Age of Consent and Statutory Rape

I think I'd have trouble having sex with such young girls because I like a postcoital snuggle combined with talking about growing up during the Reagan era.
 
Mark6 said:
Agree. Although a minor nit:

Only in California. Or nearly so.

In most states making porn is likely to run afoul of some law, which is why almost all of it is made in California.

Which of course is more inconsistency.
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Really? Huh. I assumed porn was made in California because of tax incentives and because that's just where the film industry is already located. It's actually illegal to make porn in most states? But its legal to buy or sell porn? That's so, well, inconsistent!
 
I think sexual encounters can by psychologically damaging to teenagers.

But then, they can also be psychologically damaging to young adults.

So, I call it a tie.
 
Arcade22 said:
That is my principal view. For practical reasons i understand that making it a general rule that having sex with someone under a specific age should be illegal because it would be easier for the justice system to uncover and punish rapists easier. This age doesn't have to be arbitrary, chosen because of our personal biases and prejudices. We have an obligation to create laws based on reason, logic and human decency.
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Ummmm... how exactly are you going to determine how 'mature' a teenager is to consent to sex?

Are you suggesting some "a priori" method, where girls (or boys... since technically the same rules could apply to teenage boys interested in older women) get tested to see if they're mature enough? Do the girls volunteer for these tests, or are they done automatically once a girl reaches a certain age? What if they fail, do they keep getting tested until they pass? And what type of test are you suggesting? Simple multiple choice (which could lead to people cheating in order to pass), or something more intensive (interviews with psychologists, etc.) And does anyone who passes have to keep any sort of proof of maturity on them?

With the millions of teenagers, do you really have a plan to make anything like that workable?

Or how about some test after the fact? (i.e. if an older person is caught with a younger person then you do a test for maturity), in which case a person might never know he's actually participated in a crime until after an investigation.

So, while the concept of using actual mental maturity (rather than a specific age) sounds good, I doubt it is practical in any way.
 
At one point, in my state, (Missouri) the cutoff age for a juvenile was 17. Under seventeen, and it was "statutory rape" regardless of consent. Over 18...Fair game.

However.... We had an obscure portion of the statute which made having sex with a female between the ages of 17 and 18, that is, from the 17th birthday to the 18th, was considered to be "carnal knowledge of a female" and was illegal... Provided that the young woman could be proven to have been of "previous chaste character".

I don't ever recall anyone actually being prosecuted for this, as you might imagine proving the case would be....Interesting.
 
Schrodinger's Cat said:
Really? Huh. I assumed porn was made in California because of tax incentives and because that's just where the film industry is already located. It's actually illegal to make porn in most states? But its legal to buy or sell porn? That's so, well, inconsistent!
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I doubt any state has a law which explicitely bans making porn. But in most states a prosecutor could dig up something if he were sufficiently determined to stop a porn production. Most likely related to prostitution.

I am sure in some states it is unlikely to actually happen, but why risk it?
 
Mark6 said:
I know it's been mentioned on JREF a hundred times, but is worth repeating.

Whether or not age of consent laws are sane, one thing in United States is undeniably, bat-poo insane:

While age of consent varies among states and is 16 in most of them, child pornography is a federal law and defines anyone under 18 as "child". Thus it is entirely legal for me to have actual sex with a 17-year old, but I can go to jail for taking a naked picture of her.
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Just a couple of notes:
- I doubt the U.S. is alone in having this contradiction. Canada is in a similar boat (and I suspect most other western countries, since the age of consent is usually below 18 in probably all European countries)

- Not sure what the original rational was; however, a case could be made that naked pictures might have much larger repercussions than simple sexual affairs. After all, the publicity of appearing sans clothing in a widely distributed picture could affect your employment, personal life, etc., whereas a bad relationship could be hidden. Thus, waiting a couple of extra years could help people mature enough to make the decision whether they want the whole world to see them nude

- I assume one of the issues regarding simply having a naked picture of a partner/spouse is that how can you prove you weren't going to sell it? Or that it wasn't going to be stolen somehow?

In fact, she can go to jail for taking a naked picture of herself.
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Yup, that is indeed silly. Although if I remember, there was a similar case in Britain where a girl was prosecuted for exactly that reason.
 
Schrodinger's Cat said:
And I assure you, at 13, I was a child.
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And I'm meeting more and more thirty year olds who behave like children, show very little maturity and seek to displace responsibility for their own choices. Western societies seem to fetishise 'childhood' as something separate from physical, biological development and there is a social pressure to view children as 'innocent' and to protect them from entering the big, bad 'adult' world for as long as possible. That's not an argument in favour of anything, I'm just curious as to what you feel made you a 'child' and at what point you feel you became, mentally, an 'adult'.
 
Mark6 said:
Really? Huh. I assumed porn was made in California because of tax incentives and because that's just where the film industry is already located. It's actually illegal to make porn in most states? But its legal to buy or sell porn? That's so, well, inconsistent
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I doubt any state has a law which explicitely bans making porn. But in most states a prosecutor could dig up something if he were sufficiently determined to stop a porn production. Most likely related to prostitution.

I am sure in some states it is unlikely to actually happen, but why risk it?
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Did a quick search. If Wikianswers is to be believed, then yes indeed it is illegal to make pr0n in most states (except for California).

From what I understand, the issue is that the California law had a definition of prostitution that outlawed sex between 2 people where one was paying for sex with another. However, since in pr0n its a 3rd party that is paying (i.e. the film maker) the California prostitution law did not apply. However, other states have rules that prohibit sex for money, regardless of whether the one that is paying is one of the participants or not.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Is_adult_porn_illegal_to_film_in_pennsylvania
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_v._Freeman
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2845/why-arent-porn-actors-charged-with-prostitution
 
Mark6 said:
While age of consent varies among states and is 16 in most of them, child pornography is a federal law and defines anyone under 18 as "child". Thus it is entirely legal for me to have actual sex with a 17-year old, but I can go to jail for taking a naked picture of her. In fact, she can go to jail for taking a naked picture of herself.
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If, and only if, the picture is pornographic. Not every naked picture is pornographic. Don't take a picture of yourself having actual sex with a 17-year old.
 
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jiggeryqua said:
I'm just curious as to what you feel made you a 'child' and at what point you feel you became, mentally, an 'adult'.
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To me, one mark of childhood is the immense power imbalance between children and adults. An adult - with money, experience, resources, a car, understanding of social systems, self-confidence, credibility with other adults, full command of language - can look like a superhero compared to a child.

At the extreme end might be my 5 year old who cannot, say, go into a grocery store, find an item and purchase it. My ability to do so makes him entirely dependent on me both in real terms and psychologically.

But imagine the 13 year old girl dating the 30 year-old man. He can come and go from her life as he pleases. She is stuck wherever a parent drives her. He can buy her presents. She has only what is given to here. He can supply her with alcohol, cigarettes, and other tokens of adulthood that she cannot get anywhere else. And he can explain to her whatever he wants because she has no idea how to even cash a check, let alone how a normal sexual relationship works.

It's the power imbalance that makes statutory rape so scary to me. Sex between two minors of similar ages has its difficulties as well. However the difference between a 15 year old and an 18 year old is already so great a power imbalance, in my mind, that it seems likely that the younger partner is not honestly and maturely exercising free will.
 
Loss Leader said:
Does it bother you at all that a 13 year-old is generally biologically incapable of exercising good judgment? The judgment centers of the brain are the very last to undergo myelination. Before that, nerve impulses are substantially slower and less efficient.

The brain is not fully myelinated until late adolescence to young adulthood. The is about the age when, in the US, adults are legally allowed to have sex with each other.

Otherwise, it seems like you're saying that a person with good judgment should be able to have sex with a person who, if they were an adult, would be considered to be seriously brain damaged (see demyelination) because the brain damaged person claims to want to.
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This a very odd argument. From what I've read, a more myelinated frontal cortex is strongly associated with more impulsive, risk seeking behaviour. http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0006773. This is the exact opposite of your claim.

