Age of consent?

But we cannot pre-suppose to know whether or not someone is ready or not for sexual activity, only the individual can possibly accuratley know that. By questioning whether or not someone has the ability to comprehend doing this or that, we only succeed in limiting their personal freedoms and rights of choice.~

The law is the law, it is no substitute for parenting, friendship, and guidance. Instead of taking an outside perspective and saying to others "You cannot possibly feel this, do that, or understand this, because you are this color, you are this age, or you are this or that...", we should instead be listening to their perspective and trying to understand things from their points of view no matter how limited our ability to do this may be, and instead guide them to hopefully make the choices they want to make in a more safe, logical, and/or practical way by always providing them with all knowledge of everything and listening to their perspective.

 

No, not a 100%, can anybody be sure of anything except death and taxes.

But regardless I think that if a kind of test or license can be devised, given what we know about psychology and brain development to make some kind of scale to measure maturity, and how much they can mentally understand about the concept and consequences of something.

In this case, that something is sexual conduct, where to go for resources or how to report a rape if raped, make it educational and informative.

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We agree the old system doesn't work, then why not try this out. If it doesn't work or then one could always backtrack and revert to the old system, but in my humble opinion at least testing new systems would be better than that stagnant unchanging system that suggests we've given up.

If the test is crafted well enough, and involves ways of measuring frontal lobe development of the brain, which is the physical part of the brain responsible for making judgements and forethought, I'd bet that what we'd see would be mostly 18 year olds or older people finally obtaining the license to consent to sex, and a rare occasional case of a 16 year old or younger passing the test.

You can't rush brain development, and if that's part of the test, the test won't be arbitrary and wouldn't just be a random presumption.

 

Still it's a dangerous route to go that way, we could end up limiting the freedoms of millions of people simply because they couldn't pass a test and the notion of needing a 'license' to HAVE SEX?! seems a little bit less 'free' and little more 'controlling' wouldn't you say? And by 'a little' I mean a huge fucking amount.~

I say, treating our children better and growing adults with more access to information and knowledge and eliminating the age of consent as a concept entirely.~ Then only take action when someone has been accused of something and to determine not whether or not someone is 'comprehensible enough' to have sex or engage in sexual activities, but whether or not by their own mindset were they deceived, forced, or manipulated into having sexual activities that violates their right of consent regardless of age.~ If they are too young to be understood then they are unable to give consent simply by non-communication NOT by the their mindset however different it may be from our own. This yes would go into much more detail in court, but isn't that a good thing?~ Yes this would force all cases to be decided by a case by case basis. As it should be, because no individual is complety the same to another in any way.~

Of course, the child protection laws would still be in place only they would have to be modified a little: "Sex and Sexual Activities in and of themselves are not harmful in any way to children. It is the only the potentially harmful effects of such activities that will be addressed by these laws, depending on the activity itself and the individual."
This would encourage from a legal point of view parents and others to not cause any harm to children which of course would still be considered children from a biological development point of view.

 

Yes my suggestion is a pandora's box for sure if it's the proposed system isn't drafted right. But the system you propose is just as much of a pandora's box as well in terms of the problems it would unleash.

Keep in mind that, sex abuse victims are psychologically manipulated and coached by their abusers to avoid answering questions or admitting abuse to the authorities.

But I digress to what another poster has said, I guess there really is no real solution to this problem.

At best, we can keep throwing hypothetical scenarios of how to solve this issue down the road.

 

Yes, that's exactly why I love discussing this more, at first I could not figure out the exact way the system would work like this, but the more we have discussed it the more clearer and clearer it's becoming to me.~

By George, I think we've got it!~ I love hitting around ideas and talking them out as they take shape!~ ^_^

Personally, I think Humanity especially the USA babies it's children way too much in the recent "modern" years, why 50-100 years ago there was no such thing as a "Teenager"!~ XD ^_^

My point is, they're going to do it anyways, all a law and we telling not to do it "NO..NO...DON'T...DON'T..!" is going to make them want to do it even more!~

I think the system I proposed was perfectly acceptable, I mean it gives the freedom out in the open the law doesn't recognize for minors and it still encourages the protection of children and it forces the legal system to be more detailed and accurate not to mention thorough we really need more thoroughness rather than just "she said" and perhaps to address the issue of mind-manipulation we would have more trained and better focused professionals to spot and recognize this sort of thing, I mean we need more of these kinds of people today!~ ^_^

 

I don't think saying "not to do ___" in of itself, makes people want to do it more. I think it's when that foundation of making an authoritarian argument is used too often, it loses it's value and meaning. It's like crying wolf.

I think what works better is when one says "not to do ___" there are LOGICAL reasons WHY a parent or authority figure is taking this position. What I think you're getting at though is that more often than not, the people who say "No No don't do ___" construct their arguments in a irrational way and tend to be hypocritical.

Kids/teens will pick up on that and lose respect, and stop listening to you if they think your credibility is undermined by your own conduct or false logic/lies. Pecking order no longer matters in what I have seen.

And I've found that religious families usually create a perfect climate for all the aspects for tier 1 rebellion in their children in more areas than just sexual topics. (I've found them more likely to pull neighborhood pranks as well, while maintaining the good-boy-girl reputation in more public settings).


