Should the age of consent be raised to 20?

[Antonio the Sixth]

If you make a blazing hot take then yeah you'll get called out for it, look at what happens to Glenn Greenwald almost every day. You're not the first person to get such a pile-on after such a burning take here, it used to happen almost regularly to Beet back when he was more active for a notable example but just one, there's plenty of others.

Oh cool, now I'm being compared to a transphobe who thinks Tucker Carlson is a socialist and increasingly espouses far-right conspiracy theories, or to a poster who pulls an ideological 180° every other week. Yep, seems like a fair comparison. Guess I haven't built any goodwill whatsoever as someone who's reasonably sincere and level-headed over the 13 f**king years I've been posting here. Good to know.

What makes people still upset here is that you're kind of doubling down but in a half-assed way, you may have dropped the ridiculous bracket system but you're also admitted my points are valid but not really saying how you would address them in such a law, you're saying you're not necessarily calling for jail time for violators but aren't clarifying then how you would enforce it (if it's just a slap on the wrist sentence then it'll be kind of meaningless), you're not explaining what ideally would occur to my pastor and her husband or what type of damages occurred to her, etc.

You can call it half-assed if you want. I'm not going to renounce an idea wholesale if I'm not convinced it's worth renouncing wholesale. And if people can't even acknowledge the things I have renounced, and still continue to attack them 2 days later, what's even the point? If I'm not going to be treated with a modicum of good faith on this, I'm not going to carefully sift through every post to see if they make valid points in between the obvious dishonesty.

You're also not addressing that many posters here found this deeply and personally offensive for completely understandable reasons

Gonna single this out because this one I'm comfortable standing by in full. I really don't give a sh*t if people are offended by the idea of being hypothetically put into a category deserving of greater state protection by virtue of their age. I was 24 not that long ago, you realize, and I'm pretty sure my feelings on the issue weren't that different. And I'm sure that there are 17-year-olds right now who also think they're fully mature and feel insulted by the idea of the law treating them differently because of their age. And some of them might be right! Some 17-year-olds are extremely emotionally mature while some 30-year-olds aren't at all. There's a lot of variation in this regard, but ultimately the law has to make some kind of determination, and arguing for the line to be drawn differently is not some personal attack of the maturity of every single person below that line. On the other hand, the kind of personal outrage I get in response certainly doesn't do much to convince me of their maturity.

you're not addressing the rather bizarre implications that for example Nelsie Yang was at the time of her swearing in considering competent enough to serve on the St. Paul City Council but not competent enough to date someone born in 1990, nor the example I gave of the extreme level of responsibility I dealt with at age 24 and Donerail's very valid examples. Here's another example: the main organizer of Dude Fest was 22 when the first Dude Fest happened. If you want to just laugh about that and say "LOL BRTD who cares about Dude Fest" then you go try organizing a music fest of that size and tell me how easy it is. You're kind of addressing my points by saying "yeah these are valid concerns" but after that just kind of shrugging them off and seemingly just saying "we'll just find some way to make it work" without giving any details or suggestions at all and of course are ignoring why so many here were so offended. So yeah people aren't just shrugging it off, shocked Pikachu.

Well I'm not going to "find some way to make it work", because I'm not a policymaker, and even if I was this isn't the kind of project I would actually push forward myself. If someone else brought forward this kind of project, and I looked at it carefully and evaluated how it impacted all the situations you and others had described, and found that it satisfactorily addressed these concerns, I might support such proposal. That's all I'm saying. I'm not claiming I have the solution, or that I would be able to figure it out, or even that it necessarily exist. I just don't think that any of your example can disprove the possibility that it exists (that's a high burden of proof, you realize!), and given that case, I'm not going to preemptively blanket-oppose any and every effort to raise the age of consent above 18. That is, again, all I'm saying. Call that half-assed if you want.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

If you make a blazing hot take then yeah you'll get called out for it, look at what happens to Glenn Greenwald almost every day. You're not the first person to get such a pile-on after such a burning take here, it used to happen almost regularly to Beet back when he was more active for a notable example but just one, there's plenty of others.

Oh cool, now I'm being compared to a transphobe who thinks Tucker Carlson is a socialist and increasingly espouses far-right conspiracy theories, or to a poster who pulls an ideological 180° every other week. Yep, seems like a fair comparison. Guess I haven't built any goodwill whatsoever as someone who's reasonably sincere and level-headed over the 13 f**king years I've been posting here. Good to know.

What makes people still upset here is that you're kind of doubling down but in a half-assed way, you may have dropped the ridiculous bracket system but you're also admitted my points are valid but not really saying how you would address them in such a law, you're saying you're not necessarily calling for jail time for violators but aren't clarifying then how you would enforce it (if it's just a slap on the wrist sentence then it'll be kind of meaningless), you're not explaining what ideally would occur to my pastor and her husband or what type of damages occurred to her, etc.

You can call it half-assed if you want. I'm not going to renounce an idea wholesale if I'm not convinced it's worth renouncing wholesale. And if people can't even acknowledge the things I have renounced, and still continue to attack them 2 days later, what's even the point? If I'm not going to be treated with a modicum of good faith on this, I'm not going to carefully sift through every post to see if they make valid points in between the obvious dishonesty.

