Debate Guide: The kids do not want it

"Your arguments will only come into play, once children themselves start asking for sex. I have not heard a single one making such requests!"

Apathy is central to the oppression of many groups. The very definition of oppression is to undermine liberties with physical or mental tyranny. Minors, women and slaves would not be treated this way if they collectively stood up and challenged the status quo. In this sense, your argument could be used to justify the mistreatment of Arab women, and it is therefore unacceptable. It is worth noting that the process by which women and western children are silenced is exclusion and alienation from the civil rights discourse. Very few children have a concept of civil rights or activism, nor do they have the right to vote. Due to society's wishful denial of children's sexual appeal, youth are not driven to see themselves as sexually attractive and thus eligible. There is no way of asking for something that you are not even allowed to comprehend the existence of.

Expanding on this, a common argument is that the average child (in western societies) would struggle to express sexual feelings due to a lack of understanding sexuality. This, however, is not caused by merely age; rather, the environment. Continuing with the examples of women and slaves, this same concept can be found among individuals of all ages throughout history. When foreign powers would try to incite slave revolts in rival sovereignties, many a time they would face problems. Slaves would refuse to revolt, claiming their masters would not approve. These slaves lived their entire lives as subordinates to their masters; it is all they knew. They could not comprehend the concepts of liberty and freedom beyond what they could observe of their masters. When the feminist movement first began, most women were opposed to it. They, too, lived their whole lives as subordinates to men. And they, too, struggled to comprehend civil liberty. This inability was used by anti-feminism as a supporting argument as to why women should not be emancipated from men.

Likewise, child sexuality is repressed, and their exposure to information regarding sexuality is greatly limited. With the establishment of "adult content" filtration, children are hidden from the knowledge that would allow them to better understand sexuality. When they do gain enough information to ask, assuming they are not already whipped into fearing punishment upon asking, the answers are withheld, the child is presumed to have been "corrupted" or "abused" and often is even victimised.

Your argument is also illogical, because in removing legal restrictions and encouraging freedoms we do not require someone's explicit will to exercise those new freedoms. It is simply good enough that these freedoms are there instead of prohibitions and railroading of individual agents into behaviour patterns that appease the force of authority. On the other hand, you are advocating coercion (from sex). So unless the consensus in lawmaking has shifted from "what should we prohibit?" to "what should we allow?", it is you who needs to provide evidence that age of consent laws improve more people's lives on the whole.

Please also note that lists of accounts and studies partially disprove your claims of apathy. Too often, we simply do not listen to those who would challenge our preconceived biases.