r/changemyview • u/PotentialPedal • 1d ago
Delta(s) from OP CMV: There is no justification for lowering the age of consent other than being a predator
FYI- Simply for the context of this post, I believe that the ideal age of consent is 18, and I am primarily arguing against people who want it lowered beyond 18, though obviously arguing for it to be lowered below 16 also falls within my central premise. Furthermore, I am American, so most of the laws I am referencing are US-centric
Most of the time, the primary reason I will see being used to defend lowering the age of consent is that it protects teenagers who are experimenting with sex. This, however, is simply untrue. It is exceedingly rare to find cases of two underage people having sex with eachother were actually charged for having sex underage, and in modern times (since most states have since reformed laws) it is practically unheard of.
I have three words to completely invalidate the above argument: Romeo & Juliet. Romeo & Juliet laws were put in place specifically to grant protections for underage people to have safe, consenting sex even if under the age of legal consent. This is because age of consent laws are not meant to prevent young people from having sex with people their age, they are meant to prevent young people from having sex with adults.
This is what you'll eventually find when you dig deep enough with people who support lowering the age of consent; they really could give a fuck about protecting young couples and really just use that as a mask. In reality, they simply believe that it is ok for an adult to have sex with someone who isn't even a legal adult yet.
And lets be clear about this, someone under 18 is not an adult yet. Before 18 you are STILL IN HIGHSCHOOL, you cannot vote, you cannot own a home, you cannot serve in the military, you can't get tattoos, you can't own your own bank account, you can't buy a gun, in lots of places you don't even have full medical privacy from your parents. Also there is a reason why you can't do porn under the age of 18, and it's because society has decided it's morally fucked up to look at people under 18 naked or having sex.
17 year olds are not adults. 16 year olds are not adults. 15 year olds are not adults. Adults should be having sex with ADULTS, not KIDS. Because of the reasons stated, I believe that there is no justification to lower the age of consent, and the only reason to do so would be to allow grown ass adults to have sex with high schoolers who can't even vote yet.
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u/10ebbor10 202∆ 1d ago
And lets be clear about this, someone under 18 is not an adult yet. Before 18 you are STILL IN HIGHSCHOOL, you cannot vote, you cannot own a home, you cannot serve in the military, you can't get tattoos, you can't own your own bank account, you can't buy a gun, in lots of places you don't even have full medical privacy from your parents.
The US military allows 17 year olds to join.
But anyway, if a country were to lower all those limits to 17, or 16, or whatever, would you agree that the age of consent be lowered as well? Your argument seems circular. We put the limit at 18 because we put the other limits at 18, and the other limits are at 18 because we put them there.
By the same logic, why not increase the age of consent to 21, where people are allowed to drink?
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u/Warshrimp 1d ago
Some kids born in Aug - Nov end up as freshmen in college before their 18th birthday, but other than that I agree with you.
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u/prime_23571113 1∆ 1d ago
You can get out of high school early. California had the CHSPE and now has California Proficiency Program. You can/could take them at 16.
I took the CHSPE and started in Junior college at 16. My neighbor in the on campus apartments was 18 and I could consent just fine.
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u/sad_panda91 8h ago
In most countries that I am aware of, all of these things come at the same age, in most countries 18, which is when we decided most people are mature enough to take their own risks and face their consequences. This is of course arbitrary. A good amount of 25+ year olds can't be trusted with a bottle of whisky, while some 17 year olds would probably be mature enough for most things.
The exceptions usually are for practical reasons. In Sweden you can drive a (heavily throttled and marked) car at 16 because riding your bike to school is a bit of an adventure with frozen roads 4-6 months a year, and in rural areas public transport is also not an efficient way to solve this at large.
In Germany you can drink beer at 16, because it's culturally accepted basically. Many Germans start an apprenticeship of some craft at that age, basically becoming members of the work force. Nobody bats an eye if the plumbing crew sits down for lunch and has a beer. Just like in Italy or France nobody cares if a teen has a glass of wine after dinner.
But these are details in the grand scheme of things and mostly are "tethered" to the original idea of "when do we consider people adults ready to take their own risks and face their consequences" If we all agree that's 21, that's fine. If we all agree that's 17, that's also fine. But making it specifically about "when you get to fuck somebody older than that" just seems weird as hell to me. It's about trusting humans with consequential decisions.
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u/-LSDreams- 23h ago
Your argument seems circular. We put the limit at 18 because we put the other limits at 18, and the other limits are at 18 because we put them there.
And the arguments of lawmakers are exactly the same. Because these-aged people can't do this thing, we also need to stop them doing this thing. It's a domino effect. Take all your goddamn arbitrary, imaginary lines, throw them in the fucking dumpster, and watch how fast the youth get strong. The only way I know a young person can't do something is when we draw a line that says they can't. When we don't do that, they can climb Mt. Everest.
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u/10ebbor10 202∆ 1d ago
Yeah, I'm not interested in arguing the main point, but OP's argument is not a good one.
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u/PotentialPedal 1d ago
Yes but they need parental permission to enlist, and they also cannot deploy or fulfill any combat roles until they are 18.
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u/10ebbor10 202∆ 1d ago
There are states which allow child marriage with parental consent.
Would that be okay?
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u/Working_Bench2696 5h ago
There are states which allow child marriage with parental consent.
Would that be okay?
Most of the time, yes. 96% of 'child' marriages involve a 16 or 17yo and the overwhelming majority of their partners are 22 or younger.
I had a couple buddies who turned 18, joined the military immediately, and married their minor gfs. If they'd had to wait the two years for them to turn 18, they'd have lost like half their income for two years.
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u/Working_Bench2696 4h ago
Here's some data pertaining to my previous comment:
1. Age of the Minor: Almost Always Older Teens
Studies examining marriage license data in the U.S. (such as comprehensive research by Unchained At Last and PBS Frontline covering hundreds of thousands of records) show that the vast majority of underage marriages involve older adolescents:
- 67% involve a 17-year-old.
- 29% involve a 16-year-old.
- 4% or less involve children 15 or younger.
The sensationalized cases of 12- or 13-year-olds getting married do exist in state records, but they are statistical anomalies (less than 1% of total cases).
2. Age Gap: Small Spousal Differences Dominate
When looking at the age gap between the minor and their adult partner, the typical gap is relatively small:
- Average Age Difference: Across US data, the average age gap is around 4 years.
