Ageism

Laws restricting youth

Anti-youth policies both infantilize and criminalize minors, making them easy prey for the criminal system. Youthful relationships involving small age differences are often persecuted - leading to a lifelong criminal record, or worse - if the country has a sex-offender's register. Some of these crimes relate to child pornography, and our article on research into that subject quotes some examples of child producers.

Further, the effect of these laws is very often discriminatory and misogynistic - meaning that teenage girls who get pregnant do not have access to healthcare without criminalizing their boyfriends. This was a major reason for Peru reducing the age of consent to 14 in 2007.

Ageism in the broader sense

Ageism is easily identifiable in curfew laws and other anti-youth policies. The idea of adolescence as a discreet life phase is often provided as justification, along with the pseudoscientific information scheme of "teen brain" literature and attempts to raise the age of majority to 25 or beyond.

Wikipedia series

Wikipedia seems to be somewhat confused as to what ageism against young people might entail, with multiple articles each discussing separate theoretical constructs, some of which appear to have been completely usurped by statist language, discourse and distraction narratives:

• Ageism
• Adultism
• Adultcentrism
• Ephebiphobia
• Fear of children
• Paternalism
• Intergenerational equity
• Youth activism
• Youth empowerment
• Youth voice
• Youth rights

Organizations opposing ageism

• Americans for a Society Free from Age Restrictions - Anti-Age of Consent.

"An organization dedicated to increasing the rights of youth under American law. [...] ASFAR opposes a wide variety of laws that limit the freedom of young people, such as voting age limits, curfew laws, compulsory education, child labor laws, age of consent laws, minimum drinking ages, pornography age laws, child prostitution laws and minimum ages for firearm possession. [...] The animosity that led to the schism with NYRA has largely subsided, and ASFAR enjoys amicable and cordial relations with NYRA. [...] Meanwhile, ASFAR's opposition to the age of consent continues to attract members to ASFAR, as NYRA objects to taking a position on the issue."

• National Youth Rights Association - No position on the Age of Consent.

• A concise article published by NYRA on ageism
• Another concise article by NYRA, specifically about ageism among activists

Quotes on ageism

From Youth Oppression as a Technology of Colonialism: Conceptual Frameworks and Possibilities for Social Justice Education Praxis (DeJong and Love, 2015).

"The ideology of adult supremacy is comprised of a set of beliefs, attitudes, policies, and practices that construct adults as developed, mature, intelligent, and experienced, based solely on their age and ensures that adults control the resources and make the decisions in society. This ideology means that adults can vote, take out loans, sign legal documents, run for office, drive, get a job, have sex, get married, and more without first securing someone’s permission or approval. Adult supremacy posits that adult thinking is superior to the thinking of young people and therefore adults are required to make and enforce decisions for young people, with and without their participation or agreement (J. Bell, 1995)." [...]

"It is as young people that all humans first encounter the experience of domination and subordination. It is through the experience of youth oppression, humans are socialized to accept the attitudes and behavior patterns required to effectively fill the roles of dominant and subordinate. ... to accept and occupy the roles of dominant and subordinate that is required for all other oppressions to exist. (Love, 2014, p. 3) The subordinate role is experienced by all young people. This experience teaches the behavior patterns that accompany privileged/dominant status or disadvantaged/subordinate status. When called on to enact sexism, racism, anti-Semitism, and other forms of oppression, this early socialization prepares young people to accept domination and subordination as normal, appropriate, and societally approved." [...]

"It is clear from this discussion that adults cannot lead the work of ending oppression alone. As former young people, adults must notice where they still carry the internalized limits and feelings of powerlessness installed through youth oppression, alongside a sense of entitlement to the privileges of adulthood. Many adults experience a kind of “historical amnesia” that leads them to forget what it was like being a young person. They lack the information that would enable them to be in effective partnerships with young people that are more liberatory and less oppressive. Through engaging a critical examination of the discourses of childhood and adulthood, adults can become more effective at challenging youth oppression in partnership with young people."

Anti-ageist memes

See also Memes and Graphics.

• 
  Misuse of "child"
• 
  Scarred for life by sex
• 
  Universal Human Rights...
• 
  "Child" psychology vs sex
• Teens on the Register
  Teens on the Register

Examples of criminalization

See also: Ethical Treatment For All Youth.

