/lit/ - Literature

>The usual mistake is to believe that sexual activity, especially for children, is so alarming and dangerous that participants need to have an absolute, total awareness of every conceivable ramification of taking part before they can be said to give valid consent. What there most definitely needs to be, is the child's willingness to take part in the activity in question; whatever social or legal rules are operated, they must not be such as to allow unwilling children to be subjected to sexual acts. But there is no need whatever for a child to know 'the consequences' of engaging in harmless sex play, simply because it is exactly that: harmless.

>Sex, especially the non-penetrative sex play to which child-adult activity is almost entirely confined in the case of younger children (i.e. those children of whom it can most readily be said that 'They don't know what they are doing'), is not in itself remotely dangerous – unlike playing in a busy road. Nor do children need firm ideas of what a particular new experience will be like, any more than do adults trying, say, '69' for the first time: the activity may prove more, or less, exciting than they suppose, but as it is completely harmless there is no reason why it cannot be safely explored.

>It will of course be pointed out that children who enter a sexual relationship blissfully and innocently unaware of sexual shame and guilt, could be in for a rude awakening when a relationship is discovered. This leaves a question. Should we protect children from sex (to avoid the consequences of the guilt and social retribution arising from it) or, alternatively, should we make the reduction of guilt a priority? Knowing the hideous consequences of guilt, and the harmlessness of sex per se, I myself don't find it a particularly difficult question to answer.

>In a nutshell, there is no reason why the same criteria of 'consent' that we would apply to a young adult signing on for a nine-year term in the Army, or for a lifelong commitment in marriage, should operate at all: such criteria, which hang on mature judgement, are not necessary for the protection of the child's best interests. Indeed, they positively harm those interests by artificially restricting the child's development.

>The question, then, is not whether children are mature enough to consent – the issues of 'maturity' and 'consent' (in the sense of willingness based on informed deliberation) together constitute a gigantic pair of red herrings – but whether we can ensure that children are willing participants in a particular act
Was he right?