Mike81, Oh I quite agree, but I think it is the punishments that have become Draconian, not the basic law. I do not, in general, think that mandatory minimums or "side punishments" are appropriate. I much prefer Judges who are allowed to sentence under the dictum, "Let the punishment fit the crime."
Age of Consent and Statutory Rape
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Kevin_Lowe
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Well, there's objective evidence that people who start having sex at thirteen have worse life outcomes than their abstinent peers. Presumably good sex has some benefits, but again presumably other factors swamp those benefits with greater harms. However since we don't know the mechanism behind the effect (or even know with absolute certainty that we haven't just missed some confounding variable) it's hard to speculate further.
The theory has been put forward that it's worse for said thirteen year old to be having sex with an older person than with a person of the same age, and this is possible, but I wouldn't say it has yet been empirically established.
Ron_Tomkins
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I love the fact that people still get scandalized about these stupid things. I love the fact that people still try to catch other people's attention over these things by making a big fuss. I love the fact that not only we can enjoy the pleasure of bloody savage video games, vulgar comedy and dirty porn, but additionally, we can piss off a bunch of idiots and bigoted morons who have nothing better to do than to try to make us feel guilty, and try to project their own issues in an attempt to get everyone else to share their inner misery...... I guess what I'm saying is, as a good ol' friend of mine once said "I love the fact that there are Religions, because I love to sin".
quixotecoyote
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I'd be fascinated to see how one "objectively" determines how someone's outcome in life is "worse" than another. You can objectively measure some outcomes, but it's subjective to call one better or worse.
You need to get out more!
bookitty
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Sure there's all kinds of benefit to good sex.
But if you have a 13 year old teen and an adult over the age of 21, the benefit to the teen is negligible. There is absolutely nothing that they could gain that they would miss out on by waiting a few years. When you toss in the negatives - STD's, the burden and responsibility associated with pregnancy, the potential for exploitation - any benefit is far outweighed by the harm.
A 13-year-old is easily manipulated by an adult. An adult that manipulates a 13 year old for sex is doing it for selfish reasons. If there is any benefit to the teen from that experience, it's accidental. The people who want and actively seek to have sex with 13 year-olds are the people who are mostly likely to harm them. The sex is a fetish and they are treating the 13-year-old like an object. If they do not have a fetish for 13-year-olds but instead find them easier to manipulate into a sexual relationship, then they are also dangerous to their psychological well-being.
gumboot
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In my view the primary function of having the age of consent is to be able to better protect children against pedofiles. The mere act of sex is illegal, irrespective of consent and context. Certainly some 13 (or 15 or whatever) year olds are more than old enough to decide for themselves, but many aren't. There needs to be a cutoff somewhere, which is of course arbitrary.
Unless the cutoff is absurdly high (e.g. 18) or absurdly low (e.g. 10), it serves a useful purpose. It certainly does injustice to some, but if waiting an extra couple of months or a year is so hard for you, you need to learn a lession in patience anyway.
MCHrozni
I disagree with that - I argued long and hard for the age of consent to be changed from 21 to 16, not because I wanted to have sex with a 16 year old but because I considered it an act of discrimination (for which there was no rational reason). When I was 17 I was arguing for the right to have sex with other 17 year olds and older. When I was in my first long term relationship my partner and I had a constant fear because he was over 21 and I was under 21 and therefore he could have been charged with very serious crimes.
Mark6
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I think you just illustrated McHrozni's post just before yours:
"Unless the cutoff is absurdly high (e.g. 18) or absurdly low (e.g. 10), [age of consent law] serves a useful purpose."
21 is absurdly high. Especially if both partners are under 21 and both end up charged with statutory rape (your post does not make clear if that's possible in UK).
Schrodinger's Cat
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Wow, age of consent was 21? Seriously? Where was this? That's VERY high. I understand you fighting against it. And if age of consent was 21 here, I think it's pretty likely you'd also have lots of older teens fighting to lower it, and I'm assuming that you could make some very good arguments for why a 17 year old should be considered of legal age. A 17 year old can drive and go to college and have a full time job and go to war. Considering they are afforded all the other responsibilities of adulthood, it is reasonable to say they should also be allowed to have sex as well.
