Times article about Age of Consent, Stonewall, Alba

[Wandawomble]

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/48c9ae6e-9adf-11eb-8da6-6f8eecc82ac3?shareToken=1d6c72638a41d774b21c06787d90f6d3

I know there are other threads about this but a bit of sunlight and all that...

Humpty Dumpty was a rank amateur. Our Great Theorists today retain the right to change their choice after the fact, and to maintain their authority while doing it.

There is one mention of genital mutilation in the whole declaration. It is in this paragraph:

Examine and address the shortcomings of existing laws and policies that criminalize violations of women’s and girls’ rights to bodily integrity and autonomy, such as female genital mutilation, domestic and intimate partner violence, and child, early and forced marriage, in order to ensure an approach to justice that does not further marginalize or stigmatize affected people and communities;

I have underlined the purpose. This is not asking to legalise GM?

A rather sneaky truncation of your quote there CatherineJTV one might almost suspect you wanted to misrepresent the situation Let me complete it for you....

"... does not further marginalize or stigmatize affected people and communities; and invest in addressing the root causes of these violations by replacing punitive laws with comprehensive social interventions that address multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination and violence, and put survivors of violence and discrimination at the center;"*

It is also female genital mutilation

Laws may or may not be punitive, but the if the law is broken there should be recourse from the courts. 'Comprehensive social interventions' sound great, but what does it mean? Is the funding guaranteed? Suppose people carry on with discrimination and violence - are there any sanctions? Suppose there's a change of government and they just leave the interventions to wither on the vine - can anything be done to force change?

does not further marginalize or stigmatize affected people and communities

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3245071-To-be-disgusted-that-Dr-Christian-Jessen-considers-some-kinds-of-child-rape-to-be-morally-excusable-on-cultural-grounds

And strangely when it comes to transideology they are desparate to impose punitive laws eg hate crimes.

I would love to see someone like Piers talk about this. Unfortunately, I don't think even he is prepared to deal with the abuse he'd get, he has kids after all.

Can anyone explain what is meant by decriminalizing "HIV transmission non-disclosure and exposure?" Because when I take both the age of consent thing and this together it makes me more likely to believe the document is hiding harmful things in it. Can both be debunked?

@Pookah83

Can anyone explain what is meant by decriminalizing "HIV transmission non-disclosure and exposure?" Because when I take both the age of consent thing and this together it makes me more likely to believe the document is hiding harmful things in it. Can both be debunked?

Well obviously what it actually means is empowering a network of HIV clinic across poorer countries for dispensing of medication free of charge. Only a homophobe could read it any differently.

'Comprehensive social interventions' sound great, but what does it mean?

This stuff doesn't even work when it's about industries regulating themselves or organisations behaving ethically.

But this is about child marriage, FGM, physical and sexual violence, coercion. It is only by criminalizing these human rights violations we started making progress in fighting them.

Education and social shaming are measures that are best used together with criminalisation for maximum effect. Over time successful crime preventing programs do just that - they prevent crimes, but if they do happen, we have laws in place to deal with the perpetrators. And this assumption that we stigmatise a perpetrator by criminalising these acts is dangerously irresponsible nonsense. Just as it is a nonsense to propose that we ought to remove legal punishments in favour of social interventions of an unspecified nature.

The whole document shows what happens when liberal feminism embraces queer theory and incorporates the doctrine of gender identity generously dipped in fuzzy logic and woolly-headed thinking. There's an awful lot of demands celebrated as revolutionary but they are vague, unspecified and oddly petulant in many places.

There's a dash of Marxist feminism superficially done, they also decry heteronormativity and "cisgenderism" as reinforcing militarism and neocolonialism and have the gall to call this a meaningful text.

It's impossible btw to find a list of members of the Women's Rights Caucus. We're dependent on individual members (proudly) proclaiming their membership. There's no website, nothing.

Perhaps these documents should be clearer that context will be different, country by country. HIV stigma is a driver for infection in some countries so it makes sense to take away the fear of prosecution. In this country stigma is not such an issue and healthcare readily available.
FGM addressed by criminal justice route is nonsensical in most if the world - its done by women, facilitated by women, on girls, in the context of patriarchy. should those women be prosecuted, no. Even in this country I'm not sure there's much point.

@nauticant

I wasn't that engaged with this issue when it broke. What yanked my chain is the way it's been handled by apologists all over the place putting forward arguments that only work if we don't pay attention to the actual words of the Declaration. It's that that got me asking what actually is going on here?

Yes, this. Any misunderstanding can be quite easily cleared up by redrafting the paragraphs that cause the confusion, so as to clarify what was meant. If someone chooses not to do that, but instead just shouts “BIGOT!”, then my ears prick up more than they would otherwise have done.

Plain English, clearly stated goals, clearly defined terminology are what you want when you are genuinely motivated to make good things happen. Wafty, easily misunderstood bollocks that people won’t clarify but just huffily shout “I can’t believe you would be so mean as to interpret it like that, and the reasons you’ve done that is that you’re a bad person “, is not how you effect meaningful change. It is very useful in wrong footing and disorienting people, though, so they will think twice before challenging you again.

"It's impossible btw to find a list of members of the Women's Rights Caucus."

