DMB

Human beings do not exist any more in a state of nature. As Hobbes wrote,
In order to enjoy the benefits of civilisation, we need laws. Unfortunately, laws always have to have an arbitrary element. If society decided that there should be such a thing as an "age of consent", then it will necessarily draw an arbitrary line. If one party is one day under this chosen age, then you are in trouble. If said party is one day over this age, you are off the hook.

So there are two main points to argue:

• Should there be an age of consent for sexual relations?
• If there should be an AoC, what should it be, and what variations should be allowed?

There is little doubt expressed here that six-year-olds ought to be protected from sexual exploitation by adults, but it has been suggested that when sexual maturity is reached a girl should be presumed to be capable of consent. It may be "natural" for a girl to have intercourse from the menarche and to become pregnant as a result, but, as suggested by my quote from Hobbes above, Nature is a cruel mistress. Human reproduction is a perilous process for young females and many die or are permanently damaged as a result. There is a far better outcome for both mother and child if girls wait for some years before becoming pregnant.

I would also suggest that informed consent to something as complicated in its implications as sexual intercourse requires a certain mental maturity and experience as well as physical maturity.

If it is, however, agreed that there ought to be an AoC it is not obvious why any particular age should be chosen, any more than it is obvious why any particular age should be chosen as the threshhold for adulthood.

IIRC, when I was a teenage in the UK, the AoC was 16, and indeed one could get married at 16, provided it was with the consent of one's parents (a curious idea, since the parents were not the ones who would suffer most from an unwise marriage). One was not, however, allowed to go into a bar to buy and consume alcohol until the age of 18. At 17, one could be licensed to drive a car and if male could become a soldier and die for one's country. In fact, from the age of 18, most males were conscripted into the army for National Service and a fair number were killed on overseas duty. But with all these different ages for assuming certain rights and responsibilities, one did not become legally adult until 21. So before 21, one could not vote. One could not marry without parental consent, and nor one could not enter into a legal contract. I am not sure, but in those days of capital punishment I don't think one could be executed under a certain age, but it was less than 21.

It seemed to me at the time that the system was riddled with inconsistencies. So someone please enlighten me. A number of posters have simply expressed an option for one age or another, with exceptions for cases where two adolescents are involved. How ought one to decide on the correct AoC?

Amen-Moses

I've already said. Licensing.

Someone who feels mature enough should get to sit an examination possibly following a compulsory education programme and if they pass then they get a fucking license.

I think that would be cool.

Think if the chat up lines; "Do you have a fucking license?"; "Bond 007 licensed to fuck." etc

Amen-Moses

yguy

Who's gonna chair the licensing board? David Thorstad?

yguy

I'll just bet you do.

Tom Sawyer

I have a legal question regarding this issue pertaining to bars.

If a guy goes into a bar in a state where the drinking age is twenty-one and picks up a girl there who happens to be fourteen, but looks mature and had a fake ID, he can be charged with stauatory rape.

If this happens, would he have grounds for a civil suit against the bar where he picked her up? Since the drinking age is twenty-one and she was in there, the bar had an obligation to make sure that everyone in there was of legal age. Since the bar didn't do it's job and the guy suffered as a result, does he have a case against them?

Have there ever been any lawsuits like this and if so, what was the outcome?

tronvillain

You know, I was just thinking about that myself? After all, bars are legally obligated to ensure they do not have underage drinkers on their premises. Of course, here it is somewhat unecessary, though that girl would only have to have been a year younger to be underage even here

Hedwig

Like what? I lied my way into college parties for the expressed purpose of picking up older guys.

I was curious to hear your reaction seeing as how you seem to be placing all the blame on the guy here.

Amen-Moses

You're just pissed 'cause you'd fail the exam.

Amen-Moses

Fred Flintstonensis

This statement shows that yguy is willing to go to any length--no matter how absurd--to maintain his belief that McDuff is culpable. "Fair game" is just a damned saying!!! It also shows that--as has been noted--yguy is more concerned with the sex part and less concerned with the sex with a minor part. I don't see McDuffie as being very proud of this fact. The fact she was too young seems to be his focus. Yguy seems unconcerned with that part altogether.

It seems like yguy thinks that if McDuff had been arrested for this incident, it would have served him right--not for having sex with a minor, but for having premarital sex at all.

Any fool with one eye and half sense can see that McDuff was the victim of a predator--not the predator.

The bouncer at the bar has more culpability than McDuff.

I have been fooled by teenaged girls before, fortunately, I resisted the temptation. One of these little teen girls was a very endowed 14 year old who had a child and told me she was 18. I thoght she was lying in that I thought she was actually older. I had a very lively conversation with her mom on the phone during the course of which I discovered that she was essentially a horny girl who would go to any length to have sex with men. She was totally uninterested in having sex with a boy her age. I felt sorry for her mother, but not too sorry. I do agree with yguy that the drunk WWF watching father that McDuff described bears some reasponsibility.

Her mother used the word "predator" when describing her daughter. I silently concurred.

I also notice that yguy has no real response for the young lady who said that she used to do the same thing when she was a teen.

Sorry but these are just thoughts that I am typing out as I think them. I am writing this a little bit at a time (busy AFK). Hopefully you can make some sense out of it. I will not have time to edit it.

I notice yguy says he is a theist in his profile, assuming he is American, this means that odds are strong he is a Christian. I wonder if he knows that in the time and place Jesus lived, girls were normally married mothers by the age of 14.

Loren Pechtel

I sure don't think statutory rape should be a strict enforcement crime! You believed, with reasonable reason, the girl to be 19. To me that should be a sufficient defense.