Are minors who have sex with adults 'victims'?

[Spoonfed]

Throughout history psychologists have made some controversial claims. Until the early 20th century is was generally agreed that masturbation was harmful, resulting in male circumcision (still practised today) and even clitoridectomy. Black people were 'proven' to be mentally inferior to whites, justifying segregation and their mistreatment. Homosexuals were considered mentally ill and subjected to hormone therapy. How can we be certain that today's 'experts' are not simply justifying societies prejudices?

Despite great variation in age of consent laws (ranging from 18 in USA to 14 in Germany) most experts consider consensual sex to be inherently harmful to persons under the age of consent, even teenagers a few years below these arbitrary age based laws are considered 'victims' when they have consensual sex with adults. What evidence leads psychologists to conclude that sex is harmful to pubescent and prepubescent minors? What studies support the criminalisation of consensual sex with persons under the age of consent?

In the same way that African children labelled 'witches' start to believe they are genuinely evil, children labelled 'victims' start to believe they have been harmed i.e. a 14 year old having sex in the USA may see themselves as a 'victim' after the arrest of their adult partner and subsequent therapy sessions, while Germans of the same age might not (as 14 is legal). Clearly therapists can influence how minors view their sexual experiences.

Obviously young people need to be protected from exploitation and harm. Small children are not physically capable of having penetrative sex with adults, however not all sex acts involve penetration. In many cases sex is criminalised despite the consent of partners, use of contraception and lack of physical/mental harm. Can anyone provide me with relevant information explaining why consensual sex with minors is harmful and why? Are there only moral reasons justifying the criminalization of sex with pubescent and prepubescent minors, or does tangible evidence of harm exist?

[voodoo scientist]

There is mountains of evidence that prepubescent children are greatly harmed by sexual relations, regardless of whether it's with adults or not (though the damage is greatly compounded if it is with an adult), either through direct psychological distress or indirectly through promotion of demonstrably maladaptive and self-destructive behaviors. So why do we only criminalize adults? Because it would be silly to criminalize the children - the basis for illegality is that children lack the mental capacity for selecting sexual partners and engaging in sexual behavior, so if two children do so together, it must follow that neither can be held criminally responsible. Not so in an instance where one party is adult, because adults must be assumed to possess the mental capacity for engaging in sexual behavior.

There is a great deal of cultural and individual variation in when children make the change from prepubescent to sexual maturity, however. What complicates things is that sexual maturity falls on a continuum, and that it isn't possible to identify where on the continuum any individual child falls. From a legal and policy-setting point of view, age of consent laws are therefore set to protect those who reach sexual maturity last: the highest-risk common denominator. They are unquestionably moral and necessary in the form they exist today given the information and risk-assessments available, but they will also improve and get less false positives as our ability to objectively measure sexual maturity improves.

[RisingSun]

Black people were 'proven' to be mentally inferior to whites,...

Psychologists and scientists have built a mountain of scientific evidence over the years defending the claim that IQ is mostly genetic in origin.

On the issue of consent, whoever claimed that children can't given consent? I've worked with children for many years, and it always seemed they can give consent. For example, if one child doesn't want to be in class, I will know it, whereas if another child wants to play a certain game, or doesn't want to play, I'm going to know it. Even my dog can give consent (she likes to have a peanut butter snack, but doesn't like to take a bath).

[Spoonfed]

Thanks for your replies.

There is mountains of evidence that prepubescent children are greatly harmed by sexual relations, regardless of whether it's with adults or not

I notice you haven't provided and sources supporting this statement, why not? I would like to see the 'mountains' of evidence.

[voodoo scientist]

Thanks for your replies.

There is mountains of evidence that prepubescent children are greatly harmed by sexual relations, regardless of whether it's with adults or not

I notice you haven't provided and sources supporting this statement, why not? I would like to see the 'mountains' of evidence.

Because you can pick open any developmental psychology or abnormal psychology journal and run a search for "sexual abuse." You're asking the equivalent of sources for whether the brain is really made of neurons, and the fact that you haven't run obvious searches makes me suspicious of your motives and good faith in this.

That means either you're a teenager old looking to be cool and independent, in which case I'm completely uninterested in continuing this, or you have what an ethics committee would call a conflict of interest in pursuing this line of research - if you catch my drift - in which case I would like to keep my hands and history of associations clean. I would feel more comfortable if you actively brought up some of the readily available evidence and poked holes in it if you think there are holes to be poked.

[Spoonfed]

Read 'The Trauma Myth' by Susan Clancy - most children enjoy doing sex, society makes them feel bad about it afterwards. If something is harmless there is no justification for its prohibition.