maybe I'm overreacting but those posts are triggering for me.

[achb]

But by this logic, almost all marriages and all of your ancestors were raped?

Most marriages even in history, contrary to popular belief, were between adults.

But yes. If my ancestor was 14 and their partner 32 that was rape. You know slavery existed to? I guarantee many of my ancestors were raped actually. And beaten. And tortured. The past isn't exactly full of pleasantries

i love how at 12 im old enough to raise a child (my little brother, successfully might i add) but i cant make my own decisions at 16.
for the majority, yeah i agree. but different life experiences causes people to mature at different ages. just because theyre 16, doesnt mean they dont know

also this is false, unless it was agreed upon while both parties were sober, it can still be considered rape because well, they were drunk and most likely mentally impaired

Two ppl being drunk and hooking up at a party is not rape to me. I guess it depends on your definition, but I definitely don't follow legality in terms of definition (especially considering that the law changes depending on where you live).

And you should not at 16 be being forced to raise children. And that you do does not mean you have the capability of consenting to sexual encounters with a 24 year old. You can absolutely mature in responsibilities and personality while still not having the mental capacities of someone older.

For example, raising a child at 14 does not mean some is not more prone to addiction if they started drugs than most adults. Regardless of the responsibilities that matured their decision making skills, biology still plays a huge factor in decision making capabilities and impulse controll.

 

[zel]

Most marriages even in history, contrary to popular belief, were between adults.

But yes. If my ancestor was 14 and their partner 32 that was rape. You know slavery existed to? I guarantee many of my ancestors were raped actually. And beaten. And tortured. The past isn't exactly full of pleasantries

Where did you get the belief that most marriages in history involved both parties being over 18? That runs completely contrary to everything I've read. One need only to look at the average lifespans and the average amount of children women had to see that that math doesn't check out.

 

[Life_and_Death]

Both ppl being drunk and hooking up at a party is rape? Can't say I agree.

i have a whole site based around rape that would disagree with you. and i didnt say every time. it depends on the person and just because theyre both drunk doesnt mean they consented because again, they didnt have the mental capacity to do so. plus everyone handles booze differently

 

[MiMif]

Your not overreacting at all pedophilia also gets me upset and I hope anyone who has a desire to do anything impure to a child gets therapy....for real pedophilia gets Me really upset and worked up and idky cause I'm not even a victim of it.

Sorry you are though my heart goes out to you

 

[achb]

Where did you get the belief that most marriages in history involved both parties being over 18? That runs completely contrary to everything I've read. One need only to look at the average lifespans and the average amount of children women had to see that that math doesn't check out.

Average life spans in history are greatly skewed by infant mortality. Life span has gone up, but not as significantly as you may imagine.

You also should remember that birth control was far less common and effective. Women had children along briefer stretches of time in the past.

 

[zel]

Average life spans in history are greatly skewed by infant mortality. Life span has gone up, but not as significantly as you may imagine.

You also should remember that birth control was far less common and effective. Women had children along briefer stretches of time in the past.

Well of course, but the gestation period for humans is still 9 months, and no lack of birth control is going to shorten that.
You also didn't answer my question about where you gathered the notion that most marriages in history were between adults.

 

[achb]

i have a whole site based around rape that would disagree with you. and i didnt say every time. it depends on the person and just because theyre both drunk doesnt mean they consented because again, they didnt have the mental capacity to do so. plus everyone handles booze differently

A drunk person can definitely rape another drunk person. But having drunk sex doesn't automatically make you a rapist.

But yes, the intricacies of drunkeness complicates the situation a lot. Age discrepancy and mental development is also often complex because some people develop faster than others. That's why older teens can be complicated with consent. 16 and 18? 16 and 19? 15 and 17?

But 14 and 19 is pretty solidly non consensual (which is the only p3do kind of post I've seen on this site recently)

Well of course, but the gestation period for humans is still 9 months, and no lack of birth control is going to shorten that.
You also didn't answer my question about where you gathered the notion that most marriages in history were between adults.

Google it. "Were most marriages in history between adults?"

A couple of links. Not great sources but I didn't exactly dig.

Myth # 136: Women married very young in “the olden days.”

