The arbitrariness of these boundaries certainly becomes clear when you encounter other cultures. For example, in Australia the age of consent is 16 and the drinking age 18, so it's always weird when I see tv characters freaking out about having sex with an OMG 17 year old(*).
I had trouble enough coming to terms with my own socially acceptable heterosexual sexuality as a child/adolescent thanks to the anti-sex environment I grew up in, I can't imagine what it must be like for LGBT children.
(*)Of course Australian child porn laws are their own special brand of bizarre, but I don't think they reflect community norms to the same extent.
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The arbitrariness of these boundaries certainly becomes clear when you encounter other cultures. For example, in Australia the age of consent is 16 and the drinking age 18, so it's always weird when I see tv characters freaking out about having sex with an OMG 17 year old(*).
I had trouble enough coming to terms with my own socially acceptable heterosexual sexuality as a child/adolescent thanks to the anti-sex environment I grew up in, I can't imagine what it must be like for LGBT children.
(*)Of course Australian child porn laws are their own special brand of bizarre, but I don't think they reflect community norms to the same extent.