I replied but then my explorer crashed....

Anyway basics of what I had said were that I would like a clarification on the point made by Stereotypical.

Are you saying that a five to ten year gap is fine if both people are looking for the same thing and it's not good to have a relationship, even if they are looking for the same thing, if the gap is bigger than this. And at times people do develop differently and mature faster/slower so can it be said that at some times it would not be a problem (even if these cases are teh exception and not the rule).

Anyway, that was my essential point and I will stop there and be annoyed that my first one looked and sounded so much nicer than this one

Before I begin my argument, let me make one clear ( by now having become blurred ) distinction: sexual relations are separate from romantic relationships. You may have sex with someone and love them, love them and not have sex with them, have sex with them and not love them, or not have sex with them and not love them. The two areas should thus have strictly separate restrictions ( in my humble opinion ), due to the fact they are situated in two different realms ( sex being in the physical/tangible and objective, love being in the mental/emoional and subjective ).

Be it due to pessimism or lack of contact with them, we seem to have, as a culture, lost faith in the existence of extraordinarily gifted individuals. We truncate ourselves by giving everyone limits that accord with the "average person." But we are not all average. I myself am very young ( fourteen ) but have been ( consistently ) told, when speaking with adults, that I think and act conspicuously more like someone in their early twenties. In the other direction, my mother seems to have the emotional maturity of a sixteen-year-old schoolgirl in relationships and is currently dating someone who is much more ( mentally ) mature than she, albeit physically younger, if perhaps by only two years.

I now draw a citation from a textbook have I been recently engrossed in; Principles of General Psychology by Gregory A. Kimble, Norman Garmezy and Edward Zigler:

QUOTE:
Young Francis Galton grew up in advantaged circumstances. His early intellectual interests and his family's support of them are evident in the following letter written at the age of ten.

December 30, 1832.
My Dearest Papa:
It is now my pleasure to disclose the most ardent wishes of my heart, which are to extract out of my boundless wealth in compound, money sufficient to make this addition to my unequaled library.

The Hebrew Commonwealth by John . . . 9
A Pastor Advice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Hornne's commentaries on the Psalms . . 4
Parley's Evidence on Christianity . . . . . 2
Jones Biblical Cyclopedia . . . . . . . . 10/27

There may, perhaps, be very few ( or perhaps no ) people of quite such extreme precocity ( Galton was able to read and write --- not mechanically, but with real comprehension, as attested by his ability to offer quotations appropriate to given situations --- at age five, suggesting he had then a mental age of ten and thus an IQ of 200! When Lewis Terman examined thousands of children, the highest IQ he discovered was 170 ). However, it is not only incorrect but also downright counterproductive to insinuate that there are none of comparable intellectual and/or emotional maturity in existence. I now thusly assert that the realms of intellectual and emotional maturity, exclusivlely, are the requisites to be considered when starting a romantic relationship --- chronological age to be cast aside to sexual relations, as I shall now describe.

Sexual relationships, as we all know, are easily complicated when younger and younger generations enter the picture due to

1) the law, which prohibits the "rape" of the underaged by the malicious,
and
2) physical injury caused by underdevelopment.

The first point of the law which prohibits Age A from copulating with Age B is mainly used in order to prohibit Age B from being abused by age A, due to the fact that Age B is not yet "mature enough" to know what it wants from a sexual relationship. But I have already made the distinction before that not everyone's intelligence or maturity is dictated by their age. The average of persons, perhaps, within Age B, may not be yet ready when compared to the average of Age A, but that is not to say that there is no individual differentiation within the groups themselves. Person One of Age B may be more ready than Person Two of Age A in some cases, for example.

Such absolutist laws are hardly helpful in situations that are so heavily situational and subjective, although it is reasonable to say that it is necessary for there to be SOMETHING there so as to discourage any prospects of fourty-something year old groomists with a taste twelve-year-old behind.

The second point is quickly explained: at the especially young ages of prepubescence ( and perhaps even early pubescence ), the sex drives are still developing and it is impossible to engage in sexual activities ( or at least --- assuming we are speaking of gay male relationships --- in activities where the individual is required to be the "top" and thus, requires the acquisition of an erection. Hetero relations would obviously have fewer restrictions while lesbians relationships would have none ) until development has been attained in certain realms. In the cases of anal sex ( which are obviously more important in the gay male sexual relations ), an extreme case of, say, a thirty year old man and a six-year-old boy could ( and would ) obviously result in physical damage of the six-year-old's anal sphincter. Thus, there is a limit to "who can fuck whom" ( and rightly so ), which I do not condemn in any way.

So my point is that we should look at these different aspects of relationships and their prerequisites separately --- mental age for romantic relationships ( which, theoretically, could have no real physical harm, especially as long as the mental ages are neatly matched ), and chronological age and physical development for sexual ones. Because really, shouldn't that be common sense?



...If this results in a double post, I will violently vomit an albino hippopotamus.<br /><br />Post edited by: Presumptuous, at: 2007/09/25 07:34

...Good. No hysterical excretion of obscure endangered species necessary.

