WingColors

You're an adult in this country at age 18. You can't be an adult and still be unable to make certain decisions regarding your own life.

"You're an adult now, time to make your own decisions. Except about porn, you're still too stupid to process porn." I don't think that line of thinking is going to fly.

One of the side effects of a free speech society is pornography and hate speech. There's no avoiding it. Now some tougher industry regulation regarding health concerns... that's something the government should probably get actively involved in.

Well, the term "adult" is what I think as a whole should be reconsidered. An adult can stand on their own two feet, completely take care of themselves. Most 18 yr. olds are still dependent on their parents. Legally they are adults that can't take care of themselves.

When that law was written 18 yr. olds were taking care of themselves. 18 yr. olds are still teenagers and unfortunately today more than in the past they act more like kids than adults. Don't get me wrong some are very mature for their age but overall most are more immature than generations before them and most are dependent on their parents, making them older kids not adults.

The difficulty I find is that the magic number of 18 and you an adult is not absolute. Sure you can be drafted and forced to fight for your country, but drink a beer? <GASP!> Not till you're 21 sonny.

I am sorry, but I have a problem with that. Emotionally mature is a fine sword to carry, but to argue that a person is not emotionally mature enough to drink or be in softcore porn but is emotionally mature enough to sign up to go to war and potentially die just doesn't sit right with me.

I'm 18 and very immature at times (I'm an animator deeer), but I can look after myself and make the right decisions.

I never saw the appeal of Girls Taken Advantage Of When Drunk.
Still don't.

@darkmotion - if you are not financially dependent on your parents/anyone in any way then you're living your life...you should be able to do whatever you want.

Cappuccino makes a good point. That has always bothered me. There should be one standard to being an adult but I'm not sure how many parents would want legal responsibility for their kids until 21. The age can't be dropped to 18 because of maturity issues.

There is absolutely no way to put a blanket definition on when someone is an adult, and responsible for themselves. I know 40 year olds who are not anywhere close to that. I've known 30 somethings who still live at home. It's just not something you can define in a way that applies to everyone, or even most of everyone!

That said, what it does do is provide a legal basis. It says to our youth, more or less: "If you screw up now your parents aren't required to come save you." Whether or not they listen to that is their problem really, and I know that the majority don't. Much like Tyme said, kids just aren't as mature at 18 anymore.

That's no one's fault but their parents, and I agree it's unfair to the kids to hold them to a standard that no one has prepared them for. Unfortunately life just isn't fair. At some point they have to realize that they are at the wheel of their own lives, even if they crash and burn. Sometimes it takes a crash to make them realize, but it's not the governments job to hold their hand.

I do completely agree though that if they are considered an adult legally then they damn well better be given all the priviledges of an adult.

Why can't it be dropped to 18? It seems to work out not to bad over here in the Uk with 18 being the age. Of course, there are issues over here as with any, but I never understood fully the setting to 21 argument. If the argument is they aren't mature 'anymore' do we have to review this age in all countries?

Well, haha I actually lived through that. *hangs head States were required to raise the drinking age to 21 to combat drunk driving (the irony is that it's nowhere near as bad now). I was able to drink at 18 and only had a couple of months to endure the 21 upgrade.

Lowering it is not a realistic option because our youth simply isn't mature enough to handle it (overall). Sorry, but it's the truth. Here, there implemented a law that minors (under 18) can't drive without an adult - which was unheard of. Hard to "grow up" in two years. :)

I don't really think the law makes a difference, other than a lot of kids getting jailtime and fines. I can't think of any 18-20 year old I've met that hasn't had alchohol. The percentage of ones that have it regularly and those that abstain is identical to the 21-30 year olds I know.

I'm not sure it's not more a matter of preventing the from being preyed upon by scum like Francis realizing that things have changed due to technology and it is a lot faster to wreck the life of someone than it used to be. I'm willing to consider changing certain laws while not changing others even if it doesn't sound completely rational to me.

What interested me most was i was thinking about Danial Dennett's thoughts on "reason" he claims that in order to be able to fully reason as an autonomous being ( an ability we are obviously not born with as it is acquired over time) we must be used to giving reasons over time but in order to do that we must come from a place where we are expected to give reasonable explanation for our actions. I can't decide if we acquire the ability to reason later than our grandparent's generation due to not being expected to provide reasons for our behavior when young, or if our grandparents generation would have had similar issues had the technology been the same.

