This was originally a comment on a different post, but I think this is worth fleshing out into its own post. And I apologize in advance for the length of this post, I hope I am making my position clear.
I think one reason many people are turned off from youth liberation is that they conflate it with MAP activism, and MAPs are, in popular opinion, abusive monsters that need to be ostracized from society, if not outright exterminated. The blatant falsehood of this statement and of this conflation aside, one thing that anti MAPs fail to recognize is that the sexual liberation of children is only one aspect of their liberation. Children deserve to be liberated from the shackles of the nuclear family paradigm, from the prison that is compulsory state (or state approved) schooling, from the bigotry directed towards them for no other reason than them being children.
That being said, in my opinion, sexual liberation of youth is an indispensable aspect of their total liberation, and this is something that, in my experience, many youth liberationists balk at.
Children deserve autonomy and respect in all aspects of their life. Yet when we say that this includes their ability to engage in sexual activity with whomever they wish, including adults, many people will revert right back to making patriarchal statements about how youth are too innocent and naive to consent to sex, or pull out the same pseudoscience about brain development that they otherwise condemn in order to suggest that children are too immature and stupid to consent to sexual activity with anyone other than perhaps their peers. This, to me, belies both an incomplete view of liberation and a worldview still tainted by puritanical Christian ideas about sex.
Now, I think it goes without saying that sexual abuse of children is reprehensible. But so is the sexual abuse of adults, and adults are not broadly desexualized because some of them suffer from sexual abuse. And other forms of abuse against children are also reprehensible, but I have not seen youth liberationists suggest that children should be segregated from adults in any other contexts besides sexual ones.
It is hypocrisy to say "youth should be liberated and treated as equals to adults in all respects" them turn around and say that they cannot truly consent to sex except in particular circumstances. This, to me, echos how radical feminists often suggest that women are incapable of consenting to sex with men.
I will once again state: this is still only one aspect of youth liberation, and matters like deconstructing the power of the nuclear family and the current "education" system, and generally taking steps to ensure that youth have greater legal, social, and political autonomy are also critical. But their sexual liberation cannot be neglected or dismissed.
(Edits were just for formatting to make the post easier to read.)