burris@ihlpf.UUCP (07/20/83)
#N:ihlpf:19100007: 0:248 ihlpf!burris Jul 19 10:26:00 1983 Let's hear some comments on the recent issue of congressmen who perform sexual acts with teenage pages! I know what would happen to me if I were to get caught in such a practice. Approximately 20 years! Dave Burris ihlpf!burris BTL - Naperville
mjk@tty3b.UUCP (07/20/83)
Perhaps Dave Burris would get 20 years if he had sex with a 17 year old, but not in D.C. or Maryland, where the liasons took place. 17 is old enough for consent there, and no one is suggesting coercion. Sure it's nice to see these holier-than-thou Moral Majority folks like Dan Crane get caught with their pants down, but it has no real significance. It's this and speculation about who's fighting with who in the White House staff that passes for informed political news. A democracy has a responsibility to produce informed discussion, not the meaningless dribble that too-often substitutes for it. Mike Kelly tty3b!mjk
tim@unc.UUCP (07/20/83)
This opens a much broader question. How just is it that we
condemn a person for having sex with a teenager? The standards that
our society sets on minimum age of sexual consent are not universal by
any means, as anyone with knowledge of other societies is aware.
Furthermore, it is common knowledge that the organs of reproduction
are fully functional at a younger age than the 16 or 18 the law
allows them to start working at.
It seems a very sex-negative attitude to forcefully postpone sex.
For one thing, this is an effort doomed to failure which serves no
identifiable purpose. Teenage humans have been having sex for
millions of years. I had sex when I was a teenager (although I am
currently living with a woman three years older than myself, so I'm
not currently having sex with any teenagers). The biggest problem was
birth control. It is difficult to get in a sex-negative environment.
Thus you manufacture preganancies where there need be none. The
forbidding of sex actually worsens the problems associated with sex,
even though preventing those problems is presumably the reason for the
forbidding. The bottom line is that it doesn't work; to ameliorate
problems you should spread information and enlightened attitudes, not
ignorance and fear.
______________________________________
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The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill