Age of consent laws should be reformed

Great Debates
1

This is adapted from a debate I am having with a friend on Facebook after she expressed outrage about a lenient sentence given a teacher who was convicted of statutory rape with a 14 year old student.

I don’t agree with the status quo of age of consent being different for a teacher’s student, although certainly a teacher who has sex with the student should be fired and not be eligible to become a teacher again. I don’t like that the age of consent is different in different states, including some where they actually do punish 18-year-olds for having sex with 17-year-olds and even make them register as pedophiles. I also don’t agree with laws that say it is legal for a 22-year-old to have sex with a 17-year-old but not for a 30-year-old to have sex with a 17-year-old.

All that said, you do have to draw the line somewhere. But there is a big difference between an adult having sex with a teenager who has passed into sexual maturity and a situation that is actually sexual abuse of a child. Getting back to things I don’t agree with: I don’t like that people are so binary in considering that someone is either an adult or a child. There are multiple stages of development and an adolescent is in between. Simply saying that a 14-year-old is a “child” is too facile in my opinion.

There are also multiple stages of adolescence. I took a college course on adolescent psychology, and the modern understanding of the late stage of adolescence continues until age 22. So if we are to hold adolescents as off-limits to adults, we are going to need to change the laws in the other direction.

Since we do have to draw a line, my preference would be to make a uniform national age of consent to start with. Fifteen seems like a decent number to me, although maybe that’s just because that was the law in Minnesota when I was a teenager there. (It appears that states must have raised their ages in recent years, because no US state has an age younger than 16 now; I note though that Canada’s national age was changed from 14 to 16 only five years ago, so I still think my proposed 15-year-old age is not beyond the pale.)

Then the penalty for the adult who violates this would be the square of the amount of time the younger person has until their 15th birthday. So let’s say someone was six months away from their 15th birthday the earliest time it can be proven they had sex. That is one half of a year; one half squared is one fourth or three months.

If they were barely 13 it would be four years in prison; barely 12, nine years; and barely 10 would be 36 years. You could tinker with this, but it seems to me like a good first draft.

The other issue is how the older person is to know the age of someone who is particularly physically mature for their age. One idea there is that if someone was within a year or two of consent age, there could be a warning from the younger person’s parents to the offender of her actual age and basically warning them to back off. Then once that was done, any further contact could be fully punishable.

One more thing to keep in mind: I have seen stories suggesting that these laws disproportionately impact gay people. Parents often aren’t that concerned about their 15-year-old sophomore daughters being with 18 year old seniors or whatever; but if it is a gay relationship, they see it as much more corrupting and predatory and are much more likely to try to throw the book at the older person.

For the same reason, I think we need to get rid of the sections of these laws that provide harsher penalties for so-called “sodomy” or “deviate” sex between someone under the age of consent and an adult. This refers to anal or oral sex, but is again disproportionately enforced on gay relationships–and of course it is unfair that there is no conventional intercourse available to gay couples.

2

Hugely disagree and I think this is sort of the crux of the issue:

I don’t think there is. (Or, rather, the only difference is that someone who abuses a young child likely has a mental illness, whereas someone who abuses a teenager may just be an unethical sleazeball who has trouble picking up emotionally mature women and so opts for young teenagers who are essentially children in a physically mature body.) Sexual maturity does not equal emotional maturity. You’re right that age of consent laws are always going to be somewhat arbitrary, but there’s absolutely nothing about puberty that makes it a good place to put the dividing line between emotional maturity and immaturity.

I’d argue laws that protect people during that period between physical and emotional maturity are even more important because with prepubescent children most people have the biological hard-wiring to be repulsed by those kinds of relationships, but not so with relationships with sexually mature children. It’s up to the law to show society’s disapproval of these and your speeding-ticket style graduated penalty system would be a massive step in the wrong direction. I’ll agree there’s some problems with the system when it comes to relationships between two people of similar age who may run afoul of the arbitrary line, or maybe some of the same-sex issues, but the general idea of being legally recognized as a mature adult somewhere around the late teens is generally sound. As is the notion that people who ARE (theoretically) mature adults should not be entering into sexual relationships with people who aren’t, especially if that mature adult is in a position of authority over the minor.

