Posts by BenWilson
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Hard News: A plea for sanity on the…, in reply to Myles Thomas,
Dark arts indeed.
I still can't buy Hooton as a Death Eater. Slytherin, sure.
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Up Front: It's Complicated, in reply to Keir Leslie,
Observation could be a reasonable step, I guess?
That's about all there is, really. If they look mature, then I think most "reasonable" people would consider how it might have fared for them, in the same situation. They put it to the thought experiment of meeting an attractive person that they're dead keen on, who looks, say, 18ish. That person is doing everything in their power to maintain that illusion, since they are also keen. So they not only look 18, they act 18. Furthermore, they act "natural", like they're your peer. Is the first thing on your mind the fucking law? The whole thing feels so damned right, in every way that matters, that you've got to be a pretty strange person to go "OK, look, just to be sure about ... um ... well, I don't quite know how to put this ... how old are you?". By even asking the question, cards are thrown on the table about your motives, which could be highly offputting to the other person even if they are not underage. It's just a crude thing to get into. Trusting people is one of the bases of attraction.
I'm sure there's also, even in the impartial "reasonable" person's mind, the realization of just how little harm there really is in it, barring the law. The law is just so wrong about the issue (in this case, where the person has every semblance of both sufficiently mature body and mind), that it's pushed down. They see that it's technically a crime, but a very, very mild one, far out of proportion with the potential punishment.
In the case where the maturity is less evident, then I'd expect they'd feel less sympathy. So the law ends up discriminating against people who like a girl who is less voluptuous, or less worldly in her manner. Not sure what to make of that. It's unfair, but it's understandably unfair. In this case it's the courts we have to make excuses for.
Just had a flashback to dancing and flirting with a 20 year old girl (she said) in a nightclub as a teenager. She was really into it, we were getting on famously. But like a fool, I let it slip that I was 14 (too honest for your own good, you idiot, my friends said), and she freaked out and took off. I was routinely mistaken for 18-20 at that age, until I opened my mouth. The cool kids knew when to shut up. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have been deeply traumatized that evening if something that I know to be extremely pleasant had ended up happening to me. Quite the opposite, I'm nearly certain it would have done me a power of good.
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Up Front: It's Complicated, in reply to Keir Leslie,
I don’t actually know what “reasonable steps” are
Surely "asking" is a bare minimum.
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Up Front: It's Complicated, in reply to Emma Hart,
Slightly tangentially, by my reading of this, the consensual sex I had at fifteen with my seventeen year old boyfriend was a crime.
You have a defense, but he doesn't, as I read it.
Even weirder, the idea that at the age of 15, if I had flirted with a 15 year old girl, then met her again, hopeful for sex (whether I got it or not!!!) I could actually be in violation of 131B.
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Up Front: It's Complicated, in reply to Keir Leslie,
Thanks for that, Keir.
If you look at s134A, you see that the law has a concept of “consent” for those under 16. It just doesn’t think that’s hugely important.
"Age of consent" doesn't come into it, anyway. Consent itself does, and is clearly important as one of the three conditions of the only defense in section 134A. Indeed, that it is mentioned implies that consent IS possible in a "young person" which is a 12-15 year-old, presumably. If it's absent, there is no defense, and presumably two crimes (at least) have been committed, eg Sexual Conduct with Young Person under 16, and Sexual Violation. If they did consent, then it's not Sexual Violation (as I read it), even though it might be Sexual Conduct with Young Person under 16, if the other 2 conditions failed. ie The defendant knew or didn't try to find out that the person was under 16.
It's not clear (to me) that consent is not possible for under 12s. It's just illegal to have sexual conduct with them.
ETA: Snap Emma
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Hard News: A plea for sanity on the…, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Yes, for starters, the stadium was going to be located where our current port is. Changing the location of a port just to put in a rugby stadium, at short notice, is a planning fail. I even would like to have actually had the stadium built right there, and the port moved, but it was unrealistic in the timeframe. You just can't ram that kind of thing through. In the scale of things, a port is a whole lot more important than a stadium, so you don't just rush into a decision regarding it. I highly doubt the super city would have come to any different decision. Also, it wasn't just Aucklanders who didn't want the stadium.
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I wish people would stop using the term “age of consent” here. In NZ, the “age of consent” is, if anything, 12 – that’s the age below which it is impossible to use a partner’s consent in a defence.
What's a better term? Presumably you're not saying adults can have as much sex as they like with consenting 13 year olds, right? I understood that to be illegal (even if an "I didn't know" defense stands up - the first time), although I fully agree that equating it with rape is just silly.
It might help discussion if someone legally informed could actually jot down what the actual law on sex with minors is in this country. "Age of consent" is still a term that seems to apply in the US, though, with their statutory rape thing. We're not just talking about NZ in this thread, indeed, the original post is about an American situation.
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Caveat the above with “Within the law, of course.” Which is what we’re discussing, so I can’t say it’s an obvious thing, about where the line should be drawn. As Emma started out by saying, it’s complicated. Everyone’s got their squick, and it gets squicky fast when we’re talking about children. But you’re suggesting basically widening the definition of “minors” to mean people who could be any age, basing the decision on passing some kind of testing against the norms of society, to prejudge your sexworthiness.
I can see the point of that when you’re talking about people who fall well outside of the norm. The intellectually disabled, for instance, or insane people, could possibly be considered unfit to clearly consent. Prisoners are restricted in all things, sex is just one of them. But I’m uncomfortable about denying even these people, the restrictions should mostly be on the people who want to have sex with them, not on them being able to have sex with anyone at all.
So it’s still a crazy hodge-podge of rules, like all practical matters involving humans tend to be. In practice, there already IS an “adult card”, which is police and court (and jury) discretion, and indeed parental discretion, and institutional ethics. It’s all humans enforcing this stuff now, just as it would be after bringing in the “license to shag” card.
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Up Front: It's Complicated, in reply to Moz,
I suspect that where you and I really differ is more likely on whether you want a crazy hodge-podge of rule and restrictions that vary depending on what exactly is under discussion, or a single “now you’re an adult” line. But I could be wrong.
I'm not sure, I don't know exactly what you would be suggesting for sure anyway, and it could well be something quite reasonable. But it does seem to me that we've finally reached a point in history that a whole lot of crazy arse rules about what people are allowed to do with their genitalia have finally been removed, that to start introducing new ones is regressive. The idea of a card you have to earn to be even allowed to have sex strikes me as something that could so easily be abused that the very idea of it is creepy. I really don't like the idea of some "reasonable man" or some shrink getting to decide if I can use my dick for what it pretty much evolved to do.
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Up Front: It's Complicated, in reply to Bart Janssen,
And worse the act the law measures is a physical one but maturity is so much more than the simply ability to have sex.
Yes. Also, conversely, one's right to have sex might have little to do with maturity. The idea that an socially immature but physically mature 20 year old could be in any way be blocked from having consential sex seems to me to be a profound violation of human rights.
It might be handy to instead use a “mature adult” card
The very idea sticks in my craw. It's like taking the idea of a free and progressive society, and inverting it. Patronizing paternalism is hardly a new idea. There are still plenty of people today who don't get to make decisions about even who they have to be married to for the rest of their lives, on the reasoning that they are too young to make the choices themselves. Is that the society we're after?
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