What’s Wrong with the World

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What’s Wrong with the World is dedicated to the defense of what remains of Christendom, the civilization made by the men of the Cross of Christ. Athwart two hostile Powers we stand: the Jihad and Liberalism...read more

Liberalism's (And Liberaltarianism's) Consent Problem

What follows is a slightly edited version of an essay originally posted to the old EM during the summer of 2006, an essay I've found to be relevant to the subjects broached in Lydia's most recent post. The burden of the argument is that liberalism lacks a principled, as opposed to circumstantial, basis for opposing the sexualization of children. If memory serves me, I was mocked on a number of left-leaning blogs at the original time of posting, this claim having been deemed absurd and offensive, or something. As always, however, one should observe what liberals actually do, and assign less credence to their incoherent protestations.

Liberalism, the prevailing cultural ethos and thought-world of the modern age, whatever men might be disposed to say to the contrary, has a problem. Actually, its problems are legion, ranging from philosophical incoherence, nonconformity with intransigent facts of human nature and history, pragmatic inconsistency - which is to say, utter arbitrariness in operation, and its corrosive effects upon civilized and humane values, to the intellectual and spiritual exhaustion of the complex of ideas even in the ostensibly capable hands of its priestly caste of ideologues. However, I propose to direct attention to but one of the multifarious problems of liberalism in the contemporary political and social milieu. I propose that we prescind from the weightier questions of liberal theory, for while I consider it well-nigh self-evident that J.S. Mill’s “Harm Principle” is inconceivable absent the foundation of Locke’s political individualism; that Locke’s political individualism is likewise inconceivable absent the foundation of Hobbes’ philosophical anthropology of affects and drives; and that Hobbes’ anthropology is also inconceivable absent the preparatory conditions of the earlier nominalist problematization of a rationally-knowable human essence and telos, there remains a certain utility in confronting the phenomenon of liberalism as the thing presents itself to us in everyday life - more as an animating spirit of a (declining) civilization than as any of the arcane and etiolated articulations wrought from the materials of this principle and crowned with the unmerited title of “philosophy”.

Liberalism, as it presents itself to us in the minutia of daily life, is an inarticulate sense of straining at limits, at surpassing and transgressing them as restraints of the self, constraints - fetters - upon the exercise of the will. It is a spirit of defiance and assertion, a refusal of authority and all inherited norms, save as the bearer of “reason” has been able to justify these things to himself. Which, perhaps, is merely a evasive way of saying that liberalism, as popularly practised and promoted, is simply the repudiation of authority, an “I Will!” uttered in opposition to anyone or anything, or indeed any event, that suggests that the individual might not in all circumstances be the best judge of his own most profound interests and goods. Liberalism is the shattering of the good, and the absorbtion of its shards and fragments by the fetid slough of the passions: good(s) is (are) the fulfillment(s) of desire(s) because, in the ultimately tautologous formulations of all liberalisms, such goods are the only ones that may be known to exist. Good can only be realized in the fulfillment of desire because the fulfillment of desire is the only good there is.

Liberalism, then, as an animating spirit, is nothing more, nothing less, than the idea of doing what one wills, for ends one has chosen, for one’s pleasure. It is the notion of doing one’s own thing, of being bossed by no one, of having it one’s own way. To be sure, liberalism-as-animating-spirit now requires the mediation of philosophy - of a sort - to preserve itself from itself, from its own and only tendency to promote dissolution and decadence, for if all were to do as they desired, why, there would be anarchy. And so, the deliverance of philosophy, now the eunuch of the passions, is that one may do as one wishes insofar as one does not interfere with others’ doing as they wish, whether by harm or interference. One might denominate this the “Harm Principle” or any number of other things, but the idea is basic and inescapable: this is the Golden Rule of liberalism - although to refer to it as such is to sully the name of a holy and venerable principle. Suffice it to say that it is the principle of reciprocity which serves as the linchpin of liberal ethics and the first, glaring inconsistency of liberalism. This principle of reciprocity presupposes, obviously, an equality among desiring subjects, for reason of the fact that all, or virtually all, men may be said to experience various desires; but this cannot but be the first of liberalism’s unprincipled exceptions, for nothing is more evident as regards the matter at hand as that desires vary in intensity and duration as between subjects, or even within a given subject, depending upon various contingencies - and surely, if man is a desiring being, then differing quanta of desire will distinguish men as certainly as will the objects of desire. Desires are unequal, even in the absence of a scheme by which they might be rank-ordered. Liberalism wishes to define man by the phenomenon of desire, but only admits certain aspects of the phenomenon as definitive, thus implicitly affirming what it denies - that man possesses an essence of some sort that transcends the evanescence of the passions. Only thus can the equality of men as desiring subjects be preserved. It is the philosophy of “have it your way” even as an intellectual tradition unfolding its arguments. But I digress.