(Incidentally here’s a thread about that case over in MPSIMS if you’re interested: 30 days for Rape - Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share - Straight Dope Message Board )

3

English Law separates sexual activity with a 13-16 year old as different in nature from a less than 13 year old. This is a bit of an historical accident because age of consent used to be 13 in Victorian times.

In my mind there is a major difference between pre and post puberty sexual relations- both the yuk factor and the impact factor.

We had a recent case where a fourteen year old schoolgirl was shown to have been having sex with her much older teacher. He was jailed for five and a half years and will never teach again. The girl, now nearly 16, says that she will wait for him. She may be stupid and wasting her time, but I cannot see this sort of behaviour of consensual sexual activity as being statutory rape- what he was effectively sentenced for. And it is certainly nowhere near forced intercourse!

An historic case of a British Pop Star also shows inconsistency. He was jailed for consensual sex with male teenagers. At that time the law saw consensual sex between pop stars and female teenagers as not actionable.

I believe that the cases need to be treated on an ‘actual harm’ basis, and some of the worst cases need to be seen as medical rather than criminal.

But I do not believe that our population is able to use reason and proportion in these matters.

4

But how do you assess that (for legal purposes)?

5

Courts currently do that everyday using sentencing guidelines. Just that these guidelines tend to be overly punitive in some cases where political pressure is applied.

6

I have worked both with child sex offenders, and victims.

The things I learned were:

Use of the Criminal Law often makes a worse outcome for the victim.

Different victims react in different ways- some see the abuse as life defining and others see it as an episode among others in their lives.

The effects can be delayed by decades.

Many of the offenders are psychologically out of control in a manner that would be seen as ‘illness’ if it were not for the sexual nature of their offence.

The law was previously far more accepting of consensual cross 16 relationships, but pedo-fear has messed up a rational system and insisted on criminalisation.

7

I think the age of consent law in my state should definitely be tweaked. It’s ridiculous. It is a crime to have sex with anyone under 18 years of age (meaning two 15 year olds having sex are both guilty of sexual assault) but one can get married at 16.

So, if a 19 year old has sex with his 16 year old girlfriend he could go to jail, but if he married her first they can all the sex they want.

It’s the same act regardless if they’re married or not, but it’s a crime if you didn’t get a priest to sign a piece of paper? WTF?:confused:

8

It seems to me the primary consideration should bear on the nature of the relationship between the parties. A teacher is in a position of relative power/influence over a student, so such a case should be regarded as statutory rape. A case of two random teenagers, or a random adult and a random teenager should be considered based on How their relationship is structured. Just drawing arbitrary lines makes no sense in a complicated society, and we should have confidential neutral counselors who can advise people as to whether they should get involved with each other.

9

This is an interesting point. In the movie Trust (spoilers ahead), the middle aged guy is clearly a slimeball predator. He manipulates the girl, starts with a claim of being someone her age and slowly keeps admitting being older and older. If it were my daughter, I would have the same impulse of the Clive Owen character: wanting to kill him, and being a bit frustrated with my daughter for falling for such patently ridiculous bullshit. But what the movie made clear was that his response did not help her psychological health. Neither did publicly being taken out of her school by uniformed police.

And even more interestingly, she is made to go see a therapist, who is very kind and sympathetic and does not really strongly push against her version of the story when she keeps insisting this guy was her boyfriend, and what’s the big deal when other girls she knows sleep with the whole football team and no one cares etc.