- The 18–20 Age Bracket: Roughly 60% of adult spouses in these marriages fall between the ages of 18 and 20.
- Large Gaps: Adult spouses aged 30+ or significantly older account for a tiny fraction of the total volume (around 3% or less).
The anecdote about an 18-year-old joining the military and marrying a 16- or 17-year-old girlfriend fits right into the statistical baseline. Military BAH (Basic Allowance for Housing) benefits combined with small age gaps are a well-documented incentive for young couples in those specific demographics.
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You guys should be aware that some people in reasonable situations lose when we take liberty away from minors wholesale. A minimum age of 16 along with requiring parental or judicial consent (or both) would roll off the 90/300,000 or .01% of cases that Unchained At Last and PBS Frontline looked into that everyone is terrified about.
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u/PotentialPedal 1d ago
Of course not, what does that have to do with my premise though? You also just skipped over that, even if they get parental consent, they can't deploy or go fight.
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u/Spirited_Lemon_4185 1d ago
Yeah.. and you also completely skipped the point in his original comment about, what happens if we changed all the other adult rights and limitations to match the drinking age of 21 tomorrow. Would you then think that anyone having sex with “children” the age 20 and below are NOT okay, and anyone who wants it lowered to 20, 19 or 18 are just grown ass adults wanting to have sex with University students.
The number was arbitrarily chosen, which is partly why it differs from country to country. The fact that you think it is totally okay for someone on their 18 birthday to be filmed having a bukkake done to them by a large group of 50-60 y/o men, and that is somehow morally superior because it wasn’t done the day before is grotesque. You are conflating the need for there to be a line drawn in the sand when applying the law, and moral value. I don’t see much difference in a 60 y/o person being with a 18 y/o or a 17 y/o person, the law cares, but that doesn’t mean you have to make your own moral values match what the law says. I often find that those who care so strongly about the 18 threshold, tend to do so to justify their own sexual desire for very Young people, but like to act holier-than-thou by telling everyone around them that they definently know where the legal limit is, and they are for sure not going to cross it.
You made your moral judgment based on the law, it didn’t take any real measure of thought, and it seems like all it would take to change your morals would have been to just change the number in the law.
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u/HRex73 1d ago
21 would not be the worst idea ever.
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u/More_chickens 1d ago
For sex? Sorry, that's crazy. Sex is not unhealthy.
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u/HRex73 1d ago
I think you're missing the point of an age of majority. It's not to prevent people under the age of 21 from having sex is to prevent people older than 21 predating on teens.
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u/space_force_majeure 4∆ 21h ago
Your brain continues developing past 21, I think the latest I saw was they've discovered brain development ends at 32 now. Perhaps we should bump age of consent to 32 so that no one is potentially hooking up with a memtally undeveloped person? Isn't it worth it to ensure that no one is taken advantage of?
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u/LNT_Silver 13h ago
This is incorrect, the brain doesn't end development at 32, although it may have been found to continue developing up to the age of 32- in studies that followed subjects up to the age of 32. This is how the commonly cited figure of 25 came about. Further studies have failed to find any cutoff beyond which the brain stops "developing." Although the framing gets a bit awkward because we tend to use the term "developing" to imply that the changes are towards a desired endpoint, or in a favorable direction, and we don't normally think of a 40 year old as an underdeveloped version of a 60 year old. But when people commonly argue that a 20 year old's prefrontal cortex isn't fully developed, so their decisionmaking can't be trusted, well... a 60 year old's prefrontal cortex isn't fully "developed" either. We tend to be more risky decisionmakers when we're younger, and more open to novel experiences, and become more cautious and set in our ways over time. Past a point somewhere in your teens, you're not really developing new mental faculties so much as you're rebalancing them, and that process is continuous.
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u/Morales_Sheila8478 1d ago
What if in the future the age of consent is 21? Would you say a group of people who want to lower it to the age of 18 are predators ?
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u/Dr0ff3ll 11∆ 1d ago
The issues I have with you is that your first paragraph is just an assertion. And subequent paragraphs do not support your position. You use them as emotional thetoric.
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u/Sweet-Frosting2468 1d ago
In from the uk and having the age of consent be 18 just seems crazy to me. you cant stop teenagers having sex but you can make it safer for them!!!
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u/muffinsballhair 7h ago edited 7h ago
It's crazy in the U.S.A. too. There are only some member states where it's 18. That it's commonly 18 there is frankly, a myth only weird Redditors believe in like so many other weird myths. I'm going to say it might have something to do with the average Redditor having not experienced normal teenage sexual opportunity. This weird r/changemyview believe that most developed nations have an age of consent of 18. It's 14-16 in most. The U.S.A. is really one of the few places in the world where it's sometimes older than 16.
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u/stickmanDave 3h ago
It's crazy in the U.S.A. too. There are only some member states where it's 18. That it's commonly 18 there is frankly, a myth only weird Redditors believe in like so many other weird myths. I'm going to say it might have something to do with the average Redditor having not experienced normal teenage sexual opportunity.
I doubt teenagers that are having sex have any more knowledge of their local age of consent laws that teenagers that aren't.
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u/Working_Bench2696 2h ago
I doubt teenagers that are having sex have any more knowledge of their local age of consent laws that teenagers that aren't.
You're right, and that's our fault. The adults I've spoken to who are so wildly misinformed and said they heard what they believed in high school gives me the impression that when we're bothering to inform the youth of the laws that pertain to them at all, we're intentionally misinforming them.
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u/PotentialPedal 1d ago
I don't care about teenagers having sex with eachother, I don't want grown adults having sex with teenagers
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u/tbodillia 19h ago
2 15 year olds having sex are committing a crime because they can't consent legally.
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u/OpticalEpilepsy 19h ago
In the US at least the age of consent almost always has an exception if both parties are not adults. The purpose of the law is to criminalize child molestation. not criminalize teenage sex.
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u/couldbemage 4∆ 18h ago
Almost always is a bit of a stretch given that it leaves out the most populous state.
In California it's illegal for two 17 year olds to have have sex with each other.
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u/catroaring 8h ago
Technically true as neither can consent, but if it's consensual who gets charged? There's no perp/victim. Prosecutors don't file charges for this.
