Why is it illegal to be happy?

[Ciel_Rouge]

Well that's my two cents...

Hi Dumac Dwarfking, I suppose it is not humanly possible to summarize the whole discussion more clearly and spot-on!



As for the guilt component, the Xtians always aim to incorporate that and spoil one's sexuality REGARDLESS of age.

As for cultural aspects and the arbitrariness of the whole thing, let me quote this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_consent

"Traditionally, across the globe, the age of consent for a sexual union was a matter for the family to decide, or a tribal custom. In most cases, this coincided with signs of puberty, menstruation for a woman and pubic hair for a man.

In Ancient Rome, it was very common for girls to marry and have children shortly after the onset of puberty.

In the United States, by the 1880s, most states set the age of consent at 10–12, and in one state, Delaware, the age of consent was only 7. A New York Times article states that it was still aged 7 in Delaware in 1895.[5] Female reformers and advocates of social purity initiated a campaign in 1885 to petition legislators to raise the legal age of consent to at least 16, with the ultimate goal to raise the age to 18. The campaign was successful, with almost all states raising the age of consent to 16–18 by 1920.[6][7]

Social (and the resulting legal) attitudes toward the appropriate age of consent have drifted upwards in modern times. For example, while ages from 10 to 13 were typically acceptable in Western countries during the mid-19th century,[1] the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century were marked by changing attitudes towards sexuality and childhood resulting in raising the ages of consent to ages generally ranging from 16 to 18.[3]"

So basically the age of consent was raised because in the late 1800s and early 1900s most women were forced by their PARENTS to marry men they did not even like. And this goes back to the biblical and religious aspect - in the Bible at certain age the ability to consent is not only denied to a person but TRANSFERRED to another. And from my atheist point of view THIS is HUGE human rights violation and a BIG no-no.