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Comment by petercooper | Hacker News Reader

It's silly to generalize on the mental capabilities of all 9 year olds. [..] I know of many examples of 9-year olds who are more mature than many 20 year-olds I know.

Sorry, I'm out of my depth. It's beyond my rhetorical capabilities to have a serious discussion about it being OK for even a "mature" 9 year old to be having unrestricted access to cybersex chat rooms and hardcore porn.

That said, I thank you for opening my eyes. I think I understand how many conservative, Christian folks feel when confronted with things like gay marriage. Perhaps they're not evil - they just can't shift their worldview up by 10 orders of liberality. My own sexually liberal views are as alien to them as yours are to me. So sorry, and good luck, but I can't engage with this.

That said, if you allow your own mature 9 year old daughter or so to have laissez-faire, unmonitored sexual relationships and write an article about it, I'd love to read it.

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I can't engage with this.

That's unfortunate. :-\

It's a bit disappointing to me that you're able to come to an understanding with the perspective of conservative Christians who want to ban gay marriage, yet aren't able to see my point of view.

That said, if you allow your own mature 9 year old daughter or so to have laissez-faire, unmonitored sexual relationships and write an article about it, I'd love to read it.

I'll be sure to if I ever get that opportunity. What I can say is that my sister does fit that description, and she alright, recently graduated at the top of her class, and has been accepted to an ivy league. No cybersex horror stories to speak of. Perhaps my parents did something right, besides giving her unrestricted internet access.

It's not about the content that's online, it's about the person who's viewing it. If they're intelligent and know what to watch out for, they'll be just fine, and love you the more for letting them masturbate in peace.

> That said, if you allow your own mature 9 year old daughter or so to have laissez-faire, unmonitored sexual relationships [..]

What I can say is that my sister does fit that description, and she alright

If that's true, you might want to be careful with sharing that online. Whatever I think, the law is a different matter entirely and social services look grimly on parents who are allowing underage children to have sexual relationships.

Again, good luck.

allowing underage children to have sexual relationships.

I never said she had underage sexual relationships, I've always been referring to online porn and unrestricted internet access. Sorry if there was confusion.

Although on the other hand, I don't think 16 or 18 are magic numbers, but as you correctly point out, there are legal concerns to watch out for.

You can always find cases that are exceptions to the general rule, where someone does something that ends up being very destructive for the vast majority of people who try it but comes out just fine. Especially on the internet. That in no way justifies or makes safe such behavior for the rest of the us.

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