why the age of consent should NOT be lowered

So.
Age of consent laws:

not using the law merely to prevent/deter violent crime but to protect people from making mistakes (or regretting IT in the morning).

an authoritarian who believes in age of consent laws as basically beyond debate. What a surprise he believes in banning teens (we're talking teens here) from using the internet because there are "men - out -there - somewhere". You going to push books on them as a replacement? Thought not.

kids of ultra conservative, prudish parents (religious or not) always seem "the most rebellious" only because their parents are always punishing them for the smallest things. I'm guessing you were one. And now you can tell yourself you must have been a real rebel, when in fact you're parents were just unduly harsh with you.

Seems like there are people who feel guilty about desire or fearful. And they believe in age of consent laws because they have no choice but to accept them. Or they'll be categorized a perv.
Monkjr is obviously one such case.
Monkjr, try to image what people would say if you told them, publicly, that you believe the age of consent should be lowered. Not eliminated. Just lowered to 16. Or 15 depending on your area. What would they say about you?
Is your belief in age of consent based on your free will and critical judgment? Or just fear of being labelled an evil perv?

Then there are people who have had bad experiences and they think this could have been solved by the long arm of the law giving them more dating advice. But there will be bad relationships down the road as well.
You have a disney vision of teen years where nothing bad should happen. In fact, it's even less interesting than disney.
Given how extreme is the prudishness for this. What is an acceptable public position is in fact way, way lamer than what disney puts out. Disney characters, young girls and boys, with romances, violence, adventure.
And then the real world.
"Oh, my, my 15 year old needs to be shielded from the internet because he might get a blowjob from some lady -- And he'll LIVE TO REGRET IT". yeah, life is ruined by a bad relationship. or bad touching.

Gotta protect 15 year old Billy from getting that blowjob. It'll hurt him. We love him so much and it'll hurt him to get a blowjob.

 

You've hit the nail on the head. I'm imagine the public would jump on the self-righteous, emotionally driven train of thought towards anybody who would think to lower the age of consent laws from 18 to 16.

In another thread I suggested a license test system specially designed to test for maturity and cognition of sexual issues. But I doubt either of these things will occur.

But I have talked with a good amount of friends of mine, both guys and girls, and they all recognize that 18 as the age of consent law threshold is ridiculous. In some cases I guess we're biased because we came from the same high school and know about the same scenario where this one couple's parents ganged up on this girl's boyfriend once he crossed the age 18 threshold when in reality his girlfriend was only 4-5 months difference in age.

The Romeo and Juliet laws were SUPPOSED to have prevented cases like this, but obviously that couple fell through the cracks. Now the poor chap's a sex offender for life. Waste of tax payer dollars in my view, especially since he ended up marrying the same girl anyway, great life their going to have with the job prospects he's got.

 

The age of consent in my country is 15. That said, most girls between the ages of 15-17 find the idea of having sex with someone much older than them utterly creepy.

 

But the point is, if they chose to do so, they can legally.

 

That is true, although there is a strong social stigma attached to sexual relations between a teenager and an older partner.

When it's happening, it's mostly as secret as if it were illegal.

 

Most states and countries have what are known as "Romeo and Juliet" laws, which allow consent by someone under the "real" age of consent to have consensual sex with someone close in age to them. For example, a state may have an AoC of 18, but if you're under that age but older than 15, you can consent to sex with someone who's no more than 2 years older than you.

The truth is no one polices the age of consent proactively. What generally happens is something comes to light or to the attention of the police or prosecutors, and they're required to take action at that point. It may be that one of the person's parents complains about a boy doing his/her daughter, someone reports suspicious conduct (i.e., a nude image on someone's cell phone, an investigation of which leads to discovery), the police may catch two people in the act, or what has been the trend of late, it becomes known that a teacher is having sexual relations with a student in high school.

There's also a custodial rape, which kind of relates to the age of consent. These laws make it a crime to engage in sexual activity with anyone under your care, regardless of what the age of consent is if you're 18 or under. This includes high school teachers, police officers, youth detention workers, and anyone else who has or exerts control over a person 18 or younger. These laws were passed several years ago specifically to target teachers who were having sex with students who were over the age of consent.

 

Adults can be prosecuted for having sex with minors. Minors aren't prosecuted for having sex. It's like how in Sweden prostitution is illegal but only the Johns and not the prostitutes are prosecuted. (or i think that's what i've read)

 

Well, OF COURSE, it's always the boy's fault because girls are fragile little snowflakes who never have impure thoughts but no one is prosecuted if there isn't a significant age difference.

