The power imbalance argument.

Something that pedophobes bring up is often times that a relationship between a child/minor and an pedophile/adult must be harmful, because the adult has authority over the underaged individual in some way, therefore it’s by default abusive if any kind of sexual act takes place between them.

The problem with this argument is rather simple to expose, it presupposes right away that having power is the same as abusing that power, which falls apart when you examine it in any other context. Power imbalances exist in all different areas of life, that doesn’t mean that every time there is a power imbalance, abuse is taking place.

Let’s say a minor is doing garden work for an adult for a little extra pocket money, now some person comes around the corner and accuses the adult of abusing his authority to blackmail children into doing slave labor in their garden. Likely, you would ask for evidence for such an assertion, that this is the case and not just a baseless accusation.

Did they use their supposed authority to threaten the minor in some way?

Then in that case, we can indeed conclude that they abused their authority, they exploited a minor’s vulnerability to benefit from the situation, causing harm to the minor.

But this isn’t assumed to be obvious, you need evidence for that, did they really do that? Because the minor obviously could have wanted the extra pocket money as well, and in that case, it’d be hardly rational to have a problem with the minor doing the garden work.

An adult (non-sexually) hugs a volunteering child – is this equivalent to forced, non-consensual hugging because the child is incapable of consenting due to the adult’s higher level of power? I don’t think so, you’d need evidence the power was actually used to force the child into it.

• In the case of sex though, pedophobes don’t care about evidence.

If the minor were to have sex with an adult, they would automatically assume that they must have abused their authority and power to coerce the minor to have sex in some way, they automatically imagine that there is no other variable, obviously they blackmailed the minor in some way.

• And why do they assume that?

Because of another false assumption that they have likely already made, which is that children/minors are by default asexual and ”innocent” (as if sex then makes one guilty), so they would never on their own be interested in having sex, especially not with an older person, when in reality, obviously we can easily find a scenario where a 14 year old boy would fuck his hot female teacher, not because she threatened him with a worse math grade, but because he simply wants to get off in something other than his hand.

And that’s the issue here. Pedophobes are able to imagine that a minor wants money from an older person over the holy age, and would therefore voluntarily do garden work for that money, but pedophobes don’t like to imagine that a minor could possibly also want sex from an older person over the holy age, so they automatically assume that whenever sex between a child/minor and an adult happens, it must be the result of power abuse and manipulation, no way around it.

If they admitted that the issue is manipulating someone into sex, then they’d actually have to stop opposing sex between minors and adults in cases where the minor was not manipulated into sex but simply wanted to have sex, so instead they make a completely moronic argument that somehow just having power in and of itself is abuse, and only in this sexual context.

• Adult has authority over 14 year old in school, 14 year old voluntarily does garden work for adult for extra pocket money – not abusive despite power imbalance.
• Adult has authority over 14 year old in school, 14 year old voluntarily sticks dick in adult – somehow abusive because of power imbalance.

• Father has physical strength advantage over 6 year old daughter, 6 year old daughter consents to be lifted up by him – not abusive despite power imbalance.
• Pedophile has physical strength advantage over 6 year old girl as well, 6 year old girl consents to ride on his leg for sexual pleasure – somehow abusive because of power imbalance.

They (likely already) made a false assumption, which is that children are asexual and would never possibly want sex, so they are basing their assumption that if sex between a minor and an adult happens, it must be the result of power abuse on that first fundamentally false assumption that children would only have sex if they have been manipulated, blackmailed, forced into it by some evil pedophile propagandist abusing his power over children.

The power imbalance argument is then often used as an argument to justify sex between children as well, but then somehow put a ban on sex between children and adults.

As in, if a child willingly has sex with another child, that is fine because it is assumed they have the same level of power in that situation (which isn’t always true either, some children have more power than other children, there’s nothing that says children couldn’t be child molesters and rapists too), but if it’s happening between a child and a pedophile, they say the adult has power over the child, therefore, it must be abusive, no way around it.

This is extremely flawed and disordered thinking, because the adult’s power doesn’t suddenly negate the child’s willingness, just like the power of adult doesn’t necessarily mean the child didn’t do the garden work or hug them voluntarily. Of course the adult might be more able to manipulate and coerce the child if they wanted to do so, but if they don’t even have to do that, and the child still wants to have sex just like it wanted to have sex with the other child, then there’s no more evidence to assume abuse in that situation than in child on child sex. Why would there be?

The bigot in that case is already admitting that children sometimes do want to have sex with other children without it being the result of some sort of manipulation tactic, but then when the child has sex with an adult just as willingly for the exact same sexual pleasure, it’s suddenly abusive again just because the adult has more power that they could use to force and coerce the child, and the fact that the adult has power is seen as evidence that they did that.

Even if the adult never does that and the child just wanted to be sexually stimulated as they wanted to be sexually stimulated by the other child, because power automatically equals abuse somehow, no distinction, as if they just forgot again that children are not asexual and can want to have sex without being manipulated into it. They almost grasped that children can be sexual even if they are not manipulated into it, then they forgot it again, too bad.

