[eDebate] massey (again)

[Kevin Sanchez]

michelin massey writes: "there are certainly exceptions to every rule.  if 
you took a look at the mean adolescent and the mean adult, the mean adult 
has a lot more experience.  they've had more opportunities to interact with 
other people and learn from those experiences.  policymaking should take 
into consideration the rule, not the exception. if we are to determine the 
best policy for sexual relationships between adults and children, it could 
never be determined by the marginal examples of that one 13 year old who's 
incredibly wise or the 53 year old who's enormously immature and idiotic.  
most
people get wisdom with age and lose immaturity at the same time."

but why is that last sentence true? why do 'most people' get what we 
consider wisdom at similar periods in their lives? is it due to biological 
development? or is it due to cultural norms? here's my guess: what we 
consider 'wisdom' is defined by one's age, that is, the normal behavior of a 
5-year-old or a 50-year-old is already proscribed by our culture, for this 
reason i don't thinks its appropraite to speak of maturity and age in a 
causal relationship, adults can learn adult-like behaviors and children can 
learn child-like behaviors regardless of an individual's maturity, a mature 
child will still act like a child, not because they're incapable of 
maturity, but because they're not allowed to express their maturity in adult 
ways, remember also that in an adultist culture, what's 'adult' is 
automatically considered 'mature,' even if by other standards it might be 
considered immature, getting drunk every weekend, working dead end jobs you 
don't enjoy, smoking a pack a day, and having affairs aren't the most mature 
activities, yet children aren't permitted to engage in them - but here's the 
crux of my dispute: i don't believe our treatment of a person should be 
determined by the group that person belongs to, is that the core of what's 
wrong with racism or sexism? ... please consider this: even if it was true 
that 'the mean white person' scored higher on SATs than 'the mean black 
person,' this would not justify denying blacks opportunties that whites 
have, would it? and even if it was true that 'the mean white person' was 
determined to have more life experience than 'the mean black person,' 
critical questions would immediately arise: could be due to a history of 
oppression? who determines what 'experience' is, and is might this concept 
be influenced by a white-dominated culture? could it be that blacks aren't 
incapable, but they've been incapitated by white supremacy? i draw out this 
example because i believe we should ask these same critical questions of 
adultism: how can children show responsibility if they aren't given any 
responsibilities? how can children be deemed incapable of gaining sexual 
experience, when adult culture censors sexual information from children? in 
fact if children were incapable of sexuality, completely blind to all sexual 
stimuli, why does that adultist censorship of sexual information need to 
exist at all? i think you see what i'm getting at: the decks were already 
stacked against children before you dealt the hand you're showing me, 
exceptions don't exist because they're made to conform, those who engage in 
consensual adult-child sex are jailed, marginalized, humiliated, fired, 
punished, etc., and you're endorsing that oppression with your words and, 
with the help of some circular reasoning, you're using the resultant 
condition of oppression to justify your endorsement of that oppression: *its 
like denying slaves the right to read, and then justifying slavery because 
blacks are incapable of reading* (cross-reference that richard farson 
quotation in one of my previous e-mails, if you get the chance) and i'm sure 
southern slave-holders called fredrich douglas just an minor exception (one 
smart kid!) that majoritary rule need not respect; if policymakers used the 
oppressive reasoning your displaying, then slavery, the jim crow era, 
segregation, etc. would still be with us today, if prejudicial 
generalizations are unethical in the instance of race, i think they should 
be wrong in all instances, including age

massey then writes: "the scenario you pose about the 'wealthy white man'
who courts the 'poor black woman' is incredibly unlikely.  generally, people 
date those within their socio-economic circles.  it's quite rare for people 
in those socio-economic groups to just hang out and marry."

well i don't know that its that unlikely, but i don't have any statistics 
... so consider the case of male order brides then? rich men ordering poor, 
foreign brides to marry: is this okay to you? it must be because "an adult 
woman who has had significant world experiences because of her age/time on 
earth to discern for herself the reasons why she'd choose a mate" - so why 
if this society is and if you are sincere in preventing sexual dominance, 
why permit one and not the other?

massey: "however, if that person were her employer (for example) that would 
be much different.  just like the sexual harasser crushes the possibility 
for consent, the adult manipulator uses their position in order to coerce a 
younger person into a sexual relationship (this is a point you haven't 
denied)"

except that most americans meet their mates in the workplace, and many times 
its in situations of boss/worker or employer/employee: my mom was my dad's 
secretary actually ... just because adult manipulation is a possibility does 
not mean that its inherent in every instance of adult-child sexual 
relationships, and giving children more sexual freedom, more power to be 
sexual, seems to be one of the only ways to confront the problem of adult 
manipulation, your anti-pedaphilia approach has only succeeded in limiting 
children's sexual power (including the power to refuse adult advances), in 
solidifying adultist domination over children, and in enflaming child 
molesters' passions for a child-toy-doll that's helpless and obeys orders

"policymaking requires a determination of the average person and then take 
in to account significant deviations from that rule"

maybe so, but your defending the averaging (leveling, homogenizing) of a 
whole group of people, which is somewhat different than merely having the 
average person in mind when drafting policies: the spirit of the 
constitution as i understand it suggests that a minority's rights cannot be 
infringed simply by a majority's will, 'exception' is the wrong word, we're 
not talking about tax write-offs here, 'individual liberty' is the right 
phrase, a person's right to freely engage in sex cannot be infringed simply 
because a majority has sick thoughts in its head, policymakers could have 
justified many racist, sexist, anti-elderly, anti-handicapped, etc. policies 
simply based on 'a determination of the average person'

massey writes: "a) there are a significant number of adults who would
not abuse their unequal level of experience vis-a-vis
age to cause harm to their partner; b) there are a significant number of 
children whocould adequately discern potential manipulation and
move past the issues, the devastating impacts that generally are associated 
with children/sex with adults."

well i'm on it, even though its very difficult to find statistics on issues 
like this, especially when most researchers will a priori rule out any 
possibility of consensual adult-child sex; but even if i can't find a 
significant number, i think my above arguments still undermine what you 
would consider 'significant,' if only 15% of all heterosexual sex was 
consensual, it still wouldn't induce policymakers to ban all heterosexual 
sex, and 'sodomy' laws are still on the books regardless of what even 
heterosexist groups admit are a significant number of people who engage in 
it regularly; and let me see if i understand your principle correctly: if 
just 51% of all sex involved rape, then no one should be allowed to have 
sex? that doesn't make for sound policy to me; you're just finding elaborate 
ways to defend the status quo because you believe the status quo to be 
morally correct, don't hide your underlying value judgement with utilitarian 
bullshit, this is about sexual freedom and ethics, not statistics     
:luv,kev




_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp