Interpretations of what the the age of consent should be has varied over the ages. In 1880, Delaware’s age of consent was seven years old. A “social purity movement” driven by Christian feminist in America began to lobby legislatures in the late 19th Century to increase the age for purposes of reducing child prostitution through criminalization (among other things) which resulted increasing the age from 10 to 12 in most states in 1880 to 16 to 18 years by 1920.
Given what the morals and cultural standards were back then, it’s still hard to grasp for me why they were so low to begin with.
I’m not bothered by the suggestion that it might be criminal for some adults to have sex with some children.
Reaching the age of majority comes with certain rights and responsibilities. You may vote, you may live independently, you may buy cigarettes. You must register for selective service, you must pay taxes, you must not fuck children. Seems easy enough.
Except a 17-year-old is not a child. They are post-pubescent; they can think for themselves (kinda). The idea of statutory rape is to keep away predators and pedophiles, not to keep horney teens away from each other.
I think the idea of such laws is both of those things. Although, over time, most states have made an exception for young people close in age to each other.
Our current vision of “extended childhood” is post-Victorian. Traditionally the “age of reason” at which you could tell right from wrong (and thus participate in sacramental life in the church) was as low as 7 and the age at which you were “marriageable” and/or could go to work full time outside the family farm was upon puberty, so 13ish (NOT that they all DID marriage that early, just that it could be) They were against sex by teenagers… unless they got properly married before God. It was only upon industrialization and urbanization and consciousness of the forms of exploitation those brought around, that it began being seen as undesirable to have children and young teens do hard work or marry (and by extension have sex).
Actually, 17 years old is the legal definition of a child, and it doesn’t matter what their body or mind looks like. They are at a distinct disadvantage in terms of power and agency with regard to someone who is legally an adult. Not only that but their parents are still responsible for them.
We have to set the cutoff somewhere, and the cutoff doesn’t mean anything if we carve out exceptions like “she looked old enough.” Adults just need to learn to keep it in their pants around a 17-year-old child.
Unless the age of consent is 16 or 17. (speaking legally. Morally, I’m opposed to adults having sex iwth 16 or 17 year-olds.) (I’ll make an exception for 18 year old adults with 17 year olds.)
And you realize, I hope, that I am describing teenagers with raging hormones.
Parents come home early and find the kids together in the shower, or naked under the covers, do we really want to delve too far into evidentiary question like “did he actually put it in?” or is there ground for accepting the reality of adolescent romance without a finding of rape (a la “Romeo & Juliet laws”)?
Or do you seriously think that teenage dating reliably stops at “heavy petting”?
I do agree that there is probably no perfect answer, and that we haven’t even touched on the issues with the perception of appropriate age outside the US (predominantly) and a word to the UK.
If I was the one making the decisions, I would probably set the age of informed choice at 18. It is an age where just about everyone agrees you’re old enough for the majority of important decisions in your life. Not perfect, but just said nothing is going to be.
Having said that, I would probably put the age of partial liability at 15, being at least vaguely realistic in what teens are like too, wherein consensual sex in a 3 year gap (15-18) is a misdemeanor crime punishable by community service. Not going to really affect a young person’s future, but something that makes them take it seriously. And that’s assuming someone in the immediate group even reports it (likely parents in this case). I do figure that is the best balance I can between comparative sexual and mental maturity. Anything past (15 and a 19) I’m going to come down on too much a power and experience gap.
Anything younger than 15, I’m sorry, I can’t see as anything other than a crime - no matter the hormones and physical maturity. It may not be rape as we consider it now, very possibly the young partner is curious/willing/etc, but I cannot think they have anywhere close to sufficient maturity to make any sort of such decision. Perhaps we could try another label than ‘rape’, which is of course heavily loaded, but I still consider it a crime. How it would be punished would again vary per the age of the other party. Very extreme IMHO if the other party is 18 and older, and perhaps less so under, but far more than what I suggest in the age group above.
ETA - And in case I wasn’t clear, if it isn’t clear minded, verbally consensual then it’s rape. Period. End of Sentence. I think everyone here is clear on that in the thread though.
I’m using this as a jumping off point since this incorrect statement sums up what many people are posting.
All these bright line statements about adult rapists keep ignoring that the purpose of the laws historically have been to encourage marriage and see that all children were born to married parents, no matter when they were conceived. They were not primarily to preclude sex during dating. Rape laws already covered rape, and statuary rape laws were intended for predators and incest.
According to Google, 30 states have Romeo and Juliet laws, which seem to allow a three or four year gap between ages. I think they all apply to same-sex couples now as well, but most they didn’t when they went into effect. That means that 20 states have bright line laws and the same act between the same people is illegal if done a few miles over.
And again, a marriage license gives an adult the freedom to have sex with a minor a dozen a times a day with society’s explicit approval.
Eighteen can’t be a universal bright line indicator for the simple fact that 37 states have the age of consent below 18. Some states allow marriage below the age of consent in some circumstances.
Of course I am against adults having sex with minors. I cut off contact with a high school friend of mine when I found out he was doing so after college. I later learned he never got over it and did time in jail. I hope that shocked some sense into his head.
What I’m also against are people making sweeping proclamations about morality without looking at history or the legal realities. The consensus morality of this issue has changed greatly within my lifetime. It may change again soon because the image of the adolescent is so recent and slippery a concept that societies have yet to figure out how to deal with the fact that adolescents display adult behaviors and knowledge at times and childlike behaviors and knowledge at other times. Bright lines are necessary for law, but morality laughs at bright lines. We need the law to save lives while not destroying lives. It often fails at that. The Romeo and Juliet laws seem a reasonable compromise. But if so, they need to be everywhere.
Marriage is not the carte-blanche freedom that you seem to think. It comes with responsibilities, liabilities, and obligations. There is a cost to getting into it and getting out of it.
I am not crazy about the idea of minors marrying, but if someone absolutely needs to have sex with a child, and the child and their parents are agreeable, marriage is the least bad option.
My son was dating a girl 8 months older than him. When she turned 18, I informed him that they wouldn’t be legally allowed to have sex again until he also turned 18. What bothered him the most was that I could be with her even though I was thirty years her senior.
I hope this doesn’t come out as disparaging, but pointing this out to your teenage son is exactly the sort of thing that a guy with a nickname like “skunkdog” would do.
I don’t get this at all. If two people of differing ages are gung ho to have consensual sex and the parents are on board, I’m not sure why you’d think getting the government involved somehow improves the situation.
I wish the name was based on the wild exploits of the Skunkdog. It’s actually an homage to my beloved pet Skunk who I lost 5 years ago this week at the age of 19.
