When researching the age of consent within the context of the history of human sexuality in western civilization, the most notable consequence of archaic patriarchal sex laws is the dehumanizing effect on sexual norms. In the United States, the very phrase, “sexual norms” in fact, advances the denial and deprivation of individual positive biological sexual functions and qualities. Those functions are grounded in the physiology and age of individuals from postpubescence throughout adulthood. They should not be based on arbitrary or moral legal-age limits and norms.
The sexual laws complex is grossly out of touch with the biological realities that each of us face as our individual sexualities come to fruition. Thus, age-related sex laws have profound negative consequences on the development, self-actualization, and sexual integration necessary for the attitudinal, physical and emotional wellbeing of consensual sexual health in our society.
Young people in their teens and twenties enter the prime of their lives. And, oftentimes it doesn’t get better than that. Yet, it is especially difficult for young people to reconcile themselves with their growing sexually. Too many postpubescence teens are denied the sexual freedoms they need to configure their sex-lives that serves them well as adults. By the time they find themselves on their own, their sudden parental emancipation is too often a confused and fearful sexual twilight-zone not of their own making.
Having positive, touching sex, is about making decisions. Yet, many questions and issues surrounding postpubescent sex are complicated and handicapped by the artificial legal-age structure. To establish a legal, straight-edged, monotone year that supposedly permits young people to be responsible for their own sexual actions has no basis in reality, is arbitrary and capricious, and, is far more harmful than it is protective of youth.
The reality is that the erectile material in both sexes is body tissue, referred to as tumescence, and defined as, “readiness for sexual activity marked especially by vascular congestion of the sex organs.” Basically, what that means, is that we are in a state of readiness based on when our individual bodies say so. Therefore, sexual readiness is based on age. It has nothing to do with the lawful age of “eighteen “or “twenty-one.”
The age range between fifteen and nineteen would make more sense under the allowance of the law for what constitutes the transitional “ages” of consensual sex. The simple truth is: They are no longer children.
It seems to me, that in order to reduce sexual pathology, we need to know and experience ourselves, and with our partners, from the awesome awakening moments in the age of tumescence throughout adulthood. What we need is a sexual construct that contributes to individual wellbeing and the social relations we depend on for the happiness, fulfillment and tranquility of humanity.
Vidda Crochetta
Brattleboro
Also published in:
Bennington Banner
http://www.benningtonbanner.com/stories/sex-laws-need-adjustment,489049?
Posted Thursday, November 10, 2016
Brattleboro Reformer
http://reformer.com/stories/arbitrary-and-capricious,489384
Posted Monday, November 14, 2016
The simple truth is: They are no longer children.
[I didn’t have room with the required word-count to add these two paragraphs when my article was published in the newspapers but they contain the substance of what I will follow up on in later articles.]
The greater condemnation of modern consensual sex laws that are based on age is not only the failure to understand that, oftentimes, physical and emotional sexual interests are unrelated to age, and, that sexual interests between different age groups, from postpubescence through adulthood, are most assuredly part of the essential, natural, biology-based varieties of human sexual expression and behavior.
The breakdown of generations begins with the prohibition of consensual intimate touching based on a single artificial age, whereby individual sexual maturity is suppressed rather than encouraged. Therefore, we need to understand the inherent sexual interests between people and genders of different age groups beginning with post tumescence at from the age age of fifteen through adulthood.
What are the implications?
Is it really “the simple truth” that “tumescence” signals emotional maturity?
I wonder how many of us agree that fifteen year olds, “are no longer children?” Is it fine for a 40 year old to seduce a 15 year old?
I’m challenging the notion 15 year olds are children
I said nothing about tumescence “signals” emotional maturity.
Sexual awakening is not a light switch. Moreover, the physical, attitudinal and emotion activity of sexual experiences are on a continuum.
In fact, it really starts before the age of 15 and continues right up until we die (for the lucky ones).
That age of 15 is really a “give” on my part to the pedophiliac crazed people, (probably like you) who hardly know about “40” year old sex, much less 13-14-year-old sex.
But more to the point, you make the one-way assumption that a 40-year-old is the one who seduces a 15-year-old. You make it seem that it’s, as the word seduce is defined, that a 40-year-old can only “attract (someone) to a belief or into a course of action that is inadvisable or foolhardy.” From the start, people like you negatize the whole experience into something dirty and forbidden.
Well, I’m challenging, whether you agree with it or not, that the notion of sexual feelings directed toward children applies to postpubescent people because they are not children. In fact, most people by the time they are 13 are either ready for sexual activity, or they are already engaging in sex. The real issue is not denial and suppression of teen sex, it’s supporting realistic education and experiences to back up their already “tumescent” sex organs, that is importnant.
Thank you for the clarification
Just wanted to be sure that I understood you, Vidda. I thought you were saying that it would be OK for you to have sex with a 15 year old.
