Judging the Illogical:
A good legal system is based on sound reasoning, fairness, and a level playing field for all defendants. I know this kind of perfection, given the imperfections of human nature, is not attainable. Compared to my youth I guess the legal system in this country has improved, albeit the truth is more likely to be improvement in some areas and deterioration in other areas. It is hard to even be objective since with the internet and TV, immediate access to every malfunction of the legal system is in our face. When I was young so much of the unfairness of the legal system to so many was simply not on my radar screen. When women and blacks and others started raising hell I kind of resented it. You know, the usual "if they don't like it here why don't they leave"? It always seems that when things are going smoothly and you are getting a handle on your own life, somebody or some group wants to rock the boat. Depending on one's life experiences or situation one could easily go through life oblivious to the injustices heaped on others outside one's own life bubble. That is just the nature of the beast we call life.
I think some areas are almost impossible to judge accurately or with sound reasoning. Sexual behavior is beyond rationality. Most of it really is. I forget who authored the comment "God surely has a sense of humor or He wouldn't have created sex". All of us really know sexual behaviors are illogical or there would not be so many jokes based on sex. The easiest ha-ha's can always be generated from jokes about sex. It is hard to know whether a lot of it is just funny or we should be getting upset and angry. Logic dictates that any kind of sexual activity which is nonconsensual or involves adults with kids is not acceptable. After that it all becomes an impossible maze of human diversity.
What turns one person on turns another person off. Some people simply laugh off anything they find absurd or disgusting to them, others become angry and want to put a stop to certain sexual behaviors. The motivation, as best I can determine it, is to prevent their own kids from being being enticed into certain sexual behaviors. The real problem is that we still haven't the vaguest clues as to why some people are attracted to particular sexual acts. Let's take people with foot fetishes. There is no logical basis for why that would be a sexual turn-on. If we list all the known sexual turn-ons, every one would be indefensible based on logic. Clearly sexual intercourse is needed to reproduce. Well, not anymore considering modern science, so if the only morally acceptable reason for sexual behavior is to reproduce, then I guess, in theory we could just do away with sex. That would sure tidy things up. Maybe those with the least interest in sex (lowest sex drives) are the luckiest ones. Those with high sex drives, especially in least common directions, often take outrageous irrational risks which can leave the rest of their lives in shambles.
If all of the above is not confusing enough, bring in the legal system and we have an emotional three ring circus in which contrasting emotional feelings are the operative forces. From all these emotional feelings justice is beyond reach. A majority with the same emotional feelings can then use these feelings to rule the day, not based on any sound reasoning but on feelings about sexual behaviors. I recently saw on the internet this case of a 17 yr old kid who was sent to jail for 10 years for having consensual oral sex with a 15 yr old girl. He was released after two years by some higher court which said the punishment was cruel and excessive for the crime.
Naturally I had to think about all of this, mull it over, try to make sense of what would constitute justice here. Just a week ago I read where 20% of teenage girls in this country have had sexual intercourse by age 13-14. Girls menstruate at an earlier age now than ever before. Access to all sorts of sex is available on the internet or TV to any kids who want to find it. What does all this mean? Young couples routinely live together before marriage. Young people are marrying at later and later ages and more and more never marry. And if they marry, half the time the marriage ends in divorce. The number of people living alone as opposed to living in a partnered relationship of some sort is approaching parity in this country. I also read last week where some junior high schools make condoms available to their students. Oddly, teenage births have finally started to head down. These are the facts about the current sexual climate for young people in this country. It is within this climate that the above case went to court.
My first question is, "who brings something like this into court"? Counseling to the boy or the girl, like counseling to all young people about sex should be available. That makes sense. Or does it? What kind of counseling? Which people with which feelings about sex do the counseling? We are already trapped, hopelessly mired in wide ranging feelings about sex.
I assume there must be a law on the book in Georgia that makes oral sex illegal or maybe there is some sort of age limit law. Both were minors and if the sex was consensual why was the girl not charged with anything? If young teens having sex ought to be jailed, and if 20% of 13-14 yr. olds have had sex, then what percentage of kids under 18 have had sex? It must certainly be well over 50%. If this kind of behavior deserves jail time then justice demands that the kid jailed be joined in jail by the majority of other kids his age. And what about the 50% who don't have sex? I assume a good percentage of them are unattractive or have personality turnoffs. Kind of hard to hand out any gold star to them for non sexual activities. Then there are those with low sex drives, for what ever reason. No gold star there either. When it comes to sexual behavior the whole picture is too obtuse for objectively handing out gold stars.
I am not dealing here at all with whether it is appropriate or ethical or healthy for young kids to be having consensual sex. The most I could have is an opinion, and opinions don't help much in a court of law. I could feel he should be punished or I could feel he should not be punished, but feelings are not the things upon which legal justice is founded. What is being analyzed here is the logic involved. It is logical to state if teenagers don't have sex they won't risk AIDS or any of the other sexual diseases, and therefore shouldn't have sex. If more than 50% already are having sex it is logical, based on the emotionality of human nature, to suggest ready access to contraceptives is sound health policy. But then, if contraceptives are made available as policy it becomes illogical to arrest and sentence a teenager to 10 years in jail for having sex. Almost all other viewpoints regarding these matters are beliefs. Beliefs, for the most part, cannot be resolved by law unless the beliefs generate victims. In this case where is the victim? I suppose one might argue that jailing the kid would set an example and send a message to other kids not to have oral sex, or depending on the law on the books, any kind of sex. Besides the fact that a justice system does not exist to set examples, but to prosecute all who break the law, it would seem rather irrational to believe the frequency of sex among teens dropped perceptively at all because this kid was jailed for 10 years. In the last analysis this conviction had to have been based solely on the desire for those concerned about sexual promiscuity among the young to take their frustrations and anger out on this hapless kid. You can bet if their own kid was involved, their feelings would take a 180 degree turn. Then, I guess, a good "heart to heart" talk would suffice, maybe not let their kid drive the family car for a month, whatever.
From what I could gather, this kid was a good student, popular, pleasant natured, and no criminal record. What kind of Judge or prosecutor would engineer such treatment to a kid of that age? And at the expense of $30,000/yr for a total of $300,000 to the public. I would like to pass on being taxed for that. Both the Judge and prosecutor should be gotten out of the justice system. I suppose they would lamely just claim they were enforcing the law. Like hell, they took a law which well over 50% of young teens are breaking, and they prosecute 1 student with a sentence of 10 years to boot. But, very well, let's accept their argument. If either of them have kids who were ever teenagers, let's seek out and find any gals or guys they had sex with as teenagers and let's put THEIR KIDS in jail for 10 years. If enforcing the law is a good idea let's make it a good idea for all, especially the sons and daughters of the Judge and Prosecutors, you know---set an example. Maybe I just want to choose the examples.
At any rate, the main point of all this is that sex is an enigma wrapped in emotions, spinning us all around till we don't know which end is up on the topic. Stop the World, I want to get off, try another planet. Ah, never mind, I am already living in my own created world.
