I’d just like to say that I’m really sick of the over-the-top outrage displayed by so many at every imaginable instance of sexual activity in anyone, especially females, under the age of 18.

18 is an arbitrary, (but certainly useful) dividing line between childhood and adulthood, it is not a precise and reliable measure of maturity in every human being.

When it comes to sex, nature itself says that human females are sexually ready at puberty, which can occur at almost any age, but is usually 11 or 12 and up. Therefore, it is not sick, twisted and worthy of a lynch mob when men find themselves responding to post-pubescent girls, no matter what their actual chronological age is. The tacky saying about grass on the field is technically true, and it’s not honest to demonize men for desires that are entirely natural. Nor are men who find themselves sexually attracted to post pubescent girls pedophiles. They are ephebophiles, and there’s really nothing wrong with that, in and of itself. It’s how we’re built.

And as long as I’m at it, I’ll bitch a little about rape, too: while the label “rape” may be justly applied to any sexual act that is non-consensual, not all rape is equal, or equally horrible and damaging. I’ve been a victim of “date rape”, when I was just a girl (a slutty girl who was inappropriately acting out her issues by giving it away to almost anyone) when a sailor I was on a “date” with forced me to have sex with him in a bathroom. It wasn’t a great experience. But I’m absolutely sure that it was a day in Disneyland compared to the experience of women who’ve been assaulted by complete strangers popping out from behind a bush with a knife, or suddenly appearing in their bedroom in the middle of the night

so what I guess I’m saying is that we have to stop reacting as though every instance of sexual “crime” is equal. They aren’t. And I think it undermines the very real and horrible damage that is done by genuine pedophiles and rapists when we treat everything the same. It’s also an injustice to the “criminals” themselves, when they are all branded as “sex offenders” no matter the nature of the offense.