To address Tiberius's point: some 15 year-olds may be mature enough to make some responsible decisions about their lives, but not all 15 year-olds and not on all issues. They simply lack the insight born of experience. Three years, during the most hormonally volatile portion of a person's life, can be fairly significant. While a 15 year-old dating an 18 year-old may not all that bizarre, I'd be deeply concerned personally if the 15 year-old was my child. I'm not stupid; kids will diddle, inevitably, and that is, in fact, an important part of the maturation process. But letting them grow up too fast is poor parenting, and the moral and legal responsibility for a child under 18 (arbitrarily established) is a serious one. That said, I fully agree that a (potential) 15-year prison sentence and a lifetime on the sex offender registry for something that had apparently been going on consensually and openly for some time is ridiculous, just because a clock struck midnight. If it was wrong or problematic at 12:01, it was likely the same at 11:59, could have and should have been addressed before---by every parent involved.
To address the issue in more general terms: I doubt I'm the oldest person here, but it's a safe bet I'm older than the average. With age doesn't come necessarily come wisdom, but it does usually entail experience (or maybe just cynicism). And I'm into some weird stuff, I'll admit... Like monogamy (well, serial monogamy, anyway), for example, and avoiding casual sex. So I'm a little old-fashioned on this one. On the occasions I see a much older person with a much younger one, I automatically assume at least one party is not on the level about something. The older is manipulating the younger, taking advantage of their naivete and raging hormones, and/or the younger is (or thinks they are) conning the older for material gain or status. Stuff like that. It's my belief that older people, with their greater experience/cynicism, have an obligation to the younger to not use them for their own ends (or allow themselves to be so used); ideally anyway, they know better.
Because while we like to think sex is a wholesome, pleasurable, sharing experience, it quite often actually isn't. Sex probably screws more people up than any other human experience. Rape, molestation, puritanical restrictions, ignorance, societal prejudice, shame, all manner of Freudian bullshit, violence, humiliation, manipulation, betrayal, lies, disease and simple incompetence are all things that can make sex less than wholesome, pleasurable and sharing. Not placing enough significance on the sexual act is as much a mistake as placing too much on it---and/or vise versa.
There actually are some realities and nuances about sex and relationships that must be learned, and aren't necessarily apparent to teenagers who just discovered their genitals and think they're suddenly sexual pioneers. They're not, trust me. Teenyboppers groping in the Walmart parking lot as I write this have got nothing on Erica Jong, D.H. Lawrence or the Marquis de Sade. Or their parents, for that matter. Screwing's been around a while. But it may be hard to convince a 15 year-old that just because that thing between his/her legs came stock from the factory that they still have to learn to use it well and responsibly. They come to that on their own to a degree, but society---the older, not necessarily wiser but more experienced---has some obligation, too, to keep them from doing themselves or others irreparable harm in the meantime. That's done by guidance by responsible parents, honest sex education and age limits, however arbitrary they may be.
What consenting adults do, whatever their gender, is none of my concern, unless they're doing it in my living room. In which case I'm probably going to watch.
To address the issue in more general terms: I doubt I'm the oldest person here, but it's a safe bet I'm older than the average. With age doesn't come necessarily come wisdom, but it does usually entail experience (or maybe just cynicism). And I'm into some weird stuff, I'll admit... Like monogamy (well, serial monogamy, anyway), for example, and avoiding casual sex. So I'm a little old-fashioned on this one. On the occasions I see a much older person with a much younger one, I automatically assume at least one party is not on the level about something. The older is manipulating the younger, taking advantage of their naivete and raging hormones, and/or the younger is (or thinks they are) conning the older for material gain or status. Stuff like that. It's my belief that older people, with their greater experience/cynicism, have an obligation to the younger to not use them for their own ends (or allow themselves to be so used); ideally anyway, they know better.
Because while we like to think sex is a wholesome, pleasurable, sharing experience, it quite often actually isn't. Sex probably screws more people up than any other human experience. Rape, molestation, puritanical restrictions, ignorance, societal prejudice, shame, all manner of Freudian bullshit, violence, humiliation, manipulation, betrayal, lies, disease and simple incompetence are all things that can make sex less than wholesome, pleasurable and sharing. Not placing enough significance on the sexual act is as much a mistake as placing too much on it---and/or vise versa.
There actually are some realities and nuances about sex and relationships that must be learned, and aren't necessarily apparent to teenagers who just discovered their genitals and think they're suddenly sexual pioneers. They're not, trust me. Teenyboppers groping in the Walmart parking lot as I write this have got nothing on Erica Jong, D.H. Lawrence or the Marquis de Sade. Or their parents, for that matter. Screwing's been around a while. But it may be hard to convince a 15 year-old that just because that thing between his/her legs came stock from the factory that they still have to learn to use it well and responsibly. They come to that on their own to a degree, but society---the older, not necessarily wiser but more experienced---has some obligation, too, to keep them from doing themselves or others irreparable harm in the meantime. That's done by guidance by responsible parents, honest sex education and age limits, however arbitrary they may be.
What consenting adults do, whatever their gender, is none of my concern, unless they're doing it in my living room. In which case I'm probably going to watch.
- C. Neron
