AFAIK sexual harassment is against the law everywhere in the US. If by crime you mean “felony” then I doubt it is.
Why would a psychiatrist have any idea how well a particular person can handle a weapon or fly a plane? I’d rather ask a gun safety instructor and a pilot.
Do you think we also need psychiatrists at the DMV to judge whether applicants are “mature” enough to drive a car, or is it enough to test them on how well they can actually drive a car?
No drinking/purchasing age at all: Armenia, China, Georgia, Slovenia (except public places)
Drinking/purchasing age 16 or lower: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, France*, Germany*, Indonesia, Italy, Malta, Netherlands, Spain
Drinking/purchasing age 18 or lower: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada* (Alberta/Manitoba/Quebec), Chile, Colombia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, Moldova, Mongolia, New Zealand*, Norway, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, Slovak Republic, Slovenia (public places), South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey, United Kingdom*, Uruguay, Venezuela
- = exceptions are made for adult/parental supervision
Cite: International Center for Alcohol Policies
Please forgive my ignorance about gun laws. I would hope that everyone who owns a gun can use it safely.
When has that ever been a problem?
Can I sell you a magic rock that keeps elephants away? I know it works because there are no elephants anywhere near here. 
However you want to phrase it, the law assumes that minors are incapable of deciding whether or not they’re willing to have sex. That’s what I have a problem with.
What we don’t know is how much of that damage was caused by the sexual contact itself, and how much was caused by the reactions of others. Seeing the guy you had sex with taken away in handcuffs, while your relatives tell you “don’t worry, you’ve been hurt but you’ll get through it, he was a very bad man and that was a very bad thing he did to you”, can turn good memories bad and bad memories worse.
You tell me.
Anyone who expected me to support a child at 18 would be a fool, since I was in no position to earn that much money. Would I have been a deadbeat parent, or would I have been off the hook? There’s the answer to your question.
How can a minor’s financial situation possibly affect his ability to give informed consent, when the same isn’t true of an adult?
If an adult is de facto unable (e.g. because of disability or lack of education) to earn enough money to support a child–which you agreed is possible–the law still considers him able to give informed consent to sex. A person who has sex with him isn’t guilty of rape or molestation, and I assume from your silence that you wouldn’t change that. Why the double standard?
Yeah, that must be why people are lining up in the streets to get expensive credit cards and big loans they can’t afford–just live like a king for a while, then file bankruptcy and whoosh, all your troubles are gone. Because bankruptcy’s a walk in the park, right?
I’d expect sex education classes would make young girls aware of that, so they could take extra precautions to avoid pregnancy and childbirth.
I know what the justifications for age of consent laws are. Protecting children from predators is a very noble goal, but age limits aren’t the only way to do it. Rape is rape, threats are threats, and coercion is coercion whether the victim is 13 or 18.
Or, often, to convince the district attorney’s daughter’s boyfriend to keep his hands to himself.
That’s exactly what I oppose. Many minors are fully capable, whether the law and the “vast majority of people” choose to recognize it or not. Defining all minors as incapable because it’s easier than judging them as individuals is a cop-out.
Too late. You’ve never heard of minors being tried as adults? A whole mess of lawmakers and judges seem to think that minors should be held fully responsible for their actions if they commit the “right” crime, but ask the same folks if minors should be able to vote or drink beer and you’ll get a totally different answer.
What about a 14 year old girl and a 15 year old boy? If anything, that’s even less likely to be about love, and more about two horny teens hooking up. The law isn’t there to make sure two people have a good romantic reason for being together, it’s there to protect people from force, fraud, and coercion.
Who says business owners would make the determination? The DMV decides who gets to drive, the election board decides who gets to vote, the department of labor decides who gets to work, and I suppose the ATF decides who gets to drink or own firearms.
The problem is, though, that nobody knows whether teens are ready to take on those rights better than the teens themselves. Johnny might be ready to cut the apron strings at 16, and his brother Freddie might not be ready until 18, but the law treats them both as faceless demographics instead of individuals.
Those exceptions you speak of are few and far between, as one other poster has already mentioned.
Of course mature youths aren’t the norm. Neither are strong women, but that doesn’t mean women don’t get to be firefighters. It just means they have to prove their strength as individuals.
