On paiderastia and its fall from grace:
So, finally I post, after weeks of silence (and intermittent nagging from my fellow writers). At last, I give you a polemic, in honor of an article found in the Washington Blade Online. I won't rehash the entire thing, but the gist of it is this: a group of people are posing as teenagers in order to entrap those who solicit sex from underage persons online.
Now, I have no doubt that these people have nothing but the best of intentions in doing this; sexual abuse in any form is one of the worst crimes that can be committed, and I respect anyone who tries to effect change for the better. In this case, however, I think that the end does not, perhaps, justify the means. My question is this: what qualifies the members of Perverted Justice to judge the morality of sex between teenagers and adults? The answer, of course, is "the law", which mandates an age of consent for engaging in sexual activity.
That answer, however, leads us to an even thornier issue, which is the justice (or lack thereof) of the age-of-consent laws. Those laws vary widely across the United States, ranging from sixteen to eighteen from state to state, and, until recently, the ages were even different based on whether or not one's partner was of the same sex. Across the world, of course, the variance becomes ever more pronounced; in some of the more liberal countries around the globe, some of the men caught in Perverted Justice's sting operations would not even be committing a crime.
Now, personally, I don't think I could ever have sex with anyone who wasn't at least a very mature seventeen or eighteen, if only because I think about myself as a teenager, and the lack of experience and emotional insecurity with which I approached sex, and I shudder at having to deal with that kind of drama at this point in my life, without any other support.
Which brings me nicely to my next point: the Greeks.
It may be far too tired to bring up the classical vices when discussing queer theory these days, but I am a classicist and I think they're still relevant, so nyah. Anyway, as you no doubt know, intergenerational relationships were a vital part of life for the ancient Greeks, whose arts, sciences, and philosophies as the foundation of much of our modern thought and discipline. They accomplished all they did in spite of what the modern American establishment would call their "pedophilic" practices.
Alas, I don't really think that this long-gone history really gets us anywhere, because our society and those of the Greeks of ages past have very little in common; I very much doubt that the hysteria surrounding sexuality-- particularly as it applies to those perceived as "children"-- will be purged from our collective Puritan consciousness any time soon.
And that, I think, is really at the root of the problem: since no "right-thinking" adult could even entertain the possibility of a healthy, consensual relationship between a teenager and an adult, the resulting stigma and external pressure forces those involved in such relationships to sneak, hide and lie about what they feel, which will distort even the best of feelings. Again, I'm sure that there are indeed a lot of sleazy, predatory men out there who cause severe harm to their young prey, but they aren't the whole story, and I think it's a mistake to act as if they are. If these "teenagers" on the web are past puberty and healthy, is it really so impossible that they might be able to make up their own minds as to whether they want to have sex or not?
To me, such an attitude is woefully diagnostic of the disrespectfully paternalistic attitude taken by the adult establishment toward the youth in this country. I also think it's a great shame that rites of passage are nearly wholly absent from our culture, depriving us of signposts to help us along the path of pubescence. I, at least, would have liked nothing better than to have been taken under the wing of a mature, responsible adult who would've educated me in what it meant to be a man and what all the hormones surging through my body actually meant, as opposed to the half-hearted and blushing health classes and the secretive fumblings with boys my own age. Sadly, the former option belongs to another age, and I don't think it could ever be translated across the fear and shame that plagues our current one. So, we're left to figure things out for ourselves, and live with the consequences of both our own mistakes, and those of our parents'.
Now, I have no doubt that these people have nothing but the best of intentions in doing this; sexual abuse in any form is one of the worst crimes that can be committed, and I respect anyone who tries to effect change for the better. In this case, however, I think that the end does not, perhaps, justify the means. My question is this: what qualifies the members of Perverted Justice to judge the morality of sex between teenagers and adults? The answer, of course, is "the law", which mandates an age of consent for engaging in sexual activity.
That answer, however, leads us to an even thornier issue, which is the justice (or lack thereof) of the age-of-consent laws. Those laws vary widely across the United States, ranging from sixteen to eighteen from state to state, and, until recently, the ages were even different based on whether or not one's partner was of the same sex. Across the world, of course, the variance becomes ever more pronounced; in some of the more liberal countries around the globe, some of the men caught in Perverted Justice's sting operations would not even be committing a crime.
Now, personally, I don't think I could ever have sex with anyone who wasn't at least a very mature seventeen or eighteen, if only because I think about myself as a teenager, and the lack of experience and emotional insecurity with which I approached sex, and I shudder at having to deal with that kind of drama at this point in my life, without any other support.
Which brings me nicely to my next point: the Greeks.
It may be far too tired to bring up the classical vices when discussing queer theory these days, but I am a classicist and I think they're still relevant, so nyah. Anyway, as you no doubt know, intergenerational relationships were a vital part of life for the ancient Greeks, whose arts, sciences, and philosophies as the foundation of much of our modern thought and discipline. They accomplished all they did in spite of what the modern American establishment would call their "pedophilic" practices.
Alas, I don't really think that this long-gone history really gets us anywhere, because our society and those of the Greeks of ages past have very little in common; I very much doubt that the hysteria surrounding sexuality-- particularly as it applies to those perceived as "children"-- will be purged from our collective Puritan consciousness any time soon.
And that, I think, is really at the root of the problem: since no "right-thinking" adult could even entertain the possibility of a healthy, consensual relationship between a teenager and an adult, the resulting stigma and external pressure forces those involved in such relationships to sneak, hide and lie about what they feel, which will distort even the best of feelings. Again, I'm sure that there are indeed a lot of sleazy, predatory men out there who cause severe harm to their young prey, but they aren't the whole story, and I think it's a mistake to act as if they are. If these "teenagers" on the web are past puberty and healthy, is it really so impossible that they might be able to make up their own minds as to whether they want to have sex or not?
To me, such an attitude is woefully diagnostic of the disrespectfully paternalistic attitude taken by the adult establishment toward the youth in this country. I also think it's a great shame that rites of passage are nearly wholly absent from our culture, depriving us of signposts to help us along the path of pubescence. I, at least, would have liked nothing better than to have been taken under the wing of a mature, responsible adult who would've educated me in what it meant to be a man and what all the hormones surging through my body actually meant, as opposed to the half-hearted and blushing health classes and the secretive fumblings with boys my own age. Sadly, the former option belongs to another age, and I don't think it could ever be translated across the fear and shame that plagues our current one. So, we're left to figure things out for ourselves, and live with the consequences of both our own mistakes, and those of our parents'.
posted by Jon at 11:15 PM
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