As such, your argument that incomplete myelination in the teen brain makes it impossible for them to make responsible decisions doesn't hold water. Either way, the notion that a teen brain is equivalent to that of an adult with serious brain damage is utterly ridiculous, not to mention insulting. There are plenty of teens around who are much more responsible than the average adult. I won't deny that teens are generally more impulsive than adults, but as the speed and direction of the development of the brain depends largely on the activities that people partake in during their youth, I strongly suspect that the reason they are less mature is because they HAVE less responsibilities. In other words, teens would be a whole lot more responsible if society didn't treat them as if they were utterly incapable of acting responsibly.
 
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jiggeryqua said:
And I'm meeting more and more thirty year olds who behave like children, show very little maturity and seek to displace responsibility for their own choices. Western societies seem to fetishise 'childhood' as something separate from physical, biological development and there is a social pressure to view children as 'innocent' and to protect them from entering the big, bad 'adult' world for as long as possible. That's not an argument in favour of anything, I'm just curious as to what you feel made you a 'child' and at what point you feel you became, mentally, an 'adult'.
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While what you're saying is correct, the difference is that SOME thirty year olds ACT like 13 year olds. Whereas 13 year olds ARE 13 year olds. And unlike a 30 year old, they have the brain scans to prove lack of mental maturation and development.

The other thing is that while I have known a few 30year olds I find who act like kids, I've never met a 13 year old who demonstrated the knowledge, maturity, etc of a normal 30 year old.

And what's more, if you know immature 30 year olds...imagine what they were like at 13!

The thing is, if you're immature at 13, that's not your fault. You're not supposed to be and your brain lacks the capacity to make it easy for you to BE mature. If you're immature at 30, barring mental illness (in which case you can't give consent anyways), it's due to your personal failings (which granted, is heavily influenced by how you yourself were raied) at not being a responsible adult. It's not due to a lack of frontal lobe development or not being alive long enough to have learned from life experience.


There wasn't a definite age in which I became a mental adult. It's a growing process. Probably really started to enter into adulthood at age 15-16, and that it took a few years for this process to complete. I'd say that's the age I really started to feel that I could make decisions based on what was best for me, and that I was really making informed decisions based on reasoning. Before that, I pretty much just blindly believed what people I trusted told me. I wasn't able to understand that immediate problems and situations weren't as important as long term ones. For instance, I'd have a break up, or I'd fail a test, and think my life was over. When I was older, I was able to put things in perspective, and know that one break up or one failed test and really isn't going to actually ruin my life. I was less able to put myself in another person's perspective and think about their motivations. I was MUCH less gullable. I was less arrogant and selfish and focused on immediate gratification, started thinking less in black and white, was more confident in myself.

Also, I don't really see what being overprotective of kids has to do with anything. That's a completely separate issue. Kids don't need to be sheltered and protected from the world, but that dosn't mean we should give them the same rights and privilages afforded to adults. Children are different than adults. They're not just shorter and skinnier. Their brains are less developed, and they have less life experiences. They are inherently less capable of decision making. Not wanting your eleven year old to give your golfing buddy a blow job after she's done playing with her barbies is completely different than trying to prevent your eleven year old from knowing what sex IS because you want her to protect her from adult knowledge and shelter her as long as possible.

But I certainly agree that there is no clear cut age at which we can say "Okay, now you are an adult and should be treated like one" because people mature at different rates, which certainly makes statutory laws difficult and, ultimately, the age established pretty arbitrary. But I think having some baseline in place to protect kids is better than just having a free for all on whatever gullible, easily intimidated kid an adult can get their hands on.

And I think sexual maturity and willingness to have sex is about the most ridiculous thing to base "appropriate age of consent" on, because by that definition, 9 year olds would be fair game so long as they'd hit puberty, knew what sex was, and were too afraid to say "no."
 