I noticed that too, and thought it was rather odd

Oh, dear.

gript.ie/pedophile-information-exchange-pie-founder-among-the-founders-of-ilga/

@ItsAllGoingToBeFine

"It's impossible btw to find a list of members of the Women's Rights Caucus."

I noticed that too, and thought it was rather odd

There doesn't seem to be much about the caucus anywhere, aside from the shared declaration and coverage of it.

"including laws limiting legal capacity of adolescents, people with disabilities or other groups to provide consent to sex"

Any idea who these nebulous 'other groups' - who are currently offered the protection of legal frameworks due to their reduced capacity to consent - might be?

Another article in the Times today:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/209d2ce6-9bd8-11eb-a908-ec96e110073e?shareToken=825c7c90a5a3903f67fc54c3b70c86c5

The row stems from a misrepresentation of the term “adolescent” adopted by the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA)

We all know what adolescent means at the lower end of the range despite this attempt to confuse the issue.

The declaration cites laws that impede “bodily autonomy” such as the criminalisation of same-sex intimacy, gender affirmation, abortion or HIV non-disclosure — or authorise forced abortion, sterilisation or contraception. It does not mention age of consent.

According to the Declaration, Stonewall are calling to eliminate "laws limiting legal capacity of adolescents, people with disabilities or other groups to provide consent to sex". We all know that the laws limiting legal capacity of adolescents to provide consent to sex relate, among other things, to age.

These misleading statements aren't what the ILGA are stating, they're the journalist stating what the situation is. This is strange but does reflect the journalist's tweeting on twitter yesterday.

[quote Igneococcus]Another article in the Times today:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/209d2ce6-9bd8-11eb-a908-ec96e110073e?shareToken=825c7c90a5a3903f67fc54c3b70c86c5[/quote]
Those pieces in the Times are really odd. It is almost as if they are trying to highlight an issue without saying anything. Each time they have printed the the full quote, which surely most people will read and go WTF, with no real interrogation of the arguments.

They are strange aren't they. What misunderstanding of "adolescent"? Adolescent means adolescent. The Government knows what it means:

"Early adolescence: There are major transition points between 10 to 14 years, including moving from primary to secondary school; this can also provide an opportunity to provide advice to support positive health choices and behaviour change."

Plus removing making it legal for adolescents to consent to sex means lowering the age of consent in many places.

I think what's happened is that the journalist looked at the story, spotted that it can be presented as "Alba are homophobic", decided that's the angle they want to puruse, and are now pursuing that angle with supporting articles and using twitter to attack any suggestion that there might be another angle, possibly an even more important angle, to the story. Ego and apparent animus towards Alba seem to be at the root of this business.

Any idea who these nebulous 'other groups' - who are currently offered the protection of legal frameworks due to their reduced capacity to consent - might be?

I've been wondering about that, too, ANewCreation.

Dementia patients? Trafficking victims? In the absence of specifics, the reader is entirely free to fill in the blanks. And as we are concerned with safeguarding children, we have alighted upon this word - adolescents.

In the 70s, the lesbians who opposed the inclusion of NAMBLA in pride marches made clear that demands about legal age of consent laws for gay youth or about the sexual rights of adolescents to consent to sex were used by paedophiles in their increasingly blatant attempts to legitimise the sexual exploitation of children.

Of course it took years before anyone bothered to listen. But in the end they did, and ILGA excluded NAMBLA from their organisation.

Mindful of the danger of having this issue once again hijacked by paedophiles and learning from the experience of gay rights campaigners, the authors of this feminist declaration had a very simple choice in avoiding this issue in their English-language version - they could have used the word teenagers.

This word is not only very well defined in English, it also limits these demands to a slightly older age group, who at the younger end are indeed beginning to explore their sexuality, which is why there are very few countries in the world where age of consent laws put the legal limit below teen age.

I've included two screenshots from the Wikipedia entry for Age of consent, which clearly shows that teenagers would have been a much better choice as a group.

Furthermore, the gay rights movement was entirely right in campaigning for having the same age limits apply to homosexual sex as applies to heterosexual sex. There are still places in the world where this is the case, if homosexuality is not banned outright. Campaigning to lower the age limit in this regard would of course be legitimate in my view (leaving aside the question for now whether 13, 14 and 15 are indeed appropriate age of consent limits).

It would have been and still would be easy to edit the document to reflect the real needs of gay youth by making it plain that this is what this subsection refers to.

(However, I do not know if this is what they mean. If they did, I would have expected a statement to this effect from our LGBT organisations. )

Placemarking

Interesting piece here:

lesbianandgaynews.com/2021/04/the-un-ilga-stonewall-and-the-womens-caucus-jo-bartosch-investigates-calls-for-the-removal-of-laws-prohibiting-sex-with-or-between-adolescents/

Interestingly, the UN has some qualms about the type organisations with which they will work. Those who promote what are in effect laws that could lead to the rape of children are welcomed into the fold. Whereas grassroots organisations which promote women’s sex-based rights are not to be tolerated.

"The story here extends far beyond lobby groups like ILGA and Stonewall. The Women’s Caucus document could legitimately be recognised as rolling-back every gain feminists have made over the past two hundred years. It is clear there are a host of organisations working at an international level to undermine basic human rights and moral boundaries."

Thanks for sharing ItsAll