Liberalism has a consent problem. It proclaims a societal ethos of “doing your own thing”, and seems particularly enamored of sexual liberties - some desires, and some ways of doing your own thing, are apparently more equal than others, as witnessed by families intent upon the inculcation in their children of traditional moral norms who, like the Massachusetts parents who sought to have their 6-year-old son exempted from indoctrination into the wonders of “alternative” sexualities, will be informed that their rights do not extend to opting out of instruction The Enlightened deem essential. Their children must be forced to be free - free as defined by the Liberated - their own desire to see their own traditions imparted to their children being of no consequence beside the desires of the Knowing and the attitudinal complexes that the Knowing regard as essential to the maturation of the young. But I digress yet again.

The salient point is that our atmospheric liberalism places as peculiar emphasis upon sexual liberation, historically an indicator of personal and societal transcendence of inherited moral norms. So obsessed with sexual liberation is the devotee of liberalism that he will, more likely than not, applaud the provision of even graphic sexual information to children, early and often. When children, then, engage in what he would term “experimentation” at younger and younger ages, this scarcely fazes him, although, if he is of the sort inclined to obsess over the rigours of the meritocratic world of the globalized economy, he may fret that such children imperil their prospects of worldly success. Fortunately for his sense of altruism, there is always the availability of the central sacrament of the liberal, abortion - the sign, seal, confirmation, and presence-to-us of liberalism’s state of grace, autonomy.

It is here - with the provision to children of information regarding sexual practices and the nonchalance with which the increasing sexual precocity of children is typically regarded - that liberalism encounters its problem with the notion of consent. For liberals, most of them, at least, still recoil - and this no small thing in itself, although it is quite a small thing within the context of the many things the liberal indulges - in horror at the prospect of sexual dalliances between the children they seek to liberate from their innocence and adults, however defined. Sexual activity, the liberal insists, must be consensual - must be, that is, the result of informed and rational judgment passed by persons who freely will to engage in an antecedently specified range of activities. Surely adults are capable of fulfilling the criteria of ‘consent’; the frequent recourse of the liberal to the mantra of “consenting adults” will be vacant of meaning otherwise. And surely the liberals’ precocious children are capable of consent; the relative indifference of liberals to the increasing prevalence of sexual activity among children will likewise remain unintelligible except upon this presupposition. Yet, we are informed, children and adults cannot mutually consent to sexual congress.

We are confronted here by a profound mystery. Children, we are informed - not necessarily by an articulated doctrine, although one might, perchance, find such a thing in obscure journals of childhood education or sexuality - are capable of grasping the nature and import of sexual acts, and, indeed, of consenting to engage in them with other children. Again, liberal practice is utterly unintelligible save upon precisely this assumption. If, moreover, one of the constitutive traits of adulthood is precisely the ability to grant and withhold consent, wherein lies the difficulty? Could the sticking point have something to do with differentials of age? Age - the greater knowledge, self-awareness, and facility in interpersonal relationships might well be thought to provide the predatory adult with an insuperable advantage relative to even the precocious youth, and it might well be of this that the obstacle to consent consists.

The easy recourse to differentials of age, however, is unpersuasive. In the first place, it strains credulity to imagine that children, familiar from the earliest moments of consciousness with differentials of age, and dwelling in social environments the complexity of which often bewilders adults - social environments replete with a diversity of groups, cliques, social types, and patterns of interaction between groups and cliques, as well as between age groups - would somehow, on the assumptions provided by liberalism, cease to comprehend together two things they readily comprehend separately. The relationships of children, inclusive of those involving adults, are quite complex and rich in nuance; and, we are given to understand, children have no difficulty in assimilating knowledge of human sexuality. How knowledge, when added to knowledge, results in exploitable ignorance, is a alchemical trick best left to its practitioners to attempt to explain.

