You're Watching Actual Rape

[Ethereal]

Apparently, for boys who get no sex ed whatsoever, it's the source for the need to know crowd, who are getting younger by the day. Unfortunately, the easily accessible porn (free) out there is not really the happy, consensual stuff with a dubious plot line and stupid music, but the nasty violent, no plot stuff which is probably making money from ads since they are not charging to watch it. If that's what these kids find, how do they know any better? It's not like anyone is telling them otherwise. All they know is that they are growing up in a very sexualized world and are expected to know things that in past generations they were not expected to know. In some places, sex ed teaches that sex without affection and responsibility is stupid and that you don't have to be sexual when you are not ready. In a vacuum of information and education, because we mustn't address the topic because it is sinful, kids learn kink or worse from online purveyors of filth with no one telling them what it's really all about.

In the past, sex per se wasn't all that much of a curiosity to kids who grew up on farms and saw all manner of farm animals mating. They saw it daily. Dogs and cats ran loose even in cities and kids knew what sex was. What they wanted to know was how to get a girl to date them. Now it's different. Eleven-year-olds are expecting to be involved in boy-girl relationships of a sexual nature. If parents and schools are burying their heads in the sand, then this is the result.

No this doesn't turn on the average man. It turns on a sick person. It's probably confusing for a kid, but since they have zero frame of reference, they can buy into it.

It's almost as if the traditional familial and communal bonds that intermediate between an individual and society are disintegrating, leaving the individual increasingly isolated, alienated, and disoriented.

[Ethereal]

Huh? That's the only conclusion you can possibly draw? Ok.

Note: portion of original quote omitted.

If you disagree with Polly, she is liable to make some kind of crazy accusation towards you. Just the other day, she accused me of sympathizing more with Nicolas Cruz than with his victims. Now she accuses The XL of hating women. It's only a matter of time before she accuses someone of being an actual rapist or murderer.

[The Xl]

If you disagree with Polly, she is liable to make some kind of crazy accusation towards you. Just the other day, she accused me of sympathizing more with Nicolas Cruz than with his victims. Now she accuses The XL of hating women. It's only a matter of time before she accuses someone of being an actual rapist or murderer.

It's probably because of her personal experience. She was raped, ergo all women who claim rape must be telling the truth. The problem is, not every situation is the same, not everyone is honest. She only sees one possible victim, the woman crying rape, not the other possible victim, a man potentially being falsely accused. I could say that she hates men based on her nature to take women at their words and not men, but I realize that it's just a mix of her experience and her impulsive nature.

[Dr. Who]

It's almost as if the traditional familial and communal bonds that intermediate between an individual and society are disintegrating, leaving the individual increasingly isolated, alienated, and disoriented.

I think that there is a creeping isolation happening. Increasingly, kids can't even just go outside and play with friends. Play, has to be scheduled on the "activities" list. Add in the use of computers and cell phones and kids communicate with each other more frequently electronically, via text or online media, than in person. Many parents don't spend much time with their children other than shuttling them to and from school or their scheduled activities. Part of that is because more often than not, both parents work and both commute from distant suburbs to their workplaces, so by the time they do get home at night, there is little time for bonding and conversation. It's a fast meal often eaten in the car enroute to wherever, then go home (if they can) and catch up on some chore, go back, pick up the kid(s) and then get them ready for bed, if the kids are younger. Weekends may be just a scheduled or with the current rate of divorce, time for handing over the kid(s) to the ex and possibly picking up a different set belonging to the new spouse and more scheduled activities. It's a bizarre way to live and reflected in the alienation and social dysfunction that you see in some kids.

[Mister D]

It's about 2 centuries in the making.

[Mister D]

If you disagree with Polly, she is liable to make some kind of crazy accusation towards you. Just the other day, she accused me of sympathizing more with Nicolas Cruz than with his victims. Now she accuses The XL of hating women. It's only a matter of time before she accuses someone of being an actual rapist or murderer.

Remember my Hitler avatar? lol

[donttread]

All other medical things are not equal at 12 or 13. It's like a sub with a nuclear plant but only a partially built life-support and nav system. It's not fully functional. The rest of the body has not finished growing and reproduction does not take place in isolation from the rest of the support systems. So that person is not an adult. Some really important brain structures are still growing.

