I remember when this thread was me making wanky jokes and not DLPers outing themselves as being ok with paedophilia.

 

Man, you're really going out of your way to prove you're a histrionic simpleton with zero sense of nuance. You can stop now, it was clear long ago.

 

Au contraire, the simpleton - or to be more insultingly accurate, the ignoramus - is you, for:

1. consistently trying to say two 14 year olds getting it on == a canonically 15-year-old and an adult out of any kind of Romeo and Juliet-style / similar-age 'grey area' law range. (Tonks would've been 22 or so in OotP, so a 7 year difference - similar age doesn't exactly cover it.) These two are not the same, neither legally nor morally.

1a: Legally speaking: the first I want to say is that you seem to be ignoring that the law can carve out exceptions, and does so on a very regular basis. E.g. you're not allowed to drive a car under 16 in the US, but teenagers can apply for a permit before that age in multiple states. Similar applies here: the law can extend the ability to consent to mutual sexual acts even when the people involved are both under the age of consent, and often does. In your former example of two 14-year-olds; it is probably legal in about half the jurisdictions for forumgoers, or de facto legal where no prosecutor is going to prosecute by convention unless there's some other shenanigans going on - Wiki suggests this is the situation in modern day England, though that law postdates the conventional years the main seven books are set in. However, the latter situation of Harry and Tonks in canon is potentially illegal in a bunch of the jurisdictions we forumgoers inhabit - and bear in mind that I use 'potentially' only as a hedge because age of consent laws are wildly varying with restrictive exceptions in one country and none in the next and an entirely different set in the third. I'd definitely bet that blanket consent at or below 15yo is rarer than outright illegality, though. To go back to England: it is straight up illegal there under modern law and there's no real reason to assume it was not so before.

1b: Morally, there are significant qualms untied to any legality and morals derived therefrom. Because you are so fond of specifics, let's stick with specifics. Tonks and Harry, in OotP, have interactions that can qualify on both ends of the dependency spectrum, as you would expect in such a situation, but as written, Tonks generally is in a position of power or protection over Harry. She's part of the group who escorts Harry from PD to GP, from GP to King's Cross, and in the winter holidays, from GP to St. Mungo's. This isn't because she's a friend along for the ride: she's an explicit part of protection for Harry and whoever else is there. That alone is enough to qualify it as an unequal relationship right off the bat: it's closer to protective detail and client than anything else, even if Tonks is generally friendly with Harry. That kind of unequal relationship turning into a romantic one is already looked at weirdly, if not outright frowned upon, between adults, let alone when one of the two is under the age of consent and/or still in school (which is a factor - stupid though it can be in certain cases - as well).

1c: Now, let's talk the fanon aspects. A common trope in most Honks stories is - if the author doesn't technically AU it by age-shifting Tonks - for the two to bond over Tonks' quirkiness/clumsiness while at GP or perhaps the ever-popular dueling training. Neither of these disqualify the moral qualms: the element of protective detail-and-client usually remains present in the former and the latter is straight up teacher-and-student, which is about the golden standard for any unequal relationship premise. Perhaps silver after boss and subordinate, I suppose, but I also digress: the point is that a significant amount of the outright moral qualms (and not just moral-because-it's-illegal) remain.

Anyway, that's the Honks situation done with, so now for the other reason that you're an ignoramus.

2. You're focusing on the single trees and basically missing the rest of the forest. While yes, there are cases of unequal age relationships eventually working out - hell, one of them involves the current President of France - this does not mean that they are particularly legal everywhere. Generally and to the best of my admittedly limited knowledge, the onus is on the person of actual age (i.e. Tonks) to restrict matters - in hopefully a more successful manner than Remus does in canon. For one: they're the adult, meaning full legal responsibility. This extends to both sides of the equation: they are expected to know better and/or know the law and to not engage in a relationship with someone not of age, barring some limited exceptions. There's not much else to it. There might possibly be some leeway here and there, but it's limited. Which brings me to the other side: it's to protect themselves. As has been abundantly pointed out, and repeatedly pointedly ignored by you, society tends to side with the not-of-age person in these matters. There are exceptions, because there always are exceptions in any legal system that isn't 'step a toe over the literal line and you explode via collar'-dystopian, see also aforementioned leeway, but generally, the starting point for an adult is starting X-0 down in the legal court and court of public opinion, where X is dependent on a variety of factors in the specific case.