According to the Registry Report (2021), over 1/3 of "child" sex crimes are committed by juveniles. They make up 1/4 of registrants, and have no say over a scheme of legal restrictions that can limit their opportunities for many decades. This is because of the naturally high level of sexual offending in this age-group. Due to the low detection rate among youths, the number of juvenile registrants could easily rise if and when survelillance increases.

It should be pointed out that this is not an argument for special treatment of teen offenders. As per the above article, there is no solid evidence that teenagers are uniquely malleable, still developing mentally, or especially able to reform themselves. It does however, show how the overall system of sex offender laws naturally discriminates against youth sexuality.

• Juvenile sex offenders marked for life (2008)

"They were neighbors, aged 13 and 10, who played together in a toy fort at the older boy's home. But one summer afternoon, the teen began talking about masturbation, then performed oral sex on the younger boy. He said they should do it again the next day. And they did [...] Since 1997, more than 3,500 children in the state -- some as young as 10, though on average about 14 -- have been charged and convicted as felony sex offenders, a mark that remains on their records forever, barring them from careers in medicine, teaching or a host of other professions that serve the vulnerable. It also frightens many into under-the-radar housing arrangements to avoid landlords who require background checks [...] Now a student at the University of Washington, Tyler has a girlfriend and tries to live as normally as possible. But the childhood record has scuttled his hopes of becoming a doctor and, by alienating him from peers who might ask too many questions, paralyzed much of his social development."

• Teen couple who photo'd own sex acts prosecuted for child porn (2007)

"Each [16 and 17] was charged with producing, directing or promoting a photograph featuring the sexual conduct of a child. Based on the contents of his e-mail account, Jeremy was charged with an extra count of possession of child pornography." [...] Cmt: "It's a strange anomaly. They're charged for making child pornography and tried as adults. However, the law calls the pictures they produced child pornography, so they should be trying them as minors. Anything less than this is hypocrisy.""

• Two Teen Girls Face Child Porn Charges ... For Their Own Pictures (2006)

"Providence, RI -- Two teenage girls face child pornography charges after posting sexually explicit photographs of themselves on the Internet. The pornographic pictures of Elizabeth Muller, 19, of North Smithfield, and an unidentified 16-year-old Lincoln girl were discovered on MySpace.com, a social networking Web site, said a spokesman for the attorney general's office."

• Teen charged for sending nude phone photos (2008), See also

"NEWARK, Ohio - Police in Newark, Ohio, have arrested a 15-year-old girl on juvenile child pornography charges for allegedly sending nude cell phone photos of herself to classmates. The girl was arrested Friday and held over the weekend. Her defense filed denials in court Monday."

• High Schoolers Accused Of Sending Naked Pictures To Each Other (2009)

"Three teenage girls who allegedly sent nude or semi-nude cell phone pictures of themselves, and three male classmates in a Greensburg Salem High School who received them, are charged with child pornography. Police said the girls are 14 or 15, and the boys charged with receiving the photos are 16 or 17. [...] "It was a self portrait taken of a juvenile female taking pictures of her body, nude," said Capt. George Seranko of the Greensburg Police Department. Police said school officials learned of the photos in October. That's when a student was seen using a cell phone during school hours, which violates school rules. The phone was seized, and the photos were found on it, police said. When police investigated, other phones with more pictures were seized. "Taking nude pictures of yourself, nothing good can come out of it," said Seranko."

• Carpentier, M., Silovsky, J. and Chaffin, J. (2006). "Randomized trial of treatment for children with sexual behavior problems: Ten-year follow-up," Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 74 , pp. 482-488.

"For example, some state child welfare systems have promulgated special tracking systems for registering, segregating, and handling children identified as having SBP [sexual behaviour problems]. Children with SBP may be segregated within facilities and limited to specialized SBP units. Because preadolescent children as young as 9 years old or occasionally younger are adjudicated as delinquent for sex crimes, some states include these children on lifetime public sex offender registries and Internet sites, and federal legislation has been proposed and passed in the U.S. House of Representatives that would mandate including all adjudicated children with SBP on lifetime public Internet sex offender registries (Children's Safety Act, 2005)".

See also

• SOR problems - The adding of children to public registries.
• Adolescence
• Research: Cognitive ability
• Research: Youth sexuality
• Cyclical Paternalism/Infantilization
• Youth liberation movement

External links

• The Criminalization of Youth - NAMBLA