So see, that's kind of exactly my point. If 17 year olds such as yourself organize for your right to have sex with older people, and you come along with all these reasonable arguments for why it should be legal for you to do so, then it makes a good case that not allowing 17 year olds to have sex is an unreasonable law, and we should consider the law.
But that's not the case with 13 year olds in America. They aren't organizing for their right to sleep with adult men, and they don't have the fact that they are given any other adult responsibilities to back up their claims that they should be treated like an adult in terms of sex. We don't even let 13 year olds join the army, or drive cars, or hold most jobs. We treat them like children in every other respect. You can't enter into a contract with a 13 year old, because it is understood a 13 year old is not capable of understanding the ramifications of such a commitment. So why should we say they are adults who can consent to sex with adults? Especially when sex can result in a LIFETIME commitment through things like pregnancy and STDs? (and also, why on earth do we try them as adults for crime in courts - but that's another thread) Keeping in mind that pregnancy that young not only has great social ramifications for mother and child, but is also significantly more dangerous physically for both than a woman getting pregnant in her late teens/early 20s.
And as for the marijuana users example, that doesn't work. Because marijuana users are both the perpetrators AND the victims of the crime. With statutory rape, the law is: "It is against the law for you, an adult, to sleep with a child. Because it is bad for the child." With marijuana laws, the law is "you shouldn't smoke marijuana, because its bad for YOU." And marijuana users say, "No, no its not bad for us as long as we use it responsibly. We aren't vicitms at all. And look; here are all these medical studies and scientfic studies and social studies that show that it's not bad for us, and we're not victims." This is the reason the marijuana decriminalization movement has been so much more successful than the crack cocaine decriminalization movement. Because the "victims" of marijuana say they aren't victims, they aren't harmed by marijuana use, and here are the studies to prove it. Whereas crack cocaine users cannot make that same argument.
But we do know that sex for young teens is harmful. We know, especially, that pregnancy for young teens is dangerous and has extremely negative social consequences both for the teen and for the child. It's NOT like with marijuana laws, where the person doing the crime is the one affected. The person committing statutory rape is affecting someone else. "I will go to jail if I am not allowed to do this" is not enough to make me consider your opinion, because if that was the case, heck, regular, forcible rapsists should get to have a say in whether or not forcible rape is legal, because they are the ones who go to jail if it is. If an act (young teens having sex) has a significant risk of harm, then unless you can show me that it harms you NOT to have sex with young teens, I want those laws on the book. "Going to jail" is not enough of an argument because by that standard, we shouldn't sentence ANYONE for crime. You should have to show how following the law hurts you.
Which again, let's go back to marijuana laws. Medical marijuana users have been even more successful in decriminalizing their activies. Because recretional pot users can only say "Yeah, its an easy law to follow, but if the act isn't dangerous, than the law doesn't make sense, so we shouldn't have it." Whereas a cancer ridden user can actually say, "Following this law hurts me. By following the law and not being allowed to smoke marijuana, I suffer demonstrable pain."
There is no such argument that can be made by an older adult seeking to sleep with a minor. They do not suffer by following the law. They suffer by BREAKING the law, sure, but so do all criminals, so 'jail sucks' is not an excuse. By having this law in place, in order to abide by it, adults are only inconvenienced, nothing more.
Now if this was a law that served no purpose, if what they were seeking to do caused no harm to anyone, then it wouldn't matter its an easy law that doesn't hurt you to follow, its still a stupid law that serves no purpose.
But when the law does serve a purpose, simply saying "I go to jail if I break it, and I don't want to" is not enough to make us reconsider said law. However, if simply following the law causes you to suffer, then that would be a reason to consider changing it.
Also Kevin, with the AIDS thing, you know, that's a very good question. I tried to find a number but I couldn't find any exact statistics on the percentage of kids who get into relationships with adults get STDs. But 1 in 4 teenage girls has an STD, and girls who are in relationships with older men are twice as likely to develop an STD than a girl in a relationship with a boy who is of comparable age. And the most common STD is HPV, which can cause infertility and cervical cancer. So it's not like we're talking about a 1 in a million girls who have sex with older men are affected by STDs. The number is statistically significant, and to me, that's a good reason to not make such high risk relationships legal, when there is no harm, only inconvenience, suffered on the part of adults for having to abide by this law.
