"This is common sense legislation. This protects Canadian children, and I believe that even Liberals would agree with that."StrategemCanadian Justice Minister Vic Toews
Defn: "Common sense": the most sinister phrase in the English language, a strategic siege of cognitive space. The consolidation of a certain arrangement of power and knowledge as hegemonic, in that the knowledge has become to be deemed truth and the power relations implied consented to...
Strategy: "even Liberals would agree with that": Constructs standard playing field "us" v "them". Defines Conservatives on the side of Canadian children and "common sense" which "even Liberals" could be a part of - but important to note, are likely not to be.
Effect: Silences discussion by deflecting criticism against the ironclad shield of "common sense". The usage of Canadian children, highly idealized and strategically victimized in this legislation, will act to polarize the situation. Critics will be linked to pedophilia or child-hating...
Creation of 'Childhood'
New arrangements of power/knowledge depicted as "common sense" fundamentally rely upon an ahistorical viewpoint and strategic and usually consensual "forgetting". Unlike philosophical argument, logical reasoning is never cited, rather an a priori knowledge is implied - that humans the age of 14 and 15 in this case specifically are in need of a special protection (in lieu of certain freedoms) because they are intrinsically vulnerable and unable to make moral choices in regards to their choice of sex partner (as this legislation does not criminalize sexuality at this age but consensual sex with partners 4 + years older). This piece of legislation finds itself within a moral code that speaks confidently about what sex is, and thus importantly helps to prefigure the subjectivities of a youthful sexuality along a relatively new (in terms of size and importance [morally and academically]) axis: childhood.
By saying that childhood is a relatively new concept is not to say there was never a division between children and adults but that such a division has become problematized in the modern era, resulting in profuse legislative and moral codes designed to control and examine the behavior of "children." Examples abound from the Catholic / Christian crusade against "self-pollution" that was consuming the idle hands of its ewes. One can also reference the proliferation of new laws both 'aiding' and 'restricting' the activities of young people, including the introduction of 'child' labour laws, mandatory public schooling and a bevy of age-limited prohibitions on sex, alcohol, drugs, firearms and perhaps the most dangerous - voting.
Seen within this matrix of an evolving domain of moralities, the age of consent can be plotted with the extension of childhood into the teen years. In the recent Globe & Mail article where Justice Minister Vic Toews was quoted, the original age of consent was stated as 12, which was raised to 14 in 1890. Future predictions would recommend a further hike to 18 in approximately a century.
"Grow up!"
The obvious irony after all these years of being the juvenile generation, shirk responsibilities, refusing McJobs to sleep-in, is that the very people that want us to "grow up" have subsequently been delaying and elongating the length of childhood. A situation that has been increasingly paradoxical by the fact that exposure to the 'negative' aspects of adulthood: low-paid (slave) labour, rape, violence and poverty has steadily infiltrated youth cultural through parental and governmental neglect while rights, responsibilities and privileges have been denied or sabotaged (an easy target since the target demographic cannot vote),
Simultaneously, we have witnessed a similar shirking of "adult responsibilities by those already in adulthood. The Jackass generation - no longer children but not adults either - has become a new biological middle-class. Having grown-up through the longest childhood in history there is no longer an incentive to cross-over.
Even trends seemingly indicating the opposite - increasing numbers of young people entering the work force, for example - cannot be read as a reversal of the infantization of our population. Driven to work by eroding standards of living which are grossly ill-proportioned due to materialist obsessions, young people have abandoned the Generation X attitude of "F#$ it" for Nike's ubiquitous three-word mantra only to be received by attempts to sabotage and profit from their labour by discriminating either explicitly or implicitly by age (see the lowering of minimum wage introduced by the BC Liberals after the 2001 election). Furthermore, whereas the past linked jobs with responsibility, the necessary foundation for settling down, acquiring separate accommodation and starting a family, new jobs provide 0 benefits and low wages: they satisfy immediate material needs (sometimes) and feed addictive consumptive behaviors. This is not a transitory stage - instead this new biological middle-class has fallen into minimum-wage hell where life is saving up nickels for 5c candies at corner store.
Sexuality
Context, the background of the Canadian Conservative party is as well-known as its roots. It is, sometimes unabashedly and other times secretly a protestant evangelical socially conservative organization. In this respect it is difficult to dismiss charges of interest in seemingly "common sensical" legislation. One can easily finger patriarchy (a miniaturization of women into children and thus female children into ???), an overconfidence in law and order to establish moral reform and a predilection for neo-conservative capitalism and its (often times contradictory) patterns of social development with a end-goal in returning to a fairy tale collection of vaunted simulacra that includes the idealized child, the feminine mother and the masculine father.
