I've created a new category that I'm thinking might be one that's going to "take off" on its own, meaning it would have posts not be routed to my main blog at all... I think it will need it's own domain. (I've already got plans for several of those on other topics.) I'm kind of excited, because I realized that it's an important topic, one I sure would like to discuss...

It's name? Sexlines. OK? So what does that mean? Well, here's the short description:

Where to draw the lines? What's right and wrong when it comes to sex (including porn, sexuality, images, depictions, thoughts, fantasies, actions, etc.) and age? How young is to young to have sex? To be sexual? To be sexualized?

I had this realization, due to a few sites and ideas I encountered today, that I really don't know where to draw the line on sex, sexuality, sexualization, and sexualized representations and age. I mean really... I think nobody really does, even though some may claim to. People have a whole lot of different ideas. Governments, institutions, religions, parents, teens, adults, young people, old people, authorities, leaders, families, men, women, cultures, countries, philosophies...all have different ideas about various aspects of this issue. I think that most are very subjective. What should we take as our guide? Gut feeling? A rational argument? A philisophical argument? A legal argument? A moral argument? A practical argument? I could make all kinds of varieties of any of these and so could anyone else! It's so complex and so confusing—and so important not to get wrong...

I think it's important to talk about...to think about...to dialogue about...to question...to wrestle with...

Everyone should have a say: pre-teens, teens, young adults, middle-aged adults, older adults, parents, men, women, religious leaders, ethics scholars, psychologists, doctors, social workers, those who have been abused, those who have been repressed, those who think all sorts of different things...

Because it really occurs to me that I just don't know where the lines should be drawn... How young is too young, and what is it too young for, and who is it too young with, and how old is too old, and how old is it too old, with whom, and how young are they? What is the difference between looking, fanticizing, and acting? How well do groups and individuals create and enforce distinctions between looking, fantcizing, and acting?

Part of what brought this up for me are two examples of images of girls/young women, some of whom I don't know the true ages of (and partly that's part of the point), images that came from different sources...

The various parts of me are conflicted: the radical sexual liberal, the feminist, freedom rights of children advocate, the protection of children advocate...

Wow.

Who has a right to make these decisions? Different people want different things, and yet as a society we have to make decisions for other people, because sometimes two people don't want the same things from one another, and sometimes even if they both claim to want them, we must decide that they don't get to do them... (If this doesn't make sense, a blatant example: even if a 10-year-old might claim to really want to have some sort of sexual relations with a 40-year-old, many of us would believe that we must, because the 10-year-old is not truly capable of making that decision for himself or herself, deny her or him the right to make that decision and deem that activity unacceptable)...

But here come the tough questions...

What about a 10-year-old and another 10-year-old? Two 11-year-olds?
12 & 12?  13 & 13?  14 & 14?  15 & 15?  16 & 16?  17 & 17?  12 & 13?  11 & 13?  12 & 14?  12 & 15?  14 & 16?
14 & 17?  17 & 19?  15 & 17?  15 & 18?  15 & 19?  15 & 20?  14 & 20?  15 & 25?  17 & 45?  16 & 45?

Now mind you, I haven't even gotten to what, exactly, these people in question are doing: Holding hands? Fantasizing about one another? Looking at clothed, sexualized pictures of one another? Looking at partially-clothed sexualized pictures? Looking at nude pictures? Looking at graphically sexual pictures? Kissing? French kissing? Making out? Heavy petting? Oral sex? Intercourse?

If I am a 40-year-old man, and I get off looking at pictures of "girls", is that wrong? Am I depraved? Am I sexually dysfunctional? Am I a criminal? These "girls", what if they are 9? 10? 12? 13? 15? 17? 19? 20? What if they are actually 16 or 17 or 18, but they look 13 or 14 or 15? What if I am a 30-year-old man? A 20-year-old man? What if I'm a woman? What if these are boys rather than girls? (Clearly, no argument will have any sway with me made purely on the basis of an anti-same-sex bias, but other than that, it's all fair game!)

Who decides these things? What kind of different answers do we get when we ask pre-teens, teens, boys, girls, men, women?

How different is your viewpoint if you're involved vs. if you're not? What if you're the 12-year-old? The 40-year-old? A parent? A friend? A survivor of sexual abuse? A medical professional?

When is too young to get married? When is too young to have children?

Where does culture fit into all of this anyway? What if in X culture it is completely acceptable for 40-year-old men to marry 14-year-old girls? 16-year-old girls? 12-year-old girls? What about 20-year-old men and 15-year-old girls? What if it were older women and younger men/boys (this has in fact been found in a relatively small number of anthropologically-studied societies)? Where do sexism and patriarchy come in? Where does personal choice come in? How do we decide if it's really a totally free personal choice or a coerced choice? Is there ever such a thing as a totally free personal choice?! Can something be right in one cultural context and wrong in another? Who gets to decide?

I will never accept culture as an excuse, that is to say, culture can never justify a human rights violation. Denying women equal rights, mutilating their genitalia, or making them wear something or not wear something, or do something or not do something—and trying to use culture or tradition as an excuse or justification will never fly with me. But exactly where do we draw the line? If everyone in society does something, is it less damaging to an individual than in a society where most people don't do it? Would it be more damaging for them not to do it?

This topic could easily expand to other areas of human activity, but I'd like to keep it more or less focused on sexuality, with some overlap into more general body issues, as well as such things as marriage and childbirth.

I wish us luck—we're going to need it!