Presumptuous

I must applaud you on your very well written and articulated response made lots of good points. Bravo.

LMAO, How anti-climactic. I feel disappointed. Aren't you going to argue with anything?<br /><br />Post edited by: Presumptuous, at: 2007/09/25 07:36

Presumptuous wrote:

QUOTE:
LMAO, How anti-climactic. I feel disappointed. Aren't you going to argue with anything?

Of course, but it was so well written I had to think first.

I do believe that the distinction between sexual and romantic relationship is needed, the problem is that these can become slightly blurred at times, and could be hard to convince a person that a relationship is simply romantic. And in the eyes of the law if they saw something of a big gap that was romantic they might assume more and act, so although the distinction is true it still leaves things being hard to enforce in a legal sense.

Also, the argument seems very much based on something else tha thas been brought up, namely that people do mature at different rates and would change when they are ready, but on a general set of terms it is impossible to set a standard for everyone to go by. For you it could be fine for a different age than someone else the same age as you, like even you yourself said. Therefore the problem still exists to a certain degree of who should be allowed to be with who on a societal point of view, or a legal one.

Anyway... I think that is all I have to address... sorry for the delay.

I don't know what should be more reason to worry --- that you might not have argued with my response, or that you claim to only &quot;think first&quot; on &quot;special occasions&quot;!

I see your point in your first paragraph --- people can be very cinical and --- dare I say it --- nosy, and would assume in an instant that the fifteen year old must be the forty-something's rape victim. I don't think there's anything wrong with them thinking that, but it would a blatant invasion of privacy, should they intervene. I don't think the forty-whatever-year-old should be arrested until it has been proven that he has actually raped the fifteen year old ( or at least made attempts to ). Maybe I'm insane to believe that a form of &quot;love&quot; could actually arise between two vastly varied ages. Or am I? I'm sure whoever first suggested two women or two men could love each other was seen insane, as well. But I don't think there are any laws against gender-gapped dating --- only for sexual relationships. If I'm wrong, please correct ( and if I am, then the law appalls me ).

My reasoning is that the law should only intervene in the matters which concerns it --- in this case, sex and not love. Call me sadistic or call me naive as you wish, but I feel that cases of rape brought to justice after their occurence in exchange for unprohibited, strictly romantic freedom is a more idealistic compromise than prevented rape cases in exchange for making a love &quot;prohibited.&quot; Of course &quot;bringing cases of rape to justice&quot; brings us to a totally different discussion --- of how such cases should be dealt with: chastisement vs. corrective detention and such.

Don't worry about the delay --- I myself delayed my own response on account of the fact that, embarrassingly, I was unable to understand some of the wording in your second paragraph. Could you clarify the sentence &quot;For you it could be fine for a different age than someone else the same age as you, like even you yourself said&quot; for me?

Presumptuous:

First off you are right about the law not working against having a relationship of a non-sexual nature with more or less anyone; well unless there is some other illegal thing going on in it. And I also agree that forcing anyone into a sexual encounter of any type is completely wrong and anyone doing it should be dealt with accordingly (I won't go into my view of how most countries treat their criminals since that is a completely different issue that really would need it's own thread... in fact I think I did one on it a while back....)

However, the issue of being able to consent should be brought up as some people would claim that you need a certain mental and/or emotional maturity to do that and have therefore generalized an age for it, sometimes in very odd ways actually. (A side note being that at one point, I'm not sure if it is still like this now, but in some provinces vaginal intercourse could be consented to at an age as young as twelve, oral at the age of 16, and anal not until the age of eight-teen; somethign that is completely idiotic if you ask me.) But who is to say that someone has in fact reached the maturitythat the law claims to be needed to enter into these relationships.

Presumptuous wrote:

QUOTE:
My reasoning is that the law should only intervene in the matters which concerns it --- in this case, sex and not love.

When reading this I thought immediately of &quot;On Liberty&quot; by J.S.Mill, it is his view that the law should not interfere with people aside from in a few very specifics cases, and this has been used by many human rights activists in order to extend the rights of people to do things such as entering into bi-racial relationships, or homosexual ones, along with many other things. I bring up the resonance because the cases that you can interefer, according to him, are when there is harm to others (not to the person, and it needs to be a provable harm so mental/emotional doesn't always hold up), and when the young are involved (I believe there was mre but these are what I think are relevant in this case).

Although the idea of harmcould be used to argue against the relationships, since they could cause some sort of harm. Anyway the more relevant of them is with the young being involved, because as it stands young means not legal age and that means under 18 in most countries. So in these situations it would appear that the law can intervene in any sort of situation because it involves underage people (I'm not convinvced that the age that it applies to is right, but then that is the whole point of this thread anyway isn't it?).

Presumptuous wrote:

QUOTE:
Could you clarify the sentence &quot;For you it could be fine for a different age than someone else the same age as you, like even you yourself said&quot; for me?