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Sophronius said:
This a very odd argument. From what I've read, a more myelinated frontal cortex is strongly associated with more impulsive, risk seeking behaviour. http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0006773. This is the exact opposite of your claim.
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I stand by my claim that adolescent brains are not fully developed. Source. This includes but is not limited to myelination. I am aware of new research that some risk-taking teens were shown to have well-developed frontal cortexes. However, this study is still being carefully reviewed, causation has not been shown, and some researchers believe that the study's methodologies were flawed. Source. I think the vast majority of teens from 12-16 will show significantly different brain structure and function from the vast majority of adults 22-26.
 
I will agree with that. However, it is not as simple as: their brain is not 100% complete, therefore it's not possible for them to be responsible. It is also not comparable to serious brain damage.
 
Loss Leader said:
To me, one mark of childhood is the immense power imbalance between children and adults. An adult - with money, experience, resources, a car, understanding of social systems, self-confidence, credibility with other adults, full command of language - can look like a superhero compared to a child.

At the extreme end might be my 5 year old who cannot, say, go into a grocery store, find an item and purchase it. My ability to do so makes him entirely dependent on me both in real terms and psychologically.

But imagine the 13 year old girl dating the 30 year-old man. He can come and go from her life as he pleases. She is stuck wherever a parent drives her. He can buy her presents. She has only what is given to here. He can supply her with alcohol, cigarettes, and other tokens of adulthood that she cannot get anywhere else. And he can explain to her whatever he wants because she has no idea how to even cash a check, let alone how a normal sexual relationship works.

It's the power imbalance that makes statutory rape so scary to me. Sex between two minors of similar ages has its difficulties as well. However the difference between a 15 year old and an 18 year old is already so great a power imbalance, in my mind, that it seems likely that the younger partner is not honestly and maturely exercising free will.
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This is really what it is for me too, the power imbalance. And what's more, when you're a teenager, when an adult you trust tells you something, you tend to believe it, blindly. Even if an adult isn't in a technical position of authority over you, like a teacher, they are still in a position of power over you by default by being an adult.

As I said, rejecting the high pressure advances of boys my age was difficult enough. When adult men propositioned me overseas...it was an entirely different kind of pressure. I just felt so overwhelmed and outmatched and intimidated. And these were men I DIDN'T know. If it was a man I trusted, a family friend, for instance, I really don't know what I would have done.


There is a study I read some time ago (I will find it and link) that looked at the relationship between young teenage girls who have relationships with older men. And what was found is that these girls are overwhlemingly LESS mature than their peers, not more so. They are less educated. They do poorly in school and have lower IQs. They are MUCH more likely to not have any sex education. They are far less likely to use protection. They usually come from broken homes with abusive or absent fathers. They get pregnant and develop STDs at far higher the rate than girls who have relationships with peers their age.

Also, an adult has had more sexual partners than a teenager. They are inherently far more likely to give them an STD than the other way around, or for a teen to be infected by someone their age. Again, I'll have to find the study, but I know it stated that girls who are infected with HIV under the age of 18 overwhelmingly are infected by male partners who are much older than themselves.

Here's one article I cound find that touched on this. I'll throw up the study I'm referring to when I find it.

http://articles.latimes.com/1999/aug/13/news/mn-65240

Still, researchers found that age-imbalanced relationships have troublesome consequences: 70% of unmarried girls with older partners became pregnant--a rate nearly four times higher than that of girls with partners who were no more than two years older.
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Also:


http://jkalb.freeshell.org/misc/statutory.html

In fact, a recent study published in the American Journal of Public Health found that adult men fathered two-thirds of the infants born to school-aged mothers in California in 1993. On average, these men were 4.2 years older than the senior-high mothers and 6.7 years older than the junior-high mothers.[1]

Likewise, a review of California's 1990 vital statistics found that men older than high school age sired 77 percent of all births to high school-aged girls (ages 16-18) and 51 percent of births to junior high school-aged girls (15 and younger). Men over age 25 fathered twice as many teenage births as did boys under age 18, and men over age 20 fathered five times more births to junior high school-aged girls than did junior high school-aged boys.[2]
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The argument most typically posed for why statutory rape laws are unfair is, "Well, some girls just mature faster and are ready for sexual responsibilities!" But that's not what comes up when the issue is looked at statistically. Those aren't the kinds of girls who enter such relationships. What is found instead is that girls in such relationships are typically LESS sexually responsible and mature than their peers are. What's more, such girls seem to typically enter into a relationship not out of a desire for sex, but because they come from impoverished backgrounds or backgrounds without a father figure. They are looking for, essentially, another parent to take care of them. And such a person is easily able to manipulate said girl into a sexual relationship.

