Why Fark.com has a "Kansas" category, among many others

Sexual abuse of minors should be against the law. I'm pretty certain it is. But when it comes to criminalizing "any intimate contact" involving any "pre-adult" (my term), the water becomes considerably more murky.

In as much as 1) society has tried to stop teens from engaging in intimate behavior (and lost), and 2) nearly all of us have engaged in said intimate behavior before the age of 18, the crusade by Kansas Attorney General Phil Kline seems somewhat ... destined for failure.

My own somewhat sarcastic question involves so-called "self-abuse". Is that criminal, as well? Cripes, they even call it abuse, so you can see my dilemma. (And I'm not talking about kids who cut themselves, either--self-injury. This behavior isn't criminal, but it is a problem.)

No one would argue against protecting children from sexual abuse. Regardless of whether we consider a 15 or 16 year old girl a "child", she clearly has the capacity to make some decisions on her own. (At 16 she drives legally--case in point.) Without arguing the wisdom or the efficacy of her decision making skills, there does come a point where you just have to let her begin making her own way through this world. And by using the word "her", I do not intend to exclude young males, either. You can't watch them all the time, or protect them from everything.

No, it is not a crime for two young people to gain sexual experience with each other. We want them to be careful--very careful--and we hope when the time comes they don't do something stupid, but ... sometimes they do. And of course, it's not just the "pre-adults" who do stupid things, either.

Life is hard enough; leave the kids alone.