Kids and Sex

Over a century after Freud unveiled the theories based on children being sexual beings, we have developed a schizophrenic cultural view.

Simultaneously, we vehemently refuse to accept that kids are sexual beings whilst cheerfully buying primary school girls thongs and padded bras, equipping them with pencil-cases adorned with the Playboy logo.

This obviously needs some unravelling. My focus will be the age of sexual consent, which at least has the merit of having relevance to crime and punishment.

At what age are we capable of giving consent to sexual activity? The law says 16 years. Our bodies, the biology, have it that we are ready after puberty. What our individual psychology says seems to be a moot point; no one ever asks the question. Anyone who opens the door to the discussion is automatically assumed to be on the path of attempting to legitimise paedophilia.

We are held to be fully responsible for any crimes we may commit from the age of 10 years. Until the Bulger murder, the law held that, up to the age of 14, the law had to prove that the child defendant understood right and wrong and appreciated the consequences of their actions.

In the popular panic that heated society and politics around the Bulger murder, this qualification was removed. From then on, ten year olds were assumed to have the moral reasoning of fully fledged adults.

So I can be held to be capable of assuming full legal and moral responsibility for killing a person. This isn't an issue I care to deny in my own case. However, if I had decided to have sex, it would be unshakably asserted that I was incapable of making any sensible decision. After all, children can't, can they...?

Is this not problematic, both in principle and legal conception?