I am beginning to consider the fact that these days at least in this country ( the USA) there is very little expectation of kids to give reasons for their behavior as all is tolerated even at very young ages of four. I'm not saying every one but in general a lot of behavior is tolerated and parents do not as often ask their children why.

What Tyme writes "When that law was written 18 yr. olds were taking care of themselves. 18 yr. olds are still teenagers and unfortunately today more than in the past they act more like kids than adults" is true. Kids are kids far longer than they used to be." has some bearing in that when you treat people like kids for a very long time maybe their ability to reason takes longer to occur and couple that with advanced technology and the prevalence of scumbags like Joe Francis and I'm likely to at least consider such a legislation.

Good or bad I don't know the article just made me think and I wrote it down. I have so far gotten mixed opinions but mostly against the aforementioned restrictions.

Really what we're talking about here, when it comes right down to it, is protecting children from their failures of parents.

I don't think the government should take on the role of parenting, but I do realize how lacking a good portion of the states is at it. My friends and I have a little saying now, it's "uncommon sense." Common sense really isn't common anymore, a lot of kids never learn it.

The only problem I see is that for every rule we make to protect these lacking individuals we're potentially holding back the ones that actually know what they're doing and are trying to live their lives in a responsible sucessfull manner.

People will make horrible decisions, regardless of their age. I don't like it anymore than the rest of you. I hate how easy some scumbags can exploit today's youth, but I really don't think coming up with more and more restrictions on the youth is the answer. Think about it. If someone can't consider the possibility that they are going to wreck their lives by acting slutty publically and/or on camera, do you really think they're going to consider jailtime any more seriously? These decisions aren't exactly thought out, putting a law in place is just going to cause more kids to have jailtime, and be one more thing our law enforcement officers are going to have to do.

I'd be much less willing to consider it if when males did it it wrecked their lives as significantly as it does for females.

Much to consider in all the responses.

Aside from emotional trauma, i doubt being in a GGW video is going to wreck their lives, that reminds me of the "permanent record" argument made so much in school growing up.

In regards to parenting, the best parents in the world can easily be foiled by youthfull exuberance and lack of wisdom gained through age. Youth think they have it all figured out, I know I did and I was convinced of it. Now in retrospect I know how little I actually knew.

The problem with GGW videos is that people are drunk, they want to have fun, and on some level they want to "experiment", its taboo, its exciting. A dangerous combination for any young person.

I'd honestly have no problem with raising the age of softcore porn to 21, but the reduction of personal liberties should never be taken lightly, once the ball gets rolling it wants to keep going.

On the wrecking of lives comment. I think the big difference between men and women in that respect is to what degree they let it affect them.

If you'r not putting yourself in a position in the public eye--govermental office, actor, musician--it will never come up. Of course there's always the possibility that someone will investigate your past, or have seen it and recognize you, at that point it's a matter of it they say/think "Yeah I was young, we all do crazy things," or be ashamed and let it hurt them.

Most rational people won't judge you for something you did when you were a teenager if your behavior as an adult doesn't reflect it. I know we make a big deal of Clinton's marijuana use, or Bush's alchohol or cocaine use, but how many of us actually care? It's sensational, but it's not really relevant.

I'll concede that point Ozone42, politically those things could be a big problem in the future, the good thing, if there is a good thing here, is that the percentage of people who might end up running for office would most likely be very low.

The examples you raise about pot, booze and cocaine are ones that a larger segment of our society are likely to encounter vs. the smaller subset of drunk girl/boy on spring break and ecountering GGW film crew.

And you're right, noone really cares all that much about such "scandals" these days, we have become very desensitized to it as a society.

cappuccino:

"I'd honestly have no problem with raising the age of soft core porn to 21, but the reduction of personal liberties should never be taken lightly, once the ball gets rolling it wants to keep going"

that would be my biggest concern once the ball started rolling... I still think that contract signing can be addressed without all that much trampling.

In how many states can an eighteen year old actually get a loan without a co-signer?

ozone: I can actually think of many positions where it could end up harming someone even in corporate jobs, academic jobs, government jobs as a matter of fact anywhere not based in the arts where you you working for someone but yourself.

I think in all states an 18 year old can get a loan without a cosigner, unless the bank has a policy against it.

Then again, there's a lot of states 30 year olds can't get a loan without a co-signer because of bad credit.

Give me an example of how it can harm your career, and I'll give you an example of a lawsuit.