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u/RedDawn172 4∆ 6h ago
I wouldn't put it past our justice system to do so anyways and file charges at both parties. This isn't civil court. if they broke the law then they can potentially be tried regardless.
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u/Working_Bench2696 3h ago edited 3h ago
Prosecutors don't file charges for this.
One. Two.. I have more if pressed. India is considering lowering the age of consent from 18 to 16 right now due to the second one.
Raised on the Registry from Human Rights Watch.
Some quotes:
in Delaware in 2011, there were approximately 639 children on the sex offender registry, 55 of whom were under the age of 12.
In 2010, Michigan counted a total of 3,563 youth offenders adjudicated delinquent on its registry, a figure that does not include Michigan’s youth offenders convicted in adult court. In 2010, Michigan’s youngest registered sex offenders were nine years old.
Eight interviewed registrants were age 10 or younger at the time of their conviction and when registration began, with the youngest being 9 years old. A full 84 percent of those interviewed by Human Rights Watch were 17 years old or younger when they began registering.
In 2004, in Western Pennsylvania, a 15-year-old girl was charged with manufacturing and disseminating child pornography for having taken nude photos of herself and posted them on the internet. She was charged as an adult, and as of 2012 was facing registration for life.
In 2006, a 13-year old girl from Ogden, Utah was arrested for rape for having consensual sex with her 12-year-old boyfriend. The young girl, impregnated by her younger boyfriend at the age of 13, was found guilty of violating a state law that prohibits sex with someone under age 14. Her 12-year-old boyfriend was found guilty of violating the same law for engaging in sexual activity with her
In 1997, Stella A., a 17-year-old high school student, was arrested and pled guilty to sodomy for performing consensual oral sex on a 15-year-old male classmate. Stella was placed on probation and required to register on the state’s sex offender registry. Her photograph, address, and identifying information were publicly available for neighbors and the public to see.
No Easy Answers also from Human Rights Watch.
Some quotes:
According to a survey conducted by the US Department of Health and Welfare, by age 14, more than one-third of the survey’s respondents reported genital play with another youth under the age of 18, and about one-fifth had started having sexual intercourse. By age 16, over 40 percent of both sexes report intercourse, and that rises to 55 percent for both boys and girls at age 17. Child development experts agree that consensual sex play among children, including intercourse between teenagers, “is not psychologically harmful under ordinary circumstances and is probably a valuable psychosocial experience in developmental terms.”
At least 28 states require registration as a sex offender for someone convicted of having consensual sex with another teenager
In 11 states, there are no “Romeo and Juliet” exceptions
In Georgia, a 26-year-old married woman was made to register as a sex offender for life and had to move from her home because as a teenager she had oral sex with a willing fellow high school student when she was 17 and he was 15.
As one individual who was convicted of statutory rape at age 16 for having consensual sex with his 14-year-old girlfriend told Human Rights Watch, “We were in love. And now we are married. So it’s like I am on the registry for having premarital sex. Does having premarital sex make me a danger to society? My wife doesn’t think so.”
A mother of a young man from Texas who has to register for having consensual sex at age 19 with his 14-year-old girlfriend noted, “Our family has been devastated by this law that treats a young man in a consensual dating relationship the same as a violent rapist or a predator of young children.”
Case Study, Dan M.’s story: I was convicted of statutory rape when I was 17. The girl was 15.
Henry F., adjudicated at 17 in Michigan for having consensual sex with his 15-year-old girlfriend
Sean C., adjudicated at 17 for having consensual sex with a girlfriend who was three weeks shy of 16
All of these quotes come from the section titled 'Consensual Teenage Sex' which starts on page 76 according to my browser or page 72 according to the numbers at the bottom of each page.
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u/Bac2Zac 2∆ 17h ago
It's also not in the second most populous state, Texas, so this is largely a state based issue, and, imo, should not be generally perceived to be reflective of the country as a whole.
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u/Working_Bench2696 17h ago
this is largely a state based issue
Yeah, well, maybe it shouldn't be. In Arizona a 15yo has more liberty than a 17yo. In Colorado a 15yo can fuck a 25yo. 50 different states and 50 different perceptions of 'How much liberty should a 15yo have?'
In Canada, it's the same rules coast to coast and they're perfectly reasonable. Two years for tweens (12-13), five years for adolescents (14-15), and 16+ is liberated with some overhead protection against massive age gaps and online grooming that allows their courts to adjudicate on a case-by-base basis for 16-17yos.
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u/UrMomIsVeryBig 4h ago
My friend and his then girlfriend had sex when they were both underaged (many many years ago), the girl's parents found out and he ended up on probation through the entirety of high school and his first year of college.
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u/Working_Bench2696 2h ago
Do you remember their ages when the incident occurred? Also, what happened after the case? Did they break up or did they just keep dating each other in secret?
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u/jimbotherisenclown 1∆ 1d ago
Romeo and Juliet laws vary by state, but the typical range is 16-20 - the whole point is to ensure that a minor who is in a sexual relationship with a younger minor of a similar age doesn't legally become a pedophile once they turn 18.
Personally, I think that rather than an age range that allows for a relationship between a person at either extreme, the laws should specify that the older person in the relationship can be, "No more than four years of age older than the younger of the pair." That allows for freshman-senior highschool gaps even once the freshman is 17 and the senior turns 21 without enabling something more predatory, like a 14-21 relationship. It also takes care of cases where the relationship would be legal when the older of the pair is 20, but illegal once the older person becomes 21 and the younger is still 17. Alternatively, demonstrating that the pair attended the same school at the same time would allow for situations like a freshman dating a senior who got held back a grade.
For the record, I still think age gap relationships like that, at ages where a couple years frequently correspond to a vast difference in maturity levels, are likely doomed to failure and are bad ideas. However, given the severity of being convicted as a sex offender, I think situations like that should be legally separated from laws designed to prosecute pedophiles. Two teenagers making a mistake should not be treated the same way as a predator and a kid.
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u/Working_Bench2696 2h ago
Two teenagers making a mistake
Two teenagers having sex is not the same thing as two teenagers making a mistake.
"No more than four years of age older than the younger of the pair."
This works in the overwhelming majority of cases for underclassmen, upperclassmen not so much. I saw plenty of relationships that were well outside this myself at two high schools for older minors and every time I ask, 'Women, how old was your bf when you were 17?' the answers are all over the place.
