CorkyQ

My point in bringing up Juliet was that the appropriateness of mating between two biologically mature individuals differs widely across the spectrum of cultures and times, and the Juliet analogy is appropriate because her parents may well have expected her to receive the approaches of an older man if it meant to them the potential of a beneficial marriage.

As we have seen in the news lately, there is a culture within our borders that believes that when a female reaches sexual maturity she is ready for marriage and a sexual relationship, and any arguments any of us may have for saying this is wrong would be based on our own cultural biases. In no other species of animal on this planet do individuals wait some arbitrary number of years after sexual maturity to bond, so even nature supports this point.

In fact, your bringing up the fact that both Romeo and Juliet were in our culture "underage" implied that you thought that was okay, or at least "more okay" than if Romeo were forty-nine. What if he were thirty-five? What if he was twenty-five? Twenty? Eighteen? Sixteen? At what point would Romeo's age have made it seem less reprehensible? And then, isn't that age that you consider proper arbitrary? If it wasn't, the age of consent wouldn't differ from state to state. In a quick online check of age of consent, I see that South Carolina considered 14 the age of consent for females but 16 the age of consent for males. How's that for cultural relevance?

In South Korea, Japan, and Spain the age of consent is thirteen (http://www.avert.org/aofconsent.htm), so had this occurred in the birthplace of aikido Clint George might have been thought of as a person who was taking advantage of his student, but he would not have been arrested (unless he was breaking prefecture laws). Had he been with his student in the Philippines it would have been legal for them to have a relationship from the time she turned 12 as long as she was not a prostitute.

Jennifer, in your post is the insinuation that the man may be a hard-core pedophile when the most atrocious allegation in the article is of "inappropriate email content" and "inappropriate touching." The article stated that she had been his student for two years, and it is obvious from the article that the inappropriate behaviors were a recent thing (the last three months). If you have some other evidence that "This isn't just a simple "he fell in love with someone who happened to be a child", please present it and clear up my misunderstanding.

Jennifer, I looked at the website at the URL you provided and it states this under Definition:

Pedophilia is defined as the fantasy or act of sexual activity with prepubescent children.

So without knowing the level of sexual maturity of the girl in question, we don't even know if Clint George fits the clinical definition of a pedophile, let alone whether he "most likely" has some deep-rooted difficult problems to fix.

But even if he does have such problems, does that mean we cast out this member of our community who prior to this incident appears to have been well respected? Do we consider his the unforgivable sin? Or do we consider his problem our problem because if we don't help him with his deep-rooted problem we lose a teacher who has been considered valuable to others.

This is what I meant even more than the pre-emptive "loving protection of all things" that can happen before-the-fact that you and Lori you have mentioned.

The life of this man, a fellow aikidoist, is for all intents and purposes changed forever for something that would not even be considered wrong in another time and place on earth. If we are the people of integrity we would like to be, where is our compassion?