# Teenagers Have a Civil Right to Have Sex? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 15, 2004, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenagers-have-a-civil-right-to-have-sex/274880 "2004-11-15T17:10:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Ms2001](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ms2001/32/18463_2.png) [@Ms2001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms2001)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2004, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenagers-have-a-civil-right-to-have-sex/274880/21 "2004-11-16T06:26:44Z")
> [@kniz](#): > > There is no law against teenagers having sex. The laws are against adults having sex with minors. Not so. IIRC, there’s at least one state (California) where it’s illegal for two minors to have sex. > [@](#): > > Why does the question of rights come up for teenagers? What about those oppressed 2 year olds? They are rebelling but don’t know about rights. Is that fair? Are you seriously comparing teenagers to toddlers here? If you can find a 2 year old who has the physical capacity to participate in sex and the mental capacity to know what is or is not sexual, to anticipate and protect against disease and other consequences, and to express his/her consent or lack thereof, then it’ll make sense to talk about toddlers’ sexual rights. I’m not holding my breath, though. ---
**Author:** ![rfgdxm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c0e974/32.png) [@rfgdxm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rfgdxm)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2004, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenagers-have-a-civil-right-to-have-sex/274880/22 "2004-11-16T06:36:43Z")
> [@Mr2001](#): > > Not so. IIRC, there’s at least one state (California) where it’s illegal for two minors to have sex. Yep. [http://www.ageofconsent.com/california.htm](http://www.ageofconsent.com/california.htm) > [@](#): > > In re T.A.J. (1998) 62 Cal.App.4th 1350 [73 Cal.Rptr.331]. Court of Appeal, First District, Division 2. > From: ([Site Has Moved](http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/programs/childrenandthecourts/case_law/delinque/delinquency-13.htm)) > > A juvenile court petition was filed alleging that a 16-year-old boy had sexual intercourse with a 14-year-old female. The > petition alleged the child engaged in statutory and forcible rape. At the jurisdictional hearing the only issue was > whether the sexual encounter was consensual. The juvenile court found that the act was consensual and that the > statutory rape charge was true, but made no finding with regard to the forcible rape count. The child appealed, > contending that Penal Code section 261.5 was unconstitutional, both facially and as applied to him. Specifically, he > contended that the statute (1) violated his right to privacy under the California Constitution and (2) may not be > constitutionally applied to him since he was a member of the class the statute was designed to protect. The Court of > Appeal rejected both contentions. First, the court held that American Academy of Pediatrics v. Lungren (1997) 16 > Cal.4th 307, did not confer upon children the right to engage in consensual sexual intercourse. “While we do not ignore > the reality that many California teenagers are sexually active, that fact alone does not establish that minors have a > right to privacy to engage in sexual intercourse. We accept the premise that due to age and immaturity, minors often > lack the ability to make fully informed choices that take account of both immediate and long-range consequences.” > The court further found that the reasonable expectation of privacy that exists for a child deciding whether to have an > abortion (American Academy of Pediatrics v. Lungren, supra, 16 Cal.4th at p.373), “cannot be imputed to their > decision to engage in consensual sexual intercourse.” On the child’s second contention, the court noted that the > legislative intent behind the statutory rape law was to make illegal sexual intercourse both between children and adults > and between children. Although children cannot be prosecuted for felony statutory rape (unlawful intercourse between > an adult and a child) because the child is the victim in such a crime, there is no parallel with regard to misdemeanor > statutory rape, which by its terms involves sexual intercourse between two children. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2004, 10:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenagers-have-a-civil-right-to-have-sex/274880/23 "2004-11-16T10:01:40Z")
> [@kniz](#): > > There is no law against teenagers having sex. The laws are against adults having sex with minors. No. Plenty of states criminalize teenagers having sex. In Virginia, for example, two fifteen-year-olds having sex violate Va Code § 18.2-63. ---
**Author:** ![Tabby\_Cat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Tabby\_Cat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tabby_Cat)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2004, 10:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenagers-have-a-civil-right-to-have-sex/274880/24 "2004-11-16T10:21:04Z")
Hmm… I don’t really see the problem here. Residual rights - you have the right to do anything that the government doesn’t say you can’t do. There are laws against teenage sex, ergo, you do not have the right to teenage sex. Opposite is also true. It’s simpler when you don’t have a written constitution, as in the UK - you do what you like, unless the government says you can’t do what you like, usually by criminalising it. There is no consititution to give you positive rights. That said, the EU’s Human Rights Act confers some positive rights on UK citizens as well, and since EU law is supreme to UK law, if UK law is contrary to the rights confered by the HRA, then the citizens can use their rights under the HRA to defend themselves. In this case, national law would not apply. I’m not sure how it would work in a federal system, but I guess you would simply have the right in states which do not criminalise this behaviour, since the constitution makes no mention of the matter. The only possible way you can assert that the constitution gives you those rights (since there is nothing in the constitution saying “teenages have the right to have sex with one another”) is to get a sympathetic panel of judges who will interpret the constitution favourably. Honestly, if the judges were to decide to do that, there would be such an uprising that they would be forced to reverse it in short order. Therefore, not possible to give teenages the right to have sex. IMO. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2004, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenagers-have-a-civil-right-to-have-sex/274880/25 "2004-11-16T14:41:18Z")
