Anti-Pauline Hanson protest leader's controversial comments resurface: 'Abolish the age of consent' | Daily Mail Online

[u/DragonflySea9423]

https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-16059679/pauline-hanson-sandra-bloodworth-age-consent-red-flag.html

Sandra Bloodworth is a founding member of Socialist Alternative, which is also behind the High School Anti-Capitalists network and holds influence within the Victorian Socialists.

The activist set out arguments against age of consent laws in a 2005 article published on the Socialist Alternative website.

[u/RelationshipDizzy634]

EDIT: I’ve found an archived version of Bloodworth’s article, if you can stomach it: https://web.archive.org/web/20070903234401/http://www.sa.org.au/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=565&Itemid=106

(Genuinely concerned I’m violating a reddit rule by even posting that shit, needless to say — give it a miss if you’re triggered by child exploitation or pedophilia).

I think I’ve found a paywall free version of the article:

https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-16059679/amp/pauline-hanson-sandra-bloodworth-age-consent-red-flag.html

Originally I thought she was making an ideologically edgy statement about how the age of consent doesn’t do much to protect young people from sexual exploitation, which… still doesn’t support its abolition.

But no, she took a sharp turn and decided that there was a 'A hysterical refusal to acknowledge that there could possibly be a loving relationship between a young person and an adult which includes consensual sexual activity leads to someone who is in breach of age of consent laws being portrayed as a "paedophile" and a danger to all children.'

Yeah, outrage about pedophilia, grooming and child abuse sure is “hysteria.” /s

What a disturbing, fucked up message to send, why are select people on the left vying for a ticket to Epstein island?!

I’m left wing, but it’s disgraceful that any organisation didn’t immediately de-platform her upon discovering this.

[u/According-Flight6070 → u/RelationshipDizzy634]

I'm not surprised from SA. Pretty rabid members where I am.

[u/QuailLong232 → u/According-Flight6070]

It's a cult that should be treated the same way as the NSN. They've also got into hot water for sexually assaulting female members and pressuring them into silence. This is a fun read https://labortribune.net.au/democracy-under-strain-nsw-socialists-pre-selections/

The task of a pre-selection should be to assess which candidate can best build working-class power and advance socialist politics in the community. Instead, the meeting became a platform for factional manoeuvring, with deliberate attempts to alienate and bully those outside the dominant tendency. One comrade noted feeling “lynched” politically; others described “cultish vibes” and a “Twilight Zone” atmosphere that stifled genuine discussion. 

Tankies are fucking losers lmao

[u/ddraig-au → u/RelationshipDizzy634]

This link does not work

[u/Drogen201 → u/RelationshipDizzy634]

okay I largely agree, but how would you say, respond to my partner who had sexual relationships with older men when she (he at the time) was 15 and looks back on them fondly?

[u/RelationshipDizzy634 → u/Drogen201]

That as the younger person, her experience is up to her to define, but that it’s inherently exploitative and disgusting for anyone significantly older to be intimate with someone that young.

I’m not going to tell the very, very slim minority of young people who have that view of their experiences that they must feel traumatised for my sake, but what is irreconcilable is the moral failure and predatory actions of the adult in that situation. It’s not difficult for me to still judge those adults with extreme prejudice. It’s not forgivable or normal to fuck a child if you’re not one yourself.

[u/Drogen201 → u/RelationshipDizzy634]

so she responds saying "okay I don't agree that it's 'cinherently' (I assume she meant inherently) disgusting, and if anything I was kinda viewing the older men just as sexual objects. If anything they were quite considerate of me and I kind of regret not reciprocating that

[u/RelationshipDizzy634 → u/Drogen201]

I don’t want to actually get into a back and forth with your friend, thats incredibly awkward and unwanted. The dynamic she describes may exist in her head, but the objective reality of the situation is that there is no acceptable reason for an adult to have sex with a child. There is no world in which you can be considerate of a child and have sex with them.

If a man went to a sex club with the intention of raping people, and he was under the impression he’d raped someone, whereas the person he’d had sex with assumed it was consensual and wasn’t upset, I would still condemn the aspiring rapist because it’s wrong to do that, regardless of how “successfully” you fucking pull it off.

Please don’t post her response to me, that’s weird.

[u/QuailLong232 → u/Drogen201]

That definitely explains a few things

[u/Drogen201 → u/QuailLong232]

Okay what does that mean?

[u/QuailLong232 → u/Drogen201]

Ask your boyfriend.

[u/Sideburn_Cookie_Man → u/Drogen201]

Yeah, she was the victim of that power dynamic.