In the second place, there is the problematic nature of the assumption that in any hypothetical instance of sexual interaction between a child and an adult, only exploitation will suffice to explain the occurrence. This is merely to beg the question, to presuppose an inability on the part of the child that does not necessarily obtain in all cases. Children can be conditioned to want and expect certain things, while the more precocious among those liberated by the educators of the liberal regime may actually conceive the desire of themselves, absent any prodding. Curiousity is a powerful behavioural motivator, is it not? I suspect that any prolonged exposure to the literature of pathology and abuse will confirm that, whatever the origins of the behavioural patterns themselves, there are cases of children who, in certain circumstances, seek certain types of interaction with adults.

Finally, consider the nature of the things themselves - sexuality and the dealings of children with adults. Children deal with adults, as I have stated, from the earliest moments of consciousness. There are few things more familiar to a child than the proprieties and requirements of interaction with adults. Adults provide, teach, reprove, console, and structure the lives of children in ways to numerous to determine; there should be nothing, really, more comprehensible for the child than how to behave around adults. Sexuality, on the other hand, is something so frought with mystery and potency that adults scarcely grasp it; its numinous character defies attempts to plumb its depths and render it comprehensible. Liberalism denies this - hence, its obsession with the widest possible dissemination of information regarding sexual practices and its uniform tendency to precipitate a reduction, in the minds of the populace, of sexuality to its brute, biological aspects alone - and strives to impart its dessicated understanding of sexuality even to children. But let us look at the things themselves, laying aside the illusions of liberalism: sexuality is mysterious, even terrifying; differences of age and - for this is what we are talking about, and what liberalism ceaselessly evades in this matter - authority are not, being among the most obvious, natural features of all social environments. Liberalism, therefore, expects us to swallow the risible fiction that what is dark and mysterious may be understood by children, but what is limpid and manifest confounds them. This, I submit, is more than the minds of reasoning beings can be expected to accept; it does not merely strain credulity, but tortures it until, weary, it submits merely to gain surcease of its sufferings.

Liberalism, then, has, upon its own presuppositions, no rational, consistent basis for opposing that which even the darkest minds realize is despicable and base. That most liberals do oppose it is a credit them as persons, and a shame to their professed dogmas. Liberalism’s consent problem, then, is this: an absence of a rational basis for a moral prejudice all sane persons recognize as being of the essence of civilized norms of behaviour, combined with a tacit invocation of the very values with which its entire theory is at war: authority and the necessary expression of authority, responsibility. One of the many necessary expressions of the authority and responsibility of adults towards children just is to refrain from sexualizing them, either as objects of desire or as objects of “enlightened” educational policies intended to mold them into specimens of liberated humanity. Liberalism wishes to retain the form of the obligation while evacuating its substance; in order to preserve itself from the obvious consequences of its dubious theories, it must make an unprincipled exception: traditional authority and decorum are pernicious, except when we say they are not.

This, in case any should wonder why I have troubled to express thoughts upon so loathsome a subject, will be the ultimate reason for the inability of liberalism to resist the furthest, most debauched consequences of the sexual revolution. Liberalism lacks a principled basis for stopping at the final frontier of depravity, and eventually, determined passion will overcome the absence of reason. It always does.

Comments (21)

Well said. Based on the earlier conversation, it might be possible to see me defending the consent-based, anything goes morality you are attacking here. That is not the case, but rather what I was groping at (pun intended?) was that liberalism recognizes it has a problem here, but won't hold them accountable ever, except in the most extreme methods.

There is another problem here with liberalism and that is that when it does react, it does so in the most irrational, violent and heartless way such as saying to parents "you may not whip your daughter and take away all of her possessions for having sex," but then charging her with a felony that will result in real deprivation of life, liberty, potential to say nothing of the irony that she or her boyfriend will likely be repeatedly raped in prison where the liberals will "lovingly" send them. Because liberals won't allow the parents to make moral judgments and punish based on them, as you mentioned in reference to the Massachusetts case, we end up with this unjust approach that doesn't actually **correct** any bad behavior (and prison often makes moral character worse in people who are simply just morally suspect or nominally criminal due to their exposure to serious criminals).

I do not know the proper way to deal with age gaps here, as I see many flaws in each approach. As long as fornication is legal, if we hold teens accountable for their sexual acts, it is philosophically difficult to defend stopping them from fornicating with adults by criminal sanctions. Under such a regime, it's hard to argue that it's wrong for a man like George Pickett who was 28 when he married my distant cousin (who was 14) is significantly worse than a 75 year old man who gets involved with a 25 year old woman.

