Age of consent is 1) a statist/legal framework, with all of the faults that entails that is 2) transparently premised on the denial of agency and autonomy to those designated as minors, which plays into 3) the positioning of the state and the nuclear family as the proper and necessary guardians of children.

The fact that age of consent has been so normalized as *the* thing to rally around in opposition to csa is terrifying tbh.

The specter of pedophilia is so central to homo/transphobic and transmisogynist myths. It's so central to the maintainence of the nuclear family and forced divisions between generations. The stakes involved in these questions go so far beyond whether people should (be allowed to) have ~relationships~ / otherwise be intimate when there's a large age difference. The pedophile is one of the central images of the #deviant we need the state to protect us from. People should be way more wary of mobilizing that ready made image.

But more than that, it's such a conservative and authoritarian position to say that people can't make decisions about their body / their relationships / their lives until they're 18. There are obviously anarchist alternatives to saying that the answer to minors sometimes being drawn into abusive relationships is to ban relationships with age differences and rally around adult authority.

People could, idk, intensify their attacks on the authoritarian structures of the family and the state and civilization that all help directly facilitate abuse and render minors more alienated and dependent on adults and thus more susceptible to abuse. They could reject ageist models that (rightfully) discredit them to minors and do more to display and pass on possibilities of what anarchist relationships can look like. They could engage in any number of strategies that align with youth liberation and actual anarchist anti-abuse frameworks.

Or I guess people can just copy the conservative position when shit like Milo's comments come out and rally around the legal denial of agency to minors.

#csa #abuse #youth liberation #age of consent