This is intended to be a thought experiment. As such, certain premises, which are currently impossible, will be assumed. Please remain within the given premises. The title is also the title of a show on Netflix. In it, science has developed such that human consciousness can be downloaded into a device that is then implanted into the top of the spine, base of the brain. What this results in is the ability to live beyond the body death, and even to switch bodies. While children are born normally, and eventually receive the device (the show never mentions at what age it happens, but by preschool years), bodies without consciousnesses are also created. Here is the question. Since the person itself would be mature, would you allow someone with, say 30+ years of lifetime experience, to inhabit a child body (assume one created, or no longer housing an actual child) and to have sex with an adult body (assume inhabited by an actual adult)?
Yes, under these premises, I think it should be allowed. It's my impression that rape, be it statutory or otherwise, is more about informed consent than physical age. Currently, those two things almost always go hand in hand … almost always. As an example, it can be considered rape to have sex with someone who has diminished mental capacity, ie they're unable to give informed consent. So, it's the age of the "mind" that matters and not the age of the body.
Wouldn't this be very comparable to the issue of child sex robots? Conversely, we can also ask consent issues when there is basically "the mind of a child" living inside an adult body. (severely mentally disabled people, for example)
related story that may be of interest on this topic: A 4-Year-Old Trapped in a Teenager's Body - The Cut by Patrick Burleigh