My mistake, and thanks for the clarification: According to you, 13 year olds should not be off limits.
Insinuating creepy twists
Let me be unambiguous about this. This article and comments are not about me. What I have done and do in my life is none of your goddamn business unless I chose to reveal it. I particularly dislike your insinuating, even creepy, twists.
You are a rather tedious old fellow, aren’t you.
This article is about human sexuality. The reality of sexuality active teens with each other and people older than teenhood is long historically documented. The biological readiness of teens is scientifically documented.
The only thing off limits here is you.
Let's try again for a straight answer
Maybe this time, Vidda, instead of responding with personal invectives, can you give us a straight answer to the following question:
Am I correct or incorrect to understand that you are saying that it is OK for a 40 year old to have sex with a 15 year old?
Mores
I’m certainly not answering for Vidda, but this question seems clearly counter-provocative; to his provocative post.
There is a miasma of mixed messages around this idea. Many of our so called leaders are proponents of ‘hooking up w/ youngins’. He-who-shall-not-be-named P.E. had to promise his daughter he wouldn’t date anyone younger than her. (Altho it’s clear in his case, morally, all bets are off) Our outgoing Gov has a partner half his age. I can think of many older ‘stars’ (mature role models) who have partners who are young models.
In truth, Age of Consent and Object of Attraction make a messy Venn Diagram in this culture. What keeps it straight ultimately? Laws? Innate instinct? Peer pressure?
Your query is worthy, but I think big picture it ought to be less about gotcha, and more about how can we spare ourselves from the fast approaching abyss.
Thought-provoking - Humans are sexual animals
If you consider the source of the “counter-provocative” question, it comes from someone I do not respect or trust.
I’m essentially being asked if I advocate violating the the law. I do not. I advocate changing the law.
I am convinced that humans, like the bonobos, are sexual animals. This article is meant to be thought-provoking. It may be provocative in some views, but my intent is clearly not to be maddening or galling.
Lo
A social Isotope emitting plentiful and easy radioactivity, this ancient subject both compels and repels. The ilk of recent investigators, from Wilhelm Reich to Vlad Nabokov, both rankle and illuminate. Reich studied sexuality through his whole career. His last will and testament created the framework for his Infant Trust. Not unsurprisingly, Reich died in prison, persecuted to the end.
Lolita routinely occupies top spots on lists of great novels of the 20th century. It teases and terrifies. The high speed particle accelerator of our culture throws youth worship and eternal youth in with fashion and lifestyle, ubiquitous marketing, and fear of death, amidst regimented capitalzed existence …making this a perrenial hot button topic.
The maw between deviance, media fueled obsession, abberant normalcy, law for the sake of law and control… and respect for organic energies, is too wide to be bridged by either reason or sensation.
All the while our planet heats up… Another living body in throes of changes, too vast to get head or arms around.
Wilhelm Reich
I think that attributing Wilhelm Reich’s misfortunes solely to persecution is overly-simplistic. His torment began quite early in his life, decades before the FBI ever heard of Reich or of his work. In fact, his own sexual history dramatically illustrates the need to protect children and adolescents:
As an adult Reich wrote extensively, in his diary, about his sexual
precocity. He maintained that his first sexual experience was at the age
of four when he tried to have sex with the family maid (with whom he
shared a bed), that he would regularly watch the farm animals have sex,
that he used a whip handle sexually on the horses while masturbating,
and that he had almost daily sexual intercourse from the age of 11 with
another of the servants. He wrote of regular visits to brothels, the
first when he was 15, and said he was visiting them daily from the age
of around 17. He also developed sexual fantasies about his mother,
writing when he was 22 that he masturbated while thinking about her.[22]
It is impossible to judge the truth of these diary entries, but
Reich’s second daughter, the psychiatrist Lore Reich Rubin, told Christopher Turner that she believed Reich had been a victim of child sexual abuse, and that this explained his lifelong interest in sex and childhood sexuality.[23]
Accused of fraudulent medicine, including bogus cancer cures, and violating a court unjunction by distrubuting “orgone energy accumulators:” Wilhelm Reich died in Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary.
Reading the Wikipedia article, it appears to me that this is more complex than a simple example of the Amerikan death culture persecuting an apostal of sexual liberation. Reich may have taken his insight that trauma induces muscular blockages too far — as a justification for extreme “therapies,” particularly on children:
Reich established the Orgonomic Infant Research Center (OIRC) in
1950, with the aim of preventing muscular armouring in children from
birth. Meetings were held in the basement of his house in Forest Hills.
