I read an interesting article a little bit ago (it was in a book collection of essays, and I haven't been able to find it online, or I would link to it) that talked about the continual search for "official innocents" throughout history. A few hundred years ago, women were considered society's "official innocents." They were judged to be pure, unsullied saints who needed to be protected against anyone who might ruin them. This was used as a reason to treat them with patronizing "protective" limitations on what they could and couldn't do. Basically, women were considered too naive, emotional, and mentally inferior to make meaningful decisions for themselves, and if allowed to do so they would invariably get fooled by some evil tempter out there and destroyed. One of the most villainous things a person could do was to steal the virtue of a woman, and a lot of people were oppressed (African Americans, for example) on the grounds that they would "take our women" or "ruin our women." Defense of women, the "official innocents" of the time, was an excuse to brutalize people in the name of righteousness.
Over the years, attitudes began to change. Women eventually tired of being treated like oversized children and after a long battle achieved civil rights roughly on level with men (they still make a hell of a lot less in virtually every field, and there's still plenty of unfair discrimination, but it's much better than it was). This left society without a group of "official innocents," those pure and perfect people who had to be protected, and without an obvious group to demonize as a threat. Until the relatively recent obsession with "pedophiles" came about.
A lot of the people on this thread, and on others like it, don't hesitate in claiming it as fact that children are incapable of exerting any independent will whatsoever. Any child who has sexual contact with an elder was obviously tricked into it, because children are unspoiled and innocent. People claim that sexual contact between an adult and a child is horribly damaging to the child, and therefore to protect the children we must exact all kinds of barbaric vengeance on those adults who violate this sacred innocence. But it just isn't so.
First of all, people need to realize that the term "molesting a child" has really taken on a new meaning and set of connotations. It used to be that molesting a child meant things like fondling, groping, and other creepy but definitely non-violent activities. The rape of a child--that is, full on penetrative sex--was a completely different matter. Nowadays, child molestation is considered a euphemism for child rape, and everyone just assumes that a child molester is an adult who had sex with a kid. But that is very, very rarely the case. The vast majority of cases involve minor, decidedly inappropriate but definitely non-violent "fooling around" type behavior, and in most of these cases there are no long-term negative consequences of the episode. Now, I want to make very clear that I do not condone these sorts of activities. But to claim that there is no difference between a single inappropriate touch and repeated rape is ridiculous and downright fanatical.
Secondly, children are not necessarily innocent. Even though they are considered the same under the law, there is definitely a difference in the sexual identity of a 15 year old and a 5 year old. Teenagers are generally very sexual, and that time of life is full of all kinds of things that NOBODY would consider "pure" or "innocent." They are immature, stupid, and naive, but they are not innocent and they are not incapable of thinking for themselves. And while there has been little study into the sexual feelings of children 10 and younger (mostly because anyone who tries is smeared as a "pedophile" and has their reputation ruined), the few studies that have looked into it do not support the idea that children have no thoughts or feelings on the matter. Yet people want the law to be black and white, before-18-you-are-innocent-and-pure-and-incapable-of-self-determination and after-18-you-are-a-jaded-adult-and- can-do-anything-you-want. But it just isn't that simple. And we're causing a lot of unnecessary harm because we pretend that it is.
I definitely have more to say on this subject, but I have to go run some errands, so I'll leave it at that for now. I welcome any reasoned (and not hysterical) counter arguments!
