Political Crossfire Forums

part of me says it should be a-ok and i think of the greeks.

then part of me thinks of nero and caligula and i shudder.

No, it shouldn't be legalized. For starters, the odds of there being no long term trauma are basically zero. Children are not capable of consenting. The power distance between children and adults is so enormous I don't see how they could ever be considered equal partners. I imagine abuse would be extremely prevalent in such relationships. I wonder if it wasn't once so popular precisely because people were not looking for equals; they were looking for subservience and a young partner meant they could more easily be trained and controlled. How do you end a marriage you've been in since you were 9 years old? You probably don't.

We live in a hierarchical society so power relationships have a much more intense dynamics in our culture. We force people to do stuff as a matter of course, basically, and that's why we have the view that some people have to be protected from some of the types of coercion that are prevalent in our society.

To people who do not live in a coercive social order that issue wouldn't be apparent. It wouldn't ever occur to them to try and protect children from smoking, for example.

Also what is up with linking left handedness to pedophilia?

I don't know if I buy the methodology of any of those studies. Seems preposterous and reminds me of the sort of thinking that lead to so many people being forced to be "righthanded" growing up. .