On matters of relevance to the question at hand
Asguard said:
can i please point out that this thread isnt a debate into what age sexual contact should be alowed but rather the atitudes towards sexual contact with people who are defined by law as unable to concent.
Certainly you may. I would suggest, though, as a counterpoint, that the two concepts are interrelated, perhaps inextricably.
There is, for instance, what is generally described as a double-standard: a male engaging in a lot of sexual intercourse has long been regarded with an air of admiration, while a female having a lot of sex is considered of ill repute.
Curiously, in the case of South Carolina, the age of consent for a woman is set constitutionally by a 1999 amendment (
see Article III, Section 33). I have not yet found information regarding any prior standard, but it is worth noting that III.33 pertains
specifically to women. Comparatively, it appears that the age of consent for males is set by statute (
see Title 16, Chapter 15, Article 1, Section 140); I have not located the date of enactment of this statute. Additionally, specific statute (
Title 16, Chapter 3, Article 7, Section 659) refuses a common law presumption that a male under the age of 14 is incapable of committing rape. I have not found any similar statute or reference to common law pertaining to the age at which a female is allegedly incapable of committing rape.
All of this pertains to certain presumptions that some might describe as intuitive, instinctive, or even visceral. Intuitively or instinctively, at least, the (double-) standard pertains to the fact that men deliver and women receive seed. That is, a woman can become pregnant. Viscerally, people seem to regard in different contexts the acts of depositing and receiving or holding seed. Long tradition suggests that a woman is made unclean by the reception of semen into her body, most specifically into the vagina.
Additionally, as any who remember the social superstitions of school days, what once was considered "loose" morals has transformed into the undesirability of a "loose" vagina. One of the colloquial prizes of deflowering a young woman is the "tight" sensation of penetration.
The effect of these presumptions is that it is considered more harmful to be penetrated or receive seed than it is to penetrate or deliver seed. Add to that the issues discussed by Marie and Fraggle:
CutsieMarie89: If a man has sex with a girl its horrible and the girl is ruined forever and... but if a woman does it to a boy the boy was just lucky or some other nonsense.
Fraggle Rocker: That's an exaggeration but it's true to a great degree, and that's the problem. It's just one of those Venus/Mars things. It's far more likely that a girl will grow up with emotional problems from it. But it's every boy's dream come true, for an adult woman to come on to him. Not only would he never complain, he'd be bragging about it. All a woman has to do to be guilty of statch is to not hit the boy over the head with a brick when he comes on to her!
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italics added)
One of the questions that arises is to what degree the emotional problems for the female result from either social stigma or genuine psychosomatic conflicts. Certainly social standards foster the notion of every boy's dream come true. I remember, personally, reflections of guilt and, for lack of better,
sin in the post-orgasmic lull of my early masturbatory sexuality; it is not, in my opinion, beyond possibility—in fact, it seems likely—that in some cases a boy's psychosomatic conflicts about early sexuality will be suppressed in favor of the social standard°, e.g., the double-standard.
Whatever anthropological or evolutionary merits the double-standard might bear are generally perverted, according to human will, in their practical manifestations. Standards upheld for the fact of tradition tend to see their contexts transformed according to the circumstances of the times. If, indeed, for every thing there is a season (
Ecc. 3.1), we must consider the context of that season. While I am not much for tattoos, for instance, it is merely an aesthetic thing; this is far different from the Biblical prohibition against tattoos (
Lv. 19.28). In its season, such a rule makes sense even with what modern rationalism would consider a silly justification ("I am the Lord"). Leviticus is attributed to Moses, said to be
written during the Hebrew years in the desert following the exodus. When wandering around in the middle of nowhere for forty years, extraneous wounds to the flesh really do seem a bad idea. Sanitary challenges contribute to a number of specific rules, including removal for certain periods after specific biological functions such as bowel movements.
And much as modern first-world civilization can account for the sanitary risks of tattooing, so also it seems reasonable to reevaluate the season of the sexual double-standard. Improved prophylactic protection, safer abortion procedures, and new medical treatments for venereal diseases (including cures for some) transform the context of sexual mores persisting for the fact of tradition. The rise of romantic marriage to prevail in Western society over the political and socioeconomic marital traditions also alters the context of traditional moral assertions.
What modernity brings is twofold at least, engaging both the dilution of traditional standards and the transformation of their contexts. Yet these oft-superstitious assertions persist on the merit of tradition. While it is certainly arguable, indeed almost assured, that the resulting isolation of superstitious tradition is not the whole explanation of the difference about how Western society views heterosexual sex crimes perpetrated by men and women, I would suggest that the accused double-standard regarding sexual promiscuity is a vital, persuasive, and perhaps dominant component. Certainly, we cannot ignore it.
As such, consideration of ages of consent and the rationale for diverse standards seems powerfully relevant, and the task is not to dismiss these aspects of the discussion, but rather to bring them back to an applicable context.
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Notes:
° a boy's psychosomatic conflicts about early sexuality will be suppressed in favor of the social standard — While this is not the topic for deeper exploration of this specific assertion as such, the suppression of these conflicts would certainly lend toward misogynistic manifestations in later life; long justification according to what is essentially a superstition will inevitably affect perspectives and outcomes, although those results will vary from person to person according to circumstance.
Works Cited:
South Carolina Constitution. Viewed June 16, 2008. http://www.scstatehouse.net/scconstitution/scconst.htm
South Carolina Code of Laws. Viewed June 16, 2008. http://www.scstatehouse.net/CODE/statmast.htm
Bible: Revised Standard Version. Updated February 18, 1997. http://quod.lib.umich.edu/r/rsv/
Grace Institute. "Overview of the Old Testament". Fall, 2005. Viewed June 16, 2008. http://www.gcfweb.org/institute/prophet/overview-1.html