Now, a 14 year old is certainly less mature than a 25 year old, but if we hold teens morally accountable for their conduct, and allow fornication to remain legal, it's a stretch to start imposing artificial barriers. If we don't hold teens accountable, then we get more of the same.

Ergo, I think the only real solution is to attack fornication itself by saying that consent really has no bearing on whether or not it should be permissible. That is the only consistent way to wrap this up to cover the possibilities that doesn't result in a byzantine series of exceptions and rules.

I was going to post on this very issue on Lydia's thread. Instead, I'll just say:

"Yeah, pretty much."

Being a Christian, it wouldn't bother me if fornication were outlawed, so long as the standards of evidence were sufficient (at least superior to our approach to rape which often allows a woman to simply point at a man, claim he raped her, and then start fastening the noose to a tree). I won't advocate it, as I think it would accomplish precious little for actually reforming anything, but it is something I could live without quite happily.

Maximos, nice post. I thought you were going to exploit the flaw inherent in the liberal necessity that consent be "informed," since what qualifies as adequate information is entirely undefined. One might suggest, for example, ignorance of the moral evil of abortion as sufficient evidence that a woman's consent is not "informed."

Nice post. Imagine this scenario.

Suppose Tiger Woods and his wife, Elin, hold a press conference in which they both state that his adultery is no big deal to either one of them. That is, Elin has "consented" to Tiger's adultery. This, then, raises the question, "What then makes adultery wrong?" If it's because you have broken your vows, then it does not matter that your partner "permits" you to break your vows, since she does not have the power to do that, just as she does not have the power to turn murder into ping pong by simply labeling it as such. On the other hand, if marriage is just the consequence of "mere consent" rather than vows, then adultery is not intrinsically wrong. It is only conditionally wrong. It is wrong because your partner says its wrong. That's it.

So, it turns out that Woods' failure is not in his committing adultery, but in choosing a wife who does not like her husband committing adultery. In other words, to use the lingo of liberalism, Woods failed to choose a woman who believed in diversity and openness.

Mike T, your position makes no sense to me. You don't like it that it's illegal for a minor to have intercourse with another minor, but you also would be willing to make _all_ fornication illegal, which would simply make it possible for _more_ people to be sent to prison for fornication. Unless one punished them with fines, which would be pretty difficult to collect. The whole thing makes no sense.

I think you just need to revise your whole notion that teens should be treated legally as adults. It's making a mess out of your common sense.

You don't like it that it's illegal for a minor to have intercourse with another minor, but you also would be willing to make _all_ fornication illegal

I could grudgingly accept the criminalization of it if it applied to those who undeniably have the mental facilities to understand the morality of it. Part of the insanity of the current system is that it applies only to those who allegedly cannot understand why it's illegal!

At least then, the system would be harshly applied fairly, and there is at least something respectable in that equality.

I think you just need to revise your whole notion that teens should be treated legally as adults. It's making a mess out of your common sense.

Fine. I've been sloppy in my use of language here since our society only speaks of this in two ways: children and adults.

Teens are neither. Only a slack-jawed moron would seriously argue that a 15 year old ought to be treated the same was a 8 year old, retardation notwithstanding, on such topics. Yes, I think I just called Huckabee a slack-jawed moron in the way that he treated Maurice Clemmons like a misunderstood kid instead of a serious, probably unrepentant young felon :)

So let's agree then to a third standard for adolescents which straddles the fence. Fair enough, I'm down with that. I'm just sick of people acting like teenagers who do these things are poor, widdle, precocious tots rather than being dangerously close enough to being adults that they can really know right from wrong and control themselves.

In the second place, there is the problematic nature of the assumption that in any hypothetical instance of sexual interaction between a child and an adult, only exploitation will suffice to explain the occurrence. This is merely to beg the question, to presuppose an inability on the part of the child that does not necessarily obtain in all cases.

There may be, for all I know, hundreds of twelve year old teens who can drive a car without any chance of hazard to themselves or others, it doesn't change a single thing concerning what standard legislatures should apply generally to the population, or the legal punishment of adults who hand them the keys to a vehicle.

So, it turns out that Woods' failure is not in his committing adultery, but in choosing a wife who does not like her husband committing adultery.