Edit: And here's the study:

http://www.americanbar.org/content/...blicDocuments/statutory_rape.authcheckdam.pdf

Interestingly, it also says that teenage girls are more vulnerable to STD infection because their immune systems are not fully formed yet. Also, regarding HIV infections (though it should be noted that this is a pretty old study):

In 1992, researcher Males estimated that seven out of 10 teenage girls become infected with sexually transmitted diseases as a result of sexual relations with men over 20. Males points out that 90% of all HIV cases acquired from heterosexual intercourse before age 18 are in females and only 10% in males. His data suggests that teenagers, particularly girls, acquire nearly all HIV infections from sex with older men.10 According to Males, "it appears that HIV and AIDS transmission to teens may be less due to teenage sexual practices, on which it is often blamed, than on the pattern of liaison between teenage girls and adult men."
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Another interesting part of this study is the kinds of MEN who typically enter into such situations. The bigger the age discrepancy between the adult and teen, the more unaccomplished the guy tends to be, in terms of education, job, maturity, etc. Essentially, it seems to me that the kinds of men who pursue such relationships tend to be losers who just can't get laid, so they turn to emotionally unstable kids instead.


As I am pretty firmly against giving AIDS and babies to immature, undereducated, impoverished teenage girls with daddy issues, I'm pretty comfortable with laws that at least try to prevent such things. I mean, what's the down side of such laws? Grown ups have to wait a couple years before having sex with some kid they fancy to avoid jail, or maybe they have to deal with sleeping with an adult as unsavory as they are because they can't target kids who don't know any better? Boo hoo, cry me a freaking river.

*I should state, for the record though, that I am in favor of Romeo & Juliet exceptions, in which statutory rape does not apply if the two kids are of comparable age. I certainly don't think a 17 year old should be jailed for sleeping with a 16 year old.
 
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It is interesting reading this thread. There are very sound reasons for age of consent laws wherever they occur, which you can research if you choose.

If you look into the attitudes of sexual offenders, you will find them arguing against age of consent rules, using the same "reasoning" as found in this thread. If you have ever heard of NAMBLA, or actually assessed sexual offenders, you might not be as naive.

And, it is not up to anyone to "prove" to one individual that the laws are sound. That is a matter for community consensus through the legislative process. That is what legislative and public policy debate is for. Look into how your local age of consent laws were developed. No need to re invent the wheel.

If anyone here is a parent, think about it. You will have to one day. Would you choose for your 13 year old to have a sexual relationship with anyone not close to their age and maturity?
 
What about a 17 year old? Age of consent in my state is 18.

And there's no "Romeo and Juliet" provision, either. I know a guy who at age 18 had consensual sex with his 17 year old girlfriend. He now has to register as a sex offender and can't live near schools, etc for the rest of his life.
 
seayakin said:
I think the only think about the age issue is that even if someone has reached sexual maturity physiologically, they may not have the cognitive abilities to fully understand the ramifications of such an action.
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Does this apply to humans only? Or differently to humans than to others? Is this meant as a subjective opinion or something objective, possibly even authoritative?
 
Keep the laws as they are, but add an affirmative defense where the "victim" is evaluated much in the same way he or she would be evaluated if charged with a felony. In other words if we are capable of determining that a 13 year old was mature enough to understand the consequences of (say) robbing a liquor store, we are certainly capable of determining if that same teen was capable of consenting to sex.

Thus the age of consent will be what society determines is an age where (barring exceptional circumstances like mental capacity) persons are assumed to be capable of consenting to sex instead of it being an assumption that absolutely no persons under that age could possibly be able to consent. That's how we deal with minors committing crimes.
 
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