gtaylor@cornell.UUCP (Greg Taylor) (06/29/84)
You're right, Ms. Q: It does looks like net.motss looks like a forum for defense. But so is about every other interest group on the net. Besides, in the course of that defense, there *are* a few other things that get covered. I think I like your layout of the difference between pedophilia and homosexuality. Best guess is that the person who posted the original is from a religious tradition that puts the two together as either "morally unacceptable behaviour" or "something the Gentiles do, and we are enjoined to be different from them.: (this came from a posting about the Jewish prescriptions about Homosexuality that I posted to net.religion.jewish)" In part, my problem concerns the formulation of "persons of equal strength" argument. Steve Dyer recently posted a tale about a neighbor of his with whom he enjoyed a close relationship that teetered on the edge of a romantic involvement. That , I'd suppose, you'd think of as a situation of "unequal strength." How does that work with someone who is in a position of uncertainty as to their sexual preference? Say, someone who's going through something akin to Jeff Sargeant's crisis of self-worth. SUch a person might well be miserable either gay or straight, right? But does their present uncertainty qualify them as a person of "unequal strength?" I'm thinking of Auden and Benjamin Britten here (cf Humphrey Carpenter's biog of Auden). On what grounds does one assume responsibility for the actions of another insofar as they are in a position of being influenced? Do you a)lay out the best case for being straight *AND* being gay as best you can b)speak only for yourself and live with the possibility of coercion? c)stay out of it? You've certainly done your share of flaming back to Ken, but I *do* think I have the faintest whiff of a *moral* argument in the "unequal strength" formulation. Whatcha think? gtaylor
saquigley@watmath.UUCP (Sophie Quigley) (07/02/84)
From Greg Taylor: >In part, my problem concerns the formulation of "persons of equal strength" >argument. > Steve Dyer recently posted a tale about a neighbor of his >with whom he enjoyed a close relationship that teetered on the edge >of a romantic involvement. That , I'd suppose, you'd think of as >a situation of "unequal strength." How does that work with someone who >is in a position of uncertainty as to their sexual preference? Say, >someone who's going through something akin to Jeff Sargeant's crisis >of self-worth. SUch a person might well be miserable either gay or >straight, right? But does their present uncertainty qualify them as >a person of "unequal strength?" I'm thinking of Auden and Benjamin >Britten here (cf Humphrey Carpenter's biog of Auden). On what grounds >does one assume responsibility for the actions of another insofar as >they are in a position of being influenced? Do you > >a)lay out the best case for being straight *AND* being gay as best you >can > >b)speak only for yourself and live with the possibility of coercion? > >c)stay out of it? > >You've certainly done your share of flaming back to Ken, but I *do* >think I have the faintest whiff of a *moral* argument in the "unequal >strength" formulation. Whatcha think? Humm, those are all very difficult questions. Let me first expand on what my point was against sexual relations between children and adult. The "strength" idea was a gross oversimplification, but it is a concern is most of the cases. I do not really think that there are many adult-children sexual relationships where force (physical or psychological) is not employed. Whatever these are called whether it be incest, pedophilia etc, these are rape and I think that rape is wrong (moral argument) because I think that it hurts the victims. Whether this is a valid moral argument or not I do not know, but I think that it is sort of obvious that raped people suffer. Unfortunately I do not have any figures on what proportion of adult-children sexual relations are NOT rape because I don't think there are any. It is already hard enough to define what a "child" is. My guess is that the proportion is quite low. The reason I am guessing this is that, as I described in this mailgroup a few months ago when there was a discussion on NAMBLA, I have been a willing participant in a child-adult sexual relation which was not rape and in which I was the child and the initiator. From an adult point of view, this could barely be called a "sexual relation", but it certainly was for me and that is exactly the point: adults and children are very different. I was very lucky in that i managed to realise that things were getting out of hand for me when they were, and just pulled out of the whole thing, and the adult was nice enough not to insist, and I was lucky enough that even if he had wished to he couldn't have had because I made sure he didn't by locking myself up but if I hadn't been so "lucky", it might have very well turned into a rape situation. What hit home was that I was getting much more than I had ever wished, and got a glimpse into the adult world that I did not really want to get. I still do not know what was in his mind at the time because I have never seen him since, but my guess is that some of it was a hippie notion about sex and love being free and easy for all. So I think that the intentions from both sides were quite venerable, but the result wasn't in that I got very frightened. Seeing what my experience was like, and that it was a simple combination of circumstances rather than insight and sensitivity from the part of the adult even though the adult was wishing well, that got things stopped only slightly after they were out of hand (he didn't realise it), I am very skeptical of other adults being able to be sensitive enough to be in touch with what the child's feelings are and caring enough to respect them. There are already very few adults who are sensitive to children's feelings in everyday situations when it doesn't matter as much. I also think that things for children and adults have very different dimensions and this discrepancy in perceptions can only add to the misunderstandings between them. All this added to the fact that children are weeker than adults and easily intimidated byt them can make these situations potentially very dangerous. What is there to balance out this danger for the child? adults who want to have sexual relations with children had better believe that what they are bringing them is wonderful if it is worth doing in spite of the danger. Thinking about it, I cannot think of any reason why sexual experimentation with an adult would be better for a child than with another child, so I cannot really find any justification for the risks. That is why I don't really believe in such relationships. I do not know if the argument is moral or not. I think it is common sense, but common sense is a very dangerous tool. I don't know if that clarifies my position on sex and strength or not. I think it does somewhat in that my position is not as clear cut as I made it out to be. Now, coming back to your other questions about adults and strength I do not care as much because I think that no matter how powerless the adults are, they are still more powerful than children are when faced with adults. They are also more knowledgeable and more aware of what they are getting into. And the other objections that I had against "pedophilia" do not hold as strongly in the case of adults. Argg, this is getting too long and I didn't even start answering your questions. and I have lots of other things to do now. Write a short flame at me if you are not happy and I'll get to the point. Sophie Quigley ...!{clyde,ihnp4,decvax}!watmath!saquigley