This argument is a favorite of the contemptible sports columnist Jason Whitlock on foxsports.com. He wielded it against the dreaded "moralizers" in the wake of Steve McNair's murder by his deranged mistress: we don't know if McNair and his wife had an "arrangement", so hey, the adultery might've been ok. He trotted it out again in the wake of Tiger-gate (no, I will not stop using the -gate suffix).

For the left, there are only two vices regarding pelvic issues: lack of consent and hypocrisy. The latter was the excuse for not savaging John Edwards the same way they did Vitter, Craig, etc.

There may be, for all I know, hundreds of twelve year old teens who can drive a car without any chance of hazard to themselves or others, it doesn't change a single thing concerning what standard legislatures should apply generally to the population, or the legal punishment of adults who hand them the keys to a vehicle.

The law makes a distinction between rebuttable and irrebuttable presumptions. For example, a child under 7 years old is irrebuttably presumed to be incapable of forming criminal intent and is therefore absolutely immune from criminal prosecution.

On the other hand, a child under 7 is rebuttably presumed to be incapable of testifying at trial. This presumption may be rebutted by a voir dire process whereby the child shows that he understands the difference between truth and falsehood and knows that there are consequences for lying.

Currently, most statutory rape laws contain an irrebuttable presumption against the victim's ability to consent. A more realistic standard would be irrebuttable up to a certain age (perhaps entry into Mike T's adolescent category) and a rebuttable presumption from adolescent to adulthood.

CJ and Step2, I think Maximos's point is about something more radical than just statutory rape laws for minors between the ages of, say, 14 and 18. His point concerns the rather strong sexualization even of younger children by the education they are given by the current liberal establishment, with the clear implication that it is not wrong and not (necessarily) impossible for them to consent to having sexual relations with others of the same age. He's pointing out that if the liberals think that, it makes it difficult for them consistently to argue that these children cannot meaningfully consent to sexual intercourse with adults. And I think his larger point is that we should ditch the whole idea that consent is the only category into which we can place the wrongness of the sexualization of children.

I myself would tend to say that consent is _part_ of it and that there are such things as manipulation and so forth that go on, particularly with a young child and a much older person. This is true even when we are talking about less horrific subjects, such as faginy. If a 40-year-old teaches an 8-year-old to steal, I think there's a lot of truth in the notion that the 40-year-old is more responsible and has in some sense manipulated the 8-year-old. But I also agree with the implication I see in the main post that those in our society need to broaden their minds so that they understand the sexualization of children to be wrong *in itself* in a way that goes beyond the issue of consent and concerns the naturalness of a sexual latency period and the evil of deliberately undermining such a period and sexualizing children early, as well as the sheer unnaturalness--again, in itself--of sexual relations between children and adults. Consent, in other words, doesn't entirely cover it. But to accept these truths is to undermine the whole clinical sex-ed project.

Lydia,

I agree that this is bigger than statutory rape, but I think the sort of "sliding scale" I mentioned might bring some sanity and consistency to how we approach these issues. You mentioned before that you grandmother married at 15. My grandmother conceived my mom at 16 with a 28 year old soldier. My grandmother was "fast" as the old folks used to say, and I'm pretty sure she wasn't manipulated. Nevertheless, under current law in my state, Grandpa would be looking at double-digit, mandatory prison time. Just as a 16 year old can probably consent, I think it's safe to say that she is not necessarily being "sexualized" in an unnatural manner that's inimical to the proper relationship between adults and youths/teens/adolescents.

Actually, that wasn't I who mentioned that my grandmother married at 15. I think it was Mike T but don't have time to look it up.

My bad.

Step2,

There may be, for all I know, hundreds of twelve year old teens who can drive a car without any chance of hazard to themselves or others, it doesn't change a single thing concerning what standard legislatures should apply generally to the population, or the legal punishment of adults who hand them the keys to a vehicle.

But... the behavior of a teenager who is having sex should be able to be factored into any court case by the judge and jury. The legislature owes it to the legal system to give it the flexibility to handle cases which don't match up to general expectations. For example, if a 12 year girl who looks much older hits a club with a fake ID, her age fraud should be a mitigating circumstance if a man mistakes her for being legal.

Currently, most statutory rape laws contain an irrebuttable presumption against the victim's ability to consent. A more realistic standard would be irrebuttable up to a certain age (perhaps entry into Mike T's adolescent category) and a rebuttable presumption from adolescent to adulthood.