> [@Tabby\_Cat](#): > > Hmm… I don’t really see the problem here. Residual rights - you have the right to do anything that the government doesn’t say you can’t do. There are laws against teenage sex, ergo, you do not have the right to teenage sex. Opposite is also true. > > It’s simpler when you don’t have a written constitution, as in the UK - you do what you like, unless the government says you can’t do what you like, usually by criminalising it. There is no consititution to give you positive rights. > > That said, the EU’s Human Rights Act confers some positive rights on UK citizens as well, and since EU law is supreme to UK law, if UK law is contrary to the rights confered by the HRA, then the citizens can use their rights under the HRA to defend themselves. In this case, national law would not apply. > > I’m not sure how it would work in a federal system, but I guess you would simply have the right in states which do not criminalise this behaviour, since the constitution makes no mention of the matter. > > The only possible way you can assert that the constitution gives you those rights (since there is nothing in the constitution saying “teenages have the right to have sex with one another”) is to get a sympathetic panel of judges who will interpret the constitution favourably. Honestly, if the judges were to decide to do that, there would be such an uprising that they would be forced to reverse it in short order. Therefore, not possible to give teenages the right to have sex. > > IMO. Interesting post, and a valid one from a UK/EU perspective. In America, we have a federal system. There is a rather limited list of things which the Federal government is empowered to do written out in the Constitution, along with a clause that enables them to do what is “necessary and proper” to use their specific delegated powers. There is also a list of rights that may not be infringed upon. According to Article Six and the Tenth Amendment, the U.S. Constitution is the supreme law of the land, and the Federal government is supreme over the states when it’s exerting what it may legally do. But anything that’s **not** authorized for the Feds. to do becomes a power retained by the States or by the people. But the 14th Amendment makes it clear that no right guaranteed U.S. citizens by the Constitution may be infringed on by the states either, at least not “without due process of law.” And the 9th Amendment specifically says that the explicit listing of some rights shall not be so read as to disparage other rights. Now is where it comes down to the nitty gritty. First, the Feds. have no power to regulate sexual behavior; that’s not on the shopping list of powers delegated to them. So evidently that’s a power retained by the states. But, according to a series of Supreme Court decisions culminating in _Lawrence and Garner v. Texas_ last year, there are limitations on state power to do so based on the rights that Rick mentioned in the OP. And that is why Rick started this thread, in essence: there are obvious reasons why a state is empowered to criminalize forcible rape, or to protect toddlers from sexual abuse. On the other hand, there are obvious reasons why a state may **not** assert the right to wander into the bedrooms of adult individuals and regulate what they freely choose to do with each other in private. (At least those reasons are obvious to those of us who don’t believe we fought the Revolutionary War in order to trade one set of masters for another.) This thread is trying to explore the intriguing in-between situation. ---
**Author:** ![kniz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c37758/32.png) [@kniz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kniz)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2004, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenagers-have-a-civil-right-to-have-sex/274880/26 "2004-11-16T16:42:09Z")
> [@Mr2001](#): > > Are you seriously comparing teenagers to toddlers here? I was just addressing the fact that the OP obviously thinks it is wrong that 18 is set as the age at which he will be free to do as he pleases. He then uses the term “teenagers” to set his own arbitrary age of maturity. The reason the I used 2 year olds is that it is generally accepted as the age at which children first rebel. It didn’t have beans to do with 2 year olds having sex. ---
**Author:** ![kniz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c37758/32.png) [@kniz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kniz)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2004, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenagers-have-a-civil-right-to-have-sex/274880/27 "2004-11-16T16:59:05Z")
> [@Mr2001](#): > > Are you seriously comparing teenagers to toddlers here? Sorry I got side-tracker with your remark about 2 year olds and sex. My answer to the question is “yes” I am comparing teenagers to toddlers. I’ve already stated why I choose 2 year olds. It is like comparing Generals to Privates, there are obvious differences, but they are both in the same group and have the same legal standing. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2004, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenagers-have-a-civil-right-to-have-sex/274880/28 "2004-11-16T19:42:51Z")