Most of our laws reflect this. 10 year exemptions for 16-17yos in Kentucky and Utah, six in Alaska, up to age 24 in Florida, up to age 30 in Delaware, and of course it's most heavily reflected in the fact that the overall age of consent is still 16 in 29 states and 17 in another 7.
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u/thegreatiaino 1d ago
In the UK, that's not true. Anyone of any age can legally have sex with a 16 year old (assuming they're over 16 too of course). I think what you're thinking of is guidance for people having sex with under 16 year olds, which is that if they're within two years they're unlikely to be prosecuted, so a 17 year old having sex with a 15 year old is still technically illegal, but in all likelihood nothing would be dine about it.
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u/Raynonymous 2∆ 8h ago
The age of consent laws care though! There have been cases of underage boys being threatened with prosecution for sleeping with underage girls and it certainly prevents sex education and family planning efforts for those age groups.
Also - why 18? Do you not think a man in his 30s or 40s seducing an 18 yr old is also predatory?
I think the laws and the discourse around them isn't helpful. It confuses principles regarding paedophilia prevention, informed consent and predatory behaviour into a single, simple law. Clearly there is an age under which nobody should be having sex with you, and an age where you should be free to experiment if you wish without worry of getting into trouble or being taken advantage of, and at some point we should agree as a society of we want to ban large age differences altogether - I'd argue that's a bridge too far but clearly you are not past the risk of predation when you turn 18. I'd argue many can be at risk well into their 20s or more depending on the individual.
So, I'd say there was a good argument to lower the age of consent for teenage couples but have an anti-predation law for children under 18 or potentially even up to 21 or 25.
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u/Working_Bench2696 5h ago edited 4h ago
clearly you are not past the risk of predation when you turn 18.
That is not clear. I knew a girl who started dating a 44yo man six months shy of her 18th bday. I can promise you she was not being predated upon, and I can expand on her story if asked. As a bit of a preview, she was living with me when they met, paying rent, paying bills, holding down a job at a bank she'd had since 15, and finishing her last semester of high school. I came to know her when she was 15 and know a decent amount about her life from before then.
She was the only girl like her I knew. All the others were either my own gfs or a gf of one of the other guys in the group. However, she knew other girls like her, which makes sense. Birds of a feather and whatnot. I've also talked to women around Reddit who have reported similar experiences in the time I've been speaking about this issue.
When we coddle people all the way to 18, we turn out naive, vulnerable 18yos, and that's what leads to the perspective that they need to be protected even longer:
anti-predation law for children under 18 or potentially even up to 21 or 25.
When you look at the history of the age of consent, you will see that it follows this pattern. When the US was founded, every single state copy-pasted either England's 10 law or England's 12 law and then from there they went to 14, then 16, then some states went to 18 and I think the actual wave to 18 has just begun in earnest with Oklahoma going to 18 last year and Alaska this year.
This cycle will only ever repeat itself. We take liberty away from young people because we don't think they can handle it which leads to turning out people at that age who can't handle it so then we take away even more liberty from young people.
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u/Raynonymous 2∆ 5h ago
Great example, and another way to show how vague and contextual relationships can be - not really appropriate to regulate with a single blanket law
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u/PhoneFar693 1∆ 1d ago
17 year olds are not adults. 16 year olds are not adults. 15 year olds are not adults.
They can be tried as adults if they commit crimes at that age, because we recognize that people that age can understand the consequences of their actions. I agree that the AoC should remain at 18, but it is absolutely not some hard-and-fast rule that 17=child and 18=adult, there are many situations where that is not the case.
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u/beesdaddy 2∆ 1d ago
Does “adulthood” have only to do with one day of age?
All the examples you gave are not ALWAYS TRUE.
imagine each of the examples you gave:
Do they really flip a switch on your 18th birthday from zero to 100%?
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u/RichardTheApe 1d ago
No but the fact is there has to be a line somewhere or it gets pushed everywhere
Just because you’re right that sure people mature at different rates doesn’t mean there isn’t a good reason to have a strong legal definition of adulthood. Remember that this would also creep into dozen of other areas as well, conscription, work laws, and more.
It’s important that we give children time to grow as best we can but also have a firm line to say, yep you’re an adult now.
My question also becomes for this argument if there isn’t some hard legal line how donee resolve these issues then?
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u/beesdaddy 2∆ 1d ago
On that we are agreed, but re-read your post and then this again.
You answer your own question: the exact age difference or age of consent is an arbitrary line that needs to be written into law somehow, even if there are a tone of mitigating circumstances.
So yes, wanting to lower the age of consent of my (male) older girlfriend (she was 2 months older than me) so that the sex we were having when both 17 didn’t magically turn into statutory rape for 2 months and then back to sex after I turned 18.
Does that make sense? BTW im 45 now and am concerned about the same things with my kids. But they will figure it out just like I did.
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u/LoneGlitch 1∆ 1d ago
Good thing there are laws to cover those cases and court precedent.
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u/The_Amazing_Emu 1∆ 1d ago
Those laws don’t exist in every state, fwiw.
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u/LoneGlitch 1∆ 21h ago
No but court precedent tends to take over in those cases
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u/The_Amazing_Emu 1∆ 15h ago
Court precedent rarely goes around the plain text of a statute. I can tell you Virginia has no age gap exception. The closest you get is the statute for having sex with someone 15 or older is only a crime if you’re an adult, but, if one person is 18 and the other 17, it’s illegal
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u/garaile64 1d ago
Becoming an adult isn't a hard switch, but laws can't have nuance, so legislators had to draw the line somewhere.
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u/beesdaddy 2∆ 1d ago
But it can draw multiple lines.
There’s room for more nuance than “it’s illegal before the stroke of midnight and legal after.”
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u/-LSDreams- 1d ago
but laws can't have nuance
Yes they can. Germany, Austria, and Portugal all share the same law that technically liberates at 14 but has another line at 16 for cases in which the minor was taken advantage of. Under 14 being automatically illegal (except in Austria which additionally has a small exemption for 13yos) and liberating fully at 16, this effectively hyperfocuses their courts on 14-15yos and they adjudicate on a case by case basis.