Then, they again also only apply this reasoning to sex of course, whereas ultimately it would become questionable how any interaction between children and adults can be anything but abusive by this backward, moronic standard. How is it allowed for a father who has a physical strength advantage to lift up his consenting 8 year old daughter? He has power over her, so even if she consents to be lifted up by him, she was obviously abused because he has power over her! Power=abuse.

The child wants the ice cream, the adult gives the child the ice cream, this is abusive I could just as easily argue, because obviously the adult has more power than the child and could too easily coerce the child into accepting the ice cream, so therefore, the fact that that adult has power over the child is enough evidence for me, obviously the child was abused.

It’s never ok to give a child ice cream, no matter how much the child wants it. How do you ultimately know the child didn’t just take the ice cream because it was scared to death of the adult’s power over it? How do you know that? You don’t, pervert.

• We could even apply this argument to adults ultimately, doesn’t matter, any kind of relation where power differences are involved.

So let’s say I have a gun, thus have a certain level of power over you as someone who does not own a gun and you suck my dick. Does that mean that I am a rapist? That is impossible to answer that simply, because that depends on different factors.

Did I hold the gun to your head and say:

• ”If you don’t suck my dick I’m gonna blow your fucking brains out, cunt!”?

That is the question, because if I did not, and you just wanted to suck my dick in spite of my gun, then obviously I didn’t force you to do it. Of course, it is possible that someone still feels forced because they fear someone would shoot them, but it’s also perfectly possible that you just wanted to suck my dick in spite, not because of my gun, and that is what is to find out, just like in the relationship between the child/minor and the pedophile/adult.

Did the child feel intimidated by the adult’s authority in some way (which is what arguably kind of makes it authority in the first place, if you don’t feel impressed by a serial killer holding a machete to your throat, he has no real power to make you do something) or did the child want to have sex with the adult? If not and the child just wanted to have sex, it’s absurd that anyone would call that a rape, involuntary sex, because it is factually speaking not.

Here the average pedophobe will of course be inclined to retort again that:

• ”That’s different because the child can’t consent!”

But if the reason why they are saying that the child cannot consent to have sex with their teacher is partially or exactly because of the inherent power imbalance between them, that power imbalance is the reason why the child cannot consent, then neither can an adult consent to sex with another adult if there is a power imbalance involved, as power imbalance was stated to be trait that causes the impossibility of consent, it’s basic logical consistency.

P1 – Minor can’t consent to sex with teacher because teacher has power over minor.

P2 – Bodybuilder has power over petite girlfriend as well.

C – Petite girlfriend can’t consent to sex with bodybuilder.

A retort might be that the petite girlfriend could become just as strong as the bodybuilder though with the right training, and they’re at least adults, so that’s equal, see, no difference in power anymore.

But that obviously ignores the fact that then she would no longer be petite, just like if a child became an adult and that took away the power difference between child and adult, it would no longer be a child, just like if the petite girl became as strong, she’d no longer be petite. If you really think that power imbalance in and of itself is the problem, then I don’t see why this point wouldn’t apply.

• Power can also be a factor that attracts someone to someone, rather than a threat.

Another thing to point out that is possible is also that a person that has less power than their partner with more power is sexually attracted by their partner’s power, wants to have sex with them because of their power, but is not particularly intimidated, but more positively intrigued by said power, obviously often times females seek out a stronger male, but don’t only have sex because they are scared and intimidated.

Perhaps the 12 year old girl having sex with her teacher is particularly aroused by the fact that the teacher is an authority figure, or by an idolized musician’s success in some way, aroused by males in some sort of position of power over her, not by boys her age that haven’t established such a position yet, thus may be considered unfit partners, but obviously I don’t think we can reliably say that 12 year old girls only want to suck Justin Bieber’s dick because they are scared of him.

So to go back to the gun scenario, you may even be aroused by me having a gun.

In that case, it’s still not abusive, obviously you weren’t intimidated by the gun, you were aroused by it, I didn’t have to use the gun to intimidate you. I could still do that, but you just being aroused by my gun doesn’t mean I used it to force you into having sex with me, it was just one characteristic that attracted you to me.

So you could just have had sex with someone in spite of, not because of their gun, or you were intrigued by, but not intimidated by it.

The pedophobe or other equal bigots (like those opposed to all sex with the mentally handicapped or non-human animals) fail to take that into account, they only see there is a gun, they see that sex happened, therefore they assume a violent crime happened with no real evidence, this is a not a good way to investigate.

Power imbalance is only a problem if the power is used to intimidate the other party into doing something they don’t want to do, the mere existence of power is not the same as the abuse of power, this doesn’t suddenly change in a sexual context because it’s icky.

Pedophobes assume this, because they likely already made another bigoted, implicit assumption, which is that children are obviously entirely asexual in every possible way, so of course in order for children to ever be sexual, some evil pedophile monster must have manipulated them into it, just like they also frequently assume that when a child acts sexually, it must be the result of the child having been sexually abused before, trying to relive the scenario, no other variable.

They take that to be evidence of prior abuse, because they assume the child can’t just have found out on their own that rubbing your private parts a certain way may cause sexual pleasure, that’s too icky to think about that, children are asexual, children cannot produce excrement, they must not be capable of performing basic biological functions like that, because it’s icky.