But then due to her father’s dogged investigation, she finally realises that this guy has targeted other girls her age and even younger. She calls the therapist late at night and sprints over to see her on her bike and breaks down crying as she declares that she now realises she was essentially molested and now she feels so stupid and disgusted and so on. It’s sort of a breakthrough, but the films point of view is ambiguous. It is not really clear whether she might not have been better off just thinking that she had a more typical coming-of-age story: lost her virginity to this older guy and then he sort of blew her off.

My impression of American straight women is that most of them did not have a sweet, magical romance with the first guy they slept with (I started off using the common phrase “lost their virginity to” but then realised I don’t like the uncomfortable patriarchal implications of that construction); so this seems like it could make her feel less of a freak, to frame it that way instead.

10

I agree that having sex with anyone within maybe 3 years shouldn’t be a crime at all, as long as all parties are consenting.

I’m torn when it comes to older adults and pre-18 year olds. Although I feel that any adult that enters this kind of relationship when the laws make it illegal is an idiot. It’s not like shoplifting, which will sit on your record. This will screw with you for the rest of your life, dumbass.

But when it comes to an adult in a position of power over the pre-18 year old, I say through the book at them, and make sure the sharp corner hits first. Teachers, priests, parents, babysitters, troop leaders, coaches, etc. If there is an expectation that they should be looking out for the best interest of the kid, and they instead have sex with them, then I can think of no instances where I don’t consider this a major breach of trust and abuse of power. In addition, these people are too stupid and self-absorbed to be allowed to work with kids.

I know someone who has been convicted of sex with his daughter’s friend, who was also a member of a sports team he coached. I haven’t talked to him in about 25 years, but I do talk to his parents. Even if I assume that the girl was rational and mature enoguh to make this decision, the adult is a grade A moron, who didn’t think about the outcome of his actions. His wife divorced him, his kids have to live with the notoriety. His parents are taking over some of the raising of his kids, since he isn’t around and isn’t earning money. And him? He’s elegible for parole soon. Good luck having a career, finding someplace to live that isn’t out in the middle of the country, or getting to see your nieces, nephews or friends’ kids again.

11

In Trust, the young girl clearly did not want to have sex with him in the moment that it happened. Afterwards, her insistence that he was her boyfriend was merely a coping mechanism she used to avoid facing the fact that she’d been raped. IIRC, even before the rape, she was more than mildly put off that he’d lied to her and that he was, in fact, a much older man and hardly the teen vision she’d had of her ‘boyfriend’.

The things that her father revealed to her about the creep and other girls he’d taken advantage of forced her to admit and face the fear that she had, in reality, been raped. This wasn’t a new revelation to her, but it was something that she wouldn’t allow herself to be emotionally treated for without him breaking through the wall she was building. Without this breakthrough, who knows what would have become of her, but I hardly think she would have been better off burying something so deeply.

12

Why not? Perhaps you don’t realize this, but persons under the “age of consent” are not the only people legally incapable of consent. Leaving aside those incapable for reasons of mental disability or physical incapacity, there are the following reasons that I can think of offhand , depending upon the state and completely independent of age:

prisoners can’t consent to sex with any one who works or volunteers at the prison
parolees/probationers can’t consent to sex with parole/probation officers
someone receiving counseling from a psychiatrist/psychologist/social worker/mental health counselor/minister can’t consent to sex with that person

And of course, that prison employee who has sex with a prisoner will not only be fired, but has also committed a crime, as the prisoner can’t consent no matter his or her age. Why would teacher/student be different?

13

I don’t really have anything to contribute here but it drives me crazy when people just assume that the age of consent is universally accepted to be 18. It’s 16 in 30 US states and 18 in only 12 (wikipedia reference). And there’s a lot of other countries out there.

14

I don’t necessarily disagree with your point, but I would certainly say that the prisoner/jailer relationship is different in enough ways from the student/teacher relationship that it doesn’t make for a good analogy.