Sorry about that, the run on sentence really got in the way as far as understanding that goes.... What I mean by this is that some people are at an emotional, physical, and mental maturity at a younger age than others. The issue this raises is that it would become hard to tell who has reached that maturity level and would make things very individualistic; and individualism is very hard to legislate. I hope that clears up my point.

Finally,
Presumptuous wrote:

QUOTE:
I don't know what should be more reason to worry --- that you might not have argued with my response, or that you claim to only &quot;think first&quot; on &quot;special occasions&quot;! :P

I am always thinking just needed more time on this one to let it sink in and find something to get back at since your views are alot closer to my own than you'd assume considing all the argument I'm putting forward, and than I'm used to arguing with, most people have views much more different than mine when I debate them.

Note: You really seem to learn more about your own views when you try taking on someone with a similar one.

QUOTE:
However, the issue of being able to consent should be brought up

I think the reason people are setting an age for this concept of &quot;fully understanding what you're about to do&quot; is because the person does eventually learn these things with age. But as with all knowledge, it can be learned much sooner than most &quot;think&quot; we can. We should be less worried about classifying ages and branding people with &quot;ready&quot; and &quot;not yet&quot; corresponding to their chronological age, and more worried about giving them the education ourselves. You could take a course that defines it all and upon passing it, become &quot;ready.&quot; Of course, it could be argued that &quot;you don't really understand it until you've experienced it,&quot; but doesn't that apply to all ages? I don't think that once you reach eighteen you have a magical revelation that makes you an expert on all that is sexual before you've even tried any of it. It's ridiculous thinking based on no logic at all.

QUOTE:
Although the idea of harm could be used to argue against the relationships, since they could cause some sort of harm.

I'm afraid I can't say I've read the book ( although it will now definitely be going on my list ), but I have to argue that I don't see where the harm can arise from an age-gapped relationship that actually comes from the relationship itself. Perhaps the sexual relations causing physical harm, yes, as I spoke of before, but I can't think of anything that would happen otherwise that would come directly from the relationship/age gap itself. Perhaps people would criticize the relationship causing the couple to feel guilty, but this sort of harm comes from without the relationship, and not within. The age gap is not to blame, but rather the ones who choose to flagellate it. I know many people would say &quot;the older may go into a fit or rage and harm the younger&quot; but I believe that that has nothing to do with the age, but rather the personality of the individual, just as it would be with a person of any chronological age.

QUOTE:
So in these situations it would appear that the law can intervene in any sort of situation because it involves underage people...

I have to say that I disagree. Simply because it happens to involve a minor, I do not believe that every and any petty feud must result in legal action. Again, the law should only intervene in areas in which it is concerned.

Personally, I am a strong believer in individualism ( as you may have already seen ), for its opposite is collectivism, a philosophy based on principles that imply that one person alone is worthless, and that all existence is useful only for the bettering of a collective &quot;We.&quot; That's a different story, but what I believe has coherence here is that generalization is not the answer, especially not in a case such as this, as, as, I have said, is extremely individualistic in nature. You simply cannot treat an individual matter, requiring care and attention to the exceptions and characterizations of the situation, with a collective law. It is as night follows day. If the law is designed to keep is safe, then the day that it fails to mediate a conflict effectively is the day it fails to fulfill its purpose. When the &quot;under-aged&quot; gets ripped away from the supposed &quot;pedophile&quot; regardless of the fact that there is a real, genuine feeling between them, has the law helped them, or made things worse?


I apologize for my eternally delayed response, for I, as well, required time to think. We really do seem to have quite similar views, but I ( think ) this reply may make some distinctions.

I am really annoyed.. I spent twenty minutes writing ou ta really nice response and then I submitted and the site wasn't available....=/ anyway I should try to do this again....(If I seem short and not understandable call me on it, it's just due to the previous posting...I will be somewhat point form now sorry)

Question of teaching:

Who teaches? how does it get taught? when is it taught?
Doesn't come with age but there are things in age that are necessary imagine a case of maturity being reached at 12 and the closet that can be found is 30, it still seems off since it could be a parent.

Question of harm:
There can be positted psychological harm, but otherwise I would agree that it is too hard to really pin down.

Question of law interevening:
What area should they intervene? It is easy to make a reason here, the law needs to protect those that can't protect themselves, young people can't protect themselves, therefore the law should help protect them from the possible harms that are involved here (I say possible since it may work that there is no harm but there also could be).

Question of law stopping it and not being helpful:
The idea of someone getting attached to their older person could be seen as a psychological state in which people do sometimes relate to the captor, I can't remember what it's called but it could be possible here and hard to prove that it was not the case.

Question of individualism:
Individualism is a good, but collectivism is not necessarily a problem, and there may be some middle ground between the two that is best. Plus lawsare incredibly hard to individualize as they involve a community and social control, this seems incredibly hard to do if laws are created on a person to person basis.

I apologize for the brevity but you can blame the site :@