I’d like to see the evidence that shows everyone matures at the same rate.
What I think you’ll find is that 15 year olds on average have a certain level of “maturity” (in any given field of experience), which means about half of them are below average, and the other half are above average. The ones who are above average are ready for more rights and responsibilities.
Indeed, and black people can “apply for whiteness” by bleaching their skin (just ask Michael Jackson). That doesn’t mean it’s right to judge a person based on something he was born with and can’t control, whether it’s race or age.
The fact that age changes over time is a meaningless distinction, because it’s still uncontrollable - you have even less control over your age than your skin color. Indeed, age is already a legally protected criterion just like race, but only if the person in question is older than 45 (?).
I’ll thank you and your ilk to stop making insinuations. I have no problem meeting women my own age.
Contrary to some posters’ delusions, it’s possible to have an opinion on the age of consent without being a closet pedophile, just as it’s possible to have an opinion on gay rights without being a closet homosexual, or an opinion on abortion without being a pregnant woman.
By “difficult situation” you must mean being full of alcohol and quaaludes? That’s rape no matter how old she is.
I have known a few situations which disagree with that, doreen. I won’t go into details, but neither of the people involved where in a leader position above the other, in any sense, unless you consider age, and there were large age gaps.
The most effective “precautions” (other than abstinence, which you apparently reject for children) available to girls are hormonal. I’m sure I don’t have to explain the problems with putting healthy young girls in early puberty on hormones.
I never rejected abstinence! Legally mandated abstinence, yes. Abstinence-only sex education, yes. It’s unrealistic to expect abstinence from all teens. But if abstinence is the safest choice, I’d expect sex education to emphasize that, and I’d personally suggest it.
Regarding hormones, I can imagine the problems… but on the other hand, I’ve known at least one 13-14 year old girl who was on Depo.
And I think we differ about what we think consent is—I believe it’s knowing the consequences and be willing to live up to them—not pawning some of the consequences on some third party, who has no input or say in the “informed consent”.
So I’m asking—how can a child “consent” to something that may not just affect them, but other people (the people who are legally responsible for them, and are expected to cover for them when get over their heads and make dumb decisions)? Their “consent” may very well cost someone else a lot of money, inconvenience or grief.
I am not an expert on child support policies, but I believe that the minute you got a job, your wages would be garnished. By hook or by crook, sooner or later, you would pay. You would not be let off the hook.
I have a friend who is dead broke, and yet the courts keep expecting him to pay lots (too much, in my opinion) of child support. He worries about having his electricity cut off. He’s broke. But if he doesn’t cough up that money, he could end up in jail, or contempt of court.
I also know that some parents, who resent being expected to pay child support, travel from town to town and get paid in cash so their wages cannot be garnished. (One of my friend’s ex-husband did that.) Or, they just stop working completely. But once they do start making money, all that child support is due. ALL of it, even years later. So unless a deadbeat dad expects to never work again, live on the run, or live an impoverished life, sooner or later he is expected to pay up.
I may have gotten some of the details of this incorrect, but I think in general terms, my account is pretty close. Now, I don’t know for sure, but I am assuming that a 12 year old minor child who was a victim of statutory rape could not be expected to pay child support of any child that was a result of that statutory rape. But, if things are changed in the way you seem to prefer, I’m guessing that a 12 year old could decide that they are indeed independent enough to have a kid of their own, and would end up being on the hook for support for 18 years. Hell, I think it already can happen (in the case of two teenaged lovers who have a baby) but I believe the dynamic and expectations are slightly different, because these teenaged parents are still under the care of their parents.
Because a minor is still under the care of their parent or guardian, who is legally (and financially) responsible for them.
And the law also expects him to pay child support, (or otherwise be responsible for his actions) by hook or by crook, no matter how long it takes.
Because the irresponsible adult does not have someone legally responsible for them. They are responsible for themselves. They can’t go back to mommy and daddy and expect them to bail them out. Oh, I know that some adults do go to someone else to bail them out, but they are an adult, and they no longer have a legal guardian. No one is obligated to bail them out.
Also, it goes without saying that far more adults are able to be (at least partially) responsible for their own actions and decisions.
