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I think if MSD wants to continue reposting an official stance from the medical community, he should at least provide some references to peer reviewed journals making such a ludicrous claim.
To Ustwo's credit, at least he said he's never seen such a study or been able to assess its validity...even though he personally believes the claim to be true.
Right on the face of it, there is nothing that indicates the medical community thinks "18" has any special developmental significance. In terms of decision making process centers in the brain, they aren't well developed until 25...so if it were due to physiology then we'd have to change our age limits far beyond what people would consider appropriate. I'm talking about sex, driving, drinking, voting, and etc. to bring current age limit legislation on various life consequence decisions in line with what modern science understands about the human brain and human development (which isn't much, btw).
Jocke, if you are interested in an enlightened position on sex between minors and adults, there is at least one country which doesn't come to mind at the moment that has established a tribunal where partners can come before a magistrate and "show" the nature of their consensual relationship and if successful may proceed with their relationship on a sexual level.
What you will find is that many people are uncomfortable about this subject. But where you will find support for the position that age of consent laws are barbaric and fundamentally unfair would be in modern feminist literature, for one. Nearly all laws assume the young female is the one absent the ability to make choices (and you see that fairly deep cultural belief articulated in many posts against you). Young men are often celebrated by their fathers and friends when they cross the sexual threshhold. That is, unless it's with another male. And despite how "ew'd" people claim to be about the topic, the name of the porn game is to make young actresses and models appear as young as possible. Some of the most popular threads in the sexuality section appear to be pre-pubescent teens or barely legal children ready and willing for sex. The irony is that since it's legal, it's ok for older men (predominantly) to leer and masturbate at these children while insulting you for voicing the non-wrongness of it out loud.
You will also find that not many people would be offended by say a MILF having lesbian sex with a "Barely Legal" or shaving the pubic hair off an asian female made to look like she's 16 (or younger) in a photo shoot. In Japan, it's popular to buy "school girl" panties from vending machines.
So I think you're broaching a difficult and controversial topic and kudos for keeping a level head when people can't maintain their composure in light of the gravity of the subject matter.
In terms to one of your main questions, there are a number of extremely serious offenses that are coming out of these types of offenses. Almost all states now will label these men as sex offenders and make some type of public availability to their names and addresses. Mandatory minimums are being passes in nearly all states currently due to the politization of the topic. Life sentences. Our supreme court just recently put some common sense back into the legal stream of consciousness by rejecting death penalties for sexual crimes against children.
It's definately something that needs to be discussed and thought about.
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"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann
"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman
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