Further complicating things is the fact that when two teens have sex, the prosecutor has to label one of them a "victim" and the other a "victimizer." Doesn't matter that the law says neither of them can make informed consent.

What this almost every single time means is that a boy goes to jail for a mutually-consented (or under the law, mutually non-consensual...) act.

It would be all well and good to say to boys "you're playing with fire if you don't wait until marriage," but given the way that most American women feel about marriage, that's like saying "don't play with fire, play with hand grenades!"

Lydia,

My point was that the Sorites paradox is a poor argument to use against age-based legal policies because they must always admit to some degree of imprecision and arbitrariness.

MikeT,

I haven't suggested or implied that there may not be mitigating circumstances. However, if an adult thinks a 12 year old could pass as something other than jail bait, they are someone who wants to be fooled. I'm more sympathetic to the predicament of underage teens consensually sleeping with each other, perhaps a milder punishment like house arrest should be the maximum penalty.

Step2, I strongly agree with what you have just said. I think sorites arguments are incredibly poor in legal contexts, as in all contexts involving prudence and even the identification of an act. That it is not grievous bodily harm to tap someone with a toothpick, and that we can gradually raise the degree of harm done, does not mean that there is no adequate way to identify grievous bodily harm.

That it is not grievous bodily harm to tap someone with a toothpick,

Never saw an episode of Monk, I take it :)

Further complicating things is the fact that when two teens have sex, the prosecutor has to label one of them a "victim" and the other a "victimizer." Doesn't matter that the law says neither of them can make informed consent.

To be sure, to my way of thinking (I am a stone-faced prude, I admit it), since no one except a crazy person would consent to senselessly killing themselves and since sex before marriage is moral suicide, then all sex before marriage is a form of moral insanity. Now, there can be no valid consent within insanity, so no, sex before marriage is not a matter of informed consent, even though the law might use those words. It is a form of shared insanity. I understand the weaknesses of the flesh, but that is why St. Paul said it was better to marry than to burn. If two people can't keep their hand off of each other, let them marry. If they won't do that, then treat them as you would lunatics, for that is what they are.

The Chicken

I strongly agree with what you have just said. I think sorites arguments are incredibly poor in legal contexts, as in all contexts involving prudence and even the identification of an act.

Yaayy Lydia! Well said.

The fact is that according to liberalism, arbitrarily assigning "aggressor" status to the 15 year old boy and "victim" status to the 15 year old girl is sheer nonsense, and for consistency liberals ought to be ready to say neither is the aggressor. Of course, that would mean that they are both victims, and if so then the victimization consists in being foisted off with an intensified sexualization with no legal outlet thereof, (and that sexualization comes at the hands of liberal theories of education) which means that a consistent liberal's only logical path is to decriminalize all sexual events where both parties had the appearance of consent. Let us be thankful that most liberals are unwilling to be consistent here.

Mike T, I think it makes all the sense in the world to create an intermediate category between children and adults, but it might be necessary to leave the determination of who belongs in it to parents and individual judges, for example. While I kind of like the notion that there would be a rebuttable presumption that anyone between 14 and 18 would fall into it, I would not be confident that this would handle the issue well.

McChicken, your comment is very similar to Socrates' theory that immorality consists mainly of a lack of true knowledge. In fact, there is a basic truth that an immoral person is, when sinning, out of touch with reality. But this applies to all sinners, not just the youth, and applies to all areas of sin, not just fornication.

To be more precise, at the moment when a person freely moves himself to ignore the understanding that he could have of the right thing to do, and instead chooses to focus his whole attention on the limited, short-term, deficient good before him, he is making himself out of touch with reality and this is how he is able to choose wrongly and still be responsible for it.

I haven't suggested or implied that there may not be mitigating circumstances. However, if an adult thinks a 12 year old could pass as something other than jail bait, they are someone who wants to be fooled.

That argument doesn't necessarily follow at all. There are a number of girls in that age range now who are so physically mature that they have more curves than a typical grown woman. A friend of mine in college, when complaining about how girls dress these days, pointed out that she had problems with men at that age because she had C cup breasts at 12 and wasn't more than slightly overweight. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that she could have passed herself off as legal at that age.

Examples like that are precisely why I say that the system must have flexibility to handle outliers. Even if they are "statistically insignificant," the system needs the flexibility to sort them out appropriately.

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