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The difficulty with laws

The Pocso law was introduced in India in 2012 to tackle rising child sexual abuse. Under the law, any sexual activity involving a person under 18 is illegal. It makes no allowances for sexual relationships between consenting young people, which child rights activists say is punitive and not the intention of the law.

Activists are now calling for the law to be clarified to allow for a more nuanced understanding of young people’s sexuality.

If you’ve a law that says “thou shall not do this” then that’s it really, isn’t it? Nuance is rather difficult.

That also being why running a place centrally, through the law, doesn’t really work.

4 thoughts on “The difficulty with laws”

  1. Doesn’t really sound all that different to the attitudes here.

    Of course the obvious solution is to abolish the law. The MeToo-ers can then rant and rave about the evil male rapists removing the law which protected young women against them.

  2. That also being why running a place centrally, through the law, doesn’t really work.

    It works rather better than running a place centrally on the say-so of the people at the centre which is increasingly what is happening here. Contrast the treatment of anti-lockdown protesters with that of the XR or BLM ones, as an example.

  3. Similar to abortion laws, unless you go all the way to never (no abortions, no sex before marriage) or anytime (no restrictions), you have draw a line somewhere. And some people are going to fall on the wrong side of it.

    I find their choice of example interesting though, given that my thinking would go along the lines of

    Two 15 year olds – awww, sweet.
    One 16, one 18 – hmmm, thinks about it. Nope, still cool.
    One 17, one 21 – Longer hmmmm. Then another hmmmm. Getting a bit uncool. You couldn’t have waited less than a year?

    Don’t ask my 17 year old self that.

  4. @LTW – That’s why various US states (but not all of them by any means) have “Romeo and Juliet” laws which are an attempt to do exactly what you’re describing, prevent “creepy” sexual activity between adults and minors without criminalising sexual activity between minors.

    https://www.mikeglaw.com/romeo-and-juliet-law-florida/

    Imperfect of course, but when you throw common sense out of the window in favour of legislation enforced by cops with no latitude, that’s what you get.

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