(Thanks to Katie Cannon, assistant curator of education at the DAR Museum in Washington, DC, for tackling this myth. I’m sorry I couldn’t reproduce her two charts, but I’ve transp…

historymyths.wordpress.com

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/SLT/society/family/marriage.html&ved=2ahUKEwi56cmZgaKCAxXakmoFHY0EDtcQFnoECB8QAQ&usg=AOvVaw1vfrG5zQDY1WvPMksmhDXz

 

[ilistentoradiohead]

it's a suicide app for a reason....

 

[zel]

Google it. "Were most marriages in history between adults?"

A couple of links. Not great sources but I didn't exactly dig.

Myth # 136: Women married very young in “the olden days.”

(Thanks to Katie Cannon, assistant curator of education at the DAR Museum in Washington, DC, for tackling this myth. I’m sorry I couldn’t reproduce her two charts, but I’ve transp…

historymyths.wordpress.com

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/SLT/society/family/marriage.html&ved=2ahUKEwi56cmZgaKCAxXakmoFHY0EDtcQFnoECB8QAQ&usg=AOvVaw1vfrG5zQDY1WvPMksmhDXz

If you check the figures in that link you sent carefully, you may be surprised to find that the earliest period of time in which we have averages (the early 1600s), has this:

New England, early 1600s; Women: Teens; Men: 26

In general, there's a clear trend that the further back we go into our history, the less material wealth we had, and thus the younger women tended to be when they were married off to husbands to start families.
p.s. Does this age discrepancy of 26 to "teens" alarm you? Was everyone a pedophile back then? All those girls were raped?

 

[achb]

If you check the figures in that link you sent carefully, you may be surprised to find that the earliest period of time in which we have averages (the early 1600s), has this:

New England, early 1600s; Women: Teens; Men: 26

In general, there's a clear trend that the further back we go into our history, the less material wealth we had, and thus the younger women tended to be when they were married off to husbands to start families.
p.s. Does this age discrepancy of 26 to "teens" alarm you? Was everyone a pedophile back then? All those girls were raped?

If you check the sources the sources linked. The "teens" in 1600s is 17-19 not early teens. But yes, the further back you go, the younger wives become. In the 1000s it was not terribly uncommon to have brides as young at 14. But so do the men's ages. Both are getting married younger. It's hard to find many sources about earlier than 1500s tbh, but husbands for those 14 year olds tended to be around 17 themselves.

But the fact remains that ofc a 14 year old bride and a 26 year old husband was rape. In what world is that not rape? Just because "societal expectations were different" doesn't make murder not murder, rape not rape, slavery not slavery. It's still fucked up??

If you check the figures in that link you sent carefully, you may be surprised to find that the earliest period of time in which we have averages (the early 1600s), has this:

New England, early 1600s; Women: Teens; Men: 26

In general, there's a clear trend that the further back we go into our history, the less material wealth we had, and thus the younger women tended to be when they were married off to husbands to start families.
p.s. Does this age discrepancy of 26 to "teens" alarm you? Was everyone a pedophile back then? All those girls were raped?

Im pretty sure sources do agree with me that ages were not as fucked as we presume them to be.

But it literally doesn't matter. Unimportant to the argument. What was normal back then doesn't make it ok.

 

[Rhizomorph1]

Pedophilia is often confused with Hebephilia and Ephebophilia. Sex with 14 years old may be associated with Hebephilia, but not with Pedophilia, because 14 years old teenagers are not prepubescent children.

Telling that teenagers cannot give a consent is just an insult towards them. The wording "can't give consent" suggests that the implied person is just a brainless amoeba who has no wishes and has no will. When adults treat teenagers like dumb shit, this often raises protest against such an arrogance. By telling young people that they can't give a consent to something you may cause them to have a strong desire to prove the opposite.

I think, it's pretty obvious that sexual acts may be divided into desirable, undesirable, and indeterminately desirable for a teenager, and there is a huge gap between the severity of negative consequences that may be produced by desirable and highly undesirable acts. Even though desirable acts may still be considered illegal, it makes perfect sense to impose much stronger punishment for undesirable acts than for desirable ones.

