for escapism or a false sense of intimacy. This isn't something I would say a 10 year old (who conveniently fits the 'any double digit age') would be able to handle.