Also, as for the matter of "it doesn't cause harm in EVERY case, so it should be legal, or we should say whether it is illegal on a case by case basis" - why on earth would we do that? What other law does that apply to? Plenty of crimes don't cause harm in EVERY case, that's not a reason to make it only "sometimes" illegal. My best friend was kidnapped from a parking lot, taken to a wooded area, and raped repeatedly. She was shaken up for a couple days, but then she was fine. No changes in her personality, no trauma, no need for counseling. She just went right back to her normal self. We've talked about this extensively, and she's talked about how its weird how LITTLE this event impacted her life. For instance, she's had a couple bad break ups that threw her into emotional instability for months, and which still bother her even to this day. There's been countless things that people have done to her that aren't illegal (like say, her boyfriend cheating on her) that have impacted her life and mental well being, but her rape just isn't one of them. It was certainly a crappy thing that happened, but it just isn't something that had a lasting impact. Her kidnapper and rapist (who was never caught) would certainly suffer far more in prison than she did by being raped. Does that mean he should get off? I always thought of crime as being based not only on ACTUAL harm, but POTENTIAL for harm. If the potential harm for statutory rape is there, it should be illegal whether or not ACTUAL harm is done to an individual victim. However, with statutory rape - how much (or little) the victim actually was harmed certainly could, and should, play a role in sentencing. But I do not, in my opinion, think it should be applied to whether the act itself is actually considered illegal, because the perp still committed a crime with the potential to harm, and it is very hard to know until after the sex act has been committed how much harm the victim will suffer. It's like how drunk driving is illegal whether or not you hit someone, the illegality is based on potential for harm. But the sentencing for drunk driving is obviously far different for if you hit and kill someone than if you don't. Actual harm (or lack thereof) comes into play for sentencing purposes, but not the act's inherent illegality.
So considering we don't judge ANY crime's actual illegality on a "case by case basis," why on earth should adults who diddle kids be the magical exception? It's not like this is some noble pursuit that should warrant them extra consideration.
And as far as determining who is a kid on a "case by case" basis, we typically do NOT do this either. A 13 year old can't join the army, or enter into a legal contract. They are considered a child and too young across the board. The ONLY time (to my knowledge, correct me if I'm wrong) we determine legal adulthood on a "case by case" basis is when determining if said 13 year old will be tried as an adult rather than a juvenile. And personally, I think this is a horrible thing to do, and is a practice we should be looking to get rid of, not expand.
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Ron_Tomkins
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I'd guess this was in England. Rather than a blanket age of constent law, there were separate laws for heterosexual and homosexual acts (between men), the former set at 16 and the latter at 21. They are both set at 16 nowadays, but only since 2000, appearently.
It's probably fair to call it an act of discrimination, if only because it made the disctinction. Overall, having a age of consent set above the age of majority is a rare occurence nowadays.
I thought you were very knowledgeable in this area. After all, you told us, "Except that every modern or near modern campaign I've ever heard of in every country, from the U.S. to Yemen, in which age of consent was or is being fought to be raised, was lead by women."
And yet here you are unaware that even today some countries have age of consent laws at age 21. BTW, are the campaigns to change homosexual age of consent laws also lead by women?
You also pointed out how easy it is to follow the law. In many countries homosexuality is illegal. So is sex before marriage. Seem like pretty easy laws to follow, yeh? Do you make the same arguments in support of those laws?
Why are you so hung up 13 year old females organizing themselves in an effort to be allowed to have sex with adult men? This repeated scenario is kind of disturbing. I think there are several reasons why they don't organize. First, they have no power. None. Zilch. Second, it's transient. If you're black, you're black forever. You're only 13 for a year. Third, it's really not difficult to have sex with someone older and not get caught. Fourth, as soon as they brought it up, their parents would freak out, so the effort would be thwarted before it ever got started.
As for treating them like adults, we can make just as many arguments that we do, in fact, treat them like adults. We allow them to seek out abortions and get treated for STDs without parental consent. If they commit crimes, we can punish them as adults as if a kid with no pubic hair is really mature enough to understand what "30 years to life" really means.
