Yeah but it's a damn good way to refute a statement that there is "no evidence" of genetic ties, unless you think fruitfly homosexuality is a conscious choice - btw, I wouldn't say that animals killing their young is a great analogy here either, that example is not exactly unprecedented in humann beings unfortunately.
Thanks for saving me a lot of time and saying this better than I could have. Giddy, did you really have no agenda with this leading question? Come on.
If you would just stop second-guessing and get with the program, everything would be fine. It was a queston that someone I know raised. I just inserted it here... without all your nefarious ulterior motives. It is a shocking question-- nothing wrong with that unless you are self-strangling on political correctness. The question does not seek to ridicule gay rights, it seeks to post a puzzling question about how crucial and complicated our response would be if there were found to be a genetic basis for sexual interest in youth.
While we are discussing informed consent, I think the cutoff for what constitutes an adult is very arbitrary, and not consistantly enforced either, generally speaking (as in not having necessarily to do with the Foley case, which I am only dimly aware of, and about which I don't know any specifics). For example, sometimes people younger than 18 are tried as adults. On the other hand, good luck getting out of a statutory rape charge by suggesting that the "victim" be treated as an adult. I don't understand how a person magically gains the wisdom/maturity/intelligence/whathaveyou to give consent (be it for sex, contracts, or anything else) on their 18th birthday. Is a girl better equipped to decide whether or not to have sex than she was an hour before? Why is it legal for a couple of 17 year olds to have sex? Shouldn't they both be charged with statutory rape as each was having sex with a partner that could not legally give consent?
You raise some good points regarding he hypocrisy surrounding determining adulthood. I agree that this seems to be a very inconsistent standard and most of why it is inconsistently applied has to do for the desire to appear tough on crime. There is a desire to try youths who commit felonies as adults because that is being tough on crime. Qualifying teens as minors for prosecuting adults for statuatory rape is being tough on crime. That is why you might say a 16 year old that commits a murder is an adult while a 16 year old that has sex with a 50 year old a minor to maximize the severity of the crime in either cases even though there might be lots of evidence showing that the 16 year old murderer really had a very low levelof maturity why the 16 year old that had sex was mature. As for the two 17 year olds who have sex many states have Romeo-Juliet laws that don't criminalize sex between minor and/or young adults from 18-21 as long as they are within a two or three years of age.
considering most pediphiles where abuse sexually as children - it's seems to be more of a psychological illness born of environment vs. genetic reasons. These people are mentally sick and dangerous, and unlikely to ever make a recovery. Pedophiles should be institutionalized or somehow seperated from normal society.