We could tell that teen's consent may be not well-reasoned or not well-justified enough, the teenager has relatively big chances to regret about the granted consent in the future, and this is the reason why sexual acts involving teenagers should be deprecated. However, denying the ability of teenagers to express their will in the form of consent is just a nonsense.

Consent is a binary ethical classification precisely because the ontological spectrum of reason is biologically skewed to the end of "not well-reasoned" and "not well-justified enough" as you mention. Thus, I am not simply "prejudiced" (Is this really the angle you're taking?). You're jumping through semantic hoops to justify your construction of consent, even though the reasons why youth cannot consent are manifest in the latent content of your reasonings.

The biopsychological corollary that embeds this classification in material reality is the underdevelopment of the adolescent brain and by extension, decision making. Consent is not limited to just will (as you imply); in this case a fucking goldfish could theoretically consent (this is rhetorical fyi). Consent is as much a psychological construct of will as much as it is a cultural construct defined by safety, protection, and executive function (impulse inhibition, risk assessment, affective forecasting). Youth are biologically underdeveloped and saying they can consent poses a massive sociocultural risk to safety and protection for this reason.

Social constructs are multidimensional in nature, which is precisely why we have complex methods under the general linear model of statistical hypothesis testing for verifying these multiple latent dimensions (e.g., exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis). Put simply, science has already measured the construct of "consent" using empirical (material or real-world) methods far superior than the subjective reasoning in this thread - contaminated by error variance if we're to consider the multiple confounding factors of spontaneous subjective reasoning; e.g., emotionality, confirmation bias, our individual will to meaning, psychological defense mechanisms, etc. We can virtually eliminate this error variance using the scientific method.

You are erroneously assuming that consent is about reducing children to amoebas (a strawman fallacy). I never said anything of the sort. I said their prefrontal cortex is not developed. That is evidence-based reasoning. I.e., founded upon the Popperian tenets of material realism.

Coercive-restrictive paternalistic norms exist for a reason (because the very evolutionary biological programming of humans is to be paternalistic towards children. This reason is not prejudiced, it is biologically contingent on our DNA.

Your presentation of my construction of consent assumes I'm being biased based without tangible (material/real-world) corroboration.

Why the fuck am I arguing about this, jesus... Usually I have quite a tolerance for uncertainty but this is just absurd.

And anyways,

By telling young people that they can't give a consent to something you may cause them to have a strong desire to prove the opposite.

This assumes the very same quality of children as less able to reason as defiance is precisely an impulsive/emotionally dysregulated response. A developed sense of self will not feel the need to be defiant. Obviously adults need to have patient, tolerant, and person-centered conversations with youth, but, assuming you are an adult, I won't be having that conversation with you. The dominant culture provides ample education on this topic. You should have figured it out by now.

 

[Dying Knight]

Consent is not limited to just will (as you imply); in this case a fucking goldfish could theoretically consent (this is rhetorical fyi). Consent is as much a psychological construct of will as much as it is a cultural construct defined by safety, protection, and executive function (impulse inhibition, risk assessment, affective forecasting).

I don't see a point in defining consent as an overcomplicated construct, that results in the presence of multiple meanings of word "consent" and confusions associated with the ambiguity. Why not just tell that although a consent (as an expression of will) may be granted, accepting this consent by the other person is not always ethical or legal? From this perspective, the presence/absence of consent still plays an important role when determining how much unethical/illegal the behavior of the other side is.

 

[Rhizomorph1]

I don't see a point in defining consent as an overcomplicated construct, that results in the presence of multiple meanings of word "consent" and confusions associated with the ambiguity. Why not just tell that although a consent (as an expression of will) may be granted, accepting this consent by the other person is not always ethical or legal? From this perspective, the presence/absence of consent still plays an important role when determining how much unethical/illegal the behavior of the other side is.

Corroborate why you think it is overcomplicated. Occam's razor cuts both ways without substatiation for the need or ability to simplify. Multidimensionality is pretty basic semantically speaking.

It's not that there are multiple meanings of the word. It is that there are inclusive and exclusionary rules for the word's referents.