This imagery is founded on a manufactured history that ignores the sexual proclivities of young people as well as the sanction of those acts by both society and, the case of Western history, the church. Indeed, the actions that are today considered criminal and morally repugnant were previously both common place and respectable. Adulthood gauged by one's (men's) ability to take certain actions that were deemed a civil (responsible) - finding employment, a partner - rather than mandatorily by age. As such, many new families sprouted up with at least one parent (usually the female) a scant decade or so older than their first child. Today, these same women are 'undeniably' children themselves, morally / legally banned from taking part in the 'corrupting' processes of sex.
Pedophilia and Moral Panic
Much has been made that the primary purpose of this legislation is to combat pedophilia. In this case that would mean relationships where the partners span 4-5 years or more. The Conservatives have made known that they do not intend to attempt to crimininalize youth under the age of 19 from engaging in consensual sex. Thus, whereas one can legitimately consent to sex with an 18 year old at 14 years of age, the addition of a couple months would, essentially alter the relationship into one of pedophile and victim.
Moral Panic: The Fabrication of a Crisis. I've already made much of this subject so I'll not pay it too much attention, suffice it to say the grounds for this new legislation rests on the belief in an increase or pervasiveness of pedophilia. This has not been the case and even advocates of the instances of pedophilia and rather will force teenage sexuality underground. Politically, however, the moral momentum (translated into electoral support) gained by the collective moral-backslapping of supporters will last beyond the introduction of this bill into law and will likely help the Conservatives into the future. Strategically then, as an attempt to reform Canadian moral values this "common sensical" piece is significant in recruiting support and laying the groundwork of the moral dilemmas that are certainly to be cited in future bills (such as a revisitation of the same sex marriage issue).
Female Sexuality
Regardless of the wording of the bill, it is clear that it is targeting young female sexuality and not that of their male peers or even the actions of adult pedophiles. The legislation does not read as a prohibition of older men of having engagements with young people but rather focuses particularly on when a person - a woman - of 14 or 15 can be considered to be a consenting entity. By collectively disagreeing that 14 and 15 year-olds can be considered individuals capable of making informed consent we strip them of rights over their bodies by belittling their minds. Females are said to mature quicker than men, often entering and exiting puberty years earlier. Thus 14 and 15 year-old females are older, in terms of maturity, perhaps 16 or 17 in terms of sexuality. Thus again, this legislation targets a precocious female sexuality from engaging with partners equaling (or approximating) their maturity.
Note: Timely article just popped up re: Adults Becoming More Immature.
Excerpt from: "5-Year 'sex gap' should be lower"
"What kind of 19-year-old thinks it's OK to have sex with a 14-year-old? While a five-year age gap may seem irrelevant for people in their 30s or 40s, it may as well be a lifetime when we're talking about the teen years.
A 14-year-old is just starting high school. A 19-year-old is generally finished high school and has moved on to college, university or the working world. A 19-year-old can drink, drive (though not at the same time, of course), vote, smoke, and die for his or her country.
A 14-year-old can't do any of those things.
A 14-year-old is still a child.
Rather than allowing a five-year age gap, three years should be more than enough.
Some may argue that a five-year age gap can be perfectly acceptable (probably because Grandma Betty was 15 when she met and fell in love with Grandpa George, who was five years her senior, and they'll be celebrating their Golden Anniversary next month).
Sorry, folks. Times have changed.
Should Romeo and Juliet be four or more years apart, the star-crossed lovers can bide their time holding hands, kissing and text-messaging until the younger lover becomes of age.
The proposed legislation is a step in the right direction, but falls short.
So Harper's Conservatives get one thumb up and one thumb down. That's a lot better than the two fingers I gave the Liberals when they were in office.
"
Lydia Lovric of the Winnipeg Sun
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What I'd like to discuss from this article is the author's definition of adult and child. She defines the worlds of the former is radically different than that of the latter's due to the fact that "a 19-year-old can drink, drive (though not at the same time, of course), vote, smoke, and die for his or her country." Each of these symbols of maturity or adulthood is a legal entitlement conferred automatically, regardless of intelligence, ability, experience or merit. Maturity is then inferred from these un-earned privileges. According to the author a "14-year-old is still a child" simply because "a 14-year-old can't do any of those things." Not to mention that her statement that "a 14-year-old can't do any of those things" is misleading. A 14-year-old cannot do those things because they are forbidden by law from doing those things - history has shown that the capacity to engage in any of those activities, except perhaps voting, is there regardless of age. One can note how ridiculous the argument is if one looks to other countries which confer such privileges at earlier or later dates - obviously the distinction between "adult" and "child" is tenuous at best, at least in terms of defining it by age or legal statutes. Further, what is revealing is that how a circular logic - in thise case one of legal statute, age and maturity - is reinforced by organic intellectuals such as Lydia Lovric in order to strengthen "common sense". To the casual viewer, this article subconciously becomes another building block in a new rational moral order whose self-referential logic will become less glaring as the rationale becomes increasingly 'common' and thus a priori factual.
