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Ethical Treatment for
All Youth
www.ethicaltreatment.org
Email: etay@ethicaltreatment.org
About the author
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ADOLESCENCE, SEXUALITY, AND THE CRIMINAL LAW:
MULTIDISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVES
Edited by Helmut Graupnerr, JD, Attorney-at-Law,
Vienna, Austria and
Vern L. Bullough, PhD, Founder and Emeritus Professor, Center for Sex
Research, California State University
Haworth Press, 2004.
From
Publisher's Description: Gain an understanding of the threat to
freedom that is posed by state regulation of adolescent sexual behavior.
Sexual autonomy encompasses both the right to engage in wanted sexual
activity and the right to be free and protected from unwanted sexual
aggression. Only when both aspects of adolescents’ rights are
recognized can human sexual dignity be fully respected. In Adolescence,
Sexuality, and the Criminal Law, experts from several disciplines use
case studies, legal analysis, empirical examinations, and tables and
figures to provide you with an insightful contribution to the debate
surrounding child sexual abuse.
Much has been written about the undisputedly essential fight against
child sexual exploitation. In Adolescence, Sexuality, and the Criminal
Law, experts investigate for the first time what distinguishes the
sexual contacts of adolescents from those of children and why they
should be treated separately. This updated version of the papers
delivered to the International Association for the Treatment of Sex
Offenders in 2002 is an essential guide for lawmakers, sexologists,
psychologists, and lawyers interested in an interdisciplinary approach
to adolescent sexuality and the criminal law. This resource carefully
examines child sexual abuse laws that fail to distinguish between
children and adolescents. The text includes discussions of the history
of the age of consent, adolescent sexuality, relations between
adolescents and adults, and adolescent prostitution and pornography
that will leave you better informed about the sexual rights of
adolescents and the criminal politics of youth protection.
Abstract
of Chapter 1
The 17-Year-Old Child: An Absurdity of the Late 20th Century
by Helmut Graupner JD
Recently enacted EU-legislation will affect interferences with the
sexual life of adolescents across Europe in an intensity so far not
known in any of the European states. The "Framework-Directive on
combating sexual exploitation of children and child-pornography" will
oblige all member States of the European Union to create extensive
offences of "child"-pornography and "child"-prostitution, defining as
"child" every person up to 18 years of age, without differentiating
between five-year-old children and 17-year-old juveniles. These
offences go far beyond combating child pornography and child
prostitution, thus making a wide variety of adolescent sexual
behaviour, hitherto completely legal in the overwhelming majority of
jurisdictions in Europe, serious crimes; for instance: sex between
16-year-olds for "remuneration", which includes invitations to cinema
or to a dinner; "lascivious" drawings of a 17-year-old girl possessed
by a 15-year-old boy; photographs of a 16 year-old girl in her bikini
"lasciviously" exposing her pubic area, taken by her 17-year-old
boyfriend on the beach; standard pornography involving younger looking
20-year-old adults or "webcam-sex" between 17-year-old-adolescents;
even pictures of one's own adult spouse in "lascivious" poses, if this
spouse looks younger than 18. No European jurisdiction so far has such
a restrictive law. The massive criminalisation and the equation of
adolescents with children caused heavy criticisms among experts but
this criticism could not prevent the project from becoming law. This
essay provides an analysis of the background, the legislative process
and the content of the EU-Framework-Decision.
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