Legalization and Child Protection

I'm only speaking here to those who accept that intimate sexual relationships between adults and children at their best are intrinsically non-harmful and beneficial for both parties. Obviously, this is a big caveat, but the debate about harm/benefit is a whole separate issue from the child-protection problem. I'm assuming that the age at which a person is considered an adult for the purposes of sexual contact is 16, which is consistent with many legal jurisdictions today.

Okay, so how to protect kids. Younger than 12, I'd say we'll need to go with parental consent. It's not perfect, but it does offer significant protection. I'm not into little boys myself so people might accuse me of being self-serving by making the cut-off 12, but this is actually a reasonable age based on cognitive development. The APA is on record in court arguing that 12 year olds have adult-like intelligence (this was in the context of girls choosing to have abortions without parental consent.)

I also think that the law might try to define age-appropriate sex acts. Obviously this would be fraught with controversy, but since we're in fantasy land right now anyway, let's just pretend that it could be done based on sound research and anatomical knowledge, rather than narrow minded prejuidice. For the youngest kids (0-7), this might amount to cuddling and light caressing of genitals. From sociological research I've seen, this is what most pedophiles interested in young kids want to do anyway, but please correct me if I'm misrepresenting anybody. From 8-11, there could be more focused genital play and maybe kissing or licking of genitals. All subject to parental approval. There would also need to a mechanism to avoid parents prostituting their kids, or otherwise making very poor decisions on their behalf. Perhaps any sexual relationship approved by parents needs also to be reported to the kid's teacher who can watch to see if the kid is showing signs of being abused (by which I mean coercion or mistreatment).

For 12 to 15 years old, kids would have the option of getting a sex license from the state (as an alternative to parental consent). This would involve taking a special sex-ed class that would go into detail about safe-sex, 'no means no', how to decide when you're ready emotionally, etc. It's not ideal to have this kind of thing administered by a government bureaucracy, but I don't really see any other way to make sure that kids get all the information they need since schools can't be trusted to do the job well enough. The important thing is that getting a sex license wouldn't require parental approval. The government would not be able to refuse to grant a sex license to a kid who passed the course and the course would be designed so that it could not be passed by kids who lacked sufficiently developed cognitive capacities.

Men wanting to have sex with anyone under 16 would also get a license to do so. They would take a course that trained them in safe sex practices with kids, stages of development, the details of their legal obligations, etc.

Sex offender laws would also be made significantly less draconian in terms of punishments for violations of the parental consent and license requirement. Having consensual sex with an unlicenced 12 year-old might carry a steep fine plus a 5-year revocation of the man's child-sex license. The threat of having one's child-sex license taken away would be more than enough to make most men stick to the rules. A man having sex without a child-sex license would face a stiffer penalty such as one year in prison (for a first offense, higher penalties for repeat offenders).

Laws about rape, prostitution, or any form of non-consensual sex with kids would remain in force.

I also think that the adult partner should be legally obligated to make sure that the younger partner does not become pregnant or contract an STD. This would be a strict liability law, meaning that the adult partner is guilty if his younger partner contracts an STD from him, or gets pregnant, regardless of what precautions were taken. Penalties would vary depending on severity. For AIDS, or other life threatening diseases it would be jail time for the older partner, for minor curable STDs, it might be a large fine (for a first offense).