Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => The Roundtable => Topic started by: MechAg94 on January 17, 2020, 10:27:02 AM
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https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/editorials/2019/12/18/a-ut-professor-advocates-pedophilia-why-are-we-paying-for-it/
This keep popping up from time to time. I am going to assume his superiors were aware of it.
When word came that college students were staging yet another protest on the University of Texas at Austin’s campus, we shrugged.
Protesting is so commonplace on American campuses these days that we wonder when there’s time for class.
But as we reviewed the matter of this protest, our first reaction was disbelief. Students were protesting the fact that a Classics professor, Thomas K. Hubbard, has focused a significant part of his “scholarship” on arguing that sexual predation laws should be re-considered to lower the age of consent.
We wanted to know for ourselves whether it was true. So we pulled up a 22-page article by Hubbard in the journal Thymos titled “Sexual Consent and the Adolescent Male, or What Can We Learn From the Greeks.”
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or What Can We Learn From the Greeks.
So I guess since the Greeks practiced it that means we should also bring back slavery, women can't own property or have a say in decisions, 10 year city destroying wars over a woman, throwing defective babies over a cliff, the Olympian gods, the earth is flat, and everything revolves around the earth? Oh and there's only two genders while we're at it.
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He paints a broad and unsupported portrait of “feminists” and “sensationalistic journalism” as leading America to enact age-of-consent laws, even as he casually brushes aside Athenian society’s horrific embrace of slavery and the subjugation of women. (That they got wrong, he suggests, but the sex with boys was just right.)
The editorial hit on that part as well.
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why are we paying for it
Something I wonder about a lot of things.
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Age of consent laws in the US could be better. I would even generalize that they should probably be younger. I don't think it's fair or even effective for pedophilia laws to be applied in clearly non-child cases. Why is lowering the age of consent a forbidden or even controversial topic?
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Age of consent laws in the US could be better. I would even generalize that they should probably be younger. I don't think it's fair or even effective for pedophilia laws to be applied in clearly non-child cases. Why is lowering the age of consent a forbidden or even controversial topic?
I am surprised to hear that view from you. You always seem to have a reasonable take on complex subjects, so I'd like to hear you opinion about why the age of consent should be less than X (18 in most places, I think).
My view is that the age of consent should be at 18 for all involved parties if one of the party is over 18. Too many kids (under 18) don't have the mental fortitude/awareness to realize they are being used/groomed by someone much older. For instance, a 26-year old man has a much better grasp on life, and is much better at manipulation, than a 16 year old girl. Generalizing here.
If all parties are under 18, such as high school students who are dating, then I'd be comfortable lowering the age of consent to 16 or 15, but I would never go lower than that.
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In my state, the statutory rape doesn't apply if the two parties are within 3 years of age of each other. A 19 year old adult can date a 17 year old. That gives some wiggle room around the 18 year age line.
There are so many things we restrict teenagers on because we think they are irresponsible and/or shouldn't be able to give consent. I don't see why we should go the other direction on having sex with older adults when they can't buy a gun, they can't vote, they can't join the military, etc.
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Here in Washington, if a young patient under the age of 16 tells the provider that they are having consensual sex with another person beyond x number of years older, we are obligated to report that as sexual abuse. Child Protective Services does not get too excited if the other party is a year or two older, but do get keenly interested if the other party is several years older.
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I am surprised to hear that view from you. You always seem to have a reasonable take on complex subjects, so I'd like to hear you opinion about why the age of consent should be less than X (18 in most places, I think).
My view is that the age of consent should be at 18 for all involved parties if one of the party is over 18. Too many kids (under 18) don't have the mental fortitude/awareness to realize they are being used/groomed by someone much older. For instance, a 26-year old man has a much better grasp on life, and is much better at manipulation, than a 16 year old girl. Generalizing here.
If all parties are under 18, such as high school students who are dating, then I'd be comfortable lowering the age of consent to 16 or 15, but I would never go lower than that.
Your entire post is very reasonable. My own views are similar but slightly different on a couple of points. I have seen other proposals which are also reasonable. See? This is my point. We can have a discussion about this topic. There is no reason that discussing it should be off-limits. And I don't think it's outrageous that the professor is researching it, even if I don't agree with his conclusions, unless his research is fraudulent or something, but they aren't protesting because of that. These are relatively arbitrary legal boundaries and I think where we place them is up for debate.
My problem with overly-old age of consent laws is that in practice they are extremely anti-man/misandrist.
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Ok. I wasn't sure exactly what you were saying in the previous post. Thanks for clearing that up for me.
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My problem with overly-old age of consent laws is that in practice they are extremely anti-man/misandrist.
Considering all the news stories these days of young (or not) female teachers having sex with teenage boys, do you think that is changing? Most of them are getting prison time.
I also have to wonder if it is generally anti-man because men are often the majority sitting in judgement.