'septic<"...it is a response to the sense that one is missing out on all the fun that everyone else is having and naturally the Old Grrls Network is full of women who have spent their entire lives resenting others' enjoyment."

Gee, you and Peter Hume must feel very humble in your own presence?
How on earth do you feel you know me at all? Is it that you want to hear about my wonderful sex life- past and present? Is that the only way you poor guys can have any fun- living life vicariously? How sad.

Peter I don't believe I ever said anywhere that pedophilia was in any way a normal human behaviour! Of course it is a sickness, but not one that can be cured except by surgical castration.

As it happens, I am neither an 'old girl' or a feminist as such.
I actually often prefer the company of men to women.
I just happen to dislike men who hate all women just because they are female. Do you blame me?

Another iconic Freddie Mercury composition-:

"Stop it stop all the fighting
We want to live in a better place (live in a better place)
We want to make a better human race
We want to live in a better place (stop all the fighting)
We want to make a better human race
Stop all the fighting stop all the fighting".

Suzeonline:"Is it that you want to hear about my wonderful sex life- past and present?"

Whatever floats your boat, Suzie. At least it won't take long...

It'd be nice to get back on topic. Your bickering is boring at best.

I don't think you can apply current standards to historic actions. It was common for men and women to marry much younger in the past. They acted in accordance with the standards at the time.

Let's fast forward 200 years, and make similar changes. The age considered appropriate for sex has risen from puberty (around 13-14) to 16-18. So let's project that in 200 years that age of consent is say 20. By the logic used in this forum, that would make anyone who had sex with a 16-20 year old in 2000 a paedophile by future standards.

Sound reasonable?

burbs,

Sounds very logical. Let's face it men are all really paedos in Suze's world.

Suze,

'Just the sort of disgusting comment I would expect you to say.'

Which part was disgusting? Do you find pubic hair disgusting? Or is it disgusting to talk about sex with a cricket metaphor? I'll try to work candlelight dinners in sometime, but I find cricket the most romantic of sports. Women play cricket too.

'And you know that, in ancient Aboriginal society at least, it was older men taking young girls as wives.

Sounds like you think that is all good fun?'

Depends on the age of the 'girl'. I'm a moral relativist. Who's to say our culture is better.

Incidentally I love the way people love to preserve a culture, but only cherry-pick the bits that are acceptable (or seem quaint) with respect to their own culture.

Oooh we must preserve this culture, except the bits about genital mutilation and sending 8 year olds to fight with lions because that's taboo in our culture!

It's all so inconsistent.

Burbs defined it well: <"There is a difference between youth being more sexually active and promiscuous and youth wearing clothes and acting in a way that adults PERCEIVE as sexual.

Do you really think that an 8yo girl who doesn't wear a bra or listen to Britney Spears will be asexual. But put a bra and a CD in her hand and viola, she's a whore.">

So Antiseptic, Hume and Houellebecq are arguing in favour of the sexualization of youth.

Why?

Whose wants and purposes are being served in a society where youngsters are defined/perceived as sexual beings - regardless of whether their emotional and mental maturity is congruent with their physical appearance and the way adults perceive them ?

- - - -

Btw Houellebecq, the youngest female to have "grass on the wicket" was a tot who ended up pregnant at about 6 yrs of age. The kind of cultural belief that underlies that sort of saying is also the source of cases of girls of, say, 11 - who have been subject to honour killings.

However, I suppose that in your world, anyone who feels gut sick at the plight of those youngsters has a problem with sex or summin. How about men who object to the misuse of young people - do they have a problem with sex and/or (other) men too ?

Pynchme:"Antiseptic, Hume and Houellebecq are arguing in favour of the sexualization of youth."

You really do have difficulty reading for comprehemsion, don't you dear? "Youth" is and always has been sexual - the moral panic being promoted by you Dreary Dowagers is only possible because you are being massively subsidised, as are we all, by cheap fossil fuels. That allows all the things that let women put off children until they should be past it. Snce they are likely to have only one, and since it is likely to survive to adulthood thanks to good antibiotics (which soon won't be much good at all), it is valued much more highly that children have been valued historially, when many of them were likely to die. Once most antibiotics become ineffective, which is likely to be within the next few decades, chldhood mortality will increase and the human race will go back to historical norms of behaviour. The current period is an anomaly, not a norm.

Instead of revealing the empty Wowserism you espouse, how about condemning the "commodification" of children that is part and parcel of the Family Law? Just like a share portfolio or an investment property or a string of racehorses they're a useful money-maker - for the one who "owns" them.

The Natonal Council for Sngle Mothers and "THEIR" Children has no doubts about who that should be...