"Parents and the state care deeply for children and are generally motivated by a desire to do what's best for them -- as they understand it."

BS.

Show me the parent who wants their child who is too drunk to drive to get home on their own without informing the parent lest they be held culpable for encouraging underage drinking?

AND.... there was a whole article in Rolling Stone posted here recently about how the "desire to do what's best for them" by the religious parents of homosexual children can lead to a tragedy of national proportions.

But hey, gay kids don't "need" to be sexually expressive, and surely they can delay their coming out as long as it takes so that the parental hatred doesn't place them at risk. Right?

Feh.

Abusers can abuse with impunity so long as they keep within the laws governing parental "rights" and responsibilities. Leaving an abusive parent for the same reasons an adult would leave an abusive relationship is just not allowed. Its that simple. The streets are filled with kids who dare not surface because their abusive parents cannot be legally touched nor can the child avoid being returned by force.

This is not a formula for holding anyone accountable for anything else than what they choose to believe is "for the best;" regardless of whether it is.

Heck, there's an entire book on the historical abuses of women entitled "for her own good" that tells you just how well THAT one turns out when the laws aren't overhauled.

"curiosity for sexual play clearly denotes a type of sexual interest, even if admittedly of a lesser intensity than adolescent and adult sexuality"

"This seems to be in dispute by many of your fellow GC denizens. Glad you acknowledge significant attitudinal shifts due to puberty (on average)."

I haven't seen any evidence of that.

I have seen many arguments that the sexuality of the younger is less intense in its focus on the specific; specific acts or specific individuals. Heck, infants don't distinguish any kind of physical pleasure and are much less specific in requiring a limited number of people to be pleasuring them.

This doesn't make the desires less legitimate or the sensations less strong. But it does have a lot to do with exclusivity in both activities and partners.

Then again, its no different in other areas. The child who hands out valentines to every LG becomes the teen who hands them to one girl. The child who is friends with a dozen kids in grade school has fewer but more significant besties later on.

Nobody should deny the need for a child to have friends just because childhood friendships are less "intense."

"(and I would punish only the man, not the girl, and then only if the girl freely decides she wants him to be punished...). The law is necessarily full of trade-offs of that kind."

But what the law does not allow as a trade-off is anything in your "and I would...." statement.

The man is punished whether the girl wants it or not. She is not an agent of choice in any legal proceeding and has no status whatsoever to be one.

Your claim about what you want places yourself in direct conflict with that Ethan guy who says that fundamental overhaul is a bad idea.

Her free choice you claim you value, her consent to not seek punishment, is nullified by her legal status as the ward of a parent or of the state. You know that only fundamental overhaul could take a child with no legal agency and grant them a choice.

"Educating kids better is a great idea, as is increasing their confidence. But "legal empowerment" has virtually nothing to do with it."

You can claim "I believe in you" all you want, but if you undermine them every time they choose to act, you actually teach them the opposite.

Every kid knows it.

And everyone who has transitioned to the age of majority knows it.

Empowerment comes from being able to walk away. From having choices which have consequences and which make a difference. Confidence comes from doing things for onesself.

Hobbling children creates adolescents who are poor decision makers and lack the confidence which comes from practice. Hobbling "children" who are biological adults just defers the poor choices until much later.

In the 50s, getting married out of high school and starting a career was common.

Almost no present teens in America have the basic life skills their grandparents had.

And back in the 18th century the average high school graduate would've been well on their way in life as a responsible member of their community and a good parent.

With all the present hysteria about "sexualized 15 year olds" as well as the fetishization of higher education put off to a later and later date we are already reaping the expected results; the irresponsible 30something.

Its not without much exaggeration that we could anticipate that "childhood" would be extended until menopause. Excepting, of course, that the age of majority will never fall much lower than the age at which a boy can beat up his father for imposing autocratic rule. Thats simple biology which, unlike all the other cues of adulthood, cannot be denied.

"I suggest forgiveness for most people who transgress with truly willing and informed partners."

That's fairly convenient since you deny both the "willing and informed" bits.

Her will is legally nullified prior to a certain point by laws you do not want overhauled. And her "informed" status is eternally deferred by some potential future regret.

The "information" objection is never explained away. Its just that at some arbitrary age sex becomes too important to allow her future regrets which trump consent to matter. And at the same magic age her will magically has an autonomous legal status which doesn't require a custodian to recognize it nor to fail to recognize it.

If you believed what you said, then you'd address the fundamental legal issues blocking her will from counting for anything. And you would have to admit that "fully informed" cannot exist, and that "informed enough to consent" does not conflate with "acting according to what Ethan wants her to do."

And the notion that all sex is crime by default just shows you to be both legally illiterate and immoral.

We know full well how society treats those who choose to commit crimes; even when it decides occasionally to look the other way. When this happens it is not "forgiveness" nor even exoneration in any meaningful sense.

Further, this incentivizes extortion and corruption. Its not just the vindictive girl who is encouraged. Its more on the order of how easy it used to be to go down to the gay-quarter and rob the faggots when you wanted quick bucks. Who are they to complain, when all it takes is the argument that a guy came onto you to get him hauled off to jail and his life ruined.

And of course we know that the actual goal of such laws was not to tolerate queers through inconsistent enforcement, but to use the punishing of a few to prevent the many from acting.

You claim that the girl is not punished for her choice when every partner who could love her is driven away. But it requires a very tortured logic to believe that preventing anyone from fulfilling the act she desires somehow permits her to engage in it.

LOL. You are OKing one side of a two-person sex act while criminalizing the other.

This fits in nicely with your notion that masturbation is all most humans really need.

Dante