Just as we characterize a bird by more than just "having wings" (which would erroneously include bats), so too must we define the multiple materialistic dimensions of a social construct such as consent. The word bird still refers to only one type of animal. But that one thing has multiple dimensions that characterize what is/is not a bird. This is not overcomplication, this is a logical formula to ensure we are including all the latent cases where our social construct does apply, while ensuring ubiquitous exclusion of cases where it does not apply.

Just because you've posited a different way of constructing consent (a "why not" statement) doesn't make it empirically valid. It still lacks premises rooted in material realism.

That's the thing about social constructs. They don't exist anywhere except within the cultural associations in our minds, and thus measuring them directly is impossible. I could associate consent with the action of pouring tea, but without cultural standards for what the construct represents in reality, everyone around me will be righteously confused and will ostracize our use of the term outside its tangibly standardized form. We can't just ask people because then people (like us in this conversation) will disagree, adding error variance. So, just because it seems intuitive to you to define it the way you have, doesn't mean it is materially logical. Unearthing the real-world factors of a latent social construct are necessary to standardize meaning.

Otherwise we are all just running around with our own ideas of words (which people seem to quite enjoy doing to fit their worldview; our intuition is incredibly unreliable in this regard)


Because we can't directly measure the latent material inside one's mind (latent psychological or cultural constructs), we must use measurement of real-world indices (manifest constructs) to do so, and then measure the statistical associations between them to determine that they are A) correlated enough to reflect a shared measurement of the latent construct B) different enough to ensure the way we are measuring them is not accidentally measuring the same dimension. This is why factor analysis is used.

When we see clusters of associated data, we can create models that are then passed through confirmatory hypothesis testing (which I won't get into), to demonstrate that the odds of the dimensions representing an existing latent construct (AKA factor) vs not existing is close to a 0-point difference. Sufficient for material corroboration of a given culture's standard and real definition of ability to consent.


TL;DR since you asked for simplicity: there is social construct (latent), and then the material dimensions of it (manifest). It's fairly simple.

In our case there are neuroimaging measurements of adolescent brains, measures of cultural & physical safety (e.g., sexual trauma prevalence), and individual will (perhaps a subjective questionairre) which would be X1-X5 which reflect latent dimensions of the construct F (which I would label "inability to consent") in the model

I don't see a point in defining consent as an overcomplicated construct, that results in the presence of multiple meanings of word "consent" and confusions associated with the ambiguity. Why not just tell that although a consent (as an expression of will) may be granted, accepting this consent by the other person is not always ethical or legal? From this perspective, the presence/absence of consent still plays an important role when determining how much unethical/illegal the behavior of the other side is.

A more simple answer to entertain Occam's razor is: because that still assumes children have agency over their bodies, which they don't, legally and ontologically.

I can only detail why (read above), by abandoning Occam's razor.

 

[Dying Knight]

Corroborate why you think it is overcomplicated.

I think, it's obviously enough why such a construct is much more complicated than the basic meaning of word "consent" (the expression of will) which is used more commonly. The expression of will is the default interpretation of consent for many average people (who are not lawyers), so if someone wants to introduce a term with a different meaning, why not give it a different name to avoid ambiguities and confusion? This is just a matter of practical sense. You can call it "lawful consent" or "acceptable consent" in order to indicate that you refer to a specific term from a specific concept; this should reduce possibilities for misunderstanding.

Just because you've posited a different way of constructing consent (a "why not" statement) doesn't make it empirically valid.

Oh, well, maybe we live in different worlds and in your universe the most common interpretation of "consent" differs from the one I have in mind. In this case, I'm sorry that I maybe can't properly communicate with you.

A more simple answer to entertain Occam's razor is: because that still assumes children have agency over their bodies, which they don't, legally and ontologically.

That's a too vague statement that doesn't explain anything. I don't see why the same concept cannot be expressed in commonly used simple notions without inventing complex definitions of terms.

 

[Rhizomorph1]

That's a too vague statement that doesn't explain anything. I don't see why the same concept cannot be expressed in commonly used simple notions without inventing complex definitions of terms.

Bruh. I literally made that statement as an over-simplification precisely to cater to your statements which have all been simplistic and vague assertions of what you believe without premise... It was corroborated by the rest of my comment which you didn't address.