You're also not addressing that many posters here found this deeply and personally offensive for completely understandable reasons

Gonna single this out because this one I'm comfortable standing by in full. I really don't give a sh*t if people are offended by the idea of being hypothetically put into a category deserving of greater state protection by virtue of their age. I was 24 not that long ago, you realize, and I'm pretty sure my feelings on the issue weren't that different. And I'm sure that there are 17-year-olds right now who also think they're fully mature and feel insulted by the idea of the law treating them differently because of their age. And some of them might be right! Some 17-year-olds are extremely emotionally mature while some 30-year-olds aren't at all. There's a lot of variation in this regard, but ultimately the law has to make some kind of determination, and arguing for the line to be drawn differently is not some personal attack of the maturity of every single person below that line. On the other hand, the kind of personal outrage I get in response certainly doesn't do much to convince me of their maturity.

you're not addressing the rather bizarre implications that for example Nelsie Yang was at the time of her swearing in considering competent enough to serve on the St. Paul City Council but not competent enough to date someone born in 1990, nor the example I gave of the extreme level of responsibility I dealt with at age 24 and Donerail's very valid examples. Here's another example: the main organizer of Dude Fest was 22 when the first Dude Fest happened. If you want to just laugh about that and say "LOL BRTD who cares about Dude Fest" then you go try organizing a music fest of that size and tell me how easy it is. You're kind of addressing my points by saying "yeah these are valid concerns" but after that just kind of shrugging them off and seemingly just saying "we'll just find some way to make it work" without giving any details or suggestions at all and of course are ignoring why so many here were so offended. So yeah people aren't just shrugging it off, shocked Pikachu.

Well I'm not going to "find some way to make it work", because I'm not a policymaker, and even if I was this isn't the kind of project I would actually push forward myself. If someone else brought forward this kind of project, and I looked at it carefully and evaluated how it impacted all the situations you and others had described, and found that it satisfactorily addressed these concerns, I might support such proposal. That's all I'm saying. I'm not claiming I have the solution, or that I would be able to figure it out, or even that it necessarily exist. I just don't think that any of your example can disprove the possibility that it exists (that's a high burden of proof, you realize!), and given that case, I'm not going to preemptively blanket-oppose any and every effort to raise the age of consent above 18. That is, again, all I'm saying. Call that half-assed if you want.

The problem with this is that you're kind of the only one pushing for it (aside from Ferguson and probably various anime avatars on Twitter, but we all know how much they matter.) You said "I'm not going to preemptively blanket-oppose any and every effort to raise the age of consent above 18." But...there literally are none. No country in the world has this as I noted, and I have yet hear of a single proposed piece of legislation anywhere to do this. This isn't like me saying for example that I won't preemptively blanket-oppose any gun control proposal but I'd have to review any such ones before supporting them because that's a complex issue with a lot of proposals and different laws everywhere, this is a total unicorn policy that no one outside of obscure corners of the Internet are proposing at all.

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

I think that 16 is fine, but that between 16-18 it can only be with someone who is under, say, 20. After that I think it doesn't matter (sane, libertarian)

[Antonio the Sixth]

If you make a blazing hot take then yeah you'll get called out for it, look at what happens to Glenn Greenwald almost every day. You're not the first person to get such a pile-on after such a burning take here, it used to happen almost regularly to Beet back when he was more active for a notable example but just one, there's plenty of others.

Oh cool, now I'm being compared to a transphobe who thinks Tucker Carlson is a socialist and increasingly espouses far-right conspiracy theories, or to a poster who pulls an ideological 180° every other week. Yep, seems like a fair comparison. Guess I haven't built any goodwill whatsoever as someone who's reasonably sincere and level-headed over the 13 f**king years I've been posting here. Good to know.

What makes people still upset here is that you're kind of doubling down but in a half-assed way, you may have dropped the ridiculous bracket system but you're also admitted my points are valid but not really saying how you would address them in such a law, you're saying you're not necessarily calling for jail time for violators but aren't clarifying then how you would enforce it (if it's just a slap on the wrist sentence then it'll be kind of meaningless), you're not explaining what ideally would occur to my pastor and her husband or what type of damages occurred to her, etc.

You can call it half-assed if you want. I'm not going to renounce an idea wholesale if I'm not convinced it's worth renouncing wholesale. And if people can't even acknowledge the things I have renounced, and still continue to attack them 2 days later, what's even the point? If I'm not going to be treated with a modicum of good faith on this, I'm not going to carefully sift through every post to see if they make valid points in between the obvious dishonesty.

