I’m downvoting it for the premise that there’s usually nothing wrong with it. It may work out in some cases, but I only hear about it rarely compared to the times it did work out. A lady interviewed about her positive experience with David Bowie when she was a teen (I wouldn’t downvote her, she vouched for the guy not the practice). This guy says he has a good experience. Then there are thousands of others that didn’t. Scientific papers showing negatives, and virtually no positives to outweigh the risk. It’s almost like advocating for gambling, some may win but most will lose. Glad that the op was a winner.
I have no evidence for this. I am just guessing - given my priors that power dynamics are hot, most people are nice but will compromise social ethics for their own desires when given the opportunity, and that there are strong social biases against reporting positive experiences.
Interesting, this also leads to what is perhaps my most controversial opinion. In an ideal world, teen-adult sex wouldn’t be taboo, but would instead be commonplace and accepted.
Our current system for introducing people to the world of sex is to give them some vaguaries and say “okay, now get to it with other people who have no idea what they are doing. You may or may not be making Jesus cry.” This is the exact opposite of what we would do if we were to talk about an important part of an individual’s maturation into adulthood in the abstract. We would agree that they would benefit from guidence and instruction from someone who is experienced and knowledgeable, and who can council them through difficulties they encounter. Instead, if we actually had a sexually open culture, people with ample sexual experience (adults) would be the ones to introduce adolescents to sex - either directly or through explicit instruction. Of course now this is, once again, sounding like a porno… so I’ll just leave it at that
Power dynamics can be hot, only when they’re consensual. You can’t take a minor and give them a safe word that turns them 25.
In a world where sex with teenagers wasn’t taboo, even then we still want it to be illegal to counter the power imbalance. It gives power to the less informed party. That world would also require curing all STDs, all disease, abortion being universally acceptable, perfect birth control, and nearly perfect emotional maturity from everyone - mandatory perfect parenting, school, and therapy for 100% of people, free mandatory parenting, probably a post- singularity situation if it’s even conceivable. We might also envision a world where theft is acceptable, or murder, because we’ve progressed so far as a society that we lose any ability to carry trauma, and thus lose our sense of self. I don’t think these will ever happen and if we do there would be no laws at all.
I’m downvoting it for the premise that there’s usually nothing wrong with it. It may work out in some cases, but I only hear about it rarely compared to the times it did work out. A lady interviewed about her positive experience with David Bowie when she was a teen (I wouldn’t downvote her, she vouched for the guy not the practice). This guy says he has a good experience. Then there are thousands of others that didn’t. Scientific papers showing negatives, and virtually no positives to outweigh the risk. It’s almost like advocating for gambling, some may win but most will lose. Glad that the op was a winner.
I have no evidence for this. I am just guessing - given my priors that power dynamics are hot, most people are nice but will compromise social ethics for their own desires when given the opportunity, and that there are strong social biases against reporting positive experiences.
Interesting, this also leads to what is perhaps my most controversial opinion. In an ideal world, teen-adult sex wouldn’t be taboo, but would instead be commonplace and accepted.
Our current system for introducing people to the world of sex is to give them some vaguaries and say “okay, now get to it with other people who have no idea what they are doing. You may or may not be making Jesus cry.” This is the exact opposite of what we would do if we were to talk about an important part of an individual’s maturation into adulthood in the abstract. We would agree that they would benefit from guidence and instruction from someone who is experienced and knowledgeable, and who can council them through difficulties they encounter. Instead, if we actually had a sexually open culture, people with ample sexual experience (adults) would be the ones to introduce adolescents to sex - either directly or through explicit instruction. Of course now this is, once again, sounding like a porno… so I’ll just leave it at that
Power dynamics can be hot, only when they’re consensual. You can’t take a minor and give them a safe word that turns them 25.
In a world where sex with teenagers wasn’t taboo, even then we still want it to be illegal to counter the power imbalance. It gives power to the less informed party. That world would also require curing all STDs, all disease, abortion being universally acceptable, perfect birth control, and nearly perfect emotional maturity from everyone - mandatory perfect parenting, school, and therapy for 100% of people, free mandatory parenting, probably a post- singularity situation if it’s even conceivable. We might also envision a world where theft is acceptable, or murder, because we’ve progressed so far as a society that we lose any ability to carry trauma, and thus lose our sense of self. I don’t think these will ever happen and if we do there would be no laws at all.