Pressure/coercion in sex and the misguided focus on age and semantics.

The Johan Lieberts among us certainly exist.

Johan who?

Well... the intended interpretation is supposed to be "in a rational and sane world, children—and, for that matter, the rest of us—would never do such vile actions."

Why? If they have betrayed their privileged child-status by commiting a crime so heinous, they should be judged by adult standards.

Johan Liebert, from the anime/manga Monster.

edited 9th Dec '11 4:16:46 PM by MilosStefanovic

Agreed.

Also, that explains it. Not much of an anime/manga person, though I've heard of that particular one through this site, even if I don't know any of the details about it... isn't it something about a doctor and blackmail, or whatever...? Bleh, whatever.

I meant that "you shouldn't need to create extra laws for niche situations that don't really fit". You should. Just because it rarely happens doesn't make it okay for the law to go "LOL I DUNNO".

You can't "lose" your privileged child-status. Either you're a child, or you're not. There's been worse crimes committed by children and these children weren't stuffed in jail or whatever.

Claiming "the usual law doesn't apply here because the crime was so morally disgusting", I find to be digusting.

edited 9th Dec '11 4:20:43 PM by Excelion

You can read the summary from the trope page. It's pretty good, and I recommend it.

I don't think I've put myself quite well - I was thinking about anything more complex than "In case that a minor commits X, he should be judged by adult standards" is redundant.

edited 9th Dec '11 4:24:06 PM by MilosStefanovic

Well, you can't really lose your child status if you are still a child, but you can prove that you are comprehensive enough of morality that you should be judged by adult standards, or that you're dangerous enough to warrant it anyhow.

Though if we're talking mental illness institutionalization would be more appropriate.

Edit:

Worse than gang rape...?

And those things, by the way, would warrant a bullet, not a jail cell, regardless of age.

edited 9th Dec '11 4:23:08 PM by USAF713

Charming.

And people like him are the reason I consider those who want to do away with the death penalty to be absurdly immoral in their own, hopelessly naive way.

An individual's freedom ends where an other individual's freedom begins. Blatantly disrespecting somebody's right to live means that you don't deserve having your's. And no, humanity isn't "above that". Humanity, being an universal term, cannot be judged by any objective moral standards since there isn't a more universal category to judge it by. It doesn't have any objective value traits, apart from being itself. Duh.

edited 9th Dec '11 4:44:06 PM by MilosStefanovic

~shrug~

I do, for one.

Why? We only judge those things that 12 year olds do that is appropriate for children more leniently. Rape and murder are not appropriate for children—or anyone, really—and I don't see why I should judge them any differently than an adult doing the same thing if they've obviously demonstrated that they don't deserve the privilege of such.

\*hangs his head\*

I can't put in words why that is wrong. I can't make it understood why thinking "the right to life is too important for anyone to take, anyone except us of course" is wrong. Is it arrogance, is it hypocrisy that blinds them? Hubris, even? I don't know.

I don't particularly want to start a capital punishment derail, but basically it amounts to, for me, yes the right to life is profoundly important, but if we punish a murderer or rapist or any other kind of morally-reprehensible person with anything less than a clean, simple death, where is our sense of justice?

That's merely my opinion. Take it (or leave it) as you will.

We have a thread for this.

Skipping all that and replying to the OP, I can think of one case in which adults can be prosecuted for pressuring other adults into sex.

... anyway, the point is, the reason given for drawing the line based on age is the power imbalance associated with age difference, but power varies from individual to individual, not just in terms of age, so our response, in turn, should be more individualized.