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thanks 28, that's really interesting. my take is that the greatest danger isn't of an adult re-evaluating (or having re-evaluated for her) a childhood sexual adventure, but the danger of the radically changed perspective confronting her as a child, while the events are still current or recent. to be honest, i think a child who has a genuinely affectionate sexual experience with an older person is unlikely to feel bad about it later unless other factors come into play, such as guilt and shame, and these have their origin in social attitudes, not in the sexual acts themselves. for example, a tragic sequel of some publicly exposed man/boy relationships is the boy's being subjected to taunts and homophobia by his peers, and suicide is not an unusual outcome. my analysis of this sequence of events is that the boylover can't be directly blamed for the trauma the boy suffers, but is responsible for exposing him to the risk all the same. it's like a guide taking a neophyte climber into the mountains; he has a responsibility to shield his client from risks like avalanches or rockfall that the client is not expert enough to judge for himself. the guide is not responsible for the rockfall, but he does have a duty of care to his client all the same. i feel similarly about the situation you describe 28. it's not the long term possibility of changed perspectives or 'therapeutic interventions' that makes sex with children ill so advised, although of course that can occur as well, but i think the greater risk is of damaging children while they are children. while that damage may not be a direct consequence of the sexual activity itself, it is a consequence of events that that activity can trigger. i hear Dissident interject at this point that we have a duty to challenge those damaging social attitudes and make sex safe for kids. i agree!! and i think he'd agree that until that happens, we need to treat those sociogenic harms as real and significant, and act accordingly. |