wanna ask something

[six6]

im posting this again because the last one didn't get approved and I can't contact anybody even though i've tried many times, for some reason?

  So... I wanna ask some things that may seem morally questionable but I feel like I really have to ask otherwise I won't be able to get a conclusive answer. First of all, I don't fully understand age of consent laws, people usually say that people underage don't fully understand what sexual consent is, but teenagers have sex all the time so I don't think that it is not understanding sex that is the issue. What if, for example, there is a 16 year old who used to have sex with adults since she was 14, so she does have some experience with sex. What if the minor initiates sexual/romantic contact with an adult and what if the adult doesn't try to coerce the minor into doing unwanted sex acts? What if it's the minor who has control over what sexual activity they want to do with the adult? Also, when a minor posts nudes of themselves by their own free will online, how dangerous is that compared to if an adult does it? You could say that someone coukd use it to blackmail the minor but, that is still a problem in adulthood? I've askes a similar question before, but what if a teenager who has posted nudes of herself when she was younger, has learned the risks of doing that, and has decided that she doesn't care about that? How risky would that be? This next question may seem a bit more disturbing, but how bad would it be [edited for sensitivity to survivors of abuse - HC] Would that still be rape?

I know that I asked a lot of questions, but I would really want to have a more comprehensive understanding to all of this. I want an answer that is not based on legality but morality. Keep in mind that, I myself am 14 so im not asking this because im an adult who is looking for a reason to be creepy with kids, but because I actually don't know the answer to these questions. I apologize for any typing errors or any repetitions.

[Heather]

Hi there, six6.

I want to be sure, before I answer this, that you were sure to read the user agreement you agreed to when you registered. If not, here's a link to it so that you can again. As you'll see in it, we don't guarantee we will answer every question, and reserve the right not to answer some questions, and to do so without response if and when we want to. In the case of questions that need approving first, sometimes that means we just won't approve some questions.

We didn't approve yours for a few reasons, including the portions of this one (I saw the second version you submitted as well) I edited, because I don't think you realize how upsetting what might seem like hypothetical questions to you might feel when asked, particularly in the way you asked them, to people who have survived child sexual abuse and exploitation. Please understand that some members of our community here, including some of our staff and volunteers are survivors, so it's important to remember that you're not asking questions here in a vacuum or of a bot, but in a community made of real people, some of whom have lived experience with these issues, and for whom reading the way you are posting things here, including some of what I have left remaining, could be very upsetting.

This really isn't a good place to come asking "hypothetical" questions like that for that reason, because it kind of turns people and their very real lives and experiences into hypotheticals, too, and that's a pretty awful thing to unknowingly walk into as a reader when you're expecting the safe and supportive space we work hard to provide here.

What you're asking about with what I left is about a difference in power. A legal adult, or someone much older, has more power and experience in the world than a younger person, and that's what makes things very different when it comes to consent between same-age minors and minors and adults. For instance, even if a minor initiates something, as you have suggested, if they still don't even have the power of reproductive choice over their own bodies, but an adult has that over theirs, or they don't have the legal and social agency to get away from the relationship if it goes bad but an adult does, that relationship is in no way equitable.

Age of consent laws are not particularly nuanced and aren't even so great when it comes to consent -- they're actually woefully incomplete, because they are mostly just based on numerical age, which isn't that helpful, and doesn't take power imbalances into account that age doesn't really change, like when someone is an older relative but then within the age of consent, or when someone is within the age of consent later, but started grooming someone when they were younger.

You also asked about the differences between adults and minors sending nudes and suggested they are equivalent, but the thing is, in many areas, they are not: adults would not risk child pornography charges, which in some countries, can truly mess up your life FOR your life, while minors do. But all of these conversations are not simple nor can they be had talking like all minors and all adults are the same person: these are very individual things that have a lot to do, always, with the people and unique situations involved. You just often can only generalize so much with this stuff.

Morality is personal, not universal, so no one else can tell you what your morals are. That's really for you to work out, and by and large, Scarleteen's community really isn't a great place to try and do these things as thought experiments because they're just all too real for people going through them as lived experiences. Do you understand what I'm saying?

[six6]

oh, I don't know why but I thought that my previous question had not been approved because something had gone wrong as I was having trouble with other stuff as well

I apologize for the inappropriate question, I honestly didn't realize how upsetting it could come off

[Heather]

It’s okay: if those haven’t been your own experiences, or you haven’t yet been close to or talked intimately with someone whose life experiences they have been, it’s easy to see how you might not realize that. Our world really normalizes sexual violence, the doing of it, especially, yet still silences the voices of victims. So it can be all too easy to make those kinds of errors. I understand.