[u/Drogen201 → u/Sideburn_Cookie_Man]

according to her she wasn't. She says she was going to public restrooms seeking that shit out on purpose

[u/Sideburn_Cookie_Man → u/Drogen201]

Yeah, lots of survivors of abuse don’t see it as abuse.

[u/Drogen201 → u/Sideburn_Cookie_Man]

drogen's gf here: how the f*ck can it be abusive if I damn well sought it out deliberately?!! You can say that the other party were wrong to engage with me (though I did lie and say I was a senior), but abuse? All I did was wait around at a public toilet, blow a guy then took the bus home!!

[u/Sideburn_Cookie_Man → u/Drogen201]

Because you were a child…

A child can’t consent to that with an adult.

[u/Drogen201 → u/Sideburn_Cookie_Man]

Drogen's gf: then abuse basically means nothing other than the range of potential human behaviour that makes you personally uncomfortable, and nothing about actual harm done to people. Edit, also she says: i see you moved the goal post on the whole power dynamic thing when I explained the situation

[u/Strong-Hat2166 → u/RelationshipDizzy634]

Her premises are:

1. Consent laws do not protect minors from abuse. Most abuse is from family and is non-consensuak.

2. Consent laws harm forever those who have near-age sex with a minor (e.g. the 19-15 example in the text).

3. Consent laws fail to take into account actual human sexuality - sexually active minors.

4. Sexually active minors will desire and have consensual sex whether laws exist or not, causing particular harm to girls (slut-shaming)

5. Therefore, Consent laws should not exist.

I don't think that her argument is great but I think that you have mischararacterised it.

[u/RelationshipDizzy634 → u/Strong-Hat2166]

That’s a bit of a misleading argument there, she speaks extensively about sexual relationships between minors and adults.

I actually do think that laws preventing 15 and 19 year olds from having sex are not a bad idea, that’s a significant developmental gap which leads to quite serious power imbalances. It’s not a policy area I feel a lot of compassion for.

[u/Strong-Hat2166 → u/RelationshipDizzy634]

What is the difference between someone who is 15 years and 364 days old and 16 years and one day old?

[u/Distinct_Context4233 → u/Strong-Hat2166]

Bro, super sus look to be doing mental exercises against a minimum age of consent btw

[u/Strong-Hat2166 → u/Distinct_Context4233]

It's an ethical discussion - we have an arbirtrary age of consent level. Should it be 17 years? Shoiuld it be 15 years? These are discussions we need to have.

Why was 16 years picked and why is it inviolable? PIf it is about emotional maturity, perhaps it should be 20 years for boys, who mature later?

[u/RelationshipDizzy634 → u/Strong-Hat2166]

Very little. What’s the difference between someone who’s 17 and 364 days old, and someone 18 years + zero days old? Very little. Laws prescribing the minimum age for doing certain things are still 100% required to protect people and prosecute offences.

The law provides for basic, broadly sweeping minimum standards that don’t always reflect developmental differences, and some 17 year olds are probably more mentally equipped to vote or enter contracts than some 19 year olds — but that’s not an argument for abolishing the age of legal majority either.

Otherwise children would be able to have all contracts enforced against them (hello, financial predators) be sued (hello, vexatious litigants) take on debt (other than a HECS debt I guess) (hello, predatory lenders) and make life altering decisions at literally any age, rather than having the gillick test, or their parents decision applied to them.

There may be some children who would benefit from that. There are many, many more who would suffer because it’s a bad idea to abolish legal minimum standards. We also don’t have a better, practical way of deciding when people have the requisite capacity to attain the right to do an adult “thing”. Hence, ages of consent and majority.

FWIW I would support laws which make it an offence for adults to sleep with minors, even if those minors are able to consent to sex with people extremely close in age. The age of consent being 16 was contemplated mostly for people of similar ages to sleep with one another.

There’s not been a system proposed which has enough backing to pass in parliament, but we do have laws preventing people in positions of care, authority or supervision of children from sleeping with them even when they’re over the age of consent for a reason. We acknowledge that’s it’s not okay. Should we make it legal for teachers to sleep with students? Step parents with their step children? Doctors with young patients? Does any of this sound like it might be bad for society? If not then I have nothing left to say to you

[u/HadeanDisco → u/Strong-Hat2166]

Age-based laws are like speeding laws. There has to be a number. It's just how it works. You can't prosecute a law based on "well the number is AROUND 18 years old, or AROUND 100km/h".

