Teen Who Bragged About Threesome With Teachers Feels Really Bad

[DirkGently]

136. It's not an argument. It's a definition.

We have a concept of a criminal act, which is sexual contact with someone who has not agreed to it.

We have a separate concept that lack of capacity creates a situation in which some are not capable of agreeing, and therefore are presumed by society to be incapable of giving meaningful consent, even if they do give actual consent.

That presumption, however necessarily, is also necessarily artificial. Human capacity does not drastically change based on a single birthday.

It's a valid concept, but it does rely on an entirely artificial presumption regarding a person's capacity. The thought experiment is simple enough for anyone to follow. On one day, a 17-yr-old giving actual consent to sex is a victim of sexual assault because we presume he lacks the capacity to give meaningful consent.

The next day, the same person, now 18, gives the same consent, and no crime has been committed because we presume his consent is now knowing and meaningful. And yet the likelihood that his capacity to give meaningful consent has changed in 24 hours is approximately zero.

We DO need a construct to protect children and adults lacking capacity from exploitation. But it is a fact, and not an "argument" that we do that through a conceit of logic that is inherently arbitrary and vague.

What if this 17-yr-old, having reached his full adult capacity next year, still feels he engaged in consenual acts as he says now? What if a psychologist determined his capacity was unchanged in that time?

You don't see a question as to whether it would then have been just to have treated the other parties exactly as though they had drugged and raped him?