That would be, in a probably somewhat vague sense, the various branches of society that assume the responsibility of moderating and influencing adolescent behavior: parents, government, law enforcement.

“Primarily, once no law has been broken and there has not been coercion or betrayal of trust, it has to be evaluated by the teenager him/herself.”

What I’m trying to determine is when the law, whether its power of application is given to parents or other bodies of enforcement, should no longer be involved in characterizing the nature of a teenager’s decision to have sex with an adult and vise versa.

“[W]hy has no one seriously considered the obvious – that a teenager looking to explore sex for the first time might find an older, generous, kind man sexy?”

I’ve never found the possibility of an adolescent’s attraction to an adult to be a source of much perplexity in these debates. The whole “MILF” phenomenon is now pretty much a cultural staple. As I mentioned, actions based on sexual desire are deemed to require greater justification than other common desires, especially concerning children. Unless a person, of whatever age, can fully autonomously make decision concerning sex, the mere presence of sexual desire is of little significance.

“But sex is irrational, hormonal, instinctive, and often anarchic, and often our early sexual experiences are the way we learn about ourselves, experiment with what we like and don’t like, learn something about our sexual attractiveness and self-esteem.”

I hear this type of characterization often, but I’m not sure I buy it. Because sexuality is such a complex weave of high order and low order thought processes, it quite convincingly gives the appearance of indecipherability. But I think a dual analysis of science and poetry would be able to yield a demystifying but no less compelling characterization.

“I am wary of pathologizing consensual teenage sexual experience with someone older per se…”

But the debate here is whether you can even use the word “consensual” to describe the experiences of teens of a certain age in the first place, since it’s not clear that they are inherently capable of consent due to the lack of psychological development possible at that age.

“…because emotional maturity, surely, is all about a young adult taking responsibility for his choices, making sense of them for himself.”

I absolutely agree that this is the basic process by which a child develops maturity in all psychological facets. However, this process has to advance gradually since having an experience one is far from mature enough to handle can result in trauma and trauma has the effect of stalling maturation. Therefore, due to the greater emotional perils, a teen’s introductory sexual experience should probably not be with an adult. Just putting this out there, but maybe one of the markers to determine a teen is mature enough to make the decision to have sexual conduct with an adult is previous positive sexual experience with his own age group.

Dermod,

With such constructs you are missing the point.

I have watched the discussion and I have not seen the lynch mob. In my opinion it’s a projection of Norris et al, who from the start tried to smear the filmmaker and avoid the issue. Most critical voices were more than considerate and overly kind IMO.

The legal nub of the issue is this: When Searcaigh insists on his right of having sex with 16 plus Nepalese boys, then he, and his defenders are in defiance of Irish law. The law, as it stands, clearly states in the Sexual Offences (Jurisdiction) Act, 1996 http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/1996/en/act/pub/0038/sec0001.html

a) “1.—(1) In this Act “a child” means a person under the age of 17 years.”

And b) “Sexual offences committed outside State.
2.—(1) Where a person, being a citizen of the State or being ordinarily resident in the State, does an act, in a place other than the State (“the place”), against or involving a child which—
( a ) constitutes an offence under the law of the place, and
( b ) if done within the State, would constitute an offence under, or referred to in, an enactment specified in the Schedule to this Act,
he or she shall be guilty of the second-mentioned offence.”

By the way: Penalty is up to five years imprisonment.

I am not saying Searcaigh has been convicted of having sex with children, but it is very clear that he thinks he does no wrong when doing so and he freely admits doing so. Let’s not forget that it was he who invited the camera.

We can talk in every detail about the ins and out of the film in question, the moral, the sociological, the sexual-psychological questions of pederasty, your own sexual history and feelings, or whatever, but not as a way to take the attention from a very clear-cut and simple legal (and moral) situation.

The only lynch-mob like attitude in the circumstances I have found in P. Bewick’s public demand for pedophiles to be castrated.http://www.dublinblog.ie/2007/06/20/saving-dublin/ Under Irish law having sex with 16 year olds clearly falls under that heading, both in the State or outside. And nobody of the ‘lynch-mob’ has asked for measures like that of Bewick, the fervent defender of Searcaigh.

Any of your lyrical waxing, like “a man seeking escape from himself, in pursuit of beauty and in flight from the pain of relationship…” is inappropriate to the gravity of the main issue.

“How do we decide when it is ethical to allow him/her to make his/her own decisions concerning sex?” – well, who is the “we” here? Primarily, once no law has been broken and there has not been coercion or betrayal of trust, it has to be evaluated by the teenager him/herself. In an online correspondence with an 18-year-old recently on this issue, he asked me “why has no one seriously considered the obvious – that a teenager looking to explore sex for the first time might find an older, generous, kind man sexy?”