You're also repeating yourself... You're not gettin it.

This is just a matter of practical sense.

I.e., your intuition.

 

[Dying Knight]

I.e., your intuition.

That joker card may be used against any reasoning. On which intuition should I rely? Yours? Even in this case I'd have to initially use my own intuition in order to decide that your intuition is worth trusting.

 

[Rhizomorph1]

That joker card may be used against any reasoning. On which intuition should I rely? Yours? Even in this case I'd have to initially use my own intuition in order to decide that your intuition is worth trusting.

No. You should not rely on intuition for tasks that demand cognition over intuition.

You should use your type 2 intellectual processing (cognitive/effortful) instead of type 1 (intuitive) processing, per the dual process model of cognition. Intuition helps with survival, which is great if you need to react quickly, but it is unreliable in executive reasoning, predictive validity, etc.

Your comment assumes that if we are not reasoning using intuition, then there is not alternative means to reason. This is not true, and is substantiated by task-oriented versus emotionally-oriented (intuitive) functional network activity in specific brain regions. Patterns of activity we have autonomous control over.

To simplify: I'm asking you to be logical instead of taking your beliefs for granted.

Please for the love of god don't tell me my simplification is a "vague response". It's intentionally vague to allow your comprehension. If you want a less vague response, read above.

After having worked 1 on 1 with adolescents who have been raped and abused, it's conversations like these that make me want to ctb...

Everyone loves to juggle Occam's razor but the people who know well of these topics are writing bloody 10,000+ page manuscripts covering data, nuances, etc. You can't seriously think that you would know better than the people spending decades studying these very topics in depth...



Stop weaponizing intuition, simplification, subjective reasoning (contaminated by bias), preference for non-evidence-based reasoning, Occam's razor, or whatever the hell you want to call it, as it only demonstrates you sit very far to the left side of the Dunning Kruger effect in the graph above.

Shit is complicated. That's why there's entire debates around epistemology (the study of knowledge itself)...

Anyways, I rest my case with far more evidence, citations, even fucking graphs. This is nonsense.
Please provide some material even remotely comparable to the evidence I've provided or you will be taken for a fool.

 

[Dying Knight]

No. You should not rely on intuition for tasks that demand cognition over intuition.

The rationale behind the "practical sense" mentioned above is pretty simple. When you use an ambiguous word in a statement, there are big chances that the statement will be interpreted wrongly by some part of your audience. I've seen a lot of examples of how wrong interpretations toke place. Since wrong interpretations are commonly undesirable, it makes sense to avoid assigning multiple meanings to the same word (in our case it's "consent") in order to reduce the odds of misinterpretations.

Assuming that we just can't determine the meaning of words/terms precisely enough would imply that we simply can't have a productive exchange of thoughts because of possible misinterpretations (how can you be sure that your understanding of this text is the same is mine?). The actual experience shows that many notions may be defined so they are well understood my the majority of people. On the other hand, plural meaning of words is a common source of misunderstanding.

consent

1. permission or agreement: 2. agreement to sexual activity, given by someone…

dictionary.cambridge.org

The first meaning does not impose any requirements on the subject giving consent, while the second one includes the restriction "given by someone who is free to choose and able to choose (because of being old enough, being able to think or communicate clearly, etc.)". Choosing a special designation (e.g. "statutory consent") for the second notion would be better.

Many other dictionaries don't describe the notion of age-restricted consent at all:

Dictionary.com | Meanings & Definitions of English Words

The world's leading online dictionary: English definitions, synonyms, word origins, example sentences, word games, and more. A trusted authority for 25+ years!

www.dictionary.com

Definition of CONSENT

to give assent or approval : agree; to be in concord in opinion or sentiment… See the full definition

www.merriam-webster.com

CONSENT definition and meaning | Collins English Dictionary

CONSENT definition: If you give your consent to something, you give someone permission to do it. | Meaning, pronunciation, translations and examples

www.collinsdictionary.com

Consent Definition & Meaning | Britannica Dictionary

CONSENT meaning: to agree to do or allow something to give permission for something to happen or be done often + to sometimes followed by to + verb

www.britannica.com

Consent

Consent is the act of voluntarily giving permission to a specific action. For consent to be valid, the individual must be fully informed.

termly.io

Now you can enjoy your game with determining how much cognition and intuition is used the given rationale, if you have nothing else to do.

