What does “it’s your fault” mean in this scenario? The teacher claims the kid raped her? Something else?
Perhaps you are limiting your concerns (or lack of them) to that side of the equation; I’m not at all sure that the other participants in this thread are.
And, if you don’t feel that having your girlfriend labeled as a sexual predator would be classified as something “going wrong” for the boy in this hypothetical, then…wow, you’re coming across pretty shallow or callous.
Took advantage of her in a vulnerable situation, stalked her, sexually harassed her, raped her etc.
Maybe, but I am responding to this post:
Boys under the age of consent can be accused of raping an adult?
You make a great case for no man to have sex with anyone ever. 
When a relative of mine was 18 and walking her dog, she would see a 5 year-old boy playing in the nearby yard. About 12 years later, she began dating the boy. 5 years after that, they were married.
Three years after that, I became their son.
I had heard of that case, but didn’t know the ages of the guys. Thanks.
That’s actually quite scary, but a little different.
Of course, this means you think a woman might falsely declare that her underage student committed rape.
And, that could happen to any guy at any time. Not limited to a 17 year old having sex with his teacher. There are no downsides other than those faced by all men at all times.
That may be true, but he was responding to your question in post #45:
…which suggests that you didn’t think (or realize) that it was possible.
Getting laid AND getting an A AND getting 18 years of child-support payments… maybe not so much.
Potentially, sure - she could claim he raped her, drugged her, threatened her…
And yes, older men have these worries, too, but an older and more experienced man is more equipped to either try to avoid such negative consequences or deal with them if they do happen.
Uh… sure, why not?
Underage kids get tried for theft, murder, assault, drug use, all sorts of things.
They may well be interested, that doesn’t mean he’s not taking advantage. 3 of my friends when I was a teen had sex with the same 34 year old, when they were 14/15. I knew both them and him well enough to know that they were all interested, it wasn’t purely coercion on his part. That doesn’t make his actions in the least OK.
Do you think that’s OK?
Do you think it’s only not OK because there were 3 of them, so he clearly wasn’t really bothered about them?
How young is not OK even if they’re interested?
Society has to draw a line somewhere, taking it case by case would mean interrogating kids about how much they wanted it. I certainly don’t think that would be an improvement.
I do have issues with the way some places handle cases where both participants are pretty much the same age, but the boy is automatically presumed to be the instigator, but an adult should be responsible enough to say no to sex with an underage child.
If you’re wondering, the guy did get convicted and wound up spending 2 years in prison.
Oh, and I’m also glad I didn’t go to a school where sleeping with the teachers was how you got an A.
Because of the assumed immaturity of age we don’t allow 17 year old boys to enter into plenty of other legally binding situations of considerably less length and financial consequence than paternity.
I agree that we have to draw the line somewhere (though I think we need to be more consistent about where the line is as a species) but we’re fooling ourselves by saying the line is meaningful, rather than arbitrary. For one thing, the line is all over the place - it varies across the US and in other countries, for no real reason. For another, such policies don’t seem to result in people making better choices about their sex lives, but rather simply delay when they start making them. Your friends all banged the same uncaring loser at 15, and that sucks. But you haven’t seen such behavior since? I have - multiple times, by people 30 and 45 years old. Is the goal that people not fuck up until they’re old enough to be drunk at the time, because that seems to be the chief side effect.
And I’m always struck by the fact that such age disparities were common for most of human history; my grandmother married my older grandfather at 15 and they were together till he died. A friend of mine’s 32 year-old mother married her 16 year-old father and five kids later their still going strong (aside from school friends asking why their grandmother always picked them up from school, which she hated).
I see why we do what we do, but I’m not always certain it’s the right thing to do. You wrote that we can’t interrogate both parties to see where they were but the truth is we can. We don’t want to, because we likely don’t want to hear a 14 year-old say “Hey, I was just looking to get laid” or a 30-something say they’re in love with a teen, which might be true in both cases, uncomfortable as that is.
No I didn’t write that we couldn’t, I wrote that we shouldn’t. I don’t give a crap if a 30 year old says they’re in love with a teen, I’m more concerned about the expected result of slut shaming underage kids. If an adult can get out of statutory rape charges defence of ‘she/he wanted it really’, that’s what statutory rape trials will become. Attempting to prove that claim.
Besides, if some 30 year old is desperately in love with someone underage, what’s preventing them from waiting until the kid is over the age of consent? They don’t need a loophole. My own parents met when my mother was 17 and my Dad was 25, age of consent here is 16. I don’t have a problem with them getting together, neither do I think it would have killed 'em to wait a few months if that’s what the law said.
We don’t allow other age limits to be dropped in individual cases because ‘they really want to’ even when the laws are designed for their protection. Kids aren’t allowed to buy cigarettes because they reckon they’re mature for their age.
isn’t the poster couple for this the prez of france and his wife? she was a teacher and he was younger at her school supposedly they waited but theres whispers that he might of been as young as 15 when it started ……
But some thing ive noticed …the op is only a worry in the first world mostly …in some societies you get the “aunty” effect where girls wont marry a boy unless hes been “experienced” with an older woman when I asked why that was the girl said it ensures that "teenage horniness wear its self out " and he gets taught on the finer skills on how to treat a girl ……
What societies would that be?
Of course, that tagline has a double meaning.
Even at eighteen, many people’s hearts are not healthy enough for sex, although other parts of their bodies clearly are. If society really wanted to protect the hearts of the younger, more fragile members, it would make it illegal to engage in sex with anyone under the age of 26 or so. But, that is a bit unrealistic as the hormonal drive is so strong it would only result in a society of criminals.
The hearts of men and women mature at different rates. No doubt, some of that is due to the different ways society treats the different genders, which society can change. But, some of that is due to the effects hormonal differences that exist between the sexes have on the developing heart. The latter cannot be changed by society. This is part of why the double-standard for these relationships exists.
For much of the past, society has treated gender and sex as being synonymous. Now, as a society we are trying to separate sex from gender. This may be good for society or bad, the result will have to be seen. It does complicate things to the point that a simple double-standard will not let society know how to behave.