Turner wrote that several children who were treated by OIRC therapists
later said they had been sexually abused by the therapists, although not
by Reich. One woman said she was assaulted by one of Reich’s associates
when she was five years old. Children were asked to stand naked in
front of Reich and a group of 30 therapists in his basement, while Reich
described the children’s “blockages.”[139]
Reich’s daughter, Lore Reich Rubin, told Turner that she believed her
father was an abuser, although she did not say she had been abused by
him, and she acknowledged that she had no evidence. She believed that
Reich himself had been abused as a child, which is why he developed such
an interest in sex and childhood sexuality.[23]
The sexual allegations apart, several people discussed how the
vegetotherapy had hurt them physically as children, as therapists
pressed hard on the body to loosen muscular armour. Reich’s son, Peter,
wrote in his autobiography, Book of Dreams (1973) about the pain this had caused him.[140] Susanna Steig, the daughter of William Steig, the New Yorker
cartoonist, wrote about being pressed so hard during Reichian therapy
that she had difficulty breathing, and said that a woman therapist had
sexually assaulted her. According to Turner, a nurse complained in 1952
to the New York Medical Society that an OIRC therapist had taught her
five-year-old son how to masturbate. The therapist was arrested, but the
case was dropped when Reich agreed to close the OIRC.[141]
It seems that with Wilhelm Reich, there were a lot of babies and a lot of bathwater… not to mention confusion as to which was which.
Without doubt, human sexuality begins in the womb. Sexuality is a vital energy which pervades our lives. Sex can be the taste of honey that makes life worthwhile. And sex can be the means of inflicting irreparable harm on vulnerable persons.
Yes, it is important to realize that teenagers have healthy sexual needs. But it is too simplistic — and irresponsible — to conclude that we just need to eliminate laws regarding age of consent.
I said change the laws, I said nothing about eliminating laws
“”-to conclude that we just need to eliminate laws regarding age of consent…””
Anyone else reading my comments can see that I said change the laws, I said nothing about eliminating laws.
As usual, you like to twist things around to put my comments in a context where they are not. As I said, I don’t certainly do not trust your participation in my articles.
The Vermont age of emancipation in VT is currently 16, one year difference from 15. My point, that 15 year olds are not children stands.
Dredging
It’s because of the Wilhelm Reich example here, played up more so by the Wikipedia bio, that I prefer to look at the macro views of human sexuality, a far better way to try to think in terms of norms.
Just as any of us can dredge up the individual negatives, so too can be found the positives, which of course, are conveniently ignored. What happened to Wilhelm Reich would not happen to a majority of teens (15-18). Because of that I will not pursue the Wilhelm Reich references “elaborated” on by sk-b.
Breath Works
I’ll add that my personal experience of Reich was nourishing and interesting. I was fortunate to get early exposure to both Rolfing and Gestalt Therapy- each off-shoots of Reich’s work. His studies formed a keystone of the Human Potential Movement. As a student of Freud, Reich came to an understanding of the value of bodywork, as soft tissues hold trauma, and inefficient movement patterns add to our fatigue and armoring. Alexander Technique, Massage, Feldenkris, even the spread of yoga in the west can be somewhat attributed to Reich’s efforts.
That his books were burned in such great number, by Americans, Nazis and Russians alike is a piece of trivia that holds both intrigue and implications about how authority operates.
A short non technical piece, ‘Listen Little Man’, touches on his concept of ‘Emotional Plague’. This seems as relevant as ever in these times of rising regressive energies.
Wilhelm Reich Censored
When the FDA litigated, seeking an injunction to stop his allegedly fraudulent work: Wilhelm Reich argued that a court of law is not competent to understand or evaluate scientific research. From an essay appearing on the website of the Wilhelm Reich Infant Trust:
“I therefore submit, in the name of truth and justice, that I shall not appear in court as the defendant against a plaintiff who by his mere complaint has already shown his ignorance in matters of natural science.
I do so at the risk of being, by mistake, fully enjoined in all my activities.”
The Judge did not accept this as a legal response. And, at the request of the FDA and the U.S. Attorney, a Decree of Injunction was issued on default as if Reich had never responded at all.
But this Decree, drawn up by the FDA and the U.S. Attorney–Reich’s former lawyer–went much further than the original Complaint. This Injunction called for the destruction of orgone accumulators.
It also called for the destruction of Reich’s published research bulletins and other materials, which they saw as instructions and labeling for the accumulator.
I therefore submit, in the name of truth and justice, that I shall not appear in court as the defendant against a plaintiff who by his mere complaint has already shown his ignorance in matters of natural science.
I do so at the risk of being, by mistake, fully enjoined in all my activities.”
The Judge did not accept this as a legal response. And, at the request of the FDA and the U.S. Attorney, a Decree of Injunction was issued on default as if Reich had never responded at all.
But this Decree, drawn up by the FDA and the U.S. Attorney–Reich’s former lawyer–went much further than the original Complaint. This Injunction called for the destruction of orgone accumulators.