When you are 25, 30, 40 years old, you still have to make a living and support yourself and family during the bankruptcy process. If a 12 year old has a ball “living it up” with their new-found “adulthood” and then decides that it’s too much for them, they can go back to being a kid. Meaning, parents or guardians supporting them, no full time job, no responsibilties. Whoosh. All those nasty responsibilities gone. Sure, maybe their credit will be screwed up for a while, but how long does that last? (I did a quick search. This site seems to say that 7 - 10 years after you file for Chapter 7 or 13 bankruptcy it’ll be on your credit report.) So how old will a 12 year old be in 10 years? 22? Big whoop. Maybe they’ll still be in college at that age.
Another thing I want to know—if a kid decides they want to be an adult, and then later decides they can’t handle it, are their parents obligated to take them back? Maybe their parents have already rented out their room. 
Well, there you go. If that isn’t enough incentive to be careful with contraception, or even to stay celibate, then I don’t know what is.
All those lovely rights gone, too.
Want to go to a friend’s house or the mall? Better hope Mom has the time and willingness to drive you there and back. Your favorite band is playing at a nightclub, and all your responsible friends are going? Better hope you can hear them from the street. Want to make your voice heard in the upcoming school board election? Too bad.
I imagine that would depend on the particular circumstances; just like a bankruptcy hearing looks at your assets, one of these hearings would look at the minor’s ability to support himself.
Note, though, that the whole “turning back” thing came from the ASFAR FAQ (as quoted by doreen), not from me. I have no strong feelings one way or the other about it, and I wouldn’t be upset if these changes were implemented without any way to undo the “adulthood” process.
But apparently it isn’t enough of an incentive. Because (as we all know from multiple threads on the subject) some men lament about being “trapped” into fathering children they don’t want. Because they are unable (or too irresponsible) to accept celibacy as an option. We all know this.
Or maybe you can take the bus. Unless your mom is an unreasonable shrew (a risk, I know) or unless you have been deemed too irresponsible to go out by yourself. As for me, when I was a teenager, I wandered into somewhat seedy areas of Hollywood (like Hollywood Blvd.) so I could shop at my favorite music store. My parents trusted me. I gave them no reason not to.
Besides, it’s a trade off—being taken care of and supported (legally and financially) by someone else means that that “someone else” has a stake in your welfare. They’re on the hook (at least somewhat) for what you do, where you go.
Oh, boo hoo hoo. Once again, I (and a lot of other kids) were allowed to go out with our “responsible” friends. We had given our parents no reason to not trust us.
::shrug:: I don’t quite know why a kid can’t speak up at a school board election. But if that’s a huge stumbling block, perhaps you should address that grievous injustice separately.
Gee, yosemitebabe, you want to change the child support laws? Maybe you should start a thread about that.
Child support laws are a separate issue, one that I don’t care to address right now. I’d be content to have minors subject to the same laws as adults, whatever those laws might be now and however they might be changed in the future.
Good to see you live in an area with an efficient, reliable bus system that takes you where you need to go. Most of us don’t.
If I didn’t have a car, I’d have to walk for miles to find a bus stop, then hope my destination was near a bus route. Even if I got lucky, a simple 5 minute drive would turn into a journey of one or two hours, which would have to be planned in advance. If I wanted to go to Coeur D’Alene (40 minutes by car), I’d have to hitchhike, 'cause the Spokane buses sure don’t go to Idaho.
I think you misunderstood me. Were your parents the ones checking IDs at the club door?
I’m not talking about parents taking away their kids’ privileges as some kind of punishment. I’m talking about the loss of legal rights as a reason that undoing (or perhaps initiating) the process of adulthood wouldn’t be taken lightly.
Let me introduce you to a concept called voting, which is the purpose of the election. “Speaking up” is fine, but the election is decided by counting votes, not comments.
Ah yes! Why not? It’s never been done before!
And no one’s heart would break, and no one would complain of the injustice that the poor 12 year old saddled with child support payments, before they’ve really started to earn a living? Yeah, I can see that happening. :rolleyes:
Not to get into the whole child support thing either, except for this: Child support policies (at least so far as they apply to parents actually being expected to support their kids) are not going to change. Not going to happen. So, the sometimes harsh and unyeilding child support laws should (according to you) apply to the 12 year old.