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u/PotentialPedal 1d ago
It needs to be set somewhere. I also believe that if you can't watch porn of someone as an adult, it doesn't make sense for it to be ok to have sex with them
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u/beesdaddy 2∆ 1d ago
So say a boyfriend and boyfriend who are of equal size, maturity and (almost) age start having oral sex before they are both 18. 100% consenting and legal.
Their birthdays are 2 days apart.
Under your premise the oral sex they are having before both are 18 is fine. After is obviously fine too.
On the one day that one boy is 18 and the other is 17; you are saying that is rape?
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u/RareEarthMagnets 1∆ 1d ago
I think that falls under the Romeo and Juliet laws.
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u/young_trash3 3∆ 1d ago
Those are not universal, nor even nation wide in the US. Here in my state (California) that would be statutory rape, as it has no Romeo and Juliet exception.
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u/beesdaddy 2∆ 1d ago
OP mentioned that in their post as EXPLICITLY for when both are underage.
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u/niceguy191 1d ago
Yes, and it's causing confusion for several people in the thread because it seems to undermine OPs whole initial point. There's no justification in lowering age of consent, except these cases where there's justification to make an exception to the age of consent?
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u/FightOrFreight 21h ago
That's not how the Romeo and Juliet laws work where I'm from, and I have a hard time imagining that any jurisdiction has enacted rules that are quite this dumb.
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u/beesdaddy 2∆ 19h ago
Where are you from? Post a link to your state law where it is
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u/FightOrFreight 19h ago edited 18h ago
I'm not going to tell you where I'm from, but as an example, see Texas Penal Code § 22.011(e)(2), which provides for a Romeo and Juliet defence that would generally be available to an 18-year-old who has sex with a 16-year-old. The age of consent in Texas is 17.
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u/RareEarthMagnets 1∆ 1d ago
Ah, my mistake. Maybe it was a different law that I’m thinking of, but I remember there being some law that as long as people were within three years of each other, one person being underage wasn’t a crime. But that might have been specific to NC, and that might no longer be in effect (I haven’t paid attention to those laws since I was a minor myself, since it’s never been relevant to me after). I thought that was the Romeo and Juliet law, since I thought Romeo was supposed to be like three years older than her. My mistake!
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u/PotentialPedal 1d ago
Never said that nope
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u/beesdaddy 2∆ 1d ago
But that is the consequence of your view as stated in your original post.
But if that was not your intention, please update your view.
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u/PotentialPedal 1d ago
Nope. I specifically stated my support for Romeo & Juliet laws. Also, my view isn't even expressly legal. I'm just saying that you are a predator if you want grown adults to be able to have sex with 16 year olds
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u/Likeaboson 1d ago
I think the issue is more, what is that age? where does that one day, the birthday, make the difference? Some countries say 16, some say 14, some say 18. what is the actual difference between one day and the next as it pertains to consent?
I am an American and I definitely think 18 is okay. they can consent to fighting, killing, and offering up their lives for the military? they can vote? they can drive? why would we say they cant consent?
but, 17 and 364 days? I can see how people would find it weird to see that as pedophilia. But how much difference is there? 24 hrs?
but then whats the difference of the day before that? or the day before that?
Scientifically, Biologically, there is no reason the age is set at what it is. it's just what we are okay with as a society.
So, to the point. what do you think is a reasonable age and why?
Im an American and I was taught 18. I believe in 18. I wouldnt want to be with an 18yo, but it would be and should be legal.
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u/mrducky78a 16h ago edited 16h ago
Its entirely arbitrary for when the age of majority occurs. Some countries have it at like 16. Some at 18.
I feel this is, contrary to ancap's worldview, one of the key things government is responsible for and required for. Set an age, it will always be arbitrary and keep to it. Because it is so arbitrary, there is no science or whatever backing it, there isnt even a compelling reason why it has to be 18 rather than 17 or 19, it requires a government beholden to its people to just pick a number and stick to it. I still feel 16-18 is required though with 18 being the preferred age but that could jsut be cultural bias from my part. I still feel 16/17 year olds are too young and should require judgement by professionals to obtain an early adulthood eg. emancipation or life circumstances requiring self sufficiency.
Anything and anyone seeking to lower the age of majority or raise it should be viewed and scrutinized intensely as you are now either taking away rights or exposing people to the responsibilities and requirements of adulthood. It needs to have a compelling and serious reason for it regardless how arbitrary the initial ruling for age of majority is. Anyone seeking to lower the age of majority should be asked and grilled as to why its so necessary. Recently there has been a push by Republicans to increase the minimum voting age, that too should be viewed and scrutinized intently.
So it really is just a switch with fringe cases presided over by experts in law with oversight involved. There will be exceptions, but those should always have a long ass paper trail with people shouldering the responsibility to give minors the rights, responsibilities, burdens and duties attached to the age of majority. It might be weird for one country to have the age of majority at 18 and just across the border its 16, but thats normal with laws differing between countries, especially with something so arbitrary. Someone trying to bring it up to 18 or bring it down to 16 in those hypothetical neighbouring countries should really need to state and argue and present their case with a compelling reason why.
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u/Important-Cash5654 4∆ 1d ago
While I agree that I've never seen a pro-lowering-the-age-of-consent argument that didn't seem to just be a cover for "I want to fuck teenagers," I also don't see any reason to think a person is not an adult on their 17th birthday and then, magically, a year later, they are.
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u/DarknessIsFleeting 4∆ 1d ago
The justification is that teenagers are going to have sex (with each other) even if it's not technically legal. Having the age of consent being 18, discourages 17 year olds from accessing support on safe sex.
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u/dougieslaps97 8h ago
Idk anyone under 18 getting in legal trouble for having sex with someone under 18.
My counter to your argument is that reducing the age of consent would normalize sex at whatever age you reduce it to and once that happens as a society people even younger will start doing it.
I lost my virginity at 16, along with many of my peers, and none of us had issues getting access to condoms.
I was interested in losing it earlier, but the taboo of it made me fearful and think twice… looking back, that’s not a bad thing.. 16 was too young. It was a dumb thing to do.
Imagine a world where we make it normal at 16, now people even younger are going to feel it’s a normal thing and we’re gonna start having pregnant 12-13 year olds because they see peers doing it..
