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A 15 year old girl usually doesn't have a fully adult body, though some are close. I agree with the larger point about there being a world of difference between near-adults and true children, though IMO the level of physical development is less relevant than the relative ability to consent. Having sex with a 17 year old who was just starting puberty would IMO be a less severe crime than having sex with a 12 year old who'd been developing for three years.

In terms of whether it is a crime, I am inclined to agree. But then we get into thorny issues such as whether people who are mentally retarded can ever consent.

In terms of biology and mental wiring, the level of physical development matters a lot. I personally cannot be attracted to a woman without breasts. I separately could not stomach the idea of a relationship with a 15 year old, but I can notice that one is attractive. My mental block for, "Never have any hint of a sexual response," is missing.

Complicating everything is that youthfulness is strongly associated with attractiveness, particularly in women. Most men would prefer a 25 year old woman who looked 18 to a 25 year old woman who looked 32. This may be biological and might have important consequences on our history. For example read http://www.davidbrin.com/neoteny1.html (go on to parts 2 and 3 as well) for some reasonable speculation on this.

I should also note that there is a huge disconnect between what I'd cite as facts, and emotional reactions. And emotional reactions vary a lot by person. For instance I personally am disturbed that so many men want women to not have pubic hair - a characteristic that only naturally occurs in prepubescent females. To me that is uncomfortably close to pedophilia. However I believe that most of the American public does not see this desire as particularly grotesque.

I would add that there's a world of difference between "attracted to" and "has sexual contact with", regardless of the level of development. This ties back to the question of whether there are ways to create safe outlets for those with strong attractions to young people -- can the attraction be indulged in a way that reduces abuse? Can the attraction be treated by harmlessly redirecting it away from real children?

I have heard of no efforts into redirection. (Not that I would have.) But we definitely do try to reduce opportunity. This is the point of the existence of laws forcing convicted sex offenders to be in a public register, not work with children, and to live away from schools. Unfortunately "convicted sex offender" and "pedophile" are two different things. Also we wind up with problems like the only legal place for sex offenders to live being under a bridge. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Tuttle_Causeway_sex_offen... for confirmation of that.)

There is a well-known saying among lawyers that difficult cases make for bad law. Unfortunately everything about this topic is rife with difficult cases, and the law that has sprung up reflects this. :-(




> "I personally cannot be attracted to a woman without breasts."

I personally cannot be attracted to men. I think dudes are icky. But I don't think this gives me a valid claim to say that nobody else should be, or that those who are have something wrong with them (indeed, I'm glad my wife does not share my aversion to males.) As you say, emotional reactions vary a lot by person. They don't form a very solid basis for law or morality.

Some people are attracted to children. Regardless of how gross that seems, it is reality. And the major problem with this reality isn't that the attraction is gross, but that it places children in danger. So how do we best prevent abuse? Certainly reducing opportunity is a part of it, both through (better) sex-offender laws and through policies that make it hard for adults to be alone with single children (many schools, scouts, etc. have strong policies to this effect.) Having strong legal punishments for such abuse might also be valuable. It seems important to also identify and treat those with such sexual attractions, and there are a few options [0][1], but it appears they're not terribly successful. At least one prominent researcher thinks there could be greater success if the medical community put more resources into it [2]. But society has been trying to "cure" other types of sexual attraction for quite some time with limited success, so I'm a bit dubious.

The end result is that we have a fairly bad set of laws, and little in the way of effective treatment, for something that tragically affects far too many children. So I must agree with your final statement -- :-(

[0] http://whyfiles.org/154pedophile/2.html

[1] http://www.minddisorders.com/Ob-Ps/Pedophilia.html

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedophilia#Limitations_of_treat...




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