P.S. Welcome to the boards, Descolada!
This is bizarre stuff.
I suppose somewhere, if you looked long enough, you could find a thirteen year old who was mature enough to make an informed decision about sex with an adult.
But do you honestly believe that some horny 23 year old with a taste for young girls is going to be so scrupulously careful to determine that his latest target is a responsible, mature young woman with insight far beyond her years when he can’t even be bothered to find out how old she is?
Sheesh!
Regards,
Shodan
Mr2001,
I think the difficulty here resides within deciding what is meant by “innocent.”
If I may restate your POV, you believe that innocent means not violating the original intended purpose of the law. In the case of statutory rape, the intended purpose is the prevention of coerced sex (nonviolent but still coerced by virtue of an undeveloped competency to make decisions of such import). Let’s remove it from such a charged subject:
So. If the goal of having a law of having to stop at a red light is to prevent accidents, and an individual comes to a red light and there is no traffic coming for blocks, and he goes, then, since he is not really increasing the risk of an accident at that moment, you would declare him “innocent.”
I’d say that he still broke the law, even if had not violated the original intent of the law. That the law is a fair one. And that even though a few people who had no intent of violating the intent of the law would be punished under this interpretation, that never the less, no one “innocent” would be. Society had decided that safety required what the law should be in order to reduce accidents at that intersection most of the time. It was an arbitrary decision but one that weighed the benefits of such a blanket decision versus the costs of limiting freedoms to travel quickly. It is now the law. You run the red light and you break the law. Even if it is safe at the time.
Should the law be that it is only illegal to go through a red light if the state can prove that conditions were unsafe to do so at the time?
Sex with someone under 18 is a “red light.” A more important goal, and thus a more severe penalty, but otherwise comparable. You run the red light you are breaking the law and you know it. You may not think that a particular intersection needs a stoplight, or that it shouldn’t apply at that moment, but a decision has been made. If you run that red light you break the law. You may not be coercing that particular person, but you aint “innocent”.
My friends convinced me to buy a few PS2 games. A Toyota salesman convinced me to buy a new Corolla. As a telemarketer, I convinced hundreds of people to buy concert tickets. Was there an imbalance of power in any of those situations?
Which do you think is more likely: I bought the car because I liked the styling, features, and price; or I bought the car because the salesman was older than me and therefore he was able to bend me to his will? (Hint: the former.) Why is it necessarily any different for minors?
If they were coerced through force or fraud, they weren’t willing participants; I don’t think anyone is supporting rape here. And your statements have nothing to do with age - replace “minor” with “30 year old” and you’re saying the exact same thing.
And I suppose we aren’t infringing on a black man’s “freedom” if we tell him he can’t have sex with a white woman? After all, there’s no law protecting the right to have interracial sex, and some (irrational) white women might feel threatened or intimidated by black men. But somehow I don’t think you’d want to codify that into law.
Instead, we treat it just as any other case of sex between two people. If the woman didn’t give consent, or gave consent under duress, or was individually found to be unable to give consent (e.g., due to brain damage), it’s rape. Otherwise it’s just consensual sex and there’s no crime; race isn’t a factor, and age doesn’t need to be a factor either.
Correct. I’ve been using “innocent” in a non-legalese context, to refer to people who have not harmed anyone, whether or not they broke the law. If that’s unclear, I’ll use a different word.
Actually, I believe that’s the law in some states, where you can defend against a traffic citation by showing that you were driving carefully and safely. And I think that’s a wise policy for basically the same reasons.
But I’m not really opposed to strict red light laws because the choices you face are much less dire: wait a couple minutes for the light to change, or pay a small fine. No one is going to turn you down for a job because you ran a red light, the neighbors aren’t going to keep their kids indoors when you walk past, you aren’t going to go to prison and become a jaded criminal with a loose sphincter.
In addition, the state has a much more legitimate interest in controlling traffic on the roads that it pays to build and maintain, than it does in controlling the bedroom habits of consenting citizens in private homes. Traffic laws also apply equally to everyone - there’s no aspect of “if you’re over 18, use your own judgment as to whether it’s safe to go; if you’re under 18, we assume your judgment is flawed.”
I found this site with a chart of the age of consent in most countries and US states.
They range from 12 (several south-american countries) to 21 (Madagascar). Very few countries have an age of consent as high as 18. It’s usually between 14 and 16.
Depends on how old you were. Did you sell any concert tickets to ten year olds? Why is that any different?
In a word, bullshit. Replace “30 year old” with “8 year old”. You are not saying the exact same thing.
More bullshit. Age needs to be a factor for exactly the reasons you mentioned - minors are found to be unable to give consent. It is therefore rape. Q.E.D.
And finally, bullshit. Traffic laws have an "age of consent"of 16. Try defending some 14 year old who was caught driving a car on the grounds that she is real mature for her age, or because she dressed just like a nineteen year old.
Regards,
Shodan
To throw another angle into the debate - I certainly don’t agree with the position that if a kid hasn’t been coerced into sex that it’s all fine and dandy, since young kids really don’t understand the concepts. From all of the writing on child development, young kids don’t have the understanding of what they’re getting into and are conditioned to obey adults. However, I also think that laws where there’s suddenly a crime in having sex when Fred turns 18 while Mary is still 17, but other than the time during the X month difference in their birthdays it’s OK.
What do people think about more complicated age of consent laws that some states have? For example, in NC age of consent is 16 (that is, if the younger person is 16 or older, there’s no crime) and no one can be prosecuted for statutory rape if the pair involved are within 5 years of age. That seems like a very reasonable law to me, since it prevents the ‘he’s 3 months older than her, it’s a crime if we catch him before her birthday comes up’ absurdity, but still outlaws the 30YO/12YO situation. Also, having 16 as the consent age means that someone actually can use ‘she looked 18’ as a standard instead of asking for ID (and the hypothetical fake ID etc); while I can certainly believe that there are 16 YOs who can pass for 18, I have a hard time buying that there are 14YOs would are passing as adults to mature men, and our poor horny 18YO is safe from prosecution as long as he can weed out the 12YOs.
How many of you would find laws like that one OK? I know there’s one person who wouldn’t accept anything but revocation of any stautory rape laws, but he’s not the only one here. Would a law like the one I summarized above satisfy both the ‘protect the children’ and the ‘jeeze, they’re both kids’ crowd?
No, because ten year olds are legally unaccountable for buying things on the phone, and we didn’t like sending out bills to people who weren’t going to send back money. Other than that, it’s not any different.
Let’s look at the post I was referring to:
The word “minor” doesn’t need to be there. A 30 year old can have sex with an older man or woman. Said 30 year old could have been coerced emotionally or physically, could wind up emotionally or physically scarred, and could have caught an STD or become pregnant.
Or are you suggesting that adults are immune from coercion, disease, and unwanted pregnancy?
They aren’t “found” to be unable to give consent, they are asserted to be unable, in much the same way one could assert that all men over 20 are capable of running down the street carrying a television. Making that assertion into law doesn’t make it any more true.
If minors were actually found to be unable to give consent as individuals, I would be happy.
You probably won’t be surprised to learn that I’m opposed to age limits for driver’s licenses as well.
But since we were talking about red light laws, I mentioned that red light laws apply equally to everyone. Anyone can be cited for failing to stop at a red light, whether he’s 15 or 50, whether he has a driver’s license or not. Age is only involved in deciding who gets a license.