fbpx

Gary Dowsett asks ‘Why do we need an age of consent at all?’

From the video below: “There used to be a spicy element in gay and lesbian liberation… demands that we can and should f*** anything that moves, as long as it said yes freely. Do we still aim for that? That we can and should f*** anything that moves, so long as it said yes freely. Do we still aim for that? Do we still see the queering of all sexuality as possible? Desirable? Inevitable? The same kind of problem occurs with those other kind of thorny sexuality issues of the day…

The age of consent, intergenerational sex, pornography and other sexual health issues.

Why do we need an age of consent at all? Are there diverse kinds of intergenerational sex? And are they always harmful?

Might there be benefits in pornography? How do we deal with alcohol and drug use? What is the impact on body culture of gay men’s sexual relations and practices? Is there an ethics in gay sex that might help us understand risk taking and continuing HIV incidents?

Instead of these issues, one often gets the sense, while reading gay newspapers and magazines today, that our only function is form. We prefer chic to critique. Having achieved a lifestyle, rather than liberation.

Sure, it might be far less painful than police raids, imprisonment and harassment but it might simply that we have been sedated.

Karl Marx said that religion was the opiate of the people. Maybe equality is our SSRI…” –  Dowsett, Gary. (2013, April). Rethinking HIV in the Future of Gay Men. Presented at Beyond Behaviours: Uncovering the Social Production of HIV Epidemics Among Gay Men, Vancouver, Canada.

The following video comes with a STRONG LANGUAGE WARNING:

“This might continue to provide a small basis for a challenge to the normalising of intimate citizenship as it plays out currently in marriage equality. It might still provide a basis for pursuing that challenge Foucault saw possible in gay men’s sexuality, for the universal market is notoriously amoral.” Gary Dowsett – Abjection. Objection. Subjection: rethinking the history of AIDS in Australian gay men’s futures.  https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13691058.2016.1273392#

So, what does Foucault say…? As well as being an enthusastic advocate for sadomasochistic sex, Foucault argued for something far more sinister.

Wikipedia: Sexual Morality and the Law is the transcription of a 1978 radio conversation in Paris between philosopher Michel Foucault, playwright/actor/lawyer Jean Danet, and novelist/gay activist Guy Hocquenghem, debating the idea of abolishing age of consent laws in France.

In 1977, the issue was brought to public attention in France by a petition against age of consent laws addressed to the Parliament, defending the decriminalization of all consented sexual relations between adults and minors below the age of fifteen (the age of consent in France).[1] Foucault stated that the petition was signed by several philosophers including himself, Jacques DerridaLouis Althusser, pediatrician and psychoanalyst Françoise Dolto, and also by people he described as belonging to a wide range of political positions.[1]

Read the full transcript here: https://www.ipce.info/ipceweb/Library/danger.htm

“Now, where children are concerned, they are supposed to have a sexuality that can never be directed towards an adult, and that’s that. Secondly, it is supposed that they are not capable of talking about themselves, of being sufficiently lucid about themselves. They are unable to express their feelings about the whole thing. Therefore they are not believed. They are thought to be incapable of sexuality and they are not thought to be capable of speaking about it. But, after all, listening to a child, hearing him speak, hearing him explain what his relations actually were with someone, adult or not, provided one listens with enough sympathy, must allow one to establish more or less what degree of violence if any was used or what degree of consent was given. And to assume that a child is incapable of explaining what happened and was incapable of giving his consent are two abuses that are intolerable, quite unacceptable.” Michael Foucault – Sexual Morality and the Law

Source : http://youreteachingourchildrenwhat.org/2018/06/gary-dowsett-asks-why-do-we-need-an-age-of-consent-at-all/?fbclid=IwAR0t5SVFpaLvKsNNRYgVSb0SrNgITSTPhaqlZ1KuMknJ_y8GMyFii3ifJF8

You must be logged in to comment due to spam issues.