Men occupy a more powerful position in society due to the generally patriarchal structures. Women occupy a less powerful position than men, even when a particular women holds more overt power (e.g., a woman that's a CEO). As a result, sexual relationships between men and women always have a power imbalance; that imbalance of power means that women can never really be consenting, since there's always some form of 'threat' involved. A woman that believes she wants sex believes that way because society has conditioned her to be that way, rather than that being something she chose in a vacuum.
And theoretically, this is all true, kind of. But it also isn't, because that would mean that women can never have any agency over their own body or their own sexual choices. ...Unless they "choose" to be lesbian, which isn't actually a choice at all.
Kids aren't asexual, and then BOOM they're sexual the second they hit 18. I was very interested in sex from an age that would make most people deeply uncomfortable to think about. Romeo and Juliet laws exist because we recognize that first, kids are going to be sexual, and second, it's not always going to be with peers that are exactly their own age, and that prosecuting minors for statutory rape--since neither party could legally consent--is a little crazy.
So there needs to be some kind of line between recognizing that kids are sexual, and adults not treating them in a sexual way.
☝️my mother in a nutshell. She said my grandmother warned her about what we now know as "The Second Shift" (working outside of the home then coming home and ALSO planning/doing most household maintainence tasks) when my mother was younger and was part of the first generation of women to work outside the home. But her understanding after years of this was somehow "mom was right" instead of "make him do his own laundry and if he refuses get a divorce." At this point I'm just like women and the general cultural concept of femininity have shot ahead by miles in the last century. Men are welcome to do the same whenever they're ready, but for now a lot of men are just coping by crab bucketing this shit and bringing women back down.
