This is going to be a fun one.
So here are the facts:
I commented on a news article about a mother and adult son charged with incest (and adultery as well for her.) This is what I said:
Someone responded to me and I replied before I realized my original comment was removed for being inappropriate. Then I added the edit when I saw.
The next day I discovered I’d been banned from that community for “pro-incest comments” and several others I don’t think I’ve ever been in for rule 4 violations. The orignal post was removed.
You can see those here:
Site rule 4 is: Usernames or posts/comments containing transphobia, homophobia, sexism, racism, ableism, zionism, anti-veganism, or trivializing COVID. No self-described or obvious fascists, conservatives, or reactionaries.
My comments had none of those things. I’d even go so far as to say my banning was reactionary.
Now, I’m not defending incest, especially not for myself. My problem is with puritanical laws interfering with the private sex lives of people. In my original comment I stated that grooming was a separate issue and should be dealt with, but that there is nothing inherently wrong with incest. That is, enthusiastic consensual sex between capable adults.
I know someone will bring up the Hapsburgs, so yes, children of incest should be avoided.
They do. You cited them using the phrase “old enough”.
Then “under 18” is clearly not “old enough”.
I don’t know why you’re having so many problems with this. The phrase “old enough” left no room for you to argue lack of capacity due to age. Perhaps if you started engaging in good faith, this would be a more productive discussion.
They don’t. Old enough means what age exactly. Old enough where exactly.
For me and you and in this country, for other people and other places that varies wildly from one to another.
I don’t know why you abandoned every other part of your argument to focus on age but I have some theories.
Bad faith argument. Rejected. “Old Enough” is sufficiently descriptive to reject your insinuations of pedophilia.
According to whom and where?
Any reasonable, hypothetical person, hearing the phrase “old enough” would assume an age where the individual had acquired the requisite mental capacity. Any assumption of a lesser age is simply unreasonable.
Where the assuming party has been granted full license to adopt any reasonable meaning they want, refusal to do so is simply in support of a bad faith argument.
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?sectionNum=285.&lawCode=PEN
It’s California. So what’s that about reasonable?
Maybe there’s a reason they don’t get specific huh?
A 14-year-old having sex with an 18-year-old is still statutory rape, with or without the law on incest. That doesn’t change. We aren’t talking about pedophilia; we aren’t talking about age of consent; we aren’t talking about statutory rape, or rape of any kind.
The median age of first sexual contact is 14, with another 14-year-old. It’s a fair bet that when you were a minor, you had sex with other minors.
Two 14-year-olds having sex with eachother is not pedophilia; it’s not statutory rape. There are no criminal penalties for two 14-year-olds choosing to have sex with eachother. Unless they are related by blood. Then, they can be sent to state prison. This is bigotry.
Two 24-year-olds, being well above the age of consent, there is no serious question that they are “old enough”. They are capable of consent, and consent is granted. Completely inoffensive relationship; the state has no interest in intervening between them. And yet, if they discover they are biological kin, they are to be imprisoned. This is bigotry.
The pedophilic insinuations you are making play no role here. They serve only to distract. And yet you keep raising them, again and again. You insist on this unreasonable assumption that “old enough” doesn’t actually mean “old enough”, to distract and detract from the underlying issue. Engage in good faith, or don’t engage at all. Discuss the same-age couples above. Justify the california law calling for them to be imprisoned. Justify depriving them of their right to free association. Justify stripping them of their personal agency regarding consent. Justify leaving their future to the whim of judicial discretion.
Or concede that incest should not be an inherently criminal matter.
Sure but in California 18 15 isn’t and neither is 14 17 hence the law.
I’m not insinuating anything, did you happen to notice op responded to me and still refuses to specify what they define as age of consent? Kinda weird huh?
Also they’re free to associate they aren’t free to fornicate, you really need to look into the difference.
Have a nice day.
Yeah that’s not how life works. If you want specificity you provide it or request it. I’ve requested, they haven’t provided and you simply assume benevolence when there’s no evidence that that is the case.
Any reasonable meaning in the case of law is the worst assumption not the best. We don’t assume people wanting to take part in incest are altogether reasonable, logical or for that matter moral so assuming any of those things is the unreasonable thing to do.
But again what happened to the rest of your argument and all those non existent fringe cases that are already legal in North America?
That is a rhetorical fallacy called “begging the question”. Rejected.
In the field of philosophy, “Hanlon’s Razor” is the most relevant concept. In law, it’s called the “pro reo principle” or the “rule of lenity”. Related, the idea of “innocent until proven guilty”. We should, indeed, assume benevolence until malfeasance is positively proven.
Basically, reasonableness is the default state. We don’t need any sort of evidence to assume reasonableness. We need evidence to demonstrate unreasonableness.
Here, that means “old enough” is, actually, what any reasonable person would deem old enough. OP is not making any sort of argument regarding the current age of consent laws. OP’s argument is that, whatever society deems an appropriate age of consent, an incestuous relationship initiated above that age of consent (with capacity and with consent) should also be legal.
They certainly exist. Marriage, for example, has a wide variety of financial and legal benefits and consequences. Incestuous marriage is criminal. I don’t need to provide a full, comprehensive list of all the ways that criminalizing incest affects every possible victim of anti-incestuous bigotry. Any social or legal distinction is sufficient to question the need for that distinction.
Uh huh. Californias law starts at 14 so what do you have to say about that?
Legality is not philosophy unsurprisingly enough.
Where, who and what laws are you referencing. These should be easy to provide if they in fact exist.
It doesn’t. You’re misreading the incest statute as the age of consent statute. Nothing in the incest statute allows an 18-year-old to have sex with a 14-year-old. That is statutory rape, with or without incest laws or incest being a factor. The minor lacked the capacity to consent to sex with the adult.
Minors do not lack the capacity to consent to sex with other minors. There is no issue of capacity between two 14-year-olds. There is no criminality in such a relationship. Unless the 14-year-olds are related; then they are to be imprisoned. As are the 24-year-old couple. As are the 57-year-old couple.