Debate Guide: Sexual inexperience
Young people are just children. They lack the life experience to understand the complexity of sex and its implications. This is why they can't give informed consent.
Regardless of life experience, if we demand every sexual interaction satisfy "informed consent" (a legal standard), we start pigeonholing voluntary sex as "non-consenting". This (among other things) means that "CSA" becomes empirically invalid as a scientific construct, and thus useless.
To use this dilemma to quickly shut down a debate, see CSA dilemma argument.
Addressing (in)experience
The appeal to a minors' inexperience begs the question: if not now, when exactly should they gain sexual experience? For today's teens, there is not much of an alternative, so unnaturally prolonging the situation leaves them with few options:
- Sex education is hopelessly theoretical and held back by games of political brinkmanship, meaning that curricula vary wildly from state to state.
- Pornography has been condemned by Feminists and Conservatives alike as as the worst possible education.
Would we ask a blind man to help another blind man cross the road, or learn to drive a car from someone who doesn't know how to drive? Why, when it comes to sex (something prohibitionists claim is highly complex) do we engage in this magical thinking and assume that one amateur coaching another is somehow a healthy thing?
Further, sex is not inherently very complicated. It's an instinctive form of physical intimacy and expression of affection; touching each other and deriving joy from that. Apart from the basic precautions of safe sex (when required), that is all there is to it. While many adults associate "sex" with a variety of social rituals and expectations, these are not inherent necessities, and vary greatly even among the people adhering to them.
Consistency
It should also be noted that for many activities, getting even a young child's informed consent is not commonly considered to be all that important, since no long-term harm is seen to be done. For those responsible for the child's care, non-consensual treatment of children (beating, physical restraint, bathing) is often seen as a necessity, playing a part in education and the everyday running of the household. As these are all behaviors that contribute to the socialization of a child, we must ask ourselves why these are not classified as evil crimes when compared to sexual touching of older minors absent force.
Congruence vs Repression
Incongruence is where the true perception of oneself (minors are well aware that they are sexual) clashes with society's supposition (pure, unperverted). Minors are therefore implicitly taught to view themselves as unusual and perverse, resulting in various anxieties and attempts to repress and deny their own nature, confining it to a straight and narrow path. Similarly, minors may not conceive of themselves as objects of desire, and are taught to be fearful of extra-familial adults' attentions. This neurosis may later manifest itself as excessive hatred towards pedophiles and other folk devils in adulthood.
A congruent upbringing is where socialization is compatible with the sexual desires of a child or minor[1]. For example, this means parents should not scold their child for showing curiosity. If the sexually neglected child cannot eventually come to terms with his/her sexuality (as a teenager or young adult), they may be left lacking in the ability to show affection, prone to social awkwardness/impropriety and confused about the validity and meaning of their own desires. This article goes to some length in explaining the sexual needs of children and how these are negotiated in relation to adults.
See also
- Debate Guide: Cognitive ability = consent
- Debate Guide: Teen brain
- Debate Guide: Childhood innocence
- Debate Guide: Cyclical paternalism
- Debate Guide: Liberty-empowerment
- Research: Sexual repression