[Normally I hesitate to read books labelled as “philosophy” after I completely bombed contemporary moral issues in first year. Sometimes (mostly in science/math courses) I get annoyed at the world in general when I fail again and again after working my ass off. This was the exact opposite of that. This was like straight-up my own lack of common sense and basic school skills that awarded me a 13 percent on a test. The other marks weren’t great, either; it may have been the only time I’ve failed a paper. I don’t know; I never got it back. I’m not entirely sure why I’m making this introduction a confessional about my dumb-assery, but it might be used as a statement to say that I am not a philosopher by any stretch of the imagination.]
Despite my hesitation, I stumbled upon a philosophy book in the library called Ethics and Sex by Igor Primoratz. I’ll admit that chapter ten is the only chapter I’ve really read, not just skimmed. Simply titled “Pedophilia”, he explores a great deal in eleven pages. He’s one of those authors that I’ll likely keep looking at, because his arguments are so basic and understandable and his work has kind of kept me in check when I’m reading different authors. But the argument I’m going to explore for now is his ideas about discourse.
Discourse is the language we use and the ways we talk about particular practices or institutions. Our uses of language as well as our ways of understanding and knowing about a particular identity (for example) help to make up discourse. Talk is never “just talk”, but is supported and regulated by dominant perspectives and social structures such medicine or law. Our use of language shapes the way we see and understand the world. People can understand our perspectives better when they consider the language we use.
Although Primoratz doesn’t use the term discourse to describe his opening to the chapter, he engages in the definitions of discourse I describe above. He begins by distinguishing in detail the labels or identities of pederasty, ephebophilia and pedophilia. He challenges contemporary use and understanding of these terms by outlining the differences between them. (I’m only going to look at pederasty, ephebophilia and the notion of an age of consent in this post. I had originally planned to dissect his understanding of pedophilia in detail in this post, but I let the following paragraphs get out of control, so pedophilia will have its own post.)
Pederasty, he states, is defined by the sexual attraction if an adult male to boys in their mid-teens. He gives the perpetually used example of ancient Greece, where it was common for grown men and still androgynous boys to have lustful relationships. He labels this interaction as “homosexuality”, but I’m going to question whether or not homosexuality is the right term for this example. Ancient Greece didn’t have the term homosexuality, and maybe didn’t even have the concept of categorizing sexualities by attraction to a particular sex or gender. So can we label something that wasn’t there? If they had a technology that had many of the same functions of a calculator, we wouldn’t call it a calculator because that is misplacing modernity into a historical context. Why should it be any different with sexualities? I’m not saying we shouldn’t have the labels “homosexuality” or “pederasty” to describe particular kinds of ancient relationships, but we should constantly be aware that these are modern terms placed in another context. We should acknowledge that the relationships between practices and identities are often constructed through time, context and space. The terms “homosexual” and “heterosexual are new terms, only appearing within medical discourse within the late 19th and early 20th centuries and since then their definitions have evolved. Men and teenage boys having consensual sexual relationships doesn’t become homosexuality until we label and define it as such.
Ephebophilia is described by Primoratz as the attraction of grown men to “vigorous maleness” in young adults. He argues that technically we can label this practice pedophilia of we have a wide enough definition of the term, as it includes grown men with a sexual desire towards “minor” children. Of course, this understanding is only possible if we construct an “age of consent” rule. Like most identities, age is socially constructed. Not only is it constructed through the somewhat arbitrary decision of what constitutes a year and therefore our numerical age, but age is especially structured within legal discourses. Ephebophilia cannot exist without our understanding of “underage” and “adult”, something which changes through history.
“Age of consent” is a large topic in and of itself, and I intend to do posts solely devoted to it. For now I think it suffices to say that age of consent is nothing natural, but it is shaped around our understanding of what age means. The concept of the child is a relatively new development. Historically, children were typically thought of as being smaller adults. Because “age of consent” laws are meant to protect children and children are historically, culturally and contextually specific, the legal discourses become even more open to debate. Laws are created for the public, the general wholeness of society, not for individuals. It doesn’t work with “exceptions” to the rules of what we deem right or wrong, but tries to maintain some kind of order to these values.
By creating a legal discourse about age and sexual experience, we tell ourselves a lot about what the (supposed) majority believes. Telling children they must be however old to have sex with someone above the age of majority is typically labelled as protection of children against pedophile monsters. Here are some quick facts just in case anyone wants to know numbers: the age of consent in Canada is 16; in America it ranges from 16 to 18. There are, however exceptions. If the 16 to 18 year old engages in sexual contact with someone over the age of 18 who is in a position of authority, then this is illegal. By creating these laws we are placing value on youth, childhood and possibly even innocence. We desire to protect the things we value. The arbitrary age we “permit” children to have sex is a structure that tells us about how we think people mature socially and physically. By creating an age of consent, we are telling ourselves this age defines children as being “developed” or “mature” enough to experience sex with someone over the age of 18. We typically understand physical acts of sexuality to be something reserved for people who are “ready” for the supposed responsibility of it.
Is it right for there to be laws identifying what is the appropriate age for individuals to engage in sex, and with whom? I have a hard time accepting age of consent laws when it goes against what society tries to tell us about sex. We’ve all heard that “sex is personal, intimate and between two people”. Maybe it is those things sometimes, but the fact is, sex is public. It’s regulated by laws, telling us who, when, where and why we have sex. “Sex is personal” becomes meaningless when we consider that we don’t necessarily have the control we thought we did around our sexuality. There are laws telling us we can’t have sex for money, or pay for sex and I’ve already gone into some detail about the “when” and “with whom” regulations with the age of consent laws.
We are getting mixed messages about sex. Popular culture and wedding industries (for example) tell us that sex and love coincide and are personal, private matters. This is at the same time that some states still have laws regarding sodomy in 2010. I wish the message was “sex is about consent”. The idea that “if there are willing, consenting people involved in a sex act, then it’s acceptable” seems a bit too simple, but sometimes that’s what applies to a situation.
You have to understand that I mean “willing” in a very fluid sense. Incredibly intoxicated people unable to consent are not willing partners. Small children are not consenting individuals. My grandmother can’t consent, but because of another situation entirely (and it has nothing to do with age). Consent and willingness has to be about something more than age. I’m not going to try to say that there aren’t young people who are manipulated into sexual relationships with older people, and that their “power” wasn’t abused. I just don’t think we should be able to pin down one age that says “this is when sex is acceptable”.
We’ve accepted in our society that with age brings power and authority, which is one of the main reasons there are age of consent laws. The point of the laws seems to be to protect younger people from experiencing power imbalances within a sexual experience. What they don’t consider, however, is the many other power imbalances that might take place inside a consenting relationship between two adults (I say two because our society seems to love monogamy). There are no laws considering the constructed inequalities that occur within class, race, nationality, gender or sex. For example, we don’t have laws telling women not to have sex with men because of the inequalities we have constructed around gender. Age is just as much a construction as other identities, and I think a lot more than numbers need to be considered when thinking about “acceptable” sex.
I really didn’t intend to go in the direction I did with this post, and my lack of ability to pay attention to my own writing is sometimes debilitating. (I had to be told to stop looking at videos of narcoleptic goats partway through writing this, if that gives you any insight as to how short my attention span is.) I had every intention to talk about Primoratz’s arguments about pedophilia and ethics. The good thing about a blog is that it will be here tomorrow, waiting for more things to be said. I will get to his definition of pedophilia and his critiques of our discourses surrounding it
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