User: adamjohn

I don't agree with arranged marriages.

Just because child marriages were deemed acceptable in the past doesn't mean that they were right.

Theo Sandfort conducted some research indicating that from around the age of ten children have the wherewithal to have some form of romantic relationships including with adults. The problem with this is that if ever society were able to recognise children's abilities in this connection it would lead to a significant erosion of adult power over older children.

I can bring in an anology here. If you look at cultures accepting homosexuality, they tend to be cultures that also accept gender equality or something approaching that. If you think of some same-sex couples you know, there are men doing tasks such as cooking or shopping traditionally done by women and women doing tasks such as gardening or DIY traditionally done by men. Homosexuality is welcome where there is gender equality.

Paedophilia will only be welcome in a culture allowing equal or roughly equal adult-child power.

Annaber, I think you make a good point about young children being sexual beings but there is a difference between sexual behaviour and sexual intercourse and between lone sexual behaviour and sexual bahaviour and another person and between sexual behaviour with an equal in terms of power and sexual beahviour with a person with significantly more or less power.

I would also repeat my earlier point about the unwillingness of the general public to look at these matters rationally. Society is very confused about sexual matters because sex is an emotional, spiritual and physical exchange. That gives people a lot to be insecure about.

Children are also used as instruments of emotional blackmail. Because children don't have much power in society, i.e. can't vote, can't earn a living, drive a car or do adult things, they are seen as weak and in need of protection. For this reason they are used as instruments of emotional blackmail and any attempt to speak up for children's abilities to have at least some autonomy even if it is only choosing the clothes they wear leads to a huge emotional backlash.

Annaber, I think paedophiles ARE able and DO make that distinction between sexual attraction and sexual behaviour. A large number of the general public are determined not to make that distinction because they hate paedophiles. They see minor attraction as an abonimation that the world would be better off without. This is a very emotive subject and most people would feel no responsibility to reign in their emotions and look at this rationally; in fact they are highly critical of those who do. Even clinical psychologists whose job it supposedly is to understand paedophiles actively refuse to make this distinction probably because they would lose their jobs or be disowned by their peer group if they did.

That at least is progress. If we can make some progress then others will follow. Thank you for your understanding.