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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 10, 2023

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There's a big issue that needs better policing, self- or other-wise, but I'd caution some of these examples aren't particularly good ones. In particular, the actual proposal from Tatchell was :

One alternative option might be to introduce a tiered age of consent, where sex involving under-16s would cease to be prosecuted, providing both partners consent and there is no more than two or three years difference in their ages. This system operates in Germany, Israel and Switzerland...

Any review of the consent laws should be premised on five aims. First, ending the criminalisation of consenting relationships between teens of similar ages. Second, protecting young people against sex abuse. Third, empowering them to make responsible sexual and emotional choices. Fourth, removing the legal obstacles to earlier, more effective sex and relationship education. Fifth, ensuring better contraception and condom provision to prevent unwanted pregnancies and abortions and to cut the spread of sexual infections like HIV.

That is, essentially a Romeo and Juliet law. There are some good arguments against these laws: there's a lot of potential for abuse with a lot of the covered age ranges, even within same-age relationships in these age ranges, there are pragmatic arguments against people this age having even safe and consensual sex, and far more than the general sphere this subject is especially vulnerable to the Murder-Ghandi problem.

But they are extremely far from the central case for pedophilia.