Instigator / Pro
15
1494
rating
3
debates
50.0%
won
Topic
#3602

Is Child Sexual Abuse Harmful by Itself? V3

Status
Finished

The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.

Winner & statistics
Better arguments
6
9
Better sources
6
4
Better legibility
3
3
Better conduct
0
3

After 3 votes and with 4 points ahead, the winner is...

Mall
Parameters
Publication date
Last updated date
Type
Standard
Number of rounds
5
Time for argument
One day
Max argument characters
30,000
Voting period
Two weeks
Point system
Multiple criterions
Voting system
Open
Contender / Con
19
1483
rating
327
debates
40.21%
won
Description

Pro argues that the vast majority of the harm that is correlated with kids having sex with adults stems from the stigma against it and failing to control for other confounding variables.

Con argues against this view.

DEFINITIONS:
Child sexual abuse: A person that is under 18 years old having sex (that they chose to have) with someone that is five or more years older than them.

Note: If you are going to argue with me about definitions if you debate me then do not debate me.

Criterion
Pro
Tie
Con
Points
Better arguments
3 point(s)
Better sources
2 point(s)
Better legibility
1 point(s)
Better conduct
1 point(s)
Reason:

To be fair, if I was Pro, I would have argued from a tautological standpoint. But no. In my point of view, Pro's argument wasn't convincing, because he argued from the consequences of child rape, etc. using statistics. Obviously the consequences are not included within the abusive acts alone, so the topic wasn't proven at all. Were the "by itself" phrase removed, Pro would have gained the 3 points of argumentation.

Con on the other hand, questioned empirically without giving sources, it just seems not enough. Sources to Pro.

Conduct to Con for forfeiture.

Criterion
Pro
Tie
Con
Points
Better arguments
3 point(s)
Better sources
2 point(s)
Better legibility
1 point(s)
Better conduct
1 point(s)
Reason:

Multiple forfeitures; but I do not care to even review the arguments for this topic to assign more points.

Criterion
Pro
Tie
Con
Points
Better arguments
3 point(s)
Better sources
2 point(s)
Better legibility
1 point(s)
Better conduct
1 point(s)
Reason:

This debate kind of feels like a mess. On one hand Neg says that pro does not meet BoP when the case has inconsistencies but does not really point these out effectively. Pro is right saying the response needs to be better than this in R2, it just does not actually poke any holes in the case. Where I vote con is on the arguments made in R3 dropped after two FFs, and thus the arguments are clean on the flow. Although, I will say that I do not think the arguments made really clashed at all, but for the sake of the ballot that does not matter since they were dropped. At worst I just vote neg on presumption, because technically consistency was never proved and the case might be flawed.

FFs are also a conduct issue, so I will give another point there.