The state has no vested interest, and therefore no business, doing anything to stop a pair of 2-year-olds from engaging in consensual sex (whatever the heck that might consist of). Their parents, or any institution held to be operating _in loco parentis_ such as, I dunno, the nursery school or playschool or babysitting service they are entrusted to, can intervene if they think the behavior is one that needs discouraging. ---
**Author:** ![Ms2001](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ms2001/32/18463_2.png) [@Ms2001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms2001)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2004, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenagers-have-a-civil-right-to-have-sex/274880/29 "2004-11-17T00:44:30Z")
> [@kniz](#): > > The reason the I used 2 year olds is that it is generally accepted as the age at which children first rebel. It didn’t have beans to do with 2 year olds having sex. Well, this thread is about minors’ right to have sex. What does rebelling have to do with whether or not they have that right? > [@kniz](#): > > My answer to the question is “yes” I am comparing teenagers to toddlers. I’ve already stated why I choose 2 year olds. It is like comparing Generals to Privates, there are obvious differences, but they are both in the same group and have the same legal standing. In many areas, they do not have the same legal standing. Teenagers have more autonomy over their own medical treatment. They can get a driver’s license or drop out of school. The age of sexual consent is 16 in most states, including yours and mine. ---
**Author:** ![Sleel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/73ab20/32.png) [@Sleel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sleel)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2004, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenagers-have-a-civil-right-to-have-sex/274880/30 "2004-11-17T07:06:59Z")
First off, I’m not a lawyer. I have a tangental interest in this subject though since I’ve argued for a long time (since I was a minor myself) that kids aren’t given enough freedom or responsibility in modern society, and it’s getting worse all the time. Most adults seem to think that imposing more restrictions is the answer to recent social problems. I think restrictions are the _cause_ of many of the problems. I’ll get off my soapbox now. Three states: Arizona, Florida, Illinois all have satutes that permit the prosecution of both minor females and minor males for having sex, regardless of consent. Eight other states: Kansas, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, New Hampshire, Tennessee, Utah, and Vermont have statutes that permit both parties to be prosecuted when one of the children who participates in an act of consensual sexual intercourse is under the age of 16. (See the dissenting opinion to [Michael M. vs. Superior Court](http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/search/display.html?terms=consensual%20intercourse&url=/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0450_0464_ZD.html#450_US_464fn3/6ref)) In re [T.A.J. (1998) 62 Cal.App.4th 1350 [73 Cal.Rptr.331]](http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/programs/cfcc/resources/caselaw/del/13.htm) the California Supreme Court ruled that minors have no right of privacy in relation to sexual intercourse and that a minor can be charged with statutory rape. A 16 year old male was charged with statutory and forcible rape of a 14 year old girl. The decision only addressed the issue of consent related to the statutory rape charge. It seems that a minor cannot legally consent to having sex and since he or she cannot give consent any sex between two minors is _ipso facto_ statutory rape. The ruling specifically stated that the court did not want to give minors the legal right to have sex. ---
**Author:** ![Sleel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/73ab20/32.png) [@Sleel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sleel)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2004, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenagers-have-a-civil-right-to-have-sex/274880/31 "2004-11-18T03:11:43Z")
> [@aahala](#): > > Civil (legal) rights come from government. If the government says you have such rights, then you do. If they say nothing, then you don’t until and unless they say you do. > > There are lots of things we do which government or law enforement never bothers us about. That does not mean those actions are “rights”. Assuming you live in the United States, you have it completely backwards. There is blanket Constitutional protection for rights that are not specifically enumerated in the law. You have those rights unless the government makes a law against the practice and that law must not be so restrictive that the Supreme Court construes it as infringing on behavior that could be interpreted as a right. > [@](#): > > Amendment IX > The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. > > Amendment X > The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people. Just because there’s no law regarding it does not mean you don’t have the right to do it. You have the right to do it _as long as_ there’s no law against it. Society has reached a consensus that minors do not have unrestricted rights to have sex. There are laws addressing this issue. There are laws regarding what kind of sexual behavior is permitted, but there are no laws that address the absolute right of people to have sex. If there were a law passed, by some miracle, that said that people are not allowed to have sex I have no doubt that the law would be stricken down as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court the first time it was challenged. Unless the Supreme Court was composed of a majority of Shakers. This also goes completely against common sense. There is no law addressing your right to live, so living is not a right by your logic. ---
