We constantly hear much about how society should not interfere between two consenting adults; or in the larger sense, how we, as a society, should not be punishing people for what are presumed to be “victimless crimes.” In particular, I refer to Drugs, Prostitution, and in a more recently disturbing trend, Sex with a Minor - assuming of course that the minor is male and the older perpetrator is female.

I titled this article, “the Age of Consent” because I think that Liberals truly believe that in this brave new day and age, everyone is presumed to be able to consent to anything, and all choices are equally valid. In their minds, we truly are living in the Age of Consent.

What of this though? Historically, consent has been tied to an established age of maturity, with the belief that for most people in a given society there is a certain age at which point they are most likely able to make intelligent, informed and mature choices.

Some would argue that any age is inherently subjective, and in fact over the past two thousand years that age has changed radically. Phrases like “two hundred years ago I would have been married at thirteen”, springs to mind.

The obvious answer is, that two hundred years ago, you and every one else that you know would have been a heck of a lot more mature and capable of being married at thirteen, because that was what was expected of you.

The point is that any age is inherently subjective, but as long as it is logically based and consistently applied, it creates its own level of reality that assures that on average, people will be mature enough to consent to that which society as a whole has prepared them.

The problem is when people are allowed to consent to that which society has not prepared them; or when we try to say that this person or the other can consent at a different time or in a different way. Let me give you a few examples;

First, in the news lately, there have been several examples of teachers having sex with their underage students. When we hear about this, our first reaction is one of outrage until we learn that the teacher was a woman and attractive at that, and the victim was one of her male students. Now, suddenly with a knowing smile, we are fondly recalling all of our immature and adolescent fantasies, and find ourselves thinking; “so what’s the big deal?”

Interestingly enough, in both of the recent cases, the women were married. Clearly they had their own issues, and just like the accepted wisdom that rape is not an act of sex, but rather an act of violence, these women’s actions were not part of a healthy “consensual relationship”, but rather were unhealthy for both people - one of whom should clearly have known it.

At its worst, the young boy in question will develop an unhealthy attitude toward women and sex - one of entitlement where women are there to satisfy him with no commitment required on his part, and at worst, he will develop a fixation on the teacher who molested him.

A minor can never consent to sex regardless of gender and the older person involved is always playing the role of a predator, whether they are willing to admit it or not. The rules and taboos of Western Society are historically so inflexible in this area that to defy them shows a person with a clear mental-social imbalance, and yet here we find ourselves with a legal system that seems all too willing to make unhealthy judgments about who is or is not a victim, and by corollary, whether or not a crime has actually been committed.

As a second example, Prostitution and Exotic Dancing are both varyingly referred to as “victimless crimes”, with the first being legal in at least one State, and the other being dealt with as a NIMBY zoning issue.

While I am an unabashed capitalist, and as such, I know that where there is money to be made, someone will be doing it, that doesn’t make it right and it doesn’t mean that the people doing it enjoy it, or would not prefer to do something - anything else.

How can we possibly believe that a person can spend their days or nights satisfying the sexual appetites of strangers and then hope to be able to develop a meaningful and healthy relationship with another person.

Many exotic dancers are married with children. Imagine how difficult that must be for her husband to know what his wife is dancing naked for strangers, or for her to feel anything but unclean when she comes home from a day of work; or not to resent her husband in that she has to do that job.

Likewise, how can they raise a family and teach their son to treat women with respect or their daughter to respect herself in that toxic emotional environment.

Further, while some may clam that Prostitution is “victimless”, I have to believe that people who avail themselves of the services of a prostitute are not doing so because they just “want a date” but that rather, just like rape, their motivation is less sexual, and more than likely reflects strong elements of violence and control. Personally, I am not sure that I feel comfortable saying that something so similar in its Psychology to rape could possibly ever be characterized as “victimless.”

Of course, with the recently much hyped study of the Census showing that more than half of all women in America were living without spouses, I suppose that the ability to develop healthy heterosexual relationships is not exactly high on the liberal agenda.

What Conservatives know in our hearts, however, is that healthy families are founded on healthy sexual relations between a man and a woman in monogamous wedded bliss. Unfortunately, Liberals seem to be more in favor of anything goes, like some deranged Chinese Menu where you take something from Column A and something from Column B and when you are done you call it a family. Doctor Frankenstein would be so proud.

It is time that we stopped pretending that all choices are valid

It is also time that we stopped pretending that one person can use another for their pleasure and not make a victim out of them.