Your comment assumes that if we are not reasoning using intuition, then there is not alternative means to reason.

To simplify: I'm asking you to be logical instead of taking your beliefs for granted.

Every logical reasoning is based on axioms and derivation rules which you have to understand intuitively. So technically you can't think logically without involving intuition. I think, you've chosen the wrong person to play the role of a great teacher of gnosiology with.

Stop weaponizing intuition, simplification, subjective reasoning (contaminated by bias), preference for non-evidence-based reasoning

Your claims that my reasonings are not supported by any evidence are invalid.

 

[glitterypearls]

too many justifying of having sexual relationship with minors. too much time wasted. too much energy wasted trying to tell someone "you are wrong" when they say this x thing caused them trauma and negative feelings and instead of saying "I'll educate myself I understand" you try to justify your fucked up mindset. I truly hope everyone here educate themselves and realize how wrong this way of thinking is. truly sick, I thought the members here are above justifying this but apparently I'm wrong. muting this post.

 

[IcarusUnderSun]

TRIGGER WARNING, if you don't want to read what a SA'er has to say then skip my comment.



I agree, as someone who sexually abused four of his five youngest siblings. I am working on CTBing but it's sort of hard since I want to make it seem like an accident, they (my siblings) were too young to know what I did to them, or remember, so no one knows about it outside of SaSu. I know they're secretly suffering but I just can't face the consequences of my actions and would rather CTB. I know what I did was wrong, but I just wish I could be mentally rewired or some other personality takes over my body because dying would be a waste since I wanted to help everyone I knew, but I can't do it. I'd rather just take the easier way out. Personally, I wish we could all get therapy or whatever the hell will "fix" me and the siblings I have hurt.
I am not like that anymore and will never be, but it doesn't change what happened and it's no excuse for it whatsoever.

They might not have been old enough to know, but you should sit down and tell them what you did, or leave a note when you CTB, my older brother was very similar, even down to feeling real remorse and guilt that he felt he had to CTB, he had SA'd me during which times I couldn't even remember, and had no idea it was going on until I got older and he continued doing it. If I had no idea why I felt such self loathing and revulsion, I would have felt even more broken and confused than already I still do to this day.

I'm not going to provide you comfort, but all I can say is that I was only able to accept my abusers multiple genuine apologies throughout the years a year after he CTB'd. It was messy, it was devastating, I lost my ability to talk for a while and could only scream and self harm to get the feelings out. What you've done will always haunt them even to their adult lives, and it's entirely possible that one of them may choose to CTB as well to cope with the pain you have inflicted upon them. Come to peace with this, you are not a martyr, your death will not forgive you of your sins.

Make sure you have some way to convey that none of your siblings are responsible for your death whether through guilt or something they've done directly. Even if you make your death seem accidental, you could still be found out as having done it on purpose, this is going to sound awful, but, man up.

Confront your issues, do what's right for your little siblings that you molested, then either CTB or remove yourself from their lives entirely and get therapy far far away from any of them, do not contact them unless they later in life reach out to you. Family is complicated, especially when assault is brought into the table, but I trust you understand this, and will do what's right.

 

[Againstthewind]

Locking this thread because unfortunately we seem to not be able to have mature conversations.

People. We do not need to go into a deep technical pseudo nonsense explanation about what consent is and isn't, stop trying to justify adult relationships with children, it is an abuse of power. It is ethically wrong. It is unacceptable. Yes, there are situations where it can be complicated in the eyes of the law on a case by case basis. HOWEVER. This was a thread @glitterypearls created to share her experience, she didn't need strange little men to hijack there thread to justify pedophilia, consent and an excuse for young female children to be in relationships.

@Dying Knight I already warned you about this, but you clearly wanted to continue on.

I want all the boys in this thread to think about one thing. Would you still think this if your daughter was in that position. No you wouldn't. So knock it off.

Apologies @glitterypearls