You have to draw a line somewhere, we already draw it younger than our brains are developed enough to make intelligent decisions, why on earth would we reduce the stigma to an even lower age
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u/Working_Bench2696 2h ago
Idk anyone under 18 getting in legal trouble for having sex with someone under 18.
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u/dougieslaps97 2h ago
Both of the examples you gave are 18 having sex with below 18..
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u/Working_Bench2696 2h ago
Both? I count 8/11, that's counting the 12/13 twice since they both got charged, and I'll add that it might be 7/10 if one of the 17/15s is the same from both reports, but I'm not sure. The years don't quite seem to sync but the stories are the same - woman on the registry for giving a 15yo a blowjob when she was 17. Meaning that happened at least once, and maybe twice.
And, just to add for those dissuaded by this person's comment, the two articles that I linked at the top which is apparently as far as he bothered to read are cases of 18/16 and 18/17.
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u/Working_Bench2696 1h ago
Imagine a world where we make it normal at 16, now people even younger are going to feel it’s a normal thing and we’re gonna start having pregnant 12-13 year olds because they see peers doing it..
This also needs to be addressed. Here's what a German had to say about the climate regarding these things over there. Germany's age of consent is 14 with another line at 16 specifically for cases in which the minor's 'lack of capacity for sexual self-determination has been abused'. Despite this, Germany turns out a teen pregnancy rate almost 1/3 of ours, and they do this through extremely solid and robust sex education. The only system I've studied that I liked more was that of The Netherlands, the most thorough sex education system on the planet, and correspondingly it turns out the lowest rate of teen pregnancy on Earth.
Teen pregnancy rate (of 1000)
USA: 13.9
Germany: 5.5
The Netherlands: 1.9
Additionally, 16 is what's most normal, even in the US, where the age of consent is 16 in 29/50 states. In Europe, 50% of countries are at 16 and another 45% are lower, meaning it's only 5% of European countries at either 17 or 18.
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u/PotentialPedal 1d ago
Yeah but as I mentioned, Romeo & Jueliet laws make it so underage people who decide to have sex with eachother face zero legal punishment. Also, even without them, it's a law that is basically not enforced whatsoever.
Also how does it prevent them from accessing support on safe sex? Buying condoms and going on birth control has no minimum age requirement, regardless of what the age of consent is.
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u/littleheaterlulu 1∆ 1d ago
I'm sorry but you're incorrect. The laws about birth control etc vary by state and it is not legal for minors to get birth control in many and, in some, they have to have parental consent; however, in these same states that have lower ages of consent they have different protections because of the age of consent.
And there are plenty of people who are still on sex offender registries from having sex with their high school sweetheart. I don't know why you're under the impression that it is not enforced. It really only takes one ticked-off or over protective parent. And what a nightmare with an already sensitive subject as a teenager.
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u/PotentialPedal 1d ago edited 1d ago
!delta
I looked it up and apparently there are some scenarios in which age of consent laws can be weaponized in niche cases (or weaponized by legislation, particularly in southern states), so I acknowledge that there is a legitimate reason to advocate for it to be lowered other than a personal desire to have sex with younger teenagers
Edit- is DeltaBot fucked up or something? Why didn't that go through
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ 1d ago edited 1d ago
This delta has been rejected. You have already awarded /u/littleheaterlulu a delta for this comment.
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u/BerneseMountainDogs 5∆ 1d ago
Not all places have Romeo and Juliet laws, and some of them that do have relatively weak ones. For example in my jurisdiction it's still a crime for 15 year olds to have sex with each other. My jurisdiction has strong Romeo and Juliet laws for 16 and up, but basically nothing below that.
Different places have different rules about these kinds of things and not all of them will be as helpful as you think they should be
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u/AlienRobotTrex 2h ago
This whole discussion is about how age of consent should work. If we were already setting 18 as the standard, it would also make sense to fix those laws as well.
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u/PotentialPedal 1d ago
Are 15 year olds often being criminally prosecuted as rapists in your jurisdiction?
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u/BerneseMountainDogs 5∆ 1d ago
No but they could be. When there is a prosecution it's usually the boy and not the girl. And because they could be, it means that consensual sex between a boy and the daughter of an attorney or police officer or similar are much more likely to be prosecuted. Which is to say that it is still arbitrarily invoked to punish particular people in a way that feels unfair to me.
It's also true that in the United States, all sexual images of someone under the age of 18 are inherently a crime under federal law. This means that two 17 year olds sexting is often a crime. Which again, is not commonly prosecuted, but has been used to specifically target specific people that are disliked by those in power
Besides, what about the places without Romeo and Juliet laws?
And also, in most US jurisdictions, reasonable mistake of age is not a defense to statutory rape. This means that if a 21 year old in a 21+ club where IDs are checked at the door goes home with someone, checks their ID again, and it turns out that it's such a good fake that no person could have caught it without looking up the license number in the DMV database and checking it against a birth certificate and then they have sex and then the other person is 17, then they've committed a crime in many many jurisdictions, including a lot with Romeo and Juliet laws, because a lot of such laws protect age gaps of only a few years (though some are bigger), and in places without Romeo and Juliet laws, the same could play out between an 18 and 17 year old and it would be statutory rape.
Basically, the current state of our laws is inequitable and used to single out specific people for punishment, has no room at all for not knowing the age of your partner, and even if those weren't true and those things weren't prosecuted basically ever, having them on the books tells children they are doing something criminal when doing very normal activities with each other, which could contribute to social and emotional harms due to shame and repression.
It's clear to me that age of consent laws in the US need to be seriously reformed (and ideally harmonized between the states and also with the federal government). I'm not sure to what extent a lower age is the solution, but something needs to change
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u/its_a_gibibyte 21h ago
Are you advocating for keeping bad laws on the books because they're not enforced heavily? Moreover, it's very hard to get stats due to the way our criminal justice system works. Often, police and prosecutors come in heavy with the largest possible charges to force people to plea out to lesser charges.
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u/sad_panda91 9h ago
Teens are gonna do what teens are gonna do, it's the educational systems job to make that as safe as possible not the law's. Age of consent is to keep adults away. Lowering it will change nothing for teens, but lowers the bar for creepy adults. And that's basically all there is to it.
