cordonone (imported) wrote: Thu Jul 17, 2008 1:29 pm
Thank you for such a long and thoughtful response to my post. We're just going to have to disagree. To me, it doesn't matter how old Romeo and Juliet were in Shakespeare's imagination or in whatever historical facts may be related to their characters five centuries ago. It doesn't matter to me whether the Hebrew Bible endorsed or implied child marriage several millenia ago or whether the Prophet's wife was six or sixteen five hundred years ago. It doesn't matter whether the rest of us "adults" succeed or fail at marriage or whatever committed relationships we choose to contract. I still believe that civil society today, nationally and across borders, has an inherent interest in protecting children. This applies not just to domestic laws but to international standards of Human Rights. This is not a matter of sociologically relative standards but of the rights of children to assume that society will protect them.
There will always be annecdotal events or stories that might challenge this or any sensitive societal norm, but they do not change the underlying values that are at stake. And, I have no doubt that there are many other legitimate conundrums beside those that you cite.
The only place where I took a little offense at your comments (the rest was mostly reasonable people disagreeing reasonably) was in the implication that it is only "the religious fundaMENTALISTS" who
A-1 (imported) wrote: Wed Jul 09, 2008 2:53 pm
insist on NO flexibility or discretion on the part of the judge, unless, the judge a
" Religiouisly, I am neither a fundamentalist nor a fundaMENTALIST, but I firmly believe that the overriding interest of society lies in assuming that children below a communally specified age are assumed not to be able to give consent. I don't want judges to have too much "discretion" when it comes to establishing guilt or innocence in these regards, but I am willing to concede that there might be some benefit to allowing the proximity of a defendant's age to that of a victim to be taken into account in any mandated treatment or sentencing. (As an aside, it is ironic in the context of this discussion that it is contemporary christian fundamentalist sects that have publicly been associated with creating cultures of alleged child rape. Recall also that it was a typically conservative religious institution, the Roman Catholic church, that has been most credibly and publically associated with the protection of child molestors and rapists.)
As for what might or might not be "ALL FUCKED UP...beyond repair...," I think that failing to have laws that make the assumption that children need to be pr
otected is far more fucked up than the alternative.
My friend,
I will only agree with that proposition about children under 12 or sexual relations between people who have age differences of over 4-5 years. Otherwise you are protecting people from themselves, and you KNOW what that means, don't you?
I think that perhaps I have not clarified my point sufficiently to you and to this message board.
The point being that if you are not sure that you were molested then maybe you were and maybe you weren't. (Probably, you weren't and fall under the category of, "I'll give you 30 minutes to STOP THAT!")
The first sexual experience with someone of the opposite sex that I had was at age 6-7. We played hide in the closet and take down your pants so I can find you and see you naked below the waist and of course it was cleverly disguised to be hide and seek. No penetration of course.
Then there was the strip poker same sex stuff. Then there was the adolescent 'making out' (with the opposite sex.) Then, there was the protector to the little brother-sister bit, no sex, but emotional bonding. Then there was the time another neighbor girl FLASHED me when she was naked and taking a bath, but we will not get into that... her Grandma just laughed about it, after she slapped her on the ass. (boy, whaat an ass..., for a kid, that was;) ..and the front was not bad, either, for a kid that was...) She was probably 10 or 11...
Then there was the dating games... with the girls who you were sexually attracted to...
THEN, ah yes, THEN there was the ONE... the she was 14 and I was 16 - thing- and DAMN!, that one just made me ache all over. Physically, emotionally, psychologically, and in every way possible and I was AN EMOTIONAL TRAIN WRECK, leaking dangerous fluids whenever I thought about her (and I NEVER stopped thinking about her) and in my sleep I dreamed about her.
So don't tell me about Romeo and Juliet. FICTION? Are you NUTS? We LIVED the play and hopped the 1969 movie version of Franko Zefferelli's Romeo and Juliet and instead we went out and parked and made love in the back seat of a 1961 Mercury...
Needless to say we were married when she was 17 and I was 19. (That is what they got for trying to seperate us. We even went to a Judge to seek advice and bless that man, he was pretty amazed -- and sympathetic.)
Yes, in today's Conservative fun-DAMNED MENTALIST America and world I could have very well been her molester, (monster) but instead I am (STILL, to this day) her husband. I have been for 37 years. We have weathered horrible storms together, but no real disasters. 4 children and 7 grandchildren later (we are both 40-some pounds heavier now) I have a hard time convincing her how HOT she was then and how I loved her and lusted for her and breathed just so that I could be with her.
Now it has cooled somewhat but it is still occasionally HOT, and I might look but only to remember what it was like, what it felt like to be young and in Love and (get ready for this)... *BRACE!* *BRACE!* *BRACE!*
...NOT TO HAVE SOME STINKING ASSHOLE TELL ME THAT I WAS TOO YOUNG TO KNOW WHAT LOVE IS... and pass the appropriate legislation to enforce it...
...I HAVE NEWS FOR ALL OF THEM WHO MAKE THESE ASSHOLE LAWS THAT MAKES YOUNG LOVERS MOLESTERS OF EACH OTHER.
