Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking. Login or Take a Tour!
I haven't watched this yet either. To me, pedophilia seems to be a distinction between attraction to sexual maturity as opposed to attraction to sexual immaturity. Age is a number, and you can't see it. It's silly to think that a man can't be attracted to a beautiful 15 year old, but as you move closer to pre-puberty, I think that's where the difference between natural, and well, at the very least taboo, attraction occurs.
Looking at the poster, it looks like they are asking if a man can find a young, but sexual mature girl attractive. Of course he can. That said, I need to watch this before I can comment on the documentary itself.
I've always considered statutory rape to be the jaywalking of sex crimes! ;) Kidding, but I do think that we underestimate the mental capacity of someone who is, say, 16 or 17. That age is old enough to make a non-coerced decision. Coercion is wrong at any age, but at some point a kid is a young adult; most places we say 18, but that's not some magical number. Its a completely arbitrary consensus that we've collectively decided upon.
Of course most people find young, sexually mature people of their preferred sex physically attractive -- and of course 18 is an arbitrary number. Unfortunately, legislation isn't easily written to account for subtleties like the maturity or immaturity of an individual teenager. There are plenty of young people in the world who had sex with adults as late teens and came out fine. There are also plenty of young people in the world who thought they were mature enough to have a sexual relationship with an adult, and ended up coerced, manipulated, abandoned, and psychologically damaged. Most adults who would willingly begin a sexual relationship with someone still under the care of their parents likely have ignoble intentions, whether they consciously mean harm or not.
In other words, I agree with your point, and reiterate mine: Just because it's perfectly natural doesn't mean there's no argument for civilized society to punish it severely.
–
I agree an argument for punishment (and sometimes severe punishment), can be made. However, I do wish our laws were more sensible on this issue. An 18 year-old having sex with a 16 year-old isn't a crime worthy of punishment IMO, but a 50 year-old having sex with a 16 year-old is. Our laws could take into account age differential, rather than just the age of the minority involved.