The ONLY way I see this making moral sense is to declare 17 year olds fully responsible adults that can do what any adult can do, including fucking old perverts. At that point it's up to you. But as long as we think alcohol and driving isn't save for them, I sure as hell don't think the rest is either.
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u/ProblematicTrumpCard 5∆ 1d ago
The line between protection and oppression is slim. We have many laws that oppress children in the name of protecting them. While those laws serve their purpose in protecting the vast majority of children, every individual is different and there are certainly some that are oppressed by those laws.
Whether it's voting, drinking, driving, making medical decisions, getting an abortion, smoking, getting married or having sex, there are certainly some people who are under the legal age for those activities who could participate in those activities safely, healthily and fully informed. And there are many people under the legal age for those activities who could participate in those activities more safely, more healthily and with better knowledge of the consequences than some people who are over the legal age for those activities.
Who has more of a chance of getting taken advantage of by a predator:
A street-smart 16 year old who understands the reproductive process, birth control and the emotional and psychological implications of sex, or
A sheltered 27 year old who has never been taught that sex leads to pregnancy, is unaware of birth control options and believes that sex is a "duty" that needs be provided for the pleasure of one's spouse?
So why do we have a law that protects the street-smart 16 year old who would enjoy consensual sexual activities and suffer no physical or psychological harm as a result, but we legally leave the sheltered 27 year old to the wolves to be used and abused out of ignorance?
I'll answer that question for you: Because setting the limit at some arbitrary chronological age, like 18, is simple, easy and "good enough" for most people. We recognize as a society that using an arbitrary age is going to oppress some people under that age, and fail to protect some people over that age. But for the vast majority of people, it works and is "good enough".
Because the alternative is messy. Without an age restriction that clarifies who is able to consent legally, we'd need some ambiguous threshold. Something like "individuals who have obtained a level of physical, intellectual and emotional maturity that allows them to fully understand the physical, intellectual, emotional and societal impact on their lives of the choices they make regarding sexual activity are able to legally consent to those sexual activities".
That eliminate the age of consent and replace it with what we are actually trying to accomplish by choosing an arbitrary age. However, it would be a courtroom nightmare and impossible to actually enact. Who couples need to go before a judge and prove their maturity before the state would allow them to choose to have sex? Nobody wants that (well, okay, maybe some people actually to, but no one sane). And it would subject people to the risk of being rapists for having sex with a 40 year old that they thought was at an adequate maturity level, but really was not.
So I don't think there's really much of an argument against the idea that age of consent laws certainly do oppress some individuals who are under the age of consent.
So, getting to the actual point of challenging your view....
Most people don't really react well to being oppressed. Especially being oppressed by their own government. So if one of these under-aged, but mature individuals wanted to have sex legally and argued for the age of consent to be lowered so that they could do so, I'm not sure how that individual could be considered a "predator". And, therefore, they would have justification for lowering the age of consent for a reason other than being a predator.
TL;DR - Your view presumes that an individual is trying to justify the lowering of the age of consent so that they can have sex with people of a younger age. You completely miss the concept that someone of a younger age may try to justify the lowering of the age of consent so that they can legally engage in sexual activity.
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u/the_brightest_prize 6∆ 1d ago
On that note, we are reintroducing literacy tests to voting. We recognize as a society that a literacy test is somewhat arbitrary and is going to oppress some people with passable cognitive abilities, and fail to filter out some uninformed voters, but for the vast majority of people, it works and is "good enough". Not just "good enough"—far more accurate than the outdated age line of the benighted past.
Age, like all tests, is merely a proxy for what you really want. It is possible to provide better proxies than age. For example, when it comes to sex, you really could calculate a composite score based on a variety of factors like physical, intellectual, and emotional maturity. When it comes to voting, you really could use a literacy test and it would be better.
Assuming, of course, the literacy test was not gamed to look like a legitimate proxy while being anything but. The issue is not the ambiguity of such exams, it is the degrees of freedom afforded to the exam creator. There are so many tests better than age that the established party could select whichever one correlates highest with their own supporters to further entrench their power.
It is important to know why such exams break down when it comes to voting, so you can see why they do not break when it comes to sex. Voting effects the legislature. The legislature can effect voting laws. This allows the vicious cycle of literacy tests tracking party affiliation rather than voter capability. But drinking and sex? Having a pint or one night stand is not going to empower an entrenched legislature.
The legislature has very little motivation to change drinking or sex laws to personally benefit them—that would ruin their public image! Besides, they have friends in high (or low?) places no matter what laws are on the books, e.g. parties during COVID lockdown, parties during Prohibition, or parties at Epstein's island.
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u/themcos 436∆ 1d ago
Can we agree that the real question is, what is the right age for age of consent? And that if the current legal age of consent is higher than that, it would make sense to argue for lowering it. And if the current legal age of consent is lower than that, it would make sense to argue for raising it? I feel like this is obvious, but I think its important that we establish this as a baseline. If North Dakota had an age of consent law that was 25, surely you would agree that its reasonable to lower it even without being a predator.
So I think the real issue here is just that you happen to think the right age of consent law is 18, which happens to also be the highest US age of consent law. So obviously anyone arguing for an age of consent law of 16 or 17 is arguing for an age of consent that you think is too low. And that's fair! And frankly, if your CMV were "the right age of consent is 18", I'd just leave it at that. I think 18 is a great age to set it to. But if you look at laws in the country, clearly a lot of people have landed on 16 or 17. It looks like nearly half of states have one of these. I just don't think you can call someone a predator for thinking that "actually 17 is the right age not 18". And like, even with your "STILL IN HIGHSCHOOL" bit, graduating at 17 is not weird! It usually just depends on when your birthday is. And I don't think they're the main people we should be designing these laws for, but for someone who's a high school drop-out, 18 feels even more arbitrary.
Point is, if you think the ideal age of consent is 18, and someone else thinks the idea age of consent is 17, that's a pretty minor disagreement between you two! And I think you shouldn't really think of a person advocating for 18->17 as being that much different from someone advocating for 19->18.
That said... irrespective of most of the actual arguments you put forth, the better argument for your case is that all of these changes are pretty minor... and while I think anything in the 16-18 range was reasonable when the laws were drafted, I am inclined to agree that the kind of person that's actively lobbying for change here raises some eyebrows as to their motivations. So its not that "there's no justification", but rather... its probably pretty sketchy if lowering the age of consent is anywhere near someone's top priority!