 

Typically, at least in the few cases I'm familiar with, when a situation involves those that fall under the R&J provisions, Juvenile Court gets involved and the case is handled administratively. They don't jail kids that age for having sex, but they will launch an investigation (via DCS or whatever the family services unit of government is called in the particular jurisdiction) to ensure everything was consensual and that there was no other criminal activity involved. They don't just automatically presume a guilty male partner unless there was a clear case of coercion or rape on his part (at least these days).

Oh, and I didn't know a badger's ass was bald. >.<

 

Willy, I was just being silly.

I've never, ever heard of anyone either adult or adolescent being bothered by the authorities for having sex with a teenager but I live in a fairly liberal part of the US.

ETA: the age of consent is 16 here (New Jersey)

 

Even If the age of consent was lowered or not, couples would still try having sex regardless of their age. Age of consent in NZ is 16. But some start out younger than that - wether they are just looking at each other's bodies (just out of curiosity) and no sex taking place or going further and having intercourse because they either both got got turned on by seeing each other nude or only tried oral sex so they didn't have to worry about getting pregnant.

 

What an embarrassing and uber complicated process to go through with all your peers at school now KNOWING and gossiping about the above scenario.

Also, the Romeo and Juliet laws don't always work, because it heavily depends on the lawyer's argumentation skills on either the plaintiff's or defense's side.

The couple I mentioned in my high school days, should've fallen under my state's Romeo and Juliet laws because they were 17 and 18, but that didn't prevent the guy from getting the sex offender label for the rest of his life, great job prospects he'll have.

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Also there's the flip side to this topic as well.

What does the law do in cases where say a small group of kids in the age range of 7-12 year old, engage or even rape someone in their peer group?

It's happened, and it's pretty horrific from the news articles I've read, those kids who did a violent crime, can't be charged with rape because the AoC laws don't recognize their ability to engage in any sexual act consentual or not.

So in my view, AoC laws, are broken in more than just one way, their broken in their premise that young people are sexually pure of mind and thought and act until a magical age.

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In other crimes, we already make exception that a "minor" can be charged as an adult for a crime if it was violent enough (in this case a really high profile murder prosecutors will probably go for charging the accused as an adult instead of a minor).

Either they're mature and cognitively aware enough to be charged as adults for other types of crimes AND sex crimes or their not.

 

I'm not sure how they could "[not] always work." The laws are pretty specific - if you're within a certain age range, then you're legal under the law. There is no way to "argue" that someone is or is not within that age range, but its an easy to determine fact. There must have been other issues at play rather than just the R&J provision in the case you're referring to (or perhaps you've misread or misinterpreted the way the law is written in your state).

 

This could be true, it is a secondary information source I read about 5-6 years ago. But from the jist of it, I don't think I misinterpreted the problem in that case.

In another news story I read, I remember that the Romeo and Juliet laws failed because the kids in question were like 10-12, and the lowest age mentioned in the R&J legislation on the books was what to do with 13-14 year olds. (I guess a legislature felt it was too awkward to draft legislation that mentioned the concept of anybody younger doing anything sexually with a peer).

In that case I thought the judge handled it correctly, and gave both teens like 300 hours of community service, and mandatory sexual education classes. We can only hope that this is what happens with the law when dealing with this scenario again.

 

Exactly. No purpose is served by placing those kinds of kids in detention if everything was consensual.

 

I think that should be the punishment on the books for under age cases:

1. Forced community service (to simulate doing a job to support a family)

2. Mandatory sex ed classes (for sexual health knowledge, and at this point it won't be abstinence only sex-ed cause that obviously failed to land the kids in court before a judge)

3. Mandatory STD/STI medical physical checkups to make sure both parties are okay and not like pregnant either.

 

Concur

 

But that's for peer to peer cases.

In other cases where obviously someone has a position of authority over someone else, I think the law has it right as it currently stands.

Although sometimes I think that in a college setting, it's a bit ridiculous and not enforcable.

Professors playing around consensually with 18 years and obviously grown adults happen a LOT as I'm told.

 

I concur with that as well

I'm not aware of any state that bans consensual sex between people in such circumstances. The laws usually prohibit sex between someone in custodial care of someone else, such as a high school teacher and a student, a law enforcement officer and someone s/he has in custody, or a mental health tech and someone detained in a mental health facility (examples). The presumption is that the person in custody of the other exerts coercion merely by their existence via the nature of their job. Such a relationship doesn't exist between a college instructor and his/her students.

Now, a lot of colleges have policies that prohibit such relationships, but the worst that can happen in those situations is the instructor is fired and/or the student is expelled. If you're aware of such a law, I'd like to know where it is.

 

Hmm good point with the colleges dynamic. If it was campus rules kinda thing and not the law then I digress and retract my point. I might've gotten confused between who was the enforcer there.

If I come across information where it was more than just campus rules that got involved I'll update with a new post.