Should the age of consent be lowered to 14?

[TNF]

The age of consent should be abolished. So long as both (or however many) parties give effective consent to engage in sexual activity, I don't think it's the job of the state to lock them up if one of them hit an arbitrary age marker before the other. The fact may people here think it's a good idea to lock up anyone for things that they mutually agree to, while bothering no one else, is proof positive that the 'sexual revolution' of the 1960s-70s has pretty much been reversed in its entirety at this point, although the rhetoric now is about 'protecting children/women/etc' rather than 'punishing sinners'.

(Nothing in this post should obviously be interpreted as apologia for coerced sexual activity, but it will be anyway because hey, this is Atlas Forum, and being a leftist that does not support the anti-sex witchhunt of the post-Reagan years is beyond the pale here)

[TNF]

14 if the partner is under 16
15 if the partner is under 18
16 if the partner is under 21
18 regardless of the partner's age

The third one criminalizes a lot of people.

I don't think a 22-year-old like me has any business having sex with people who are 16. That seems pretty creepy to me.

I'm not into porn where a chick steps on a guy's balls with heels, myself. But I don't think it should be illegal, because both of the people involved consented to engaging in that activity. Keep your nanny-state out of the bedroom.

[Blacky]

The age of consent should be abolished.

That's a good idea but not in the US. We are too different, some parents would argue this so much that it would result in civil war xD

[Ban my account ffs!]

I'm not sure a 14 year old has the mental wherewithal to consent to sex with someone much older than him/her. 

But you must also make the law reflect reality.  Young teens have sex.  The vast majority of the time it is with other teens near their age.  I think transition laws that would allow a 14 year old to consent to sex with someone no more than 2 or at most 3 years their senior is prudent.  When you turn 16, that "cap" is lifted.  Though again... see my next comment

As for adults... I think the half plus 7 rule is actually a good one for life in general.  If you're 18.. no younger than 16.  If you're 14.. no younger than 14.  If half plus 7 means your partner should be older... you shouldn't be having sex.  When you're 80, you can marry a 47 year old!

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I think it has to. It has been this way for many centuries. For some reason a few decades ago people started calling the girls who reach puberty "underage" while in fact, they are mature enough for sex. The girls who give birth when they are 14 y.o. breed the most healthy children. It has nothing to do with pedophilia since being sexually attracted to young females is a completely natural thing.

Citation needed, since IIRC it's generally not a good thing physically for a child to be born in the first few years after puberty is reached, tho that may be just the effects upon a mother who has not yet finished growing herself. In any case, as creepy as most moderns find ephebophilia, it's not a US-only issue, so I'm moving this from USGD to Political Debate.

[OSR stands with Israel]

No absolutely not, it should remain at 18

[politicus]

No absolutely not, it should remain at 18

Lower in most places (see above).

[Antonio the Sixth]

14 if the partner is under 16
15 if the partner is under 18
16 if the partner is under 21
18 regardless of the partner's age

The third one criminalizes a lot of people.

I don't think a 22-year-old like me has any business having sex with people who are 16. That seems pretty creepy to me.

I'm not into porn where a chick steps on a guy's balls with heels, myself. But I don't think it should be illegal, because both of the people involved consented to engaging in that activity. Keep your nanny-state out of the bedroom.

Surely you understand that a person's ability to properly consent - as well as another person's ability to exploit someone else's inability to properly consent - is dependent on age?

[DavidB.]

No. It should be 16 if the partner is 21 or younger and 18 if the partner is older than 21.

15 (with =18 or <18) should be tolerated, but not legal.

[TNF]

14 if the partner is under 16
15 if the partner is under 18
16 if the partner is under 21
18 regardless of the partner's age

The third one criminalizes a lot of people.

I don't think a 22-year-old like me has any business having sex with people who are 16. That seems pretty creepy to me.

I'm not into porn where a chick steps on a guy's balls with heels, myself. But I don't think it should be illegal, because both of the people involved consented to engaging in that activity. Keep your nanny-state out of the bedroom.

Surely you understand that a person's ability to properly consent - as well as another person's ability to exploit someone else's inability to properly consent - is dependent on age?

What defines 'proper consent' for you? Because if a girl wanted to have sex with me when I was 14, I'd have said yes, like a normal person that age would if the offer was made. So long as both parties know what they're getting into and agree to it, I don't think it's any of your business to butt in and say 'well she's 16 and you're 22, so she obviously isn't old enough to consent to sex', which is ridiculous. Were you ever 16? I was, and I definitely remember being able to understand (and obviously desire) sex then, as well as at 14.

[Cory]

15 (with =18 or <18) should be tolerated, but not legal.

Well which is it? When you're writing law you can't have it both ways. Either it's legal or it isn't.

[DavidB.]

15 (with =18 or <18) should be tolerated, but not legal.

Well which is it? When you're writing law you can't have it both ways. Either it's legal or it isn't.

Not legal, but officially tolerated, which means that no prosecution will take place if one doesn't follow this law. This is quite a common thing in the Netherlands, my country, and I think it makes sense. You don't think something should be legalized, but it is not problematic enough to prosecute one for it either.