Oh, I suppose there's a third reason too... This one's got nothing to do with morality or legality, but more reading the room... In which world do you read this post and go... 'Maybe this is a good place to try and insert very sketchy [and flawed, ed] scenarios about relationships'? It's like walking into a room with a small gas leak while holding a tray of lit candles...

 

@Atram Noctem

This one time, I should have just kept my mouth shut about vegetables. Your posts itt are sort of like that, but several levels of hell down.

 

I'm not sure why you felt the need to write all this. Did you actually think that my comment about a Honks relationship being ethical was serious? it was an obvious joke. I can't stand the pairing myself, for various reasons (though it's interesting to note just how many people in this forum like to read about "child rape", considering the popularity of Honks or Harry/Older Woman pairings).

About your lecture on the legality of things - again, not sure why you're posting this. I'm well aware of the legal side of things, and of the fact that they are judged on a case to case basis, rather than thrown into a big pile titled "child rape". What you call "trees" aren't insignificant cases that should be ignored, but something that occurs all the time, where the lines between legal and illegal blur. If you don't think they're relevant, that's your opinion, but it's really not convincing.

As to why I posted it? because it bothered me that such a difference in opinion is a reason to ban someone. Because it's not a room with a gas leak, it's the internet, where I'm used to express myself freely. Because I'm disturbed by how polarized public opinions have become, by how certain topics can't even be discussed or questioned, and by how quickly someone is reviled for not following the strict party line. If you change your perspective just a little, you might be able to see how fanatic this looks. But most people aren't able to change their perspective.

 

The topic has been discussed for quite a few pages now. It boils down to two points: school-age-Harry/Tonks is pedo and that Russian's friend should not have fucked a 14 year old.

 

It's funny, because when this thread first came out I sort of thought that it was talking about Tonks cheating on Lupin with Deathly Hallows Harry, or the dubious morality of a much older cop hooking up with a 17/18 year old.

 

Forgive me, it did not seem like you were aware of the legality inherent in the issue. I should probably have known you were, but I decided to engage as though you were not echoing arguments that tend to occur more often in the animé profile picture parts of Twitter - they tend to be intimately aware of those.

As for the last paragraph... Freedom of speech, just want to discuss, why ban the dissenters? That's a fucking cornucopia of clichés. Allow me to share one as well, and proceed to take its advice.

 

I don't think this has been asked yet, but given your continued stance, it has to be done. @Atram Noctem, would you fuck a 14 year old?

 

No, I won't. And this is exactly what I'm talking about. Suggest a topic is complex? must be a pedo! God forbid someone actually thinks of the topic in an intellectual way rather than for personal reasons.

 

That's because it's not actually complex. An adult fucking a child is bad. Period. That's it, nothing more to it.

 

Do yourself a favour, and never bring this topic up with anyone IRL.

 

Except maybe a therapist.

 

Therapists have certain ethical and legal obligations to report crimes or plans of patients to commit future violent acts. Would Atram's "why won't you have an intellectual discussion with me about the times it is okay to rape a child" clear that barrier? Who knows. But I'd rather he find out there than continue to peddle pedophilia apologia here.

 

Can we get this thread locked? Nothing good seems to be coming out of it anymore.

 

I dunno, it did get Grenn banned.

 

Something tells me now would be a very bad time to bring up the Romanovs...

 

I don't know, it is the single most effective vehicle for people to request a ban for themselves I've seen on this board in some time.

@Irene gave a ban that puts her in contention for GOAT use of the ban hammer.

 

Yeah even if the second one hasn't gotten banned, I for one like knowing that there's a thread out there pedos and pedo apologists can't help but outing themselves on. It's nice.

 

You ever see a dumpster fire and think, "yeah, I've got something to add to that."?

So, first I want to say that I do, in fact, read Harry/Tonks stories; mainly because I identify with Harry, and Tonks is a punk hottie.

That doesn't change the fact that, in real life, there is no circumstance where a mid-to-late twenties cop is justified in having a sexual or romantic relationship with a minor.

It is a power dynamics thing, which has been said, but not the way I think Atrem Noctem was thinking. It isn't about the authority she has over him, or her greater strength/magic. It is about her experience and more developed brain allowing her to, pretty easily, manipulate him.

The human brain doesn't finish developing until the mid twenties. That's something people say, but most don't really know what it means. Basically, as you mature, your reasoning ability becomes more and more connected to your decision making, separating that decision making from the emotional/instinctual parts of the brain.

Teenagers make pretty much every decision based on whatever they are feeling at the moment; only adults really start to decide things based on what is good for them and those around them.