(Note: Your 3rd paragraph's message is incoherent, please restate. It saying something about you think that the USA shelters or "babies" it's children too much? After that claim I can't tell what your saying thought about Europe).

 

Thank you for those awesome words!~ ^_^

I retract my statement about Teen Pregnacy as I do not think such a thing in and of itself is a bad thing.~

I do believe education and knowledge is the most important thing here and everyone should have access to it regardless of age.~

 

A lot of that has to do with the fact they actually teach their kids real sex education in schools, not the abstinence-only bullshit they use here. And condoms and birth control are much more widely available there than here, too.

 

As I said before, and was likely overlooked: "My best choice would be to implement a system like Spain has (or used to have. They may have changed the laws. Not sure.) At 13, you can legally consent to sex with anyone old enough, and it is only a crime if the party under 18 files a complaint, or if their is any tangible sign of force or coercion.

...

One thing I am sure of is that the aoc laws, as they exist, do not make sense and are inherently discriminatory and sexist, thus need to be abolished and replaced."

 

I agree QuartzKitty, it seems until our "civilized" Human society is more willing and has learned more on how to understand the minds of pre-puberty persons or children this is seemingly the best action.~

 

I do have concerns though that 13 is too young and that someone that age wouldn't know HOW to report a rape if one occurred to them.

And I do agree with the part of the law that states that people in positions of authority (EX: teachers, lawyers, law enforcement) cannot be engaging in sexual relations with those that are in their charge. There's just a conflict of interest and potential for abuse that is way to strong to ignore and say it's lawfully okay.

I still stand by my license test though, because a test that I'm postulating would test for know-how on what to do if a the said individual got an STD/STI or got pregnant.

I think Spain (and Mexico), have the opposite problem what the USA does in terms of AoC laws.

I mention Mexico, because less than 5 months ago, I saw a TV special report about how very young girls are human trafficked for sex along the border of the state of California in the USA.
Granted, prostitution, sex-slavery and human trafficking are separate issues, but with the really young age group AoC laws are important with crossover into the main topic of this thread.

Also I've been told, that in Mexico, there is a culture about sex down there that makes it extremely acceptable for girls to be engaging in sex at pretty young ages; we're talking 9-14 as common. You've seen the news stories out of Mexico about all the rapes and child abduction for ransom, and if they don't pay then the kidnappers might just pimp the child out and get their $ that way.

Maybe lawfully it might be illegal, but culturally it's like ho-hum, old enough to bleed old enough to breed mentality. I know that sex is very much a rite-of-passage for the machismo mentality for males.


But to reiterate, I don't think Spain or Mexico have the AoC laws right either.

 

Morality is not a pre-requisite to implement more thorough, defined, and more applicable laws regarding sex and age.~ What you find "right" is irrelevant.~

Morality is FAR too subjective to base any law and its' entirety upon it, for the invitable question will arise 'just WHOSE morality is this law based upon?'~

That is why my proposal is far more 'free' allowing the law not to intervene unless someone is accused.~ Imposing one's own personal morality upon others by using the legal system no matter how many others share your particular view is far more limiting in terms of freedom than doing the same without use of the legal system, for at least when it isn't legal to adhere to other's sense of morality you can simply tell them to go do something better with their time.~ This may be different if we were a nation of one mind, culture, and morality systems, but we are not we are a diverse nation of different minds, different cultures, different senses of 'morality', and we are of even people who have no 'morality' whatsoever.~

 

The post of mine you quoted above was not about "morality" but based on a best fit trend of observations that are obvious to anybody that MOST people age 13-16 (or younger) are NOT ready for the consequences of sex.

If I saw someone in that age range, living on their own, paying their own rent and supporting themselves, then it would make sense to reevaluate their situation and perhaps grant them the legal right to more grown up treatment.

But broad based AoC laws, in general whether it's 18, 16, or in Spain's case 13 are just inherently flawed in the fact that it's a broad based "magical age = your ready" concept. And that isn't reality.

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Also ironically I should also point out that the concept of things that promote "freedom VS enslavement/restriction" is also a moral issue in of itself.

Most people promote freedom, because to them it's a higher moral concept than the latter, but I digress and for the sake of some of the concepts I suggested put forward the notion that:

More freedom does not always mean it's better or necessarily more or less moral.

 

Agreed, thus the issue is finding a good balance between "freedom" and "morality".~ But the issue at hand is one I feel we have gotten a little closer to understanding and forming a solution.~

 

16 is probably the most fair but I was a horny 11 year old once. I'm not saying 11 should be the age of consent but I wouldn't have mind if a sexy older woman came knocking on my door and showed me a thing or two back then. I'm just saying that I can empathize with boys reaching puberty and wanting to fuck anything in skirts. There was no shortage of objects I stuck my dick into when I was around that age.

 

I hope they all consented.

 

Well, they didn't say no. That's a green light, isn't it?

 

Well, that's what the two convicted rapists in Steubenville, OH, thought.

 

Umm no. By that logic, all sleeping and unconscious chicks consent.

But no the law has this part right, in NOT adopting this concept of consent.

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You are quite right. Right now, the victim has to prove that s/he didn't consent, rather than the accused having to prove that there was affirmative consent. This is the only crime where that's the case. Ridiculous.