“The imbalance of power would make such contact extremely perilous emotionally” – yes, you are right. And one young man in Fairytale levelled exactly that charge against Ó Searcaigh, that he played with their emotions. I’d like to hear more about that.

You are almost arguing for a “driving licence” for sex – or at least a theory test before a teenager is let loose in the world to get some practice in. Of course I am in favour of good sex education in schools. But sex is irrational, hormonal, instinctive, and often anarchic, and often our early sexual experiences are the way we learn about ourselves, experiment with what we like and don’t like, learn something about our sexual attractiveness and self-esteem. For every protective parental impulse to delay sex until the conditions are perfect, there is also an opposite impulse, especially when hormones are raging in a young man, to explore. It’s a perennial struggle.

I am wary of pathologizing consensual teenage sexual experience with someone older per se, ie automatically casting the younger person in the role of victim, because emotional maturity, surely, is all about a young adult taking responsibility for his choices, making sense of them for himself. If, however, he did not feel he had a choice, if he felt taken advantage of, exploited, coerced, obligated to provide sexual favours, discarded once they were no longer forthcoming, then that is of serious concern.

Certainly, we could judge anyone who has introduced these elements into sexual conduct with another person as having committed an immoral act. But that would be the case whoever the other person was, whether a minor or someone well of age and mental capacity.

As for that particular “individual teenager,” how do we decide when it is ethical to allow him/her to make his/her own decisions concerning sex? What characteristics would they need to exhibit?

Knowledge, I think, is one definite example. Just as it would be unethical to allow a teenager to drive a vehicle without the proper education and training, ensuring that teenagers are properly informed about sex ought to be required. But safeguarding against the possible physical dangers of sex does not seem quite sufficient regarding the question of contact between a minor and an adult, as the imbalance of power would make such contact extremely perilous emotionally. Intellectual and physical maturity have definite conceivable quantifiers, but how do we gauge emotional maturity?

No I appreciate your fleshing out of the themes that are pertinent to this issue, however meandering it may be. It’s exactly the sort of reflective, considered thinking that is necessary.

“What then are the markers that show that a child developed sufficient reasoning to make beneficial choices concerning when and with whom to have sex?”

This is key. We have learned so much about the effects of child sex abuse from the abused children themselves – the abuse of trust, the loss of self-esteem, the fear of intimacy, the damage done in so many areas of life. Finally, after centuries of ignoring these effects, we are now, in the last few decades, beginning to take them seriously. However, when it comes to that liminal stage of first sexual experience at the age of 16, 17, or 18, it gets more complex, and I am wary of assuming that one is automatically a victim of abuse (with all the concomitant effects) if one has sex with an older man. Wary, but I’m not denying it could be abusive – it really depends on the individual teenager, whether there was coercion involved, a betrayal of trust, whether it was steeped in shame and secrecy: all the conditions which serve to severely compound the damage done in the sexual abuse of younger children.

Another necessary element of child development is the availability of affection and intimacy, physical and psychological. Although some of the physical affection a child will receive will be unsolicited-pats on the head, surprise hugs-most will be initiated by the child’s own compulsion-they cry, grab hold of hands, or crawl into their parents’ beds. Most parents recognize these initiations as an expression of a legitimate need, and it would seem cruel for someone to deny a child’s request for physical intimacy.

Except for when the physical intimacy desired is sexual in nature. Suddenly, whether pre or post pubescent, the desire is suspect. Even if it’s a teen desiring sexual contact from another teen, the desire is suspect unless it is occurring under the right conditions. It can’t be that she just desires to be intimate in a sexual way because of some sense of emotional need. She has to be in a relationship in which she really cares for her partner and her partner really cares for her. However, it seems nearly unanimous that there are no conditions the meeting of which intergenerational sexual desire becomes legitimate.

Why is this? The first charge is that it’s exploitive. But exploitation is only a moral issue if some sort of detriment is shown to be the result of the exploitation. That requires showing that intergenerational sex is inherently harmful to a child. And what if it’s the child that initiates the physical contact? That brings up the issue of autonomy. We allow children to make all kinds of decisions. Which decisions we allow them to make depends on their ability to base their decision on proper reasoning, which is the hallmark of autonomy. What then are the markers that show that a child developed sufficient reasoning to make beneficial choices concerning when and with whom to have sex?

I’m sorry this post was very meandering and jumbled, but I’m not sure how to best approach this topic.