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Comment by alexb_ | Hacker News Reader

Let me be clear that I do not agree at all, in any way with this argument, I'm just answering your question as to what the opinion of people who like this think.

There are books which contain explicit depictions of sex between teenagers. Why do you want teenagers thinking that having sex before you are 18 is normal? Kids shouldn't be reading stuff about sex (gay, straight, or otherwise) before they are adults. The only people who would be opposed to that sort of thing are groomers.

A lot of people replying to this skipped over part of this comment.

I DO NOT AGREE WITH THIS ARGUMENT. I AM JUST PUTTING IT HERE TO ANSWER THE QUESTION!!!!

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> Why do you want teenagers thinking that having sex before you are 18 is normal?

Having some form of sexual interaction with peers certainly isn't universal but it is well within "normal" for teenagers. The mechanisms of our legal system require us to treat majority as a binary state that people just switch on one day at age 18, but actual development doesn't work like that in any way.

If you enforce on actual people the legal fiction that no one under 18 has ever encountered sexual material in the world or in their own mind, you're creating all sorts of vulnerabilities for them when they do reach 18 and have minimal awareness of their own boundaries, right to have them, and practice enforcing them.

> The only people who would be opposed to that sort of thing are groomers.

"Groomers" is very commonly used in this context as a homophoblic slur, conflating queer people with child abuse and pedophilia. If that's not your intention I suggest you don't use it in this way in conversations like this. Grooming is certainly a very serious form of child abuse. Coincidentally I'm sure, depictions of it are also banned by this restriction on books. You are not going to help youths realize they are in this situation if you prevent them from ever engaging with the stories of others who have been.

There’s nothing magical about the age 18. The age of consent in many states is lower. Hell, the age at which you can join the military is lower.

People under 18 have sex all the time, and they should absolutely be reading stuff about sex before then.

Yeah. It's rather important to be able to tell the difference between educational books about sex, normal, healthy sexual relationships, and porn. I can understand banning porn that encourages unrealistic expectations from sex (which is a problem), and the other two. If you ban the other two, you can bet children will learn about sex from porn.

Or not at all and be really surprised when they get pregnant.

Because having sex before you are 18 is quite normal? It is odd to pretend otherwise, but 16 for example is quite an usual age, at least here in Europe. I doubt it is actually different in the US.

Most people in the world are sexually active before 18. Your teenage years are you prime years of curiosity. Now, yes, they shouldn't be engaging in sexual activities with older, more mature people. But there's zero problem in late teens just being teens and discovering themselves. The more information they have on how to do that safely, the better. This law (and your puritan line of thinking) does the exact opposite. Expect to see a rise in teenage STDs and pregnancy.

Here's the thing: The argument you have articulated there, whether you agree with it or not, is not actually what is being argued (or at least is not all that is being argued).

It's not actually primarily "books which contain explicit depictions of sex between teenagers" that are being challenged by this. It's books talking about the existence of gay, trans, and other queer people as something other than a horrible sin or a mental defect.

If it were just what you say, then yes, that would still be wrong, and stupid...but what it is, in fact, is wrong, stupid, and horrendously bigoted.

The problem with some of these books is that they normalise horrendous practices, e.g. extreme sex acts like anal fisting, or extreme body modifications like young girls having their breasts amputated because they have a false belief that they are boys.

The books that just talk about standard sex education and give an overview of sexuality aren't a problem. It's these other ones that attempt to push the boundaries to their extremes, that parents and teachers are pushing back on.

So you think being trans is fake and comparable with anal fisting. Cool cool. That means you are precisely one of the people I described, trying to ban books about the existence of gay, trans, and other queer people.

I guarantee you there aren't more than 1 or 2 parents or teachers in the entire country (possibly not even that many, but there's always some nutcase somewhere) who genuinely think that having books on anal fisting available to elementary schoolers is a good thing.

Books on being trans aren't remotely comparable. And, just as an aside, if someone realizes they're trans before they go any significant amount through puberty, they can take very safe hormone treatments in order to ensure they never have to have more expensive and potentially traumatic surgery to present as their true gender.

Unlike books on sexuality, many of these pro-trans books normalise irreversible bodily modifications and present this as if it's a positive thing.

If mature adults want to take wrong-sex hormones, get bits chopped off and turned inside out, and so on, after a long period of consultation and contemplation, then that's acceptable, if that's what they truly need.

But showing this stuff to kids, as if it's a normal option? No way. This is child abuse.

It's also completely unlike being gay, lesbian or bisexual, where no bodily changes whatsoever are encouraged or needed. Also there's no identifying as something you're not, into groups where you don't belong, i.e. so many males thinking it's their right to barge into as many female-only spaces as possible. Really the T is nothing like the LGB at all, it's just that activists use the latter as a shield against criticism of the absurd and abusive demands they're making.

I'm not completely sure that everyone making this argument actually believes it. Presumably there are some who do, but I suspect there's a large portion of people who are looking for a way to selectively fire teachers they don't like. Certainly there are politicians who benefit from stoking outrage, and supporters who enjoy boasting of their commitment to their cause by taking an extreme position on a culture war issue.

> Why do you want teenagers thinking that having sex before you are 18 is normal?

It is normal. Actually, it's more normal than having sex for the first time after the age of 18, statistically speaking; while the average age of virginity loss in the US has gradually increased over time, it's still at something like 17.

> Why do you want teenagers thinking that having sex before you are 18 is normal?

It is normal. Teenagers have sex all of the time, and to ignore it and pretend it doesn't happen is dangerous.

> Kids shouldn't be reading stuff about sex (gay, straight, or otherwise) before they are adults.

Yes, they should. How else do they become functional adults? They need to learn so they can make the right choices when it comes to sex, whether that's abstinence, birth control, etc.

> The only people who would be opposed to that sort of thing are groomers.

Yikes. So you're saying people who teach sex ed are "groomers"? If I give my kid a "birds and the bees" book when she's a teenager or younger, I'm a "groomer"? I'm getting the feeling that this is just more right-wing projection.

You should really emphasize your first sentence in some way, it was really easy to have eyes drawn to the second part when skimming down the thread.

It's unfortunate that Hacker News doesn't support bold text. I would have bolded it if I could - it seems like a lot of people replying to me completely missed that I don't actually agree with any of these arguments, and am just telling people arguments that those on the other side make.

My eyes also fell directly to your second paragraph and I immediately thought you should step away from the compiler and experience the world if you really believe this. It’s because you wrote it like you were making the argument and there was no separation between yourself in the context it was written.

Poe's Law[0] strikes again!

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law

So I guess kids shouldn’t read the Bible then?

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