It's fine to teach responsibility and demand responsibility. Kids often have too little of that, which does keep them infantile for too long. I don't think I ever had the luxury of being as young as many of the teens that I see today or the twenty-somethings that I see in the workplace. I also don't understand the sense of entitlement that these kids have. I totally blame parental over-indulgence. If you are a teen and want a phone with a data plan and unlimited text - get a job and pay for it. If they had to pay, they wouldn't be glued to them 24/7. I wouldn't allow them in class, period. Parents who think that they should be able to contact their kids immediately at any moment of the day, when they are in school, need to get over themselves. Talk to your kids the night before or in the morning and if it's an emergency, call the school office.

People are just getting ridiculous, but that doesn't mean that we need to start calling 13-year-olds adults.

It really depends on the culture. I don't know about 13 but certainly 15 or 16 was plenty old enough to have learned the skills necessary to survive in a hunting and gathering or farming society because they had been doing those task for years. Today even if a child follows in a parent's foot steps they don't learn the skills because the parent generally works outside the home and they would still need that piece of paper even if they had learned the skills.
Even now a pregnant teen in my state can make medical choices concerning the pregnancy but NOT for herself. After delivery I believe being a parent makes you an adult for medical choice purposes.
We still have states with an age of consent of 18 and states with no ":Romeo and Juliet " clauses. You can hunt at 12, drive at 16 , babysit at 12 or 13, have sex at 16, 17 or 18 depending on your state , buy alcohol at 21, vote at 18, and sign up to kill and die at 18 and purchase tobacco at 18, 19 or 21. Be insured by mom and dad until 26 Combined with the "parenthood makes you an adult " clauses the bottom line is we are an extremely confused society about what constitutes adulthood.

[IMPress Polly]

The XL wrote:
If you're going to half ass an apology, you might as well not apologize at all. A shame, because over the last 6 years, between this board and Trinns, I've always treated you with respect even if I disagreed strongly. To charge me with hating women because I'm trying to look at all possibilities from all angles is shameful.

You have a big issue with dissent. You flip $#@!, demonize, and personally attack almost everyone who disagrees with you. That temperament is not becoming of a woman in her 30s who is also charged with the heavy responsibly of teaching and shaping our future, the youth of this country. Get your $#@! together, compose yourself, and act/debate like an adult.

You're right, @The Xl, there was no call for those kinds of remarks and conclusions on my part. There's no excuse. It won't happen again.

[Dr. Who]

It really depends on the culture. I don't know about 13 but certainly 15 or 16 was plenty old enough to have learned the skills necessary to survive in a hunting and gathering or farming society because they had been doing those task for years. Today even if a child follows in a parent's foot steps they don't learn the skills because the parent generally works outside the home and they would still need that piece of paper even if they had learned the skills.
Even now a pregnant teen in my state can make medical choices concerning the pregnancy but NOT for herself. After delivery I believe being a parent makes you an adult for medical choice purposes.
We still have states with an age of consent of 18 and states with no ":Romeo and Juliet " clauses. You can hunt at 12, drive at 16 , babysit at 12 or 13, have sex at 16, 17 or 18 depending on your state , buy alcohol at 21, vote at 18, and sign up to kill and die at 18 and purchase tobacco at 18, 19 or 21. Be insured by mom and dad until 26 Combined with the "parenthood makes you an adult " clauses the bottom line is we are an extremely confused society about what constitutes adulthood.

I agree, it is all over the map. That is because we have old laws and new laws existing in disharmony, with each century adding to the list in isolation. No doubt the original driving age was predicated on the fact that when horses were replaced by cars, kids who worked on the farm had to be able to continue to pick up supplies. By sixteen they were at least tall enough to see over the dashboard and learn the basic rules of the road. The drinking age was raised to 21, largely because of drinking and driving - and the inability of teens to resist the impulse to pack a vehicle with several teens and drive while drunk or foresee the consequences of their actions in combination with the ability of vehicles to reach speeds over 40 miles an hour.

Eighteen is the age for military service for several reasons. They are fully grown, in good health and impressionable and secondly, they are not yet usually married with children, so quite expendable. Sounds harsh, but that's the reality.

The ages for marriage are some of the oldest and really tied to the history of those states. The more rural and agricultural, the lower the age. Families were happy to unload their marriageable girls because they were extra mouths to feed and not as physically capable of really hard farm work.

The bottom line is that behind every one of those ages, there is a cultural driver.

It's probably time to undertake a comprehensive review and rationalize the age of majority.

[The Xl]

You're right, @The Xl, there was no call for those kinds of remarks and conclusions on my part. There's no excuse. It won't happen again.

It's all good, thanks for that. Water under the bridge.