Wow! The arbitrary positions that are taken on this thread. Once again, we have mixed several kinds of situations into one and that never works.
illegal activity - Is not directly related with morality. But do it and get caught, get ready to take the consequences. (The reason it is illegal may be because a majority of people think it is wrong or don't want the activity taking place.)
Legal activity - Do it all you want. You may go to hell for it, but not prison. Again, just because it is legal doesn't mean it is morally correct.
Morality - That which a person believes to believe is right. Can you find two people who 100 percent believe the exact same thing about what is OK to do and what it is not OK to do.
Immorality - See above. Same except person believes it to be wrong to do.
I listed these because to many posts are using legal and moral to be synonymous. They are not.
About Man/boy love. It is my understanding that this is adult sexual attraction to boys who have not finished puberty, but primarily boys who have not even begun puberty. It is not about sixteen and seventeen year old boys whose voices have changed, the teens are shaving and they have hair on their legs and maybe chests.
American law lumps sixteen and seventeen year olds into the same legal status as a 10 year old. But from a sexual standpoint they are not the same.
Definitely there is some anti gay bias here that shouldn't be here, but that doesn't excuse man/boy sexual encounters either.
A sixteen year old girl falls head over heels for a 22 year old guy. In most states the parents can sign for the marriage to take place. In marriage sex is is legal. She even has a baby born 5 months after the wedding. I can hear the following comment now:
"Isn't the baby precious. Looks just like his father. We didn't realize it when we first learned of the pregnancy, but know we know that God had a reason for this union of two such wonderful young people.?
(Yep, I have actually heard this actual statement many times.)
The same is true for a 16 year old boy and a 22 year old woman legally. Though this would not be as widely accepted as the previous paragraph.
A sixteen year old girl falls head over heels for a 22 year old woman. They have sex. The 22 year old woman is investigated and is legally required to have no communication with the 16 year old girl until the girl turns 18.
A sixteen year old boy falls head over heels for a 22 year old man. The twenty two year old man is convicted of child abuse and sent to the state penitentiary for 5 years. The sixteen year old boy is sent to required counseling until he turns 18 and the state can't make him go anymore.
And people say there is no gay bias. Bullshit. Yes there is. Not as bad now as once was but nevertheless, very much present.
About the public restrooms and glory holes. There is a time and place for everything. A public restroom where all ages are using the facilities is classified as a "family restroom." There shouldn't be poker games, legal slot machines, wild partying, extremely foul language nor sexual activity of any kind. There are little boys that have wet their pants in public because they were too scared to go into the men's restroom alone and wouldn't go in with mommy either. There are little boys that have shit themselves because they don't mind peeing in public bathrooms, they are scared out of their minds to use the toilets.
It is apprehensible that adults would take over a public restroom to the point that boys age 12 and under have accidents rather than go into the public restrooms.
However, there is Saddie's Bar and Grill. There aren't suppose to be minors in the building. Restroom cruising is illegal, but why should the police bother themselves monitoring an adult place unless there have been problems that have required police assistance in the recent past.
At the airport if there is a "private" or adult only restroom, that is totally different than the public airport family restrooms.
I am not taking a moral stand here so much as stating what to me should be the obvious.
As for 16 and 17 year old boys and men having sex. I know that the law says and we should abide by the law. I am 56 years old. On a moral level,do you really think it is any different if I have sex with a sexually mature sixteen old boy or an eighteen year old boy? I would go to prison with the sixteen year old boy and break no law with the 18 year old boy. That age of boys are younger than my sons. They all look like boys, not men, to me. I sometimes think 21 year olds are 16. Sometimes it is the other way.
My point here is that sexual attraction for the 16 -21 year old boy is totally different than the 12 year old boy from a moral point of view.
I'm not sure that there is any difference between a boy of 16 and a man of 18 in the minds of the boys who are offered sex at a glory hole.
I don't believe in casual sex period. Sex should be an act of love between two people in a committed relationship. That is what I believe for myself.
To me the moral question, not legal. should first be is the boy mature enough emotionally to make the decision? Is the experience truly consensual? Again, we are talking morality. For me the age doesn't matter as I have no desire to engage in glory hole sex with anyone at any age at any time. I never have. I have never been approached as far as I know. If I was, I didn't recognize the signals I also don't frequent the places where this is most likdly to happen.