[Cory]

Not legal, but officially tolerated, which means that no prosecution will take place if one doesn't follow this law. This is quite a common thing in the Netherlands, my country, and I think it makes sense. You don't think something should be legalized, but it is not problematic enough to prosecute one for it either.

Then what's the point in making it illegal? What's to stop prosecutors from enforcing the law when they feel like it, and not enforcing it when they don't. It's "tolerated" unless their daughter hooks up with an 18 year old. Then it's time to bring out the big guns and "enforce the law as it's written". If you want to "send a message of condemnation, but tolerance" then do it in public forums and not in legal code.

What you're saying just seems deeply illogical.

[DavidB.]

Not legal, but officially tolerated, which means that no prosecution will take place if one doesn't follow this law. This is quite a common thing in the Netherlands, my country, and I think it makes sense. You don't think something should be legalized, but it is not problematic enough to prosecute one for it either.

Then what's the point in making it illegal? What's to stop prosecutors from enforcing the law when they feel like it, and not enforcing it when they don't. It's "tolerated" unless their daughter hooks up with an 18 year old. Then it's time to bring out the big guns and "enforce the law as it's written". If you want to "send a message of condemnation, but tolerance" then do it in public forums and not in legal code.

What you're saying just seems deeply illogical.

Politicians decide that it will be tolerated, so prosecutors don't have any grounds to randomly go and "enforce the law", because it has already been decided that this won't be possible. Meanwhile, it's not officially legal. So it's tolerated unless their 15-year-old daughter or son hooks up with someone older than 18. Meanwhile, 15 seems a bit too young for me to legalize it, you really don't want to give the message to a 15-year-old that this is acceptable. "Toleration" is something that's really normal to the Netherlands (albeit not on this issue), most famously with regard to marijuana of course, and it works. Even if it might sometimes not feel "consequent", I like the "nuancedness"of the idea.

[Zezano]

Creepy OP.

Western teenagers generally start having sex on average when they are 16-16.5 years old, this is fairly stable across various countries. So 16 means almost half of teenagers start having sex when they are underage. This is the main reason we have the age of consent at 15 in my country - it is simply more realistic and does not criminalize so many relationships. Still, 15 is a bit young to have sex with an adult (you mature fast in that age, so a year means a real difference). So if you are going to have one age of consent for all I think 16 is the most reasonale, but can live with 15.

An alternative is the 10 year+  rule for under 18s (you can have legal sex with minors above, say 14, if you are less than 10 years older than them), but that is artificial and guys in their 20s can prey on teenagers as well as older men (and older teens on young teens), so it is generally not a sensible idea.

That a terrible idea. A lot of men are celibate in their teen years and missed out. Teenage girls can stay virgins but if they are sexually active it doesn't matter if it's with a guy their own age or ten years older. Guys who get laid young tend to be losers while men who do great things take longer to develope themselves but soften get stuck with older woman and miss out on those years. In the past teenage girls would marry as virgins to older men.

[Mechaman]

Creepy OP.

Western teenagers generally start having sex on average when they are 16-16.5 years old, this is fairly stable across various countries. So 16 means almost half of teenagers start having sex when they are underage. This is the main reason we have the age of consent at 15 in my country - it is simply more realistic and does not criminalize so many relationships. Still, 15 is a bit young to have sex with an adult (you mature fast in that age, so a year means a real difference). So if you are going to have one age of consent for all I think 16 is the most reasonale, but can live with 15.

An alternative is the 10 year+  rule for under 18s (you can have legal sex with minors above, say 14, if you are less than 10 years older than them), but that is artificial and guys in their 20s can prey on teenagers as well as older men (and older teens on young teens), so it is generally not a sensible idea.

That a terrible idea. A lot of men are celibate in their teen years and missed out. Teenage girls can stay virgins but if they are sexually active it doesn't matter if it's with a guy their own age or ten years older. Guys who get laid young tend to be losers while men who do great things take longer to develope themselves but soften get stuck with older woman and miss out on those years. In the past teenage girls would marry as virgins to older men.

My love life sucked in high school but I can say at the age of 27 that 18 years old is young enough for me pal.  I don't want a date who looks like a freaking kid.  I don't like jail that much.

[Zezano]

Creepy OP.

Western teenagers generally start having sex on average when they are 16-16.5 years old, this is fairly stable across various countries. So 16 means almost half of teenagers start having sex when they are underage. This is the main reason we have the age of consent at 15 in my country - it is simply more realistic and does not criminalize so many relationships. Still, 15 is a bit young to have sex with an adult (you mature fast in that age, so a year means a real difference). So if you are going to have one age of consent for all I think 16 is the most reasonale, but can live with 15.

An alternative is the 10 year+  rule for under 18s (you can have legal sex with minors above, say 14, if you are less than 10 years older than them), but that is artificial and guys in their 20s can prey on teenagers as well as older men (and older teens on young teens), so it is generally not a sensible idea.

