debate: what makes a pedo a pedo

[OEP]

Kingswood, I reckon age of consent laws exist for a very good reason, and as OEP says, there always has to be a cut-off somewhere. Few people know this, but the minimum 'age of consent' is actually 10 in Australia - provided that the other party is no more than 2 years older - and that continues up until the age of 16 or 17, depending on which state you're in. In every state except South Australia and Tasmania, 16 is the basic age of consent - a 16 year old can have sex with anybody, as long as they are not in an authority role (e.g. teachers, step-parents, coaches). I almost wonder if the age should be raised, as I tend to think that a 16 year old these days is far more mentally immature than a 16 year old would have been 50 or 100 years ago.

As for the child beauty contests, I don't think the parents (the organisers may be a different matter) have paedophilic tendencies, I think they're just mindblowingly stupid. Why would you actively participate in the sexualisation of your child? Not to mention the skewed ideas of body image and 'beauty' that such an event encourages. The tabloid media can be so hysterical about protection of children (the Henson incident was its nadir, in my opinion), yet why don't we hear more about this warped, borderline insane eroticisation of children over in America?

Sorry rocketronnie, I'll respond to your post in depth in a bit - I just wanted to get these out of the way.

David where are you getting this stuff from because it's rubbish. The legal age of consent is 18 years of age. There are no provisions under any act I can find that has a defense for someone having sexual intercourse with someone under the age of 16.
In the case were one of the party is of 16 years of age but under 18 years of age the accused party must prove they believed the other party was 16 (or older) and that they were no more than 3 years older at the time. It is not a defense if one of the persons was under their care, supervision or authority of the other.

See the attached link for the Criminal Code of WA and read from page 166 on:

http://www.slp.wa.gov.au/pco/prod/FileS ... penElement

To help here's some of the base point;

1. Section 319 (2)(c) - A child under the age of 13 is incapable of giving consent.
2. Section 320 - Child under 13, sexual offences against.
3. Section 321 - Child of or over 13 and under 16, sexual offences against.
4. Section 321 (9)(a) + (b) - It's a defense if the alleged offender believed the other party was 16 years and they are not more than 3 years older.
5. Section 321 (9a) (a) + (b) - no defense under section 321 (9) if the other party was under the alleged offenders care, supervision or authority.

Also if your considering a situation were the persons concerned are married then the legal age for marriage is 18. Parental consent for children of 16 years of age but under 18 years of age was rescinded and now any exception must be presented before the courts for a magistrate or judge to decide, and there would have the exceptional circumstances for approval to be granted (i.e. one of the two requesting parties would be deceased prior to both being of legal age to marry).
Obviously being married is a defense under the Criminal Code (WA) hence the need to jump through hoops to get approval for an underage marriage.

If you could provide a link or some sort of substantive proof of your claim of legal sexual intercourse for a person of 10 years of age or over if neither party is 2 years older than the other, it would make for interesting reading I'm sure.

[HAL]

Some of them do, I think. Stupid as in unintelligent? Because I was taught to do it. Give me an example of a defense if one of the persons was under their care supervision or authority of the other. What makes it so obvious? Tell me more about your marriage. That's just an academic question.

[nomadjack]

Kingswood, I reckon age of consent laws exist for a very good reason, and as OEP says, there always has to be a cut-off somewhere. Few people know this, but the minimum 'age of consent' is actually 10 in Australia - provided that the other party is no more than 2 years older - and that continues up until the age of 16 or 17, depending on which state you're in. In every state except South Australia and Tasmania, 16 is the basic age of consent - a 16 year old can have sex with anybody, as long as they are not in an authority role (e.g. teachers, step-parents, coaches). I almost wonder if the age should be raised, as I tend to think that a 16 year old these days is far more mentally immature than a 16 year old would have been 50 or 100 years ago.

As for the child beauty contests, I don't think the parents (the organisers may be a different matter) have paedophilic tendencies, I think they're just mindblowingly stupid. Why would you actively participate in the sexualisation of your child? Not to mention the skewed ideas of body image and 'beauty' that such an event encourages. The tabloid media can be so hysterical about protection of children (the Henson incident was its nadir, in my opinion), yet why don't we hear more about this warped, borderline insane eroticisation of children over in America?

Sorry rocketronnie, I'll respond to your post in depth in a bit - I just wanted to get these out of the way.

David where are you getting this stuff from because it's rubbish. The legal age of consent is 18 years of age. There are no provisions under any act I can find that has a defense for someone having sexual intercourse with someone under the age of 16.
In the case were one of the party is of 16 years of age but under 18 years of age the accused party must prove they believed the other party was 16 (or older) and that they were no more than 3 years older at the time. It is not a defense if one of the persons was under their care, supervision or authority of the other.