You think Los Angeles has an “efficient, reliable bus system”?!?!? It is to laugh. It took about 1 1/2 to 2 hours to get to downtown L.A. by bus from where I lived. It was a 20 minute drive by car. Maybe Metrorail has made some of that easier; I wouldn’t know, I’ve never needed to use the Metrorail much. But I still took the bus. Like many people do, when they can’t afford a car, or car insurance.
And how high do you think car insurance would be for a 12 year old, anyway? How many insurance companies will cover 12 year old drivers, do ya think? And if no insurance companies would cover 12 year olds, would you support a law which forced them to?
I never needed ID to go to the Hollywood Bowl. Not all clubs require ID.
Why wouldn’t they? Many kids would be (and are) extraordinarily foolhardy. I could very easily see some of them taking on “adulthood” on a lark. They wouldn’t be thinking ahead, they wouldn’t be thinking about 6 months from the present. They wouldn’t think of the things they’d be “giving up”. Because they’d be giving up much less than they’d be getting—all their responsibilities wiped out. No job, no debts. Sounds like a deal!
And I hasten to add, not all kids have the same priorities. As a kid, I didn’t want to go to clubs that required an ID. As I mentioned before, the Hollywood Bowl doesn’t require an ID. So, if the kid were somewhat nerdy like me, giving up “adulthood” wouldn’t be as grievous a sacrifice at all. I was used to the bus, I didn’t care about going to clubs which require ID, what exactly would I give up, except for a lot of irresponsible debts and obligations?
Oh, a thousand pardons, sir. It would help if you’d introduce the word “vote” instead of “speak up”, so I don’t get a visual picture of a kid literally “speaking up”.
I am very confused about this whole ‘apply for adulthood’ thing. If it can be revoked, or the child can decide to revert to childhood status, it sounds like a free pass to do whatever you’d like for a set period of time. Also, assuming it gets revoked…aren’t you still an adult at 18 anyway? or can you be barred from getting majority rights indefinitely?
i guess i’m confused by why you have such a huge objection to kids, having no financial or legal responsibilities, being paired with parents acting as proxy in those realms. most kids don’t WANT the responsibilities of adulthood- indeed, most are unaware of what most of them are, and only see adult priveledges. we phase them into adult responibilities and priveledges so that they can hopefully handle it when they are of age and have no choice but to shoulder their own burden.
I’ve known 13-14 year old girls who’ve done all sorts of questionable and unhealthy things too. Being on Depo at 13 beats being pregnant at 13, but it’s still not a stunningly good idea.
Often? You got some cites for that. A vast, vast, vast, vast majority of these charges involve adults molesting children, not children messing around with each other. But I’m sure you’d rather allow those 1% to be unprosecuted than protect the other 99% from sexual abuse by adults.
Again we’re back to the idea of yours that I find reprehensible, that it is better to allow the minority of 11 year olds who can consent to have sex than it is to protect the majority of others that can’t. It’s not a cop out, it’s what the law does: sets general rules soceity should conduct themselves by.
For certain heinous crimes, yes. But, once again, a vast majority of juvenile offenders are handled in the juvenile justice system. .
**I think you’re, once again, way off base. I’ve yet to see any lawmaker call for a dismantlement of the juvenile justice system and the treatement of all juvenile offenders as adults. And, what preciselly are YOUR feelings? Do away with the juvenile justice system?
Putting aside all the intelligent reasoning behind the age of consent laws and focusing only on whether an child consented to sex ignores completely my prior argument about a child’s sucespitibility to suggestion and coercion. Nearly every single non-violent child molester thinks that the victim, even as young as 2, had consented. The child may say yes, but it is nowhere near actual consent. How can the State possibly prove, without age of consent laws, that a 2, 8, 11, or 15 year old, didn’t consent? By not running away or refusing to do whatever act the molester wanted the child to do, you have consent. Simple coercion isn’t enough to prove guilt. Your plan would put so many more children at risk, and lead to so much more sexual abuse of children, all in favor of one hypothetical child who is mature beyond her years. That kind of rationale is seriously scary.
I totally agree with Hamlet on this one. the law allows exceptions to our age-based laws in extreme cases- whether in the case of expanded rights where minors bear majority responsibility, or adult punishments where crimes are judged too heinous to be handled effectively in the existing juvenile system.
removing our separate systems for those few who may be ready would be a disservice to the vast majority who are not, and who would be open to being used by adults who should know better.
A few things to point out right now:
“Average age of first menstruation in whites is 12.8 years and in
African-Americans is 8 months earlier.”
http://www.monitor.net/rachel/r566.html
If we take menstruation as one of the basic signs of sexual maturity, I think that Mr2001 might want to consider changing his age of consent to at least twelve or thirteen. Without the hormones starting to kick in, you’re not really going to even want sex anyway. And since menstruation comes pretty early in the whole cycle… If you’re going to make a law, make it for the majority of the people. Most 11-year old girls aren’t on the road to womanhood yet. However, most 14-year olds are.
What about boys?
“Generally girls start puberty before boys”
http://www.addenbrookes.org.uk/shac/normal/female/fe_puberty.html#when
Most sites I looked at said that girls start about two years earlier than boys. But most of the posters here are concerned about girls being victimized, even though they’re more mature than the boys are. Granted, in actual cases of rape (use of coercion or force), the victim is female and the perpetrator is male. But if we’re simply talking about people being unready…
I think the issue being discussed here, despite people’s concerns, is the right of teenagers to have sex with teenagers. Frankly, I think the law here is sort of moot, because the teenagers really don’t care. They’re not going to stop having sex just because it’s illegal. They’re not gonna rush out and make babies just because the laws get changed. There’s a lot of people making slippery slope arguments here, and that’s what we like to call a logical fallacy.
As far as teenagers having sex with adults… It’s a tricky issue, and it’s hard to avoid knee-jerk responses. I would probably keep the sliding scale (In other words, it’s not the age of the youngest person, but the age difference between)… I don’t know. It’s hard to think about it rationally.
My question for those who are so firmly against changing the age of consent - what is your feeling about minors being tried as adults? To me, it’s ridiculous to say that a person doesn’t understand the enormity of sex, but they do understand the enormity of murder. I’m fairly over the age of consent now, and I still can’t fully wrap my head around death. But we live in a hypocritical society.
I don’t have the best driving record myself, and there are a number of demographic factors working against me, but I’ve never been unable to find insurance at all. My prediction is that some companies wouldn’t accept young drivers, but most would, at rates slightly higher than 16 year olds pay now.
I think rates for older teens would drop at the same time. Older teens pay high rates because as a group, they’re inexperienced and more likely to be involved in an accident (though not the most likely group in terms of accidents per mile). If a significant number of teens started driving younger, older teens would be more experienced drivers as a group.
The ones that serve alcohol often do. Some clubs have special 21+ shows even though they serve alcohol at regular shows. It’s an issue that does affect many young people.
Or to turn it around, what would you gain from “adulthood”? Why would you go through the troublesome process in the first place if you’re happy as a second-class citizen?
I have no objection to adults acting as proxy for kids for the period of time that they don’t have adult rights or repsonsibilities. The problem is that there’s no way to change that situation if the kids are ready for those rights and responsibilities before reaching an arbitrary age.
Most kids may not want the responsibilities, but if the rights came at the same time, you can be sure that 1) they’d know what the responsibilities are, and 2) many of them would decide the rights are worth the responsibilities.
Not quite. We spend 18 years telling them they have no rights of their own and they have to rely on others, then suddenly we switch gears and dump them into the real world. During that time they may obtain the right to drive and consent to sex (depending on the state), but everything else is held back until 18.
Then they have three years to focus and obsess over the one right they still don’t have: drinking. And what do they do on their 21st birthday? Get as drunk as possible, often with no idea of how alcohol will affect them or how much they can hold.
Strawman. Many authorities are more than happy to try kids as adults for certain crimes, as if killing a person is a rite of passage. These suspects bear the responsibilities of an adult, but still none of the rights.
Note the word suspects. They aren’t moved into the adult justice system as punishment for being convicted of a crime, they’re moved there based on an accusation.
I’d tie the choice of justice system to the balance of all the other rights and responsibilities, on some sort of spectrum, just like parental support as I mentioned earlier. Those minors who have no interest in adult rights or responsibilities will be tried as juveniles; those who want all the rights will be tried as adults; those in the middle will be tried as one or the other, depending on the exact balance of their rights.
Expanded responsibilities are much more common than expanded rights. Think of the last time you heard of a minor being tried as an adult… now try to think of the last time you heard of a 14 year old getting a driver’s license.
“Average age” means some are earlier, and some are later.
Mr2001-
where does schooling fall in your calculations of the responsibilities of the child? in my household, my son is aware that his ‘job’ is school. if he is to order his life like an adult, where does school come in?
also- i think that you are dreaming re:insurance for 12 year old drivers at anything approaching reasonable rates. i also think that you are making the mistake of seeing 4 years = 4 years = 4 years…but the gap between 12 and 16 is decades compared to 16-20 and an eternity compared to 20-24. that’s based on a whole lot of factors, most biological.
i’m trying to see where you’re coming from, but it does come across as ‘i’m mature for my age, so i should be able to do what i want’…and who among us did not think or say this to our folks growing up?
where you are looking for maximum freedom (and risk), most of us as seeking to provide maximum protection for kids…and given where society has been (and remains in third world nations), and where we are now, i can’t see an argument that this shift has been a bad thing.
First of all, I would be very surprised to find that a minor anywhere in the US can get a driver’s license without parental permission. Which ties into my real point, which is that minors certainly can and should be phased into adult priviliges and responsibilities. My 13 year old daughter decided what high school she’s going to next year. She couldn’t enroll herself, or sign the contract agreeing to pay the tuition, but she was capable of deciding where she wanted to attend, and I as a parent have every right to allow her to make that decision. Except for the few things for which government sets a minimum age (drinking, driving, voting,holding certain types of jobs) parents can allow their children to make most decisions. You’re 17, can afford to pay off a car loan but can’t get the loan because you’re under 18? No law prevents your parents from taking out the loan for you. Same thing for a credit card. A 15 year old may not be able to get a credit card, but no law prevents a parent from making a 15 year old an authorized user on an acount the parent is responsible for. On a practical (but not legal ) level, parents can even allow minor children to consent to sex. A 14 year old may not legally be able to consent to sex with a 22 year old, but if no one complains, how likely are the police to find out?
Well, there are ways to change at least part of the situation. One is for the parents to allow it. Another is to use the procedures available in at least some states to become emancipated. But there is still going to be an arbitrary age for a lot of things- such as driving. You might be able to convince me that a particular15 year old should be able to get a driver’s license without parental permission (as long as those parents won’t be responsible for any damage caused), but you’ll never convince me that any five year old, even one who can pass a road test has the judgement necessary to drive. Most of them haven’t got the judgement to cross the street alone. Even your statement
assumes a certain level of maturity on the kid’s part. Sure a fifteen year old might know what the responsibilities are (and I believe that most of them wouldn’t decide the rights are worth the responsibilites- there doesn’t seem to be rush of minors seeking emancipation. In fact, barring a horrendous home situation, it seems to me that the more mature 15 year olds, would be the least likely to seek emancipation.).A seven year old is a different story. You seem to be against any arbitrary age limits, not merely taking the position that they are currently set too high. You would find far more people willing to agree that a 15 year old or even a 13 year old should legally be able to consent to sex than will agree that theoretically a 2 year old should be able to. I suspect that even though you seem to be against any arbitrary age limits, you actually have a particular age range in mind, perhaps without realizing it.
I put the average age of menstruation down for a reason. Girls start as early as eight and as late as sixteen. However, most eight year-olds aren’t menstruating, and most sixteen year-olds are. I’ll say it again - if you want to make a law, make it for the MAJORITY of people, not the minority. The majority of eleven and twelve year-olds, from what I gathered by looking things up, aren’t quite physically ready for sex. If you’re not developed enough for sex, the hormones that make you want sex aren’t kicking in, you have no reason to give consent. That’s my point.
There’s a lot of dwelling on extreme cases in this thread. I realize that there are eleven year-olds that are fully developed. I realize that there are thirteen year-olds getting pregnant. I realize that there are teenagers having sex with much older partners. But these are extreme examples - they are not the majority of cases. There’s got to be some middle ground in this situation.