It also called for the destruction of Reich’s published research bulletins and other materials, which they saw as instructions and labeling for the accumulator. [Italics added to distinguish what is quoted from the website from my own comments.]
http://www.wilhelmreichtrust.org/book_burning-2011_09_24.html
Clearly the deck was stacked, but Reich’s refusal to engage in any sort of legal defense left him totally vulnerable to a default judgment, which means that the court simply rubber-stamped the prosecutor’s demands.
If this account is accurate, a court order which “went much further than the original Complaint,” is such a gross error that, even in the stifling 1950s, it is hard to imagine that it would not have been struck down on appeal. And certainly if Reich had enlisted professional legal representation, his lawyer would have pursued a motion to disallow Reich’s former lawyer from now prosecuting him.
In Listen Little Man, Reich says that kind people mistakenly believe that all people share their sentiments, and advocates that kind people must stop allowing themselves to be vulnerable, but should learn to fight back effectively. It looks like Wilhelm Reich did not follow his own advise in this court case, and he ended locked up in a Federal Penitentiary, where he died after a year.
Much of his work appears to be pseudo-science. But he made the point that, instead of refuting his work on the merits, his opponents sought to kill his work through defamation.
More on Wilhelm Reich later, particularly about Listen Little Man.
Really fun at parties
You seem to have developed a fetish for William Reich. Just think, if you were a good writer, you could do your own piece just on him, instead of piggybacking on someone else.
I’m not convinced Spinoza really intended to or would have intentionally turned my article and our comments into a full blown, excessively elaborated comment on “The True Story of a Court-Ordered Book Burning in America.”
You must be really fun at parties. I can’t wait for your next William Reich installment.
Pnin and Proper
I brought up Reich and Nabokov to illustrate how explosive a topic the sexuality of youth is, and how prudish and hypocritical we are as a culture. I no more intended to spark an exposé of Reich than I angled for a comprehensive analysis of Nabokov from the POV of butterflies he pinned to his notebooks.
Thoughts of sex a good deal of the time
In a new study from Canada, shows that, the average number of partners that participants reported having had sexual experiences with since age 14 was about five. Most teenagers began having sex at age 16.
In humans, mature desire usually begins to appear with the onset of puberty. Sexual expression can take the form of masturbation or sex with a partner. Sexual interests among adolescents, as among adults, can vary greatly.
Adolescent sexuality begins at puberty. The sexual maturation process produces sexual interest and thought processes. Subsequent sexual behavior has its start with the secretion of hormones from the hypothalamus and anterior pituitary gland. These hormones target the sexual organs and begin their maturation. Increasing levels of androgen and estrogen have an effect on the thought processes of adolescents and can be described as them being in the minds “of almost all adolescents a good deal of the time”.
Relationships with age disparity of all kinds have been observed with both men and women as the older or younger partner. In various cultures, older men and younger women often seek one another for sexual or marital relationships.[7] Older women sometimes date younger men as well,[8] and in both cases wealth and physical attractiveness are often relevant. Nevertheless, because men generally are interested in women in their twenties, adolescent boys are generally sexually interested in women somewhat older than themselves.
~Feldman, Robert (2015). Discovering the life span. Boston: Pearson.
~Antfolk, Jan; Salo, Benny; Alanko, Katarina; Bergen, Emilia; Corander, Jukka; Sandnabba, N. Kenneth; Santtila, Pekka (2015). “Women’s and men’s sexual preferences and activities with respect to the partner’s age: evidence for female choice”. Evolution & Human Behavior. 36 (1): 73–79. doi:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2014.09.003
~Wikipedia
Due to my position in this Order of Things, I could not
*Sir: You shock! And on the holy Sabbath!! Am I given to understand that your heinous manifesto espouses anarchy in sexual conduct? Where ultimately the Laws of the Jungle will rule supreme? Where only the fittest will survive, rather than the halt, blind, and others of the “Wretched Refuse of the Earth” that the French so gallantly encouraged to wash up upon our shores under that Trojan Horse of a statue?
Yes, we duly and stupidly erected it while they laughed? And now you suggest we should cast out eons of tribal sexual practices designed to organize and restrain humanity’s willful procreative urges, only to replace that with “Tumescence.”
*We, here at The Cloisters, have assumed the term to mean: “a feeble mode of behavior which would allow mere beauty to standardize public urges, replacing spiritual love, long condoned and made sacrosanct by The Holy Church (& lesser religions)? We find this shocking!
We also find it exciting and intend to practice it in our monk’s holy cells.
……………………….. ………………………… …
This is pretty good. Your epistles are bound to upset the hoary mores of our puritanical establishment! I knew you could do and would.
Due to my position in this Order of Things, I could not.
~Monsignor F
*My friend read my article and emailed his comment to be post anonymously.