To start, I'm more than a little cynical about the quality of conversation that'll come from attempting to have this conversation. It isn't an intellectual conversation to other people, it's one where emotions take over and any number of terrible logic and bad arguments are slung. Hopefully here can change my opinion on that. This is a reddit account made for the sake of arguing this position here (and probably elsewhere if nothing productive comes from it here).
I think that children are capable of consenting to sexual contact with adults, and it's actually incredibly harmful to take that right away from them, and a violation of human rights. The normal arguments you hear against it are that the adult is always going to have more power in the relationship so it's inherently abusive, the child isn't ready for sex, developed enough, etc., and that there's too much risk for harm and anyone who isn't traumatized is an exception.
The idea that power dynamics makes a relationship inherently abusive is just outright wrong. Power dynamics only matter if the party with the power exercises it, and laws are an equalizer because they make there be reasons not to exploit power dynamics if empathy and compassion wasn't enough of a reason already. We only extend this idea of power dynamics to sexual situations with children, in all other areas it's actually expected and socially acceptable to exercise power against children (using hierarchy to get them to do what you want, physical punishment as deterrence, lack of consideration for their will, etc.).
Any sort of argument about development and puberty ignores the reason people have sex, people don't have sex just because hormones compelled them to do it, they have it because it's a pleasant and meaningful experience to achieve sexual release and increasingly so if someone you want to be involved is involved to. The idea that children aren't sexual creatures is to say they can't receive pleasure and have positive sexual experiences.
This is probably going to be the meatiest counter-argument that I have. I'll say it bluntly, no scientific evidence that uses unbiased samples (samples that represent the population as a whole) comes to the conclusion that willing sexual participation, or EVEN unwilling, is incredibly traumatic by itself. A study into the most impactful combinations of abuse on a child's happiness, finds that sexual abuse (defined as unwilling) isn't even in the top ten combinations of the mos
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