You're also not addressing that many posters here found this deeply and personally offensive for completely understandable reasons

Gonna single this out because this one I'm comfortable standing by in full. I really don't give a sh*t if people are offended by the idea of being hypothetically put into a category deserving of greater state protection by virtue of their age. I was 24 not that long ago, you realize, and I'm pretty sure my feelings on the issue weren't that different. And I'm sure that there are 17-year-olds right now who also think they're fully mature and feel insulted by the idea of the law treating them differently because of their age. And some of them might be right! Some 17-year-olds are extremely emotionally mature while some 30-year-olds aren't at all. There's a lot of variation in this regard, but ultimately the law has to make some kind of determination, and arguing for the line to be drawn differently is not some personal attack of the maturity of every single person below that line. On the other hand, the kind of personal outrage I get in response certainly doesn't do much to convince me of their maturity.

you're not addressing the rather bizarre implications that for example Nelsie Yang was at the time of her swearing in considering competent enough to serve on the St. Paul City Council but not competent enough to date someone born in 1990, nor the example I gave of the extreme level of responsibility I dealt with at age 24 and Donerail's very valid examples. Here's another example: the main organizer of Dude Fest was 22 when the first Dude Fest happened. If you want to just laugh about that and say "LOL BRTD who cares about Dude Fest" then you go try organizing a music fest of that size and tell me how easy it is. You're kind of addressing my points by saying "yeah these are valid concerns" but after that just kind of shrugging them off and seemingly just saying "we'll just find some way to make it work" without giving any details or suggestions at all and of course are ignoring why so many here were so offended. So yeah people aren't just shrugging it off, shocked Pikachu.

Well I'm not going to "find some way to make it work", because I'm not a policymaker, and even if I was this isn't the kind of project I would actually push forward myself. If someone else brought forward this kind of project, and I looked at it carefully and evaluated how it impacted all the situations you and others had described, and found that it satisfactorily addressed these concerns, I might support such proposal. That's all I'm saying. I'm not claiming I have the solution, or that I would be able to figure it out, or even that it necessarily exist. I just don't think that any of your example can disprove the possibility that it exists (that's a high burden of proof, you realize!), and given that case, I'm not going to preemptively blanket-oppose any and every effort to raise the age of consent above 18. That is, again, all I'm saying. Call that half-assed if you want.

The problem with this is that you're kind of the only one pushing for it (aside from Ferguson and probably various anime avatars on Twitter, but we all know how much they matter.) You said "I'm not going to preemptively blanket-oppose any and every effort to raise the age of consent above 18." But...there literally are none. No country in the world has this as I noted, and I have yet hear of a single proposed piece of legislation anywhere to do this. This isn't like me saying for example that I won't preemptively blanket-oppose any gun control proposal but I'd have to review any such ones before supporting them because that's a complex issue with a lot of proposals and different laws everywhere, this is a total unicorn policy that no one outside of obscure corners of the Internet are proposing at all.

Yes, clearly that's a view that's well outside of the mainstream. We've already been over that. I don't expect any such policy to be seriously proposed and discussed any time soon, and I sure as f**k won't be the one bringing it forward! Which is why I don't think there's any reason to keep this discussion going.

I've retracted as much of that original post as I possibly could without straight-up lying about my genuine thoughts on the issue. I don't know what more you want from me.

[buritobr]

Threads about sex usually have a large quantity of replies

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Threads about sex usually have a large quantity of replies

Yes, due to fact this is a SECULAR blog.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Threads about sex usually have a large quantity of replies

That Atlas is a site that is overwhelmingly male and under-25 probably has something to do with it.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

The main reason age of consent/statutory rape started to become enforced far more often is because legislators had pressure to reduce teenage pregnancy rates, and a huge proportion of teen pregnancies is a result of 19-25 years old manchildren sleeping with teens and then fleeing.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The main reason age of consent/statutory rape started to become enforced far more often is because legislators had pressure to reduce teenage pregnancy rates, and a huge proportion of teen pregnancies is a result of 19-25 years old manchildren sleeping with teens and then fleeing.

This is both a good point and brings up another issue with the Ferguson/Tony proposals: if 18-24 year olds are trusted to have children, isn't that so big of a responsibility they should be allowed to have any partner? My mother was 24 when she had me and while my father was 25 and thus "allowed" it's still worth considering. I mean if it's OK for two 21-year olds to have a kid together, why should it not be for a 21-year old and a 30-year old? An argument could even be made in such cases that having an older other partner is to the benefit because they may be more career established and capable of raising the child.

[darklordoftech]

The main reason age of consent/statutory rape started to become enforced far more often is because legislators had pressure to reduce teenage pregnancy rates, and a huge proportion of teen pregnancies is a result of 19-25 years old manchildren sleeping with teens and then fleeing.

When was this?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Well I found some people who agree with Tony...but he probably isn't going to like them.

https://twitter.com/bloodberry_tart/status/1518273459616419841

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

LMAO, I thought this would be an Atlas-only position but...


https://twitter.com/DDem0cracy/status/1518458091192389641

[Blue3]

A few years later the brain starts to decline. So only 25-30 year olds should vote and have sex and drive, and permanent ban on that for people with disabilities then… And drinking and smoking influence and age the brain, so if you do that then never allowed to vote or drive or have sex.
(Sarcasm)

[MiddleRoad]

Amazing. We’re becoming quite a Puritanical society. I have no doubt they will raise the age of consent to 25 at some point. Because we’re Puritans again.