I find it unlikely that there's anything bad about sex with kids, but it's not impossible.

There was a LessWrong thread for politically unthinkable views a while back. I suggested both pedophilia and [/url=http://lesswrong.com/lw/9kf/ive_had_it_with_those_dark_rumours_about_our/5rcr]zoophilia[/url] are perfectly fine. There seemed to be much more controversy over pedophilia.

I've done basic research on Wikipedia, and couldn't find anything. Does anyone here know?

In case you're wondering, I'm not a pedophile. I'm just curious. Also, I occasionally find myself in a position where I need to defend pedophiles, and I want to know if I should be defending the ones that have sex with children, or just the ones that limit it to cartoon child porn.

I found a study that seems to point in the direction of it being okay, but that's not really what they were looking at. They just found that the psychological damage isn't as bad as people make it out to be, and that it correlates to the amount of coercion. That doesn't mean that psychological damage is zero when coercion is zero.

I think this is a hard topic because it tends to upset people, and I actually suspect the science is not terribly trivial (or unbiased) either.

Some considerations without any attempt at a complete analysis or policy change suggestions:

I find it unlikely that there's anything bad about sex with kids, but it's not impossible.

I think this is the wrong question to answer. There is always something bad about everything; the better question is under what circumstances are what forms and intensities of harm caused, by what causality, and in trade-off against what forms and intensities of benefit (or prevented harm)? And what can realistically be done about it?

That doesn't mean that psychological damage is zero when coercion is zero.

I'd expect it to be above zero in the case of non-coercion simply because the individuals will be socialized in a society that treats it as obvious that it's the worst crime and harm ever, irregardless of coercion. That itself is a cause of distress, and retrospective framing. I think both placebo effects and nocebo effects are real and affect psychological well-being, but I don't know how strong that is. Of course, societies can change, which might in turn change this effect.

Other than this factor, it is hard for me to see the causal vector of psychological harm in a case where a 10 to 12-year-old has consensual sex without (even subtle forms of) coercion, other than the social stigma. If there is such a causal vector, I would like to know how it works, because people sometimes treat it like a magic curse, and if it exists, it's probably not magic.

It's also relevant that from a policy perspective, coercion in the private sphere is hard to prove reliably, and the younger the person, the lower their ability to defend themselves against it or seek outside help. It's easy to forget that children are de-facto slaves legally, in the sense that their caretakers have ownership-like powers over them. That is, in itself, a form of coercion. It also applies to zoophilia to a good degree.

There's also the possibility that statutory rape laws have a social function as a shield against unwanted teenage pregnancies. In other words, we don't want to create new costly and vulnerable people without properly prepared parents, and therefore outlaw the mechanism that creates them under the pretense of protecting people from sexual violence.

Like zoophilia and infanticide, this is a topic that's probably best not talked about among members of the general public, because the benefit to be gained either way is near zero, but the cost in terms of alienating people who might listen to your other million crazy ideas is potentially high. I agree it's an interesting private philosophical question, though.

As far as zoophilia, the possibility of spreading STDs is not pleasant, and determining consent might be pretty hard. FWIW:

The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) has said that as animals don't have the same capacity for thinking as humans, they are unable to give full consent. The HSUS takes the position that all sexual activity between humans and animals is abusive, whether it involves physical injury or not.[106] (from Wikipedia)

Perhaps there's a similar Pascalian argument in the case of children: Even if the child thinks s/he consents, s/he might later change his/her mind. Of course, adults can change their minds too, but maybe the presumption is that adults change their minds less often.

This is a post-hoc justification for opposing zoophilia/pedophilia, but given that people's reactions against these things are so visceral, there's probably a more primitive evolutionary/cultural explanation as well. I'm not sure what it is.

Alan Dawrst wrote:given that people's reactions against these things are so visceral, there's probably a more primitive evolutionary/cultural explanation as well. I'm not sure what it is.

Presumably that this stuff isn't good for evolution? Same way people hating homosexuals might have evolved?

If it's so visceral, why were the Greeks okay with it?

How is it bad evolutionarily? Maybe it's non-procreative, but so is masturbation, and evolution hasn't made much of any effort to do away with that. (It's widespread in the animal kingdom.)

Interesting to learn about the Greeks, DanielLC. I included a hedge in my statement that the revulsion could be cultural rather than genetic. Even if so, why did it evolve culturally?

Alan Dawrst wrote:How is it bad evolutionarily? Maybe it's non-procreative, but so is masturbation, and evolution hasn't made much of any effort to do away with that. (It's widespread in the animal kingdom.)

Interesting to learn about the Greeks, DanielLC. I included a hedge in my statement that the revulsion could be cultural rather than genetic. Even if so, why did it evolve culturally?

oh I didn't know that, how widespread do you mean? I'd heard of it in a couple of species. Maybe you need a greater cognitive ability to be so hateful and that only appears in some species like humans?:( there certainly was/is a masturbation taboo among humans.

I remember reading in "don't sleep, there are snakes" that the Piraha tribe who live in the Amazon don't mind it. Although I think maybe they did have to be some age, I think the quote was something like one of the tribes people who was an adult saying of the child he was in a relationship with that she would be a great wife, and apparently they did get married, but maybe they had to wait until she was a certain age? im afraid i dont really remember at this stage

Yeah, there's a good amount of non-reproductive sexual activity in the animal kingdom, including masturbation. This is what we would expect, because things things have a very low cost and so aren't worth evolving away from.

Yeah, I guess it's not uncommon for older men to be ritually married to young girls, although I presume that people usually think of it differently when it's a real marriage. One of Mohammad's wives was just 9 when he consummated his marriage to her:

Aisha was six or seven years old when betrothed to Muhammad.[11][15][16] Traditional sources state that she stayed in her parents' home until the age of nine when the marriage was consummated with Muhammad, then 53, in Medina,[16][17][18][19] with the single exception of al-Tabari, who records that she was ten.[15]

As far as homosexuality, my best guess is that hatred of it is not an adaptation but just a spandrel. I assume that most people have disgust reactions against the thought of homosexual acts, and this bleeds over into feeling that the acts are "wrong." (There's close wiring between visceral disgust and moral disgust in the brain.) This is the same reason people overwhelmingly feel it's "just wrong" for a brother and sister to have completely safe, consenting, and non-procreative intercourse. There's a hard-wired disgust reflex against sex with relatives, lest the children have increased risk of birth defects, and this bleeds over into ethics.

oh right, with the piraha though it's all consensual, afaik

In any other context, nobody would feel the need to specify.

I didn't tbh but

Alan Dawrst wrote:Yeah, I guess it's not uncommon for older men to be ritually married to young girls

and I wanted to point out that this case wasnt a ritual marriage or anything

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Gedusa wrote:Off topic: Alan! Spandrel is my new favourite concept! How had I not known of this before...