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Re: Data Summary Request

Posted by Pharmakon on 2024-September-1 04:46:23, Sunday
In reply to Data Summary Request posted by BLueRibbon on 2024-September-1 02:59:33, Sunday

I think the Finnish dataset is incredibly important, but its implications for harm are indirect. As Felson points out, the fact most girls do not feel negative about their age-gap sex experiences does not necessarily preclude harm. What it precludes is the argument that girls mostly exercise no agency in these interactions -- that they are mostly victims. (Of course some of them may be, and probably are, victims. We don't need to argue that sexual victimization is nonexistent. If half of the girls who have sex with men are satisfied with having done so, and a significant proportion of those who are not satisfied were coerced, it suggests strongly that coercion, not age gap sex, is the problem to be addressed. Obviously, banning age gap sex is massive overkill if the problem is coercion.)

I think concluding that girls who do not experience age gap sex negatively were not harmed by it is reasonable. But the reverse inference -- that girls who experienced age gap sex negatively were harmed -- is not reasonable. Unsatisfactory sex cannot be equated to harm. Society is not obligated to, and should not attempt to, guarantee either kids or adults satisfactory sexual experiences. Bad sex is part of the process of learning how to have good sex.

If we accept "very low risk of harm" -- and especially very low risk of harm to girls -- as necessary to justify changing policies about AMSC, I think we are making things harder for ourselves than they should be or need to be.

A related problem is that "very low risk of harm" to boys is a much easier argument to make, at least based on the Finnish data. So adopting that standard inevitably pushes us in the direction of standards that differ based on gender, which I see as a losing issue in view of the long history of the use of such standards to limit the sexual freedom of females.

hugzu ;-p


Pharmakon

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