Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!harpo!eagle!mhuxt!mhuxi!mhuxa!houxm!ihnp4!we13!burl!duke!unc!tim From: tim@unc.UUCP Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: "Sexual congressmen - (nf)" Message-ID: <5590@unc.UUCP> Date: Wed, 20-Jul-83 16:00:28 EDT Article-I.D.: unc.5590 Posted: Wed Jul 20 16:00:28 1983 Date-Received: Fri, 22-Jul-83 03:42:25 EDT References: ihlpf.174 Lines: 29 This opens a much broader question. How just is it that we condemn a person for having sex with a teenager? The standards that our society sets on minimum age of sexual consent are not universal by any means, as anyone with knowledge of other societies is aware. Furthermore, it is common knowledge that the organs of reproduction are fully functional at a younger age than the 16 or 18 the law allows them to start working at. It seems a very sex-negative attitude to forcefully postpone sex. For one thing, this is an effort doomed to failure which serves no identifiable purpose. Teenage humans have been having sex for millions of years. I had sex when I was a teenager (although I am currently living with a woman three years older than myself, so I'm not currently having sex with any teenagers). The biggest problem was birth control. It is difficult to get in a sex-negative environment. Thus you manufacture preganancies where there need be none. The forbidding of sex actually worsens the problems associated with sex, even though preventing those problems is presumably the reason for the forbidding. The bottom line is that it doesn't work; to ameliorate problems you should spread information and enlightened attitudes, not ignorance and fear. ______________________________________ The overworked keyboard of Tim Maroney duke!unc!tim (USENET) tim.unc@udel-relay (ARPA) The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill