In the Indiana criminal code it says
IC 35-42-4-3
© It is a defense that the accused person reasonably believed that the child was sixteen (16) years of age or older at the time of the conduct.
Well, there are two sides to this one.
One of my friends used to deliberatly seduce men, usually ones she met hitchiking etc, and after the fact inform them that she was only fourteen. She told me she got quite a kick out of it. This was circa 1977. Several other friends started having sex at about thirteen and pretty much jumped anything that walked. I don’t suppose sex is quite the “Sport” it was in those days - Aids and all - but I’d guess there are still a few girls like them around. Ever take a good listen to the lyrics of “Young Girl”?
Personally I waited until I was sixteen and my partner was someone I had dated for a year and would stay with for four more.
I DO think the men who slept with my friends were slimeballs, for the most part, but more because of the “One Night Stand” thing than the age issue. They often had no idea of their real ages. These girls were also mature looking enough to get into bars.
Being an instructor at a college I see a lot of senior-year-highschool relationships ending and new more mature relationships hatching. Whether you are attracted to younger looking women, or attracted to girls, one still has the ability to judge an age. I see plenty freshmen girls coming to college at 17, 18 years old. Some look slightly younger, some look considerably older.
If you Anal Scurvy come home for summer session and hook up with someone who is hanging out with your friends, of whom you do not know her age. I’d say you got over her youngness quite quickly to hook-up with her.
The circumstances could have rapidly changed, and she could have woke up in the morning next to you and wondered…“Oh god what did I do?”
Then run home told mommy and daddy and all of a sudden a night of love turns into a cold stint in jail.
Sound like too much information? My first year as an instructor, this happened to a junior here at my school. That was 6 years ago, I believe he is still there.
The whole situation people are describing in this thread depend solely on the emotions of said young girl. It is much better dating/hooking up with someone of ones own age.
The first time I had sex, I was 14. The guy in question was 24. It wasn’t an issue then, and now, 15 years later, I don’t have a problem with it. It was right for us and I stand by my decision to have sex with him. He didn’t have sex with me because I was “a little girl”. He wasn’t a sexual predator. We both discussed it at length before taking the step into a sexual relationship. We both knew what we were getting ourselves into.
I see all this discussion here about the issues of statutory rape etc and while I appreciate that those laws are valid and exist to protect young people who do not fully appreciate the consequences of their actions, do not forget that sometimes those young people are quite capable of making adult decisions. Don’t assume that the older partner is a paedophile, victimiser or pathetic loser. I resent that implication.
gets off the soapbox
Max.
Maxxie–there is an age, isn’t there, where the adult has 100% responsibility for taking advantage of a child, isn’t there? When a child is three years old, say, we can safely assume that the child is utterly incapable of making a choice as to the wisdom of having sex with an adult, right?
Right?
Okay, now, then what the law is doing is imposing its judgment on when it is agreed that the child has enough maturity to be capable of making such a choice, and the law generally puts that age very specifically at a certain date. Until that date, it’s the adult’s decision. Not “It all depends on how the child feels about it,” right, because the three-year old may well voice the feeling that she “wants” to have sex, likes sleeping with ‘Daddy,’ and we quite properly disregard any such expressions.
You may not like being treated legally as a child when you’re sixteen or seventeen (I know I resented the hell out of it, and insisted that I was 100% grownup) but as long as the law makes that arbitrary decision, an adult had better think of himself as simply breaking the law, because that’s sure how the law is going to regard it.
You don’t have to put terms like “victimizing loser” on his behavior if you choose not to, but if you had changed your mind and (as teenagers are wont to do) decided to show off your power by complaining to the cops, your lover would have been in terrible trouble any time you chose to put him there. As long as the law grants you the right to have someone imprisioned for having voluntary sex with you, that someone is deciding that the sex is worth the risk, and I’m sorry but that smacks of a sick need to me, and not a rational decision.
It may be the wise thing to do, but there’s something distinctly unromantic about asking for photo ID before sex.
Under Oregon law if you have sex with somebody under the age of sixteen, it is not a defense that you believed her to be older.
However, if she is actually 16 but you reasonably believed her to be 18, it is a defense.
I don’t completely understand the logic in that, but that’s what the Great State of Oregon has decided to do.
I wonder how many readers of this thread will be beating a path to Alberta.
Okay I remember being that young and if a if I wanted I could have done more exploring but thats not the point of sex. It more than having babies. Unlike animals we want sex for many reasons so are just for the simple joy but grownups should know that can and does damage you. Even if you are not aware of for a long time. Even if the intent was not to hurt just have fun and they want to and you wanted whats the harm. But there is damage. She learns that this is okay and fun. she can not see what this will cost her. Thats what makes it wrong. To protect those who can not speak for thenselves and to even protect them from themselves. As an adult you should be able to reason where as teenage we just react. When treat something as powerful as sex as nothing that somehow speak of your whole self.
There is know way that you should have any real relationship with someone that young. So there that leaves only one reason for you wanting to be with 14 and thats because you know that you can control them more. You are there god what could they conpare you to. You there to use them so that you feel good and do not care what happens to that other persons. That is someone daughter. She is worth more even if she does not know it. and you are worth far less.
“I wonder how many readers of this thread will be beating a path to Alberta.”
None. The US has a law that prohibits any US citizen from having sex with anyone under 18 in another country.
Why not just go to NH, USA, legal age of consent is 13 or Hawaii, 14?
Well, I always met their folks first & got permission. I had not got turned down once from the folks. Young women don’t have much to say & I like to talk about stuff so they never were very interesting.
handy: Doesn’t that same law prohibit crossing state lines also for the same purpose?
In answer to the OP: Apparently not–http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=184742.