THIS MAY BE NEWS TO SOME OF YOU BUT THE STRONGEST HUMAN EMOTIONAL ATTACHMENTS ARE ALWAYS TO YOUR FIRST REAL LOVE. THAT INCLUDES SEXUAL LOVE, TOO.
I KNEW (and kids know now) WHAT LOVE IS, I KNOW WHAT IT IS NOW AND I WILL NEVER FORGET WHAT IT IS, WHERE IT COMES FROM AND HOW IT CHANGES AS ONE AGES.
...to suppose that you never really knew and so nobody else did either is inhumane and disrespectful of humanity...
...attention only if this applies to YOU!
Comstock has been dead for many, many years now and just because you think that you have found Jesus does not give you the right to sit in judgment of people that you do not even know. Jesus is right here on this message board and HE is not even judging people, he is just watching... and learning... about US.
...and I don't care who elected somebody to a public office and now demands that somebody legislate their personal brand of morality to oppress the people.
Maybe some religious people should just be locked in a room with only the Songs of Solomon to read and NOT let out until they understand how you can ache for somebody that you love, instead of locked in a closet with Pornography or seeking the Whores of Baton Rouge because they cannot STAND the relationship that SOCIETY forced them into...
I mean, after all, the religious perverts invented the phrase For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge and made sex forbidden except under conditions of their own choosing. Called it FUCK...
Only the fundaMENTALISTS can conCOCKt a so-called religion where the young men are sent into a 'sinners exhile' while the "ELDERS" marry the adolescent girls ages 15 and over in 'plural marriages' and impregnate them before they are 18 (sometimes several times) in the name of religion.
They are no better in fact than a GHETTO PIMP with a legion of underage HOs... but at least PIMPS have the mercy to distribute birth control to their UNDERAGE hos...
No, I cannot stand another minute of this horseshit. This, this, making perverts of young lovers in Florida with, yes, FUCKED UP LAWS, while the REAL PERVERTS run free in Texas keeping "their harems" in line with religious scripture... hiding from justice under their so-called RIGHT of freeDUMB of religion and the Pimps sell their hos to the righteous who cannot get satisfied with the lover who waits for them at home... until their lovers go out seeking outside of marriage the love that they are not getting at home... ARE THESE THE SO-CALLED VALUES THAT SOCIETY MUST PROTECT? The values that give us the 50% DIVORCE rate that fucks up the kids that you try to protect with sex legislation when the legislators cannot even handle sex?
(...take Bill Clinton for example):shakemitk
Nor do I condone the supression of the natural sexual urges of young people until they make young people seek outlets that are at best 'not convienient' and at worst twisted beyond all belief, making the tales of the Eunuch Archive look like the cartoon "SPONGEBOB". We seperate kids by sex and then WRING our hands and pound our foreheads when they "TURN OUT" Gay...
:shakemitk
...and did Olive Oyl REALLY have Sweet Pea out of WEDLOCK?!?!!
In other words, in my situation, when I was young, society could SHOVE THEIR GODDAMNED LAWS UP THEIR GODDAMNED COLLECTIVE ASSES AND THEN GO FUCK THEMSELVES WITH THEM!
I mean, my friend, how can (they) (we) BE so blind...? We go out in public and see kids in dressed in GOTH, with GREEN hair, with body piercings and tattoos EVERYWHERE and just what, pray tell, do YOU think is going on?
Well, let me tell you what is going on. Kids are claiming their own bodies and signifying it with these signs, these tattoos, piercings and strange garb. They are saying, "Don't tell me to pull my pants up. You tell me when I can and when I can't well, maybe I will just leave my ass to shine for all to see, since SOCIETY has such an interest in it...
Yep! been there, done that, and got the age to show for it. But times were different then, but not really. There is still a war to separate young lovers and their young families, and/or lovers and there is still the old greedy rich people (this time they are oil interests instead of fanatics against Communism) and there is still the old taking advantage of the young. (Call it getting FUCKED with your pants UP.) :shakemitk
DO they really give a DAMN? Nope! Do they really CARE if young people are molested? NOPE! not as long as "SOCIETY" gives the molester a young people FUCKING permit...
Hell yes, some are making a living at it on the Internet.
So they can make all of the legislation that they want and make sex taboo and a sin and all it is going to do is get people like me married off when they are 19 years old. All this because "society" has called it FUCKING instead of 'making love' or as the good book says, 'knowing'... yes, it does, it calls it "KNOWING"
Get IT?
...or do I need to go to BABELFISH and get you a translation?
Thanks for reading, and remember, nothing personal, my friend. I know that you don't know me, maybe some of you know me well by now, but I have made my way almost to what the assholes have left me in Social Security benefits, and I can make a living with my brains and not my back now.
...so as that great righteous conservative and "divorced adulterer" Ronald Reagan wished and legislated, MY generation has the right to work until they fall over DEAD...
Y'all have a good day, now, y'hear? (can't you feel the LOVE?:hearthrob )
