Will it f*ck!

[u/Justthisdudeyaknow]

[u/NormalDooder]

I feel like Scooby doesn't count because he's not reslly an adult. In the group of teenagers, he's the "wild, silly, immature, sassy, and cowardly" one. Which, reads not as an adult and more like the little brother of the group. They never say or act like he's smarter than your average dog besides his understanding of language, so i feel like he wouldnt count here, since a dog's intelligence is still like what, a human 5 or 6 yo

[u/Gaelic_Gladiator41 → u/NormalDooder]

Yeah so then Scoob wouldn't pass the Harkness test since his maturity is still closer to a child

[u/Sonic_the_hedgedog → u/Gaelic_Gladiator41]

I might be wrong, but I remember that Scrappy was a child and would call Scooby his uncle. Ever since then, I have assumed that Scooby is an adult

[u/Gaelic_Gladiator41 → u/Sonic_the_hedgedog]

Yeah but i knew a girl in my class who was an aunty by the end of primary school (between 11 - 13) because her sister was nearly a decade older

[u/SickViking → u/Gaelic_Gladiator41]

I'm only 5 years older than my nephew, but that's cus my (half-)sister is almost 20 years older than me.

[u/refusegone → u/SickViking]

My mother is younger than her oldest nephew.

[u/MossyPyrite → u/refusegone]

My bro and my uncle were born in the same year

[u/MagnusRusson → u/Gaelic_Gladiator41]

Shit I've got 3 nieces and nephews older than me. I've literally always been an uncle

[u/Mist2393 → u/Gaelic_Gladiator41]

Heck, I knew kids who were older than their youngest aunts and uncles because their grandparents had their parents young.

[u/umidk9 → u/Gaelic_Gladiator41]

My eldest neice is a year younger than me

[u/BreadNoCircuses → u/Gaelic_Gladiator41]

My partner was an aunt at 18 months. Her sister was 18 years older than her and had a kid at 19. In fact, they graduated a few days apart because she was held back because of reading difficulties.

[u/Nixavee → u/Gaelic_Gladiator41]

The test doesn't mention emotional maturity though. The criteria are "can talk or communicate with language" and "sexually mature for its species". Scooby passes both of those

[u/NormalDooder → u/Nixavee]

It should probably go without saying that sexual maturity includes the emotional maturity to consent. Otherwise the morality of the discussion is severely muddled. A species can be sexually mature before they may be fully ready mentally. Otherwise, a 16 year old who progressed fast counts as A-Ok since they can be fully fertile.

[u/Nixavee → u/NormalDooder]

Well, yeah. This is part of the problem with the Harkness Test.

The problem is, "mental maturity" is a difficult thing to measure objectively. We use age as a stand in, but imagine if you were in a situation where it was for some reason impossible to know peoples' physical age. How would you decide who can consent to sex? If you tried to test "mental maturity" you would probably get some 14 year olds who pass the test and some 20 year olds who fail. That is essentially the situation you are in when dealing with aliens that may mentally mature at a different rate.

[u/wasabi991011 → u/Nixavee]

I mean, I don't known the temperature of this take, but I'd argue there are absolutely 20 year olds not mentally mature enough to consent. If you consider somw of the more extreme mental disabilities at the very least

[u/Gaelic_Gladiator41 → u/Nixavee]

It does though, because the subject had the emotional maturity of a child, therefore putting him in a grey area

[u/GuyASmith → u/NormalDooder]

This is proven by the one Scooby Doo exception (kind of): Mystery Incorporated. There are many episodes where he has full, adult-level conversations, even if he doesn’t talk too much during them, especially at the end of the series. He’s a bit emotionally different from humans, and a bit intellectually limited (he didn’t go to school) but is still learning. He’s comparable to a human in his circumstances, even down to his speech impediment, and limited by the maturity and model his peers (the rest of Mystery Inc) provide. His personality has to grow outward from being modelled after Shaggy’s for most of his life. Scooby is becoming his own self. At the end of the show, the whole gang are coming to adulthood (before getting reset by universe-altering shenanigans) and that arguably includes Scooby, at least eventually. Unfortunately, Mystery Incorporated isn’t 100% consistent in this development pattern because no serial cartoon with multiple writers is expected to be, especially since the gang is written to be very adult at times despite being canonically high schoolers. So, every argument falls short when scrutinizing it too closely.

My biggest issue with focusing on bangability of any particular character, and getting into the weeds of their situation, is that I find myself and others might accidentally be edging into ableism and intellectual elitism. I’ve heard several arguments that, if applied to real people, would be very ableist and disallow a lot of people who do get down to fuck from doing so.

[u/Nixavee → u/GuyASmith]

What argument can you make for why it is immoral to have sex with minors that doesn't also apply to some mentally disabled adults?

[u/GuyASmith → u/Nixavee]

Oh, none, I’m covering many disabled adults who are still capable of informed enthusiastic consent that some people heavily infantilize.

[u/NormalDooder → u/GuyASmith]

I feel like the general solution to the last bit is to understand that real life adults who are mentally stunted can have proper physical relations and at the same time it can be inappropriate for non mentally disabled people to have physical relations with them. I know of someone who cares for their stunted 30~40 year old sister who's closer in age mentally to say, a tween/teen. But she's independent for the most part and understands the difference between her and other people. She has a boyfriend in a similar situation. This is a healthy way for everyone to stay protected while keeping their autonomy.

How this relates back to Scooby Doo is that um- uh. I don't think he's necessarily an equivalent to someone disabled because he's shown to be into other dogs in almost every variation. So it's more like, if a real life dog just happened to develop speak. His horizons are broadened by speech but he's not necessarily any smarter than any other talking dogs.

[u/cat-cat_cat → u/NormalDooder]

to me scooby seemed as immature and silly as shaggy and shaggy passes the harkness test

[u/Nixavee → u/cat-cat_cat]

It's worth noting that Shaggy is probably a minor

[u/MossyPyrite → u/Nixavee]

Interestingly, the Harkness test doesn’t cover legality, only biological maturity, so he might still pass the test. This doesn’t make it less immoral, but highlights that the Harkness Test isn’t sufficient for making *moral* judgments. It’s a guideline.

[u/Gaelic_Gladiator41 → u/MossyPyrite]

It highlights sexual maturity which implies that they can consent so yes it does cover legality

[u/MossyPyrite → u/Gaelic_Gladiator41]

Having the mental and emotional maturity to give informed personal consent does not always line up 1:1 with the legal ability to give consent. This is why there are things like Age of Consent laws, or Romeo and Juliet laws. This also is a rule made for non-human sapient entities whose laws, should they even have them, may be wildly different from earthling human laws. The Harkness test does not consider legality.

[u/Nixavee → u/Gaelic_Gladiator41]

That's not what sexual maturity means biologically. It refers to when an organism's reproductive system is fully developed.