15

Except it’s often not just prisoner/jailer- that might be somewhat different, but I don’t think it kills the analogy. It’s also prisoner/switchboard operator or prisoner/volunteer from outside substance abuse program. Or prisoner/teacher.
And although I didn’t list them all separately, any relationship where one person is legally incapable of consenting to sex with the other is a crime. That’s what “incapable of consent” means . So in a state where a person can’t consent to sex with a social worker providing counseling, that social worker has committed a crime. I’m not sure that’s different from a student/teacher relationship at all.

16

ETA: Marie, I think you are misremembering, misapprehending, or misrepresenting some of the elements of that movie; but since this is not Cafe Society and most people participating in the thread likely haven’t seen it, I will leave it at that.

17

Well, it’s 18 here in Wisconsin. Except it’s legal to have sex with a 16/17 year old if the couple is married. This makes no sense to me. If it’s so horrible to have sex with a 16/17 year old (Class A Misdemeanor, 9 months, 10K fine and sex offender registration) why is it perfectly ok just because the couple went to the court house and bought a license? It just seems weird to me.

18

I agree that 18 is absurdly late to be able to consent to sex. Anyone who wants to argue that a 16 or 17 year old should legally be incapable of giving consent is just wrong. But in that vein, as I have argued here before, I think 18 is just too late to be the age of majority (or 21 if that’s technically the age of majority). Instead of moving the age of consent earlier than age of majority, keep them both together but move them BOTH earlier.

No, a 16 year old is not an adult in the same way a 36 year old is. But neither is an 18 year old. I would have absolutely no problems with a 16 year age of majority, where any 16 year old could consent to sex, enter into contracts, full legal employment, credit cards, voting, drinking, smoking and whatever else the fuck they want to do. The vast majority of 16 year olds are still going to be under their parent’s purview until they are at least 18, and will have to abide by their rules as long as they want to live under their roof. If they want to fuck off and get drunk and have indiscriminate sex, their parents can kick them out of the house.

And I’d like to also see that anyone engaging in sex, sexting, snapping photos of themselves and sharing them with others, or whatever, before the age of 16, is never ever guilty of any crime whatsoever. If a 14 year old girl wants to take a few topless photos of herself, or whatever the fuck she wants to do, it should be protected free speech, and if she wants to be an idiot and send those photos to other people, that should be her right. No one under the age of majority should ever be guilty of distributing pornography if it is of themselves and their own volition. It is a shame that our society labels minors as sex offenders and makes them serve time and get a permanent record because they sext with their boyfriends and girlfriends. This practice needs to stop, like yesterday.

That being said, if 18/21 is going to be the age of majority, then the age of consent needs to be lowered to at least 16 across the US. Abolish all romeo and juliet laws because they are awful and quite frankly embarrassing. And make sure that any 15 or younger people who engage in sex, photographing themselves, or whatever else it is they do, never get a criminal record unless force or coercion of some sort is involved.

19

How about arguing that 16 is too young to be capable of giving consent to becoming a parent? Teen pregnancy is one of the big things people worry about when it comes to kids having sex. I suppose there’s an argument to be made for a higher age of consent for P-in-V sex vs other kinds.

20

I think teen pregnancy is a different issue. We’re talking about (I think) situations when one of the partner can’t legally have sex with another. The only way to prevent teen pregnancy would be to prevent sex completely. I guess that in most cases, underage mothers had sex with an equally underage boy.
Regarding, the OP, I think that age of consent should be lower than 18 because the average age for the first intercourse is 17 (both in the USA and France). Law should take into account reality. And reality is that teen think they’re old enough to have sex (and to pick a partner) before 18 and act on this. I think the age of consent should be an age where some significant part of the population actually has had sex. Say, 15% (don’t know what age that would be). Over here the age of consent is 15, and I’m fine with it (although there must be Romeo and Juliet laws in all cases, so that two 14 yo having sex won’t be criminals).
ETA : according tothis page, 15 is the age at which about 15% of adolescents have had sex in the USA. So, it reinforces my opinion that 15 is the right age of consent (obviously, it’s a subjective opinion)