Age of consent

[Larry Gude]

You Puritans...

...would not have fared well back in the day when 16 year olds were on the verge of old maid-dom and 14 year olds regularly married men 2 and 3 times their age. I mean, come on. Emotional parity is emotional parity.

 

[pixiegirl]

I'm still fleshing this out, but here's how it would work in Vraiville:

14 would be your age of consent if your "partner" is no more than 4 years older than you.

Then 18 or older is a free-for-all.

For example, if a 14 year old gets consensually jiggy with an 18 year old, the 18 year old is not committing a crime. A 17 year old has a 21 year old boyfriend, that boyfriend is not breaking the law.

Although I'm on the line about if some skeezy 14 year old seduces a 30 year old man. And, yes, 14 year olds can seduce, and also look older than their years. So if some kid sneaks into a bar and picks up a grown man, should he go to jail if he doesn't realize how old she is and takes her up on it? I say No.

And, frankly, there's a part of me that would either make 14 the age of sexual consent, period, or do away with consent laws altogether.

I totally agree with all of this.

 

[Pete]

I do not think kid sex should be a crime.

Ever? You have said a 14 year old chick and her 18 year old Rico are ok with you right? So tell me if the 14 year old is more than willing is it OK for a 32 year old truck driver to hit it too?

 

[Pete]

I totally agree with all of this.

What if the girl is 13 and her b-day is next week when the 18 year old hits it?

 

[Pete]

Pete, if Boy is 17 and has a 15 year old girlfriend, do you think that makes him a child molestor and he should serve 10 years in jail?

No, just having a GF that is 15 is not a crime. If the law says the age of consent is 16 he better keep his junk in a cage until her b-day. Even if he didn't 10 years is too much.

 

[vraiblonde]

Ever? You have said a 14 year old chick and her 18 year old Rico are ok with you right? So tell me if the 14 year old is more than willing is it OK for a 32 year old truck driver to hit it too?

Please don't twist my words just because you're losing your argument.

It is not "ok" for teens to have sex, but it shouldn't be a crime.

It is not "ok" for my child to lie to me, or not do their chores, or get a failing grade. But neither should those things be a criminal offense, with a jail sentence attached to it.

 

[Pete]

...would not have fared well back in the day when 16 year olds were on the verge of old maid-dom and 14 year olds regularly married men 2 and 3 times their age. I mean, come on. Emotional parity is emotional parity.

Back in the day life expectancy was 35 so a 14 year old was basically middle aged.

 

[pixiegirl]

You honestly believe that an 18 year old Rico Suave high school graduate with a fart can road racer Civic should be banging a 14 year old 9th grader?

I don't think that it should happen but know that it does and don't think it should be a crime. I also don't think that the maturity level between a 18 year old boy and a 14 year old girl are all that different. They can realistically still both be in high school together. I don't think it's necessarily right but I don't think that it's a crime either.

Parental responsibility needs to come into play somewhere. If a 14 year old girl is out bangin' anyone, even a 14 year old boy her parents need to be smacked. 18 year old boys are BUILT to try and get tail as 14 year old girls are BUILT to think they're in love and going to marry every boyfriend they have. It's immaturity and hormones on both levels and it's the responsibility of the parents to control those hormones when the CHILDREN can not. Even if an 18 year old boy is legally an adult, most are far from it mentally and one who does in fact act as an adult isn't going to be out screwing a 14 year old girl.

 

[Pete]

Please don't twist my words just because you're losing your argument.

It is not "ok" for teens to have sex, but it shouldn't be a crime.

It is not "ok" for my child to lie to me, or not do their chores, or get a failing grade. But neither should those things be a criminal offense, with a jail sentence attached to it.

Ok, you said that a 14 year old giving it up to her 18 year old BF is not a CRIME. If she is willing to give it up does it make it a CRIME for her to give it up to a 32 year old truck driver?

 

[vraiblonde]

No, just having a GF that is 15 is not a crime. If the law says the age of consent is 16 he better keep his junk in a cage until her b-day. Even if he didn't 10 years is too much.

Then what would be an appropriate prison sentence for Boy if he gives in to temptation and rassels his 15 year old girlfriend in the backseat of some car?

One year? Two years? How long should he sit in jail for having teenage sex?

 

[vraiblonde]

And I take it personal because it's easy to look at some abstract kid that you don't even know and think one thing. But it becomes an entirely different story when it's YOUR kid who is facing jail for something teens have been doing since the beginning of time.