See the attached link for the Criminal Code of WA and read from page 166 on:

http://www.slp.wa.gov.au/pco/prod/FileS ... penElement

To help here's some of the base point;

1. Section 319 (2)(c) - A child under the age of 13 is incapable of giving consent.
2. Section 320 - Child under 13, sexual offences against.
3. Section 321 - Child of or over 13 and under 16, sexual offences against.
4. Section 321 (9)(a) + (b) - It's a defense if the alleged offender believed the other party was 16 years and they are not more than 3 years older.
5. Section 321 (9a) (a) + (b) - no defense under section 321 (9) if the other party was under the alleged offenders care, supervision or authority.

Also if your considering a situation were the persons concerned are married then the legal age for marriage is 18. Parental consent for children of 16 years of age but under 18 years of age was rescinded and now any exception must be presented before the courts for a magistrate or judge to decide, and there would have the exceptional circumstances for approval to be granted (i.e. one of the two requesting parties would be deceased prior to both being of legal age to marry).
Obviously being married is a defense under the Criminal Code (WA) hence the need to jump through hoops to get approval for an underage marriage.

If you could provide a link or some sort of substantive proof of your claim of legal sexual intercourse for a person of 10 years of age or over if neither party is 2 years older than the other, it would make for interesting reading I'm sure.

We've raised this before in another thread.

http://www.childwise.net/downloads/Age_of_consent.pdf

[David]

Cheers Nomad. OEP, although I briefly mentioned it, I probably should have stressed how much the age of consent laws differ from state to state - although, they are all founded on the same basic premise: recognition of sexual activity among teenagers in conjunction with a need to protect under-age people from exploitation.

Here's another page that carries the same basic information, with a political purpose in pointing out the ridiculous, outdated laws in Queensland that differentiate heterosexual from homosexual ages of consent [16 as opposed to 18]. Unbelievable that this could be the status quo in 2010.

http://www.afao.org.au/library_docs/pol ... June06.pdf

The Hon. Michael Kirby wrote a letter dealing with this issue a few weeks ago:

http://www.queerradio.org/Hon_Michael_K ... nsland.pdf

[OEP]

Cheers Nomad. OEP, although I briefly mentioned it, I probably should have stressed how much the age of consent laws differ from state to state - although, they are all founded on the same basic premise: recognition of sexual activity among teenagers in conjunction with a need to protect under-age people from exploitation.

Here's another page that carries the same basic information, with a political purpose in pointing out the ridiculous, outdated laws in Queensland that differentiate heterosexual from homosexual ages of consent [16 as opposed to 18]. Unbelievable that this could be the status quo in 2010.

http://www.afao.org.au/library_docs/pol ... June06.pdf

The Hon. Michael Kirby wrote a letter dealing with this issue a few weeks ago:

http://www.queerradio.org/Hon_Michael_K ... nsland.pdf

You've completely missed my point. I was commenting on your incorrect "age of consent" statement regarding the age actually being 10 years of age if neither party is two years older than th more the other.
This is not the case in any state or territory in Australia.

[pietillidie]

Why do you always enter these debates so late, RR? LOL

That's a great run-down of psychology in practice, thanks. And it definitely facilitates informed reasoning. (However, I don't think anyone has "blatantly misused" any information).

I believe what you've said totally reinforces the medical view even if it is viscerally difficult to view the perpetrators that way. The whole set of deceit and manipulation behaviors are classified as characteristics of disorders in other cases, while the infantile sexuality, history of abuse, etc. reinforce this, so I'm not sure what makes this different apart from its detestable nature. The fact the perpetrator actually reasons their behaviour is normal and society is misguided is evidence of significant delusion. Moreover, we have no problem accepting the distorted pleasure feedback mechanism as a malfunction when it comes to say drug addiction and gambling, so why not in this case?

It goes without saying that strong measures are required to contain offenders and protect children. But we also have an obligation to treat offenders, unless of course treatment itself genuinely does worsen the rate of offence.

I also still don't believe in thought crime, however vile and antisocial a thought, simply because policing it would lead to state violence and abuse of monumental proportions. However, I definitely believe in early medical intervention of a forceful nature to stop antisocial thought becoming crime, though the history of such medical interventions themselves is a litany of shocking abuses.

As far as I know what I'm outlining here is nothing new; I've read such ideas numerous times in relation to discussions of "the criminal gene".

[tcnthat]

Some great insights RR, thanks.

[David]

You've completely missed my point. I was commenting on your incorrect "age of consent" statement regarding the age actually being 10 years of age if neither party is two years older than th more the other.
This is not the case in any state or territory in Australia.

Admittedly, the ACT is the only place where this is spelled out specifically, but I think we are to presume that it is the same in all other states and territories. This is so because the '2 year rule' seems fairly consistently in place for teenage sex in the other states, and there are no other explicit provisions for sex between two minors, which, as we know, happens frequently and would almost certainly never be prosecuted. Your understanding [that the age of consent is 18] is completely incorrect, so what is your current understanding of the age of consent laws when dealing with people younger than 16?

Edit: perhaps you are partially correct - admittedly, it is possible that the minimum age also differs across the states. The pages I linked to, however, made no mention of it - perhaps it is simply assumed that as soon as a child reaches puberty, the two year rule kicks in. I'm not sure.

