Session 9A: Thinking Adult/Child Sex and Sex Crimes

1st Global Conference

Monday 4th May 2009 – Thursday 7th May 2009
Budapest, Hungary

The Age of Consent
Donald Mader
The Netherlands

The issue of age of consent for sexual activities has been bedevilled by the absence of any objective standards or criteria for what is meant by or  involved in ‘consent’. Despite this absence – or because of it – the social and political response has been to reach for blanket prohibitions on sexual activity by persons under particular ages – ages which have settled in the mid- to late teens (the latter in the case of sexual activities with persons where there is an age difference). At the same time, the percentages of persons age 15 and under who are sexually active in our societies indicates that young people are regularly consenting to sexual activities.

Similar issues exist with regard to consent in medical settings, particularly with regard to consent by minors for life-threatening (or life-ending) procedures. Another medical area of considerable relevance is that of consent to sexual activity by the cognitively or mentally impaired.

A significant proposal in regard to the latter was reported by Carrie Hill Kennedy, in her article “Assessing Competency to Consent to Sexual Activity in the Cognitively Impaired Population” (Journal of Forensic Neuropsychology 1:3, 1999), where she developed a two part scale for ability to consent, including twelve criteria involving knowledge and five criteria involving personal assertiveness and safety.

Kennedy herself has maintained that there is no relevance for her research as applied to minors: adults have sexual rights, minors do not. However, it would seem clear that there is a certain relevance – if not in the use of a similar scale for assessing the competence of a particular minor to consent, then in generally comparing the age at which children attain the developmental level comparable with that implied by Kennedy’s five Safety standards, and using that information to critique the present, obviously unrealistic ages of consent. In relation to the Knowledge scale, the importance of sexual education becomes still clearer.

Adult-Child Sexual Activity: Why It’s Wrong & Morally Required Responses
David White
Department of Philosophy, Calgary University, Canada

It is generally agreed that adult-child sexual activities are always morally impermissible, but a variety of different reasons are typically given for this assessment. Recently there have been several excellent, philosophically serious discussions of the moral status of adult-child sexual activities that have tried to settle this dispute. Igor Primoratz and Laurence Thomas both base their arguments for the wrongfulness of adult-child sexual activity on the fact that children are incapable of meaningfully consenting to sexual activities. Stephen Kershnar argues that because no adult would “retrospectively consent” adult-child sexual activity is always wrong. Robert Ehman argues that its wrongness must be based on direct harms resulting from adult-child sexual activity. Claudia Card presents what she calls a “bonding theory” as grounds for its rejection. While each of these arguments raises complex and serious concerns, none is sufficient to ground the claim that all adult-child sexual activities are impermissible. After analysing each of these views, I argue that the likelihood of specific indirect harms being inflicted on children as a result of adult-child sexual activities is significant enough to warrant a universal moral rejection of adult-child sexual activity. The paper closes with a brief discussion of what action the preceding arguments suggest is morally required of everyone.