 

[pixiegirl]

What if the girl is 13 and her b-day is next week when the 18 year old hits it?

Then I think her parents should be smacked. 18 year old boys most of the time do not have common sense when it comes to sex. Mentally they are still children themselves.

My brother is 4 years older than me. As soon as I grew hoots most of his friends were after me. Were they criminals? No. They were horny little boys.

 

[Pete]

Then what would be an appropriate prison sentence for Boy if he gives in to temptation and rassels his 15 year old girlfriend in the backseat of some car?

One year? Two years? How long should he sit in jail for having teenage sex?

$2,000 fine and a year of probation and 3 months of work release weekends?

 

[Dymphna]

I don't think kids should be banging at all, but I was roundly shouted down when I suggested that you can indeed curtail teen sexual activity by parental involvement.

The old "they're gonna do it anyway" argument.

So, that being the case, I feel that if public schools, which are state run and fundeed can teach children about safe sex and alternate sexual behavior, the same state has no real business prosecuting something that they are actively encouraging.

So there.

I don't buy that argument either... they aren't "gonna do it anyway."

I didn't. My friends didn't. I know a couple of girls who waited until they got married. I know several who were over 20. Frankly, I can't think of one girl I hung out with in high school who'd had sex. Of course, I knew some girls...a girl in my homeroom had a baby our junior year, but not the girls I hung out with.

I can't speak for the boys, most of them wouldn't admit to being born virgins.

The question is why didn't we? What made us different from the girls who did? I don't know what everyone's reasons were... some were religious, most had plans for college and dragging a baby off to the dorms wasn't practical, some intended to "escape" small town life as soon as possible and didn't want to be tied to some guy.

AIDS was discovered while we were in high school...I can't tell you how many times some teacher was putting a condom on a banana. No one ate bananas anymore...except "those" kinds of girls. But I don't think that affected if people were screwing around...just that they were using condoms when they did.

I know for me, it was made clear that no contraceptive was 100% and I knew that I had too much I still wanted to do with my life before having kids and I sure as hell didn't know any boy who I wanted to give up that future for and be tied to him by marriage or a child in common. And Mom sure as hell wasn't going to take on any bastard of mine while I went on with my life...heck, she doesn't even take on legitimate grandchildren for more than a few hours at a time.

 

[vraiblonde]

$2,000 fine and a year of probation and 3 months of work release weekends?

Personally, I think a parental talking to and groundation is more appropriate, then go to the girl's parents so they can have a word with her as well.

 

[aps45819]

Back in the day life expectancy was 35 so a 14 year old was basically middle aged.

When we went to the grave of Stonewall Jackson's left arm, the builder of the plantation it was buried on, married his 16 y.o. niece after his wife died when he was 78.
And he knocked her up

 

[Larry Gude]

That's...

When we went to the grave of Stonewall Jackson's left arm, the builder of the plantation it was buried on, married his 16 y.o. niece after his wife died when he was 78.
And he knocked her up

...just further proof that women could care less what we look like if we can tell a few jokes, dance a few steps, listen a little bit and have a famous left arm buried in the yard.

 

[nhboy]

Very interesting thread. Here's a Slate article with additional links.

"This is the reality of sex with minors: The ages of the parties vary widely from case to case. For more than a century, states and countries have been raising and standardizing the legal age of consent. Horny teenagers are being thrown in with pedophiles. The point of this crackdown was to lock up perverts and protect incompetent minors. But the rationales and the numbers don't match up. The age of majority and the age of competence are coming apart. The age of competence is fracturing, and the age of female puberty is declining. It's time to abandon the myth of the "age of consent" and lower the threshold for legal sex.


I'm not saying 12 should be the official age of "consent." Consent implies competence, and 12-year-olds don't really have that. In a forthcoming review of studies, Laurence Steinberg of Temple University observes that at ages 12 to 13, only 11 percent of kids score at an average (50th percentile) adult level on tests of intellectual ability. By ages 14 to 15, the percentage has doubled to 21. By ages 16 to 17, it has doubled again to 42. After that, it levels off."

Rethinking the age of sexual consent. - By William Saletan - Slate Magazine

A UK article on the subject
Sex and Relationships - Sex - 4Health from Channel 4

 

[Novus Collectus]

Again, what are the laws regarding ages to marry?

In MD a female can marry as low as 15.

 

[cattitude]

...just further proof that women could care less what we look like if we can tell a few jokes, dance a few steps, listen a little bit and have a famous left arm buried in the yard.

The arm thing would bother me.