**Author:** ![Ms2001](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ms2001/32/18463_2.png) [@Ms2001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms2001)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2004, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenagers-have-a-civil-right-to-have-sex/274880/32 "2004-11-18T03:15:18Z")
> [@Sleel](#): > > There are laws regarding what kind of sexual behavior is permitted, but there are no laws that address the absolute right of people to have sex. If there were a law passed, by some miracle, that said that people are not allowed to have sex I have no doubt that the law would be stricken down as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court the first time it was challenged. Unless the Supreme Court was composed of a majority of Shakers. On what grounds? I don’t see anything in the Constitution that could be read as giving the right to have sex to adults but not minors. ---
**Author:** ![Sleel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/73ab20/32.png) [@Sleel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sleel)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2004, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenagers-have-a-civil-right-to-have-sex/274880/33 "2004-11-25T02:54:54Z")
To my knowledge no one has ever taken a case far enough to test whether or not a minor would be considered to have the same rights, legally, as an adult when it comes to sex. I have no idea what would happen if someone appealed a case concerning the right of a minor to have consensual sex to the Supreme Court. The court cases that have been considered all seem to have allegations of forcible rape mixed up in them. So far, it’s obvious that minors are not seen as having access to the same freedoms as adults. They are not given full protection of many of the Amendments and there are rules, such as curfews, that apply specifically to minors and would be completely unacceptable if applied to the general adult populace. I personally don’t agree with much of this thinking. Children --real children, not teens-- lack experience and the full development of their reasoning ability, but they are not stupid and they are not incapable of making good and responsible choices. Anyone who has a child or who has been around children knows that they have solid personalities and can understand sometimes complex situations from a startlingly early age. Teenagers would be considered full adults, with all the responsibilities and consequences, in most societies up to the early 20th century. Modern industrial society completely ignores and marginalizes the young, calling them “children” until they are 18, when suddenly they are expected to act like adults and take adult responsibilities even though one year, or even six months prior to that they were not _allowed_ to take on those responsibilities. It’s weird, confusing, and painful for many, and I think that’s one of the reasons that “teenage rebellion” seems to be getting a bit more extreme with every generation. ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2004, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenagers-have-a-civil-right-to-have-sex/274880/34 "2004-11-25T15:45:23Z")
If the question at hand is, “How would we determine the legal matter?” I will elaborate on that in response to the OP. But first some groundwork must be laid. The first response brings with it an interesting commentary: > [@caphis](#): > > I think the general concern is that teenagers are not educated enough to make informed decisions about whether or not they want to have sex. This is precisely the line of thought I have a problem with. “Informed decisions” supposes an explicit or implicit standard about the individual in question, specifically whether one is “informed”. The problem here, I think, is that, how can one be sure of the consequences of sex without engaging in that activity? (I suspect that anyone who states this is thinking of “pregnancy” or “sexually transmitted diseases”, but not “trust”, “intimacy”, and possibly abuses thereof which, I think, are more characteristic of social sexual behavior than the others.) Before anyone quotes that question, let me elaborate my concern. In general, instruction on any matter takes a few charactistic forms. One is the telling of the situation: ostensive definitions, exemplars, an attempt at a demonstration of the pure article by means of hard-and-fast causal links or pictures or etc. The second is the practice of what was just told. For instance, in learning mathematics, one does mathematical problems. This is putting the ostensive definition to _use_ in order to give the instructor (which may be a person or a peer group or…) the ability to judge whether or not the person understands. I will remark here that there is no hard and fast rule which corresponds to understanding in the instructed. For behaviors humans engage in, especially social behaviors, the practice of it is generally much more important than the ostensive definitions. We generally do not think of much behavior as being so defined (sharing, for example), though such definitions are possible. The question at hand, then, is what indeed would count for an “informed decision” about a behavior which, for practical as well as legal as well as cultural reasons, cannot be taught by practice but only be ostensive definition (health class; “when a man and a woman love each other very much…”; etc.). I would suggest that one can know a great deal about the operation of sex through ostensive definition, but that this will never, ever amount to understanding of the social behavior such that one can make “an informed decision.” The test of “doing something right” such as a social behavior is in doing it, and being corrected as necessary. (Sharing, speaking, skipping, building, explaining…) I do not mean to nitpick **caphis** as such (I do not wish to attribute any position to the poster, only to take that sentence as an example of a thought I find wrong. I do not know if the poster feels the way I read it, and I do not wish to accuse.) I mean to call into question the heart of the matter of “legally qualifying to engage in a legal behavior.” I mean to suggest that no rule will do here whatsoever because we do not teach, and by necessity do not learn, social behaviors strictly via ostensive definitions. Without _practice_ and _correction_ the ‘correct’ behavior will not be learned. This presents us with a difficult situation with respect to the sexual act specifically. There is a strong cultural selection process which generally forbids sexual activity with minors by adults, and an even stronger selection against those adults being family or teachers. But the human animal is nothing else if not an explorer when it is young, and it will recognize, implicitly, a gap in instruction, and for several reasons will end up wondering about sex. Because the sexual act is absolutely necessary for human survival, it is hardly something we can actually (or practically) shield them from. With that groundwork laid, I can procede to tackle the OP and say that teenagers probably don’t have a civil right to have sex, but that we should not go out of our way to punish them for wanting to learn about a necessary behavior we simply refuse to instruct them on. I say this because we generally wish to shield children from some of the “adult” consequences of their actions so that they have a safe environment in which to learn _how to be_, and if they are not relatively free to make mistakes, we can hardly instruct them in any meaningful way (i.e. we would require that they understand what not to do before we tell them!). We should try to offer them similar protections, it is true, but I do not believe it is appropriate to automatically transfer any particular civil right to children just because they happen to be citizens. > [@Bricker](#): > > In favor of the argument that they do: decisions about sex are matters of the most intimate and personal kind; choices central to personal dignity and autonomy, are central to the sort of liberty that courts have said is protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. Forget liberty. Sex is **necessary**. If humans do nothing else with their lives, eating and fucking are paramount to the survival of the species. This is a behavior which should be protected before all others. This is not to say it should be encouraged, but that discouraging it is a sure path to problems of so many kinds I dare not even contemplate it. Sexual activity goes beyond simple reproduction. It is also the foundation, generally (we must always speak of general cases here and ignore the outlying exceptions which do not serve to characterize the species), of healthy relationships by fostering intimacy, which fosters (hopefully some level of pre-existing) trust, which is the bedrock of social behavior in general. Whether I have sex or not, if there is no one I could possibly trust to have sex with, I would humbly suggest that I could not meaningfully participate in this society. (Note I do not require that anyone actually exist that I desire, and I do not mean to suggest that I must have any libido whatsover, only that the level of trust required to have a “healthy” level of sexual activity corresponds to a great many social behaviors in general.) > [@Bricker](#): > > By what right does society constrain two teenagers from having sex with each other? Generally that the costs are too high. Teenage pregnancy is not a particularly good way to enter into this society, not for the parent or parents, and not for the child. But the question at stake here is whether we can meaningfully forbid them from having sex while at the same time establishing the phenomenon of trust, responsibility, and privacy… all of which lead indirectly to sexual behavior (specifically the kind of sexual behavior we approve of). Anyone can write a law. But can it be enforced? --And what is the cost of enforcement? > [@Bricker](#): > > And by what right does society constrain a teenager from making the personal choice to become intimate with an adult? This question is probably outside the scope of what I can give a concise answer to. I have problems with the perception that by virtue of being an adult one is in a position of authority over any arbitrary child. If that is so, it is more because of the fear and respect we instill in children than it is anything special about the relationship. But the flipside is clear: rapid instruction requires such a relationship in place. The question then becomes one of whether or not it is appropriate for the state to restrict relationships based on authority roles in general, or whether only specific roles _lend themselves to abuse_ (and I do not mean sexual abuse, I mean “a corrupt practice or custom” to borrow M-W’s definition 1). That is, to take it as a given that such roles exist, is it necessary that all of them _distort_ the practice of privacy, trust, and, in some cases, instruction? (Note that not only the young are instructed.) I would answer that, yes, probably, there are some instances of authority roles which, when coupled with what we characterize as a healthy relationship (friendship, business partner, lawyer, romantic partner, etc.), lend themselves to practices which distort their ostensive purposes. It is fair to close with the remark that “being instructed in sexual activity” is not a process which has a definite end, any more than “understanding” any activity that must be practiced to be appreciated (which is generally all social behaviors). This means that an arbitrary age cut-off only makes sense under certain conditions, the constitution of which can be derived, I believe, from the previous paragraph. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenagers-have-a-civil-right-to-have-sex/274880.md?page=1)