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I'm going with 18. I realize that won't be popular but helps with the "murky" area. The person is an adult and probably no longer in school or nearly out. Too many cases where people are complaining that someone 19 thought the girl was 17 and able to consent when she was 14. Adults 18 years and above should not be cruising school girls for sex. I also think that if you don't know someone well enough to know whether they are an adult or a child, you shouldn't probably be having sex with them in the first place.
At the age of 18, the person is also old enough to get a job to support any children resulting from their sexual encounters and their own bills for STDs.
The consent for donating blood was/is under the age of 18 and my son gave blood when he was in high school and got really ill. I had warned him it was not a good idea but they enticed him to give anyway. Well, it became my problem when he became ill and all they did was call and tell me to come take him home. Any problems related to sexual consenting by a minor would also be dropped on my doorstep when things developed out of the ordinary.
Keep in mind that those that seek the young and inexperienced, the vulnerable that they feel they can control will try to move that age of consent even lower to make it legal. If the people are both minors, I don't see the issue but I would discourage it. When one is 18+ and the other a minor, ah, no. Don't they have the term "jail bait" anymore?
With the constant stories in the news about underage girls and adult males, please make that a part of the "sex" talk with your children. Make the girl realize how she jeopardizes the male by lying to him and the male to realize that underage girls will get him listed as a sexual offender. Ignorance of the law is no excuse. It is just so simple really and people didn't used to always get caught up having sex with children. Gee, have some control and think.
A 2 year age gap until the age of 20 may work. 15-17. 16-18. 17-19. 18-20. 19-21. 20 - whatever.
Okay. I can see that.
I think this is not a bad idea, though maybe between 15 and 17 only a 1 year gap. At that age there can be a vast amount of difference between two years.
I think this is not a bad idea, though maybe between 15 and 17 only a 1 year gap. At that age there can be a vast amount of difference between two years.
I think it's interesting how many people believe that 18 is the age of consent. That is the highest age, but the majority of states are actually lower. I'm not sure if this information is out of date, but according to the site below, 31 states are set at 16 and many have "close in age" exemptions.
In New Jersey for example, once you hit 16 (age of consent) anything goes, but due to the "close in age" examptions it's actually legal for a 13,14, or 15 year old to be involved with anyone less than 4 years older than them, making a 13yo/17yo relationship legal.
It creates a very messy maze of strange laws though since for example, that means that while a 13 year old couldn't watch pornography (requires 18) they can actually have sex with that same person as long as it's not on camera.
I'm personally surprised that there isn't a standard for this, as it does explain a lot of "accidental" statutory rape situations, because in addition to "I didn't know her age" you also have "I didn't know it was illegal."
People say 18 because that's the highest age of any state, so you know for a fact that it's safe at that point.
I think we really should reconsider that entire "statutory rape" thing.
I have a convicted sex offender in my house. The kid is the same age as my oldest (20). When he was 18, he had a relationship with a 16 y.o. girl. He was convicted and had to registered as a sex offender.
Got kicked out by his parents, couldn't live anywhere, so I took him in. He's now in college, but I'm paying for it. Being a convicted sex offender, he lost all rights to scholarships. Since he is virtually unemployable, his only option is to come work for me.
That kid is not a sex offender. I've known him for more than a decade, and I also know the girl. they were genuinely fond of each other.
When word got out he lived at my place, the neighborhood got into a hissy fit. Most of my neighbors are now OK with it, after I explained the situation. Others still try to get him out. Bad luck for them, my lawyers are better.
That kid does not belong on that list. He did not make a mistake. He fell in love with a girl not even two years his junior.
Just imagine. If I hadn't stepped in, the kid would have been living in a SO colony or on the street. Those laws are just stupid and the judges enforcing them by the book are criminals. I understand the need to protect kids, but it needs to be assessed case by case.
If there's green on the patch, play on! That's what they used to say in England.
Would there be more sexual exploitation or less if the age of consent were lowered? I guess there would be more. More and younger prostitutes, more and younger pornography.
I can't think of a reason why it should be lowered. Except disgusting ones.
Just now, some cops in a nearby city have been caught having sex with HS girls. What they were doing in HS in the first place is beyond me, but they used the opportunity to score some easy points. Not to mention the routine sexual abuse of kids by their teachers in New York City schools.
Do we want to provide a more target rich environment for perverts like this? Let them indulge their cravings without fear?
The days when a father would beat the crap out of a pervert who accosted his daughter are over. There's only the law left. Imperfect though it is, it's all we have.
Is the individual a Public Image figure such as a Celebrity? Because it is continually in the media of the 16-17 dating older men, and they travel and go around the world with him if that is what they want to do.
No one said a word when Miley dated the Older guy, and the world knew they were bed mates as well, and certainly Kylie has been dating older guys long before she turned 17, and certainly she has traveled to various countries with him or her in tow, as well as finding a way to purchase a 2.x million dollar home before she is 18. Her older sister just wrote that she was sleeping with guys in their 20, when she was 15... The fact is: these girls grew up in an environment where money flowed freely, celebrity and wealth rules and guidelines have a marked difference in what young women can and will do in these situations. it is not like your avg small town community of working class people and working class ideals. They have access to everything and everything has access to them...so things happen !!!!
So.... the matter has a lot of variables, that don't fit a fixed format, for sure anyone with common sense knows 12-13 is not a functional age, but who can actually contain and stop a 14-15-16 from doing exactly what they want to do, and with whom every they pursue to do it with. In reality, it happens every day. Pregnant is Pregnant, whether she got pregnant by a 14 yr old male, or a 20 yr old male - fact is she is still Pregnant.
There are females in every part of this country, who are physically indistinguishable from the physical make up of females much older - and they know how to lie about it. These are simply realities which exist.
People don't think!!!! Biology is its own thing...if you think these girls are having monthly cycles, and not feeling the same flow of urges that any woman feels through the cycles, then people are not paying attention to the basics of nature.
Why do you think when some of these females get to the age of 14 onwards, they feel as empowered to be a woman as any woman, in the sense of natures reproductive instincts and the chemical changes taking place in her body on a monthly cycle.
How can this be ignored? Look at the statistical age of Run Always, it is at the very same age these things exist. Look at the current day realism of what ACTUALLY happens in life, not what people want to pretend does not happen.
Remember, history had awareness of this, because women were by 16 or so, being married and raising a family. some raised kids as single parents, but they raised them. Society tried NOT TO LET THEM FIND A JOB, which in turn leads to some of these very same women, seeking out older men, and in some sad cases, resorting to become a street commodity to feed herself and her child.
Society is in some ways crazy, when everything in the media and advertisement feature the young look, the young body and the young women, its at a point where these young females know, they are pursued byboys, girls, men and women, by the time they are 16- there is no place they can go to escape it. That is the nature of reality and how it actually is. You can teach them about the responsibilities that come along with it all, but don't expect magic nor some miracle, because there are many adults who are well over 21 and even 31 who do not understand the nature of the responsibilities which comes with sex and mate selections. The trip part is there is no prescription and manual for such. It's life - Its the nature of what communication, lack of communications, ineffective communications, and in some cases what functional and interactive communications brings to exist in life. No one at any age of what is considered adult is guaranteed any permanence within anything in life.
So, don't toss your offspring away, because they had sex, or because they get pregnant or have a baby... its still their life, and if you have compassion to assist them, then do so and don't tear them down, but help them to stand and be and become what they desire to be, with baby in tow if that is the case.
Last edited by Chance and Change; 08-11-2015 at 11:41 AM..
I'd put it "upon high school graduation", or if the person doesn't graduate from high school, 18.
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