That a terrible idea. A lot of men are celibate in their teen years and missed out. Teenage girls can stay virgins but if they are sexually active it doesn't matter if it's with a guy their own age or ten years older. Guys who get laid young tend to be losers while men who do great things take longer to develope themselves but soften get stuck with older woman and miss out on those years. In the past teenage girls would marry as virgins to older men.

My love life sucked in high school but I can say at the age of 27 that 18 years old is young enough for me pal.  I don't want a date who looks like a freaking kid.  I don't like jail that much.

27 year olds are already showing signs of ageing and decline in fertility. They have a higher notch count than an 18 year old girl. Men don't want a women who's had a lot of dick.

[DavidB.]

Creepy OP.

Western teenagers generally start having sex on average when they are 16-16.5 years old, this is fairly stable across various countries. So 16 means almost half of teenagers start having sex when they are underage. This is the main reason we have the age of consent at 15 in my country - it is simply more realistic and does not criminalize so many relationships. Still, 15 is a bit young to have sex with an adult (you mature fast in that age, so a year means a real difference). So if you are going to have one age of consent for all I think 16 is the most reasonale, but can live with 15.

An alternative is the 10 year+  rule for under 18s (you can have legal sex with minors above, say 14, if you are less than 10 years older than them), but that is artificial and guys in their 20s can prey on teenagers as well as older men (and older teens on young teens), so it is generally not a sensible idea.

That a terrible idea. A lot of men are celibate in their teen years and missed out. Teenage girls can stay virgins but if they are sexually active it doesn't matter if it's with a guy their own age or ten years older. Guys who get laid young tend to be losers while men who do great things take longer to develope themselves but soften get stuck with older woman and miss out on those years. In the past teenage girls would marry as virgins to older men.

My love life sucked in high school but I can say at the age of 27 that 18 years old is young enough for me pal.  I don't want a date who looks like a freaking kid.  I don't like jail that much.

27 year olds are already showing signs of ageing and decline in fertility. They have a higher notch count than an 18 year old girl. Men don't want a women who's had a lot of dick.

Maybe this isn't the place for this kind of vocabulary.

[pbrower2a]

14 if the partner is under 16
15 if the partner is under 18
16 if the partner is under 21
18 regardless of the partner's age

The third one criminalizes a lot of people.

Anyone over 21 seeking a sex partner under 16 is almost certainly a predator. There's a huge gap in behavior between 16 and 21 -- bigger than between 21 and 35. 

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

" Guys who get laid young tend to be losers while men who do great things take longer to develope themselves but soften get stuck with older woman and miss out on those years."

Probably the single most pathetic thing I've ever read in my life. Was 'soften' a Freudian slip I wonder?

[Bojack Horseman]

No, but I think that we should change the sex offender registry laws to provide mitigating factors for age differences. An example is a 19-year-old here in Michigan who met a girl on a dating app who said repeatedly that she was 18. Turned out she was lying out her ass and she was really 14, and so the 19-year-old boy spent 90 days in jail and will be on the sex offender registry for life. The girl and her mother testified at trial that she lied about her age repeatedly the entire time, and he testified that if he'd known her age, he would have shut the whole thing down from the start. That guy doesn't deserve to be labeled for life the same way that a 40+ year-old man who abuses a child deserves to be.

[The Mikado]

Snip

What is wrong with you? Get out of here.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

OP is creepy pedo.

[Marokai Backbeat]

I guess I just don't see any sensible argument as to why it needs to be that low. If a 14 year old is naturally having sex of their own volition, it's almost certainly to be with people around their age, or at the very least teenagers as well, which can be covered under the usual reasonably generous Romeo & Juliet exceptions. Basically the only reason you would want the official age of consent to be that law would be if you want 30 year olds to have sex with 14 year olds with no repercussion, in which case... uh... yeah... Creepy would be an understatement.

[pbrower2a]

No, but I think that we should change the sex offender registry laws to provide mitigating factors for age differences. An example is a 19-year-old here in Michigan who met a girl on a dating app who said repeatedly that she was 18. Turned out she was lying out her ass and she was really 14, and so the 19-year-old boy spent 90 days in jail and will be on the sex offender registry for life. The girl and her mother testified at trial that she lied about her age repeatedly the entire time, and he testified that if he'd known her age, he would have shut the whole thing down from the start. That guy doesn't deserve to be labeled for life the same way that a 40+ year-old man who abuses a child deserves to be.

Deceit by the younger 'partner' should be a mitigating or even exculpating factor.

If I were over 21 and dating someone who in any way looks or acts like a teenager I would insist upon identification before 'getting physical'.  Teenagers can lie convincingly... and anyone dating a teenager needs be careful.

Forged or misappropriated (older sibling?) ID? The person in technical violation of an age-of-consent statute should get away with it. An innocent state of mind and due caution makes one innocent so far as I am concerned. (That explains why simply being wrong is not perjury).   After all, we are talking about something less trivial than hiring someone for a job. The sex-offender register is rightly for sexual predators.