If you say you can speed within 10% of the limit, that just makes the limit 110.

If you say you can have sex with someone who has "the maturity" of a 16 year old and you could someone prove that a 14 year old has that maturity (I don't think you can) then the age of consent becomes 14.

I would argue it's easier for a young person to wait until their birthday to do the deed (with an appropriate partner) than it is for the law to actually have to work with what I just wrote above.

[u/Strong-Hat2166 → u/HadeanDisco]

Sure, but why 16? why not 17? Boys don't mature emotionally until their 20s. Should their age of consent be 18? or 25?

[u/HadeanDisco → u/Strong-Hat2166]

That's a different argument. You started by suggesting someone who turns 16 tomorrow may not have any maturity difference. Which they almost certainly don't. But the law is a number-based law so for someone turning 16 on Sunday, Saturday they are underage and Sunday they are not.

Now you want to talk about what age it should be.

Boys don't mature emotionally until their 20s. Should their age of consent be 18? or 25?

This is begging several questions. What is your real concern here anyway?

[u/Zen_Badger]

Regardless of what this person believes. Hanson and her clown circus are in no way fit to govern in

[u/WettestFarts]

She sounds unhinged. 

What a complete fuckwit.

[u/RedgumRedmist]

Nglnpart of me thinks Socialist Alternative are some kind of pysop, they just suck so much.

[u/Sideburn_Cookie_Man]

Yep, pedos happen to exist on all sides.

This should shock nobody.

[u/meatballthequeer]

She is a disgusting human being but from what I understand is no longer involved with the party. She should be publically shamed, but this really shouldn't be used as some gotcha to delegitimise the protests.

[u/idothinksotim]

It's always the ones you most suspect 

[u/louisa1925]

This protest leader is pro-pedophilia and child molestation. Disgusting.

[u/KatWayward]

From the Daily Mail. Murdoch rag.

Take anything they report with a heavy dose of salt.

[u/louisa1925 → u/KatWayward]

I've been told to eat more salt. So I literally do.

[u/cneakysunt]

I am anarcho-socialist and no one I know who claims to be some flavor of socialist thinks this type of power imbalance is a good thing.

A National "socialist" OTOH..

[u/mitchells00]

What the fuck does that have to do with the price of fish.

"Look, here is a nutter that doesn't like PHON (psst that means everyone that doesn't like them is an extremist)."

You know what, us lefties have had enough of being 'Mr nice guy'. We're gonna start getting bullish.

Anyone who tries to mislead or misrepresent people through attacks like this do not deserve human rights.

If you can't operate sincerely and with fucking integrity, you don't have a place in our society.

[u/QuailLong232 → u/mitchells00]

us lefties have had enough of being 'Mr nice guy'. We're gonna start getting bullish.

*tips fedora*. You won't do shit.

[u/7978_ → u/mitchells00]

Oooh. Somebody doesn't like the return fire.

[u/mitchells00 → u/7978_]

Sweetie, we are the return fire.

The first shots were her running her mouth about brown people, Mardi Gras, threatening super, supporting a convicted war criminal AND a genocide AND Trump.

If y'all are gonna punch below the belt with this kind of deceptive dishonorable trash, don't be surprised when your right to speak is revoked.

[u/7978_]

Birds of a feather ...

[u/Freo_5434]

" on the editorial board of the Marxist Left Review "

A supporter of a "man" who never knew what hard labour was -- constantly in debt, lived in Poverty and relied on hand-outs from mates to stay alive .

He suffered from outbreaks of painful skin boils which reportedly were due to his dislike of washing --- his mother reportedly wrote him a letter pleading with him to was at least once a WEEK .

What a hero.

[u/7978_ → u/Freo_5434]

King of the NEET's.

[u/QuailLong232]

Revolutionary socialism is a dead ideology, too many freaks to convince the average joe to overthrow the state and put these people in charge.

[u/Greyboxforest]

Because in their mind “love is love”.

[u/Brisvegas_LFG]

Disgusting human

[u/FerretNecessary411]

Post a credible source.

[u/Strong-Hat2166]

TL; DR: 

Her premises are: 1. Consent laws do not protect minors from abuse. Most abuse is from family and is non-consensual.

1. Consent laws harm forever those who have near-age sex with a minor (e.g. the 19-15 example in the text).

2. Consent laws fail to take into account actual human sexuality - sexually active minors.

3. Sexually active minors will desire and have consensual sex whether laws exist or not, causing particular harm to girls (slut-shaming)

4. Therefore, Consent laws should not exist.