What should the age of consent be?

There are many factors to take into consideration. Which makes this who " at what age " debate a " can or worms " Teenagers feel that they are old enough and ready to have relationships regardless of their age at the time. With hormones flowing the desire is there. The legal issue is where do you create a age bracket where two people do have sexual contact where it would be classified as statutory rape.. As a example if the age of consent for teenager is 16 regardless of gender. The female is 16 and her boyfriend is 15 could she be charged with statutory rape ? Since he is not 16 yet ? I am just throwing that out there as a example.

Many locations have the age set at 16 or 17. But that is not going to stop teens from experimenting regardless of what the age is. I think setting a law that says if there is more then a 2 year difference in age before the age of 18 and it is consensual then statutory rape can not be applied. I have come to that by figuring that some people might just have reached the age of 18 by the end of high school . So dating a person in high school would not lead to legal issues if it is consensual as long as it 16 and up to 18 years of age. So if a person is in their 20's and the other person is below 18 consensual sex would be considered statutory rape for the older person.

Age and maturity are two totally different things. We hope that a person by the age of 18 is mature enough to know better. But I have seen many 18 year olds ( or older ) that act like 5 year olds. While 16 year olds act and behave more like adults then adults do. It really is hard to draw a hard line with no debate, at a certain age

 

And life expectancy in the 1840's was 41 years.
How has life expectancy changed over time? - Office for National Statistics

Good judgment comes from experience, which often is the result of bad judgment.
Kids make mistakes. However, they should be restrained from making catastrophic ones.
Would you really give a child a chain saw to play with unsupervised?

 

Not everyone matures at the same age

 

It's interesting that Republicans are in favor of raising the voting age to 21, when they apparently think a 15 year old is mature enough to buy an assault rifle and a 10 year old is mature enough for motherhood.

 

Age of consent laws are not in place to protect children but parents and the community. If a child that is less than the perceived age decides to have sex they will. The issue is the result of that decision. What does a parent have to take on if their 14 year old child gets involved with another person that leads to pregnancy? A lot. On the female side it is the addition of another human to care for, feed and clothe, nurture and educate. On the male side it is another human that needs support and care fostered through the mother. Ages younger become complicated situations due to the years left before the child having sex becomes self supportive, able to make and enact adult decisions. The key is to be able to enact on their decisions in a responsible way. Many people are unable to do so regardless of their age. Age of consent does nothing to assure the "under age" child will be protected from their own thoughts and desires. It only provides feeble disciplinary action for those involved in "under age sex".

 

What you describe is a law in many places and is often called the Romeo and Julie Rule.

 

The age varies by country and within counties. What constitutes consent also varies from place to place. That is as it should be.

There is no single authority who should decide for the entire world population what "the" age of consent should be. There is no one single number that is universally appropriate. It can and will vary over time, and it does and should vary from place to place.

In your poll, you include only ages 14-18. Right now, the existing range is from 12-21, depending on jurisdiction. Several countries have no legal age of consent whatsoever. They simply outlaw sex outside of marriage. At least one of those countries has no minimum age to marry either - they conclude that having any minimum age is "un-Islamic."

 

In some traditions and cultures some are betrothed to be married before they are ever conceived

 

So there be no 'Consent' as such - by the individual then?

 

pre-arranged marriages still exist …so in numbers that would be positive with a developed negative

 

I voted for 16 for females. The statutory rape felony should be changed for boys to over the age of 18. The only reason is once the female can get a drivers license the parents, church and government will be unable to enforce the regulations. My Family experience is that all of my nieces were wearing lipstick and eye makeup at about 10 years old.

 

18 is about right, but in some cases they WILL do it earlier.

 

I agree with 18 being the age of consent. However, I think a lot depends on the culture and circumstances.

 

I can see this a possible!

 

21

 

There are no "one size fits all" people, so why should we assume that children will have developed sufficiently by prescribed ages. Different strokes.....

I fully agree that girls mature way quicker than boys.

 

I was raised in the Canadian School Systems and in our heritage the rules are:

Under 13 (Illegal)
13-18 (They cannot have sex with anyone more than 4 years older than them (or Younger))
19+ (Anyone can have sex with them).

I never had sex until I was 18 and she was 21 but I agree with the laws of my Country... Although 13 dating 17 would definitely be confusing and would probably start a fight at School.

 

I will make another pitch for age 16 for girls. As I recall my dating years to justify sixteen year old girls were very interested in older boys at my high school. I began dating at 18. girls I knew were anxious to go to drive in movies rather than theaters. As soon as the movie got boring they were ready to crawl onto your lap and start necking. Parents need to prepare their daughters to avoid pregnancy at that age.

 

Definitely 18 or higher, I agree with the people who say 21+. We now know that the brain mostly matures at around the age of 25, so we must be more responsible than we were 100 years ago with ethics relating to this issue. There's no need to force young girls into maturity at such a young age as 16 or even 17. Bad people will undoubtedly take advantage of that.

Plus, what's the harm in wating two or three years? It's a very short amount of time in the grand scheme of a lifespan. It's not the end of the world to wait.