Where contracts are concerned, you are wrong as far as the USA is concerned. Minors and do enter into and execute contracts. In most cases the contract is voidable at the option of the minor if done so before turning 18 (it's a little more complicated than that, actually, but close enough). Some contracts are not voidable such as student loans, business ventures, and contracts for necessities like food and shelter. If the minor voids the contract, for the most part (again somewhat complicated) the other party must be made whole. For example, if a minor buys a car and then six months later decides he doesn't want it, he can stop paying. If he still has the car, he needs to return it.
The point is that we don't treat minors as mindless pieces of meat when it comes to contracts.
Can you provide some evidence for what "we" know?
I'm not sure I'd call it dangerous. After age 15 I don't believe that the age is actually the factor. Younger than that I think there are more risks, but I don't know what you qualify as dangerous.
Segnosaur
Penultimate Amazing
You're actually complaining because because I used the word "distress"?
Fine, substitute whatever word you want to use to indicate an individual being subjected to questioning that would be possibly harmful emotionally.
Now wait a second... this is the first time I recall you dealing with the issue of statutory rape when the individuals are actually close in age. Up until now, you seem to have concentrated on "lets test the woman to see how mature she is".
If you want to argue that it should be no problem for a high school senior to be with a sophomore, then fine. But there are other ways to deal with that. (For example, in Canada, we have a 2 year "window", where an individual below the age of consent can be with those above the age, as long as the age difference is not greater than 2 years. That takes care of the "close in age but still statutory" issue.
Ummm... you know a girl can "voluntarily spread her knees" at any age. She cannot however give legal consent.
And, why are you assuming that "spreading your knees" automatically leads to pregnancy/abortion? It seems like you're assuming that just because a girl agrees to sex (whether she was tricked into it or was mature enough to consent) that she can automatically handle everything.
A Laughing Baby
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I'm confused. Is the implication here that the man simply had no choice in the matter himself? This is sort of reversing the argument put forth by statutory rape laws, namely the concept that a minor cannot give consent. If the (overage) man can voluntarily have intercourse with the (underage) girl, not use protection, and get her pregnant, he should be considered innocent in the eyes of the law because of some sort of variation on the oft-repeated theme of "she was the one who seduced me?"
Regardless of whatever scientific or psychological merit you give this argument, you're still positing that our justice system should try the victim. In my opinion, this is a dangerous precedent to set.
ETA: on top of that, define "voluntarily." If a 13-year-old girl is coerced through abuse of trust and willingly has sex with a 30-year-old man, was it voluntary?
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For the record, I don't think there are any countries with a blanket age of consent law at 21.
The discrepancy between gay and straight couples in age of consent laws is a bit of a different issue from the usual age of consent laws, since the legislation suggests one requires more responsibility than the other. Though it's certainly relevant to the OP, I think age of consent discrepancy is quite a different topic altogether.
Where would you get such an implication? I am talking about changing the system so that two parties with the ability to consent to sex can have sex without the parents or even the state (like in California) prosecuting one of the parties for a crime.
I have no idea what you're on about here. Who's talking about seduction, condoms or pregnancy? To me the issue is about whether it's right to criminalize a consensual act based solely on a calendar when, in fact, we have a judicial system that already examines sophistication and maturity of juveniles. Who seduced whom is irrelevant.
It's disturbing to me that so many people treat minors as if they have no rights whatsoever. Yeh, SC will remind us that they are not clamoring for their rights, but I don't recall seeing minors clamoring for the right to get treated for STDs without parental consent. Adults led the charge. We adults are the ones in charge of the laws, and we should acknowledge that the transition to adulthood is a process rather than a bright line.
Evaluating maturity and sophistication is not "trying" a victim. It's actually determining if there was, in fact, a victim.
If she's 16, was it voluntary?
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That's not really relevant to my point. SC was implying some expertise in her knowledge of age of consent laws. I am impeaching that implication.
Why? Because you think homosexuals/bisexuals are somehow different? Should we look at sexual orientation when deciding to try minors as adults? Hire them for jobs? Are they less mature? Wise?