[OEP]

You've completely missed my point. I was commenting on your incorrect "age of consent" statement regarding the age actually being 10 years of age if neither party is two years older than th more the other.
This is not the case in any state or territory in Australia.

Admittedly, the ACT is the only place where this is spelled out specifically, but I think we are to presume that it is the same in all other states and territories. This is so because the '2 year rule' seems fairly consistently in place for teenage sex in the other states, and there are no other explicit provisions for sex between two minors, which, as we know, happens frequently and would almost certainly never be prosecuted. Your understanding [that the age of consent is 18] is completely incorrect, so what is your current understanding of the age of consent laws when dealing with people younger than 16?

Edit: perhaps you are partially correct - admittedly, it is possible that the minimum age also differs across the states. The pages I linked to, however, made no mention of it - perhaps it is simply assumed that as soon as a child reaches puberty, the two year rule kicks in. I'm not sure.

Oh FFS David, it's not my understanding it's the bloody law not some hypothesis. The LAW clearly states the age of consent is 18 years of age, there are provisions for those having sex from the age of 16 years to 18 years but these are fairly restrictive.

With regards to two minors (under 16 years of age) having sex it would be at the discretion of the Police investigating the incident as to who, if anyone, would be charged. This would again be guided by the Criminal Code and the Young Offenders Act, and then a final determination would be made on whether a prosecution would be in the publics interest.

[David]

I'm a little confused as to why you keep saying that the age of consent is 18 when the webpages that nomadjack and I linked to quite clearly state that, while the age of consent varies from state to state, it is 16 in all states and territories except South Australia and Tasmania, where it is 17. The only manner in which the age of 18 even enters the discussion is little more than a footnote - that the age of consent is 18 where authority figures (i.e. teachers or care-givers) are concerned. Have you read the links? It also quite emphatically states that in the ACT, at least, the minimum age of consent is 10 with a 2 year gap applying up until the age of 16 - the situation for pre-16-year-old sex in the other states appears to be a little more ambiguous, but it would seem that similar rules apply. Why are we even arguing about this? If you were to claim that the information on the two webpages was spurious, then fair enough, but I just checked the wikipedia page and it reiterated this information wholly.

Why are we even talking about this? It was only an offhand comment in response to what was already a deviation from the topic at hand.

[OEP]

[nomadjack]

[OEP]

[David]

This segment of nomadjack's link seems pretty definitive:

What if both parties are under the age of consent?

"Normal" sexual exploration

It is a common and normal part of sexual development for young people to explore and experiment in sexual interactions with their peers (Araji, 2004; Barbaree & Marshall, 2006; Eade, 2003). Appropriate sexual exploration is when there is mutual agreement between same- or similar-aged peers, it is non-coercive and all participants have the control to participate, continue or stop the behaviour. If two young people who are close in age engage in a sexual relationship and there is no evidence of a power imbalance or violence, the sexual interaction is not a legal issue (Barbaree & Marshall, 2006). The state jurisdictions that provide a legal defence when the sexual interaction is between two young people close in age (Western Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory) are attempting to find a balance that protects children and young people from adult sexual exploitation in a way that does not criminalise them for having sexual relationships with their peers.

Anyway, I'm over this topic. I don't care particularly either way and this is derailing what, I feel, was an interesting thread.

[OEP]

This segment of nomadjack's link seems pretty definitive:

What if both parties are under the age of consent?

"Normal" sexual exploration

It is a common and normal part of sexual development for young people to explore and experiment in sexual interactions with their peers (Araji, 2004; Barbaree & Marshall, 2006; Eade, 2003). Appropriate sexual exploration is when there is mutual agreement between same- or similar-aged peers, it is non-coercive and all participants have the control to participate, continue or stop the behaviour. If two young people who are close in age engage in a sexual relationship and there is no evidence of a power imbalance or violence, the sexual interaction is not a legal issue (Barbaree & Marshall, 2006). The state jurisdictions that provide a legal defence when the sexual interaction is between two young people close in age (Western Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory) are attempting to find a balance that protects children and young people from adult sexual exploitation in a way that does not criminalise them for having sexual relationships with their peers.

Anyway, I'm over this topic. I don't care particularly either way and this is derailing what, I feel, was an interesting thread.

Obviously your not or you wouldn't keep defending your stance.

The legal defenses they are referring to I have already quoted numerous times and the other course of action open to investigating officers is "not in the publics interest (to prosecute)", which I have also referred to in a previous post. None of these change the legal age of consent.

The reason I keep rebutting these incorrect statements is because your original comment of children of or over the age of 10 can legally have sex as long as they are not more than two years apart (yes it was a small part of a larger post, but a very important part) needs to be correctly defined. There are juvenile pedophiles in this world and if your statement wasn't held accountable then how would they ever be prosecuted ?

Everything I've done in this thread has been in keeping to the tone of the threads topic - "what makes a pedo a pedo".