tg wrote:
>> If this culture is to compete in a global economy, it needs to figure
>> out how to maximize creativity rather than self righteous neurosis.
>
> I don't know how this relates to welfare fraud but anyway...
>
> Age of consent (for sex or/and marriage) assumes that children are
> particularly susceptible to manipulation by adults, which may have
> negative consequences.
Adults are also particularly susceptable to manipulation by minors who
they believe mite prove sexually gratifying. Petronius has a 12 year old
slave boy that Roman audiences thot was hilarius in how he manipulated
his master, sometimes by diddlying with the master's boyfriend.
Lotita, in contrast to the common perception, is in fact the sexual
predator who used her mom's husband to challenge her mom as to just who
could provide the most pleasure to him. And when she no longer needed
him for that, she dropped him like used hanky.
> Pregnancy or disease, for example. We also set
> age limits on non-sexual activities like entering into legal
> contracts, for basically the same reason.
> Your assumption that mothers would make choices in the best interest
> of the child is completely irrational and refuted by any number of
> examples.
Well who else? Who wants her teen age daughter to get knocked up, and
who would not have that in the prefrontal lobes because of his sexual
response that has been handed down in hominid evolution.
> If post-pubescent kids demonstrate responsibility about safe sex, then
> having sex within a narrow range of age peers shouldn't be a problem.
> Of course, by that standard, you end up with pretty much the same
> situation as we have now in most states.
The number of age peers who can handle sex safely are less than the
number of responsible adult mentors. Greek boys were sexual with their
mentors, but that also engaged their attention, and were thereby more
able to learn from them. We have but a small portion of the works of
genius that resulted, but still stand in awe of what we can see.
Mothers and psychologists are in agreement that there are more than just
two sexual profiles, and that these develop in different kids at
different times, and spurt sometimes at different rates. Someone had to
decide what to do, and so far its been men with alpha male concepts of
the divine with more dualistic rigid concepts of justice.
They are being replaced by women, who can tolerate higher degrees of
ambiguity, and would not need an age 18 directive. Where women are in
charge of the cosmology, such as the worship of Kali- the female version
of monotheism, emerges.
The women would want to look at the bloodwork, to determine the levels
of sexual hormones, adrenalin, seratonin, dopamine, etc, and then
consider the social development- the gradiations from timid to arrogant,
and the cosmological conscioussness. Sexual rituals commonly defuse some
of the emotional anxiety. In some cases, we'd expect frank discussions
of the talent and charm, and how that creates sexual responses, just as
we see Socrates do with Critias.
A girl with the exploitive instincts of Lolita would be told that women
understand what they are, and how they work- motivating men. Rather like
an intervention. The women making it clear they've seen the movie; maybe
we can work something out that is less stressful?
Whatever that is, nobody gets pregnant, and nobody gets an STD because
of more careful case management. Like the village matchmaker, but with a
more open ended view of what appropriate relationships would be like.
The community which can convince unstable women to not conceive, but
accept in vitro from a healthier line... will see its global
competitiveness rise as that next generation matures.
All of that sexual energy and passion that emerges between adolescents
and adults could be handled in a more understanding manner. And without
all the emotional trauma, the general level of creativity in the
community would rise dramatically. Too many now lack the emotional
maturity to make the nuclear family model work.
Too many now have unresolved emotional issues to be able to responsibly
handle a monagamous relationship, but asexuality is not working either.
Whatever pleasure is had in sex is surrounded by anxiety that could be
defused with a more flexible and undefined social model.
