But how many guys really get ten years when it’s like an 18 year old and a 17 year old? There already are Romeo and Juliet clauses in most states, it’s not like that kind of thing doesn’t get taken into conseration at all by the law, and prosecutorial and judicial discretion even more so.
I remember seeing a case a little while ago where a kid (I think he was like 17) got a huge sentence for getting a blowjob from a 15 year old. Bill O’Reilly was all for it (probably because the kid was black), and that did seem outrageously excessive to me.
The irony was that he would have gotten a much lighter penalty (I think it might have even been legal) if he’d had intercourse with her, but the state he was in had some back-assward sodomy law, so they threw the book at him.
That’s a stupid ass law, a stupid ass prosecutor and a stupid ass judge, I agree.
No it doesn’t. The question is whether it should. The penalty for statutory rape is pretty severe for something that you didn’t mean to do and didn’t know you were doing while you were doing it.
Frankly, I see the mens rea with drunk driving but its an interesting point. Drunk driving is an innately risky activity and you assume the risk of any harm you might commit when you drink and drive. Your point seems to be that having casual sex is a risky activity and you assume the legal risk of any harm you might cause by accidentally having sex with a minor when you have casual sex.
Absolutely, YES, in a number of scenarios. All it really requires is a male over 18 who is not particularly intellligent and an eleven year old who is smarter or at least more sexualized than him. The obvious would be a relationship that began on on-line: lonely introverted guy starts chatting with someone online, maybe she tells him she has a medical condition that makes her look younger, or maybe she went through puberty early and looks older than eleven. Children of poverty, street children, children who have lived in war zones, etc., may appear older than their age and they can easily seem more mature than an eleven year old.
If you know who you are having sex with, there should be no problem. Do you think having anonymous sex with young looking strangers is healthy for all concerned?
When I see a hot body on a young person I think, that’s somebody’s child. Puts it all into perspective.
Well they still have to convince a jury. Its an affirmative defense which means that they have to prove out their defense, they can’t simply say “I didn’t know and she is obviously post pubescent”
Not these days… but it would have been pretty hard for a 13 year old to pass for an 18 year old when I was in high school and I just met on the other day.
No, you don’t. You just have to help your daughter develop enough self-respect not to have sex with every guy that asks. Seriously, the psycho-dad tactics do not work. They will only scare away all the nice young men and leave your daughter to dates the guys who don’t care if she has the “crazy dad” or worse see “crazy dad” as some sort of obstacle they have to triumph over.
It’s the best argument Dio has in the entire thread, but the problem is, if one were arguing this rationally as opposed to I-need-a-gun-to-scare/shoot-the-twelve-year-olds-who-are-coming-for-my-eleven-year-old-daughter, then one would note that not being legally drunk is a reasonable defense against drunk driving. Similarly, not being negligent is a reasonable defense against negligently sleeping with minors by accident. Which would bring us to the debate about what reasonably constitutes non-negligence when trying to pick up some eighteen-year-old tail.
Dio is aware of this, which is why is so vehemently makes assertions (not facts) about how cheking ID is not sufficient to prove non-negligence. The problem is he’s failed to state what would be non-negligent - except when shooting himself in the foot. That is, he asserts that just talking to a young person is enough to know whether they’re young. He also asserts or implies that ‘getting to know’ a girl is sufficent, when he’s arguing that he’s not blanket-opposed to sex between non-geriatrics. The problem is that he doesn’t ever state exactly how much talking is necessary to be certain.
He probably refrains because he would paint himself into a corner; either the level of interaction will rule out casual consenting sex, or it will be less in terms of real evidence than the photo ID.
Wow, so it really is more like, “The law says blahblahblah rapists blahblahblah children blahblahblah STOP LOOKING AT MY LITTLE GIRLS YOU BABY-RAPING PERVERT PEDOPHILES blahblahblah no cognitive or emotional ability until they’re old enough to enlist. Or later.”
No he is just saying that they are assuming the risk of damaging a minor by having sex with them (whether you knew it or not, you knew it was possible) so if you did cause that damage you go to jail, do not pass go, do not collect $200. It sounds like Dio feels teh damage is so great that it is not worth reducign any deterrent effect by introducing defenses.