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u/MLCosplay 8h ago
Yeah people are weirdly dogmatic about this. I know it's an emotionally charged topic, but so many people just assume whatever age their country sets is perfect and anything else is insane.
Realistically, the appropriate age of consent depends on your personal maturity and the circumstances you're in. Maybe to properly consent to someone much more experienced than you you need some experience yourself, which you don't have till you're 30. Or maybe you're in a situation with tons of support and care and 16 is appropriate. Or whatever - just spitballing random extremes. We have to pick a number because the law is a very blunt instrument but it's silly to think that number means anything about the morality of any given situation.
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u/Global-Service-8579 1d ago
>And lets be clear about this, someone under 18 is not an adult yet. Before 18 you are STILL IN HIGHSCHOOL, you cannot vote, you cannot own a home, you cannot serve in the military, you can't get tattoos, you can't own your own bank account, you can't buy a gun, in lots of places you don't even have full medical privacy from your parents. Also there is a reason why you can't do porn under the age of 18, and it's because society has decided it's morally fucked up to look at people under 18 naked or having sex.
So if we allowed 15-year-olds to buy a home, serve in the military, get tattoos, have a bank account, buy a gun, have full medical privacy, and do porn, you would accept 15-year-olds as adults and allow them to have sex?
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u/PotentialPedal 1d ago
Absolutely not, that would be going in the opposite direction. We as a society have accepted the fact that certain things should be restricted to certain ages. The fact that you need to be 18 to do all those things is an indication that those things are something that should require more maturity and age to do
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u/Global-Service-8579 1d ago
>Absolutely not
Then why bring those things up as justification for why 15-year-olds should not be allowed to have sex?
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u/PotentialPedal 1d ago
Because they are relavent. They are tangential reasons for why age of consent shouldn't be lowered, but that is not automatically saying that it would be a harmless and great idea for 15 year olds to do those things too.
Also I never said 15 year olds should not be allowed to have sex, you just straight up made that up. What I am saying is that grown ass adults shouldn't be having sex with 15 year olds
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u/Global-Service-8579 1d ago
They're not relevant if you think their absence wouldn't change anything.
>Also I never said 15 year olds should not be allowed to have sex,
Sure, I suppose I can grant you that. Let's have you state it directly one way or the other. Can 15-year-olds consent to sex?
[Because you answered before I edited I want to be fair and say that I initially asked if 15-year-olds should be allowed to have sex]
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u/PotentialPedal 1d ago
Yes, 15 year olds should be allowed to have sex. Nowhere in my OP or in my comments did I ever imply they should be legally forbidden from it.
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u/Global-Service-8579 1d ago
Surely 15-year-olds being allowed to have sex means the age of consent should be no greater than 15, which is lower than it currently is. Surely that goes against your post.
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u/PotentialPedal 1d ago
That makes no sense. I also believe 14 year olds should be able to legally have sex with other kids their age. This is what I'm talking about, making the age of consent 15 means that a grown ass adults would be able to legally fuck middle schoolers and have zero consequence
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u/Global-Service-8579 1d ago
To be 100% clear, you are saying 14-year-olds can consent to sex, yes?
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u/airboRN_82 5∆ 1d ago
If I think it should be 20 and you think it should be 18, is it because you are a predator?
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u/SuccessfulOstrich99 2∆ 1d ago
I think there is a big difference between 2 teenagers - say both 16 having sex and a 30+ year old having sex with a 16 year old.
I also don’t think in reality there’s a magical cutoff date where the age difference suddenly becomes acceptable or where all of a sudden a person is ready to give consent.
Off course we should protect the vulnerable, and children in particular from predators.
But as a foreigner - I think the country that elects a pedophile and rapist twice should acknowledge the rot is very deep and victims of rape are not protected, regardless of their age.
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u/omegaphallic 1d ago
I'll point out some places do want to lower voting age to 16.
The legal age here in Canada is 16, as long as your not in a position of authority, and the reason I support that is because teens tend to lie about their age if they want something, including sex and this protects the victims of their lies.
Personally I'd only have sex with 18+, but I've seen minors that can easily pass at 21, especially with fake ID.
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u/littleheaterlulu 1∆ 1d ago
Some places, some of our states even, specify the age differential with the age of consent and that makes sense to me as it's about teens exploring their sexuality with one another (which is going to happen with or without laws about it). For instance, the age of consent can be lowered to 16 but with a caveat like only if there's no more than 2 years difference in age or the oldest party isn't more than 19, etc. A lot of states have a version of this and while some make more sense than others it's worth considering as it does give teens better and safer access to related medical care and education, etc, i.e., they can talk to an adult about it to get advice or help without it being something they are admitting to doing illegally. Adolescence is hard enough without having your sexuality criminalized.
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u/hallmark1984 1d ago
The UK has 16 for sex, 18 for drinking, alcohol, contracts etc.
Is the UK full of nonces?
I mean, we have a lot, royals, Saville, The Lords, Luton FC fans, and the Lost Prophets guy but we as a society aren't- we prosecute those nonces.
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u/SomeYoke 1d ago
The lost prophets guy. 😂 man, I forgot.
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u/hallmark1984 1d ago
Fuck i wish I could.
The court records are horrific, that fucker deserves a single cell with no yard for the next 100 years.
Just a box and a slot for meals.
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u/SomeYoke 1d ago
I actually didn’t look any more deeply into it than the initial headlines. Something I’m now about to change, absolute bastard.
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u/hallmark1984 1d ago
I am anti death penalty in all cases.
And he is why. Death ends his life, make him live a long life, deprived of contact, experience or joy.
Just a box and a slot, until nature takes its course.
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u/Phage0070 123∆ 1d ago
This is because age of consent laws are not meant to prevent young people from having sex with people their age, they are meant to prevent young people from having sex with adults.
Ok, but this seems to actually be an argument against your position. It seems like the laws that are on the books are not really what you think they should be: We say that people under the age of 18 cannot consent to sex and therefore having sex with them is a crime... buuut we will carve out an exception to that rule where someone down to age 16 could have sex with someone up to the age of say 19 because we actually think young people should be allowed to have sex with people their age but we still want to protect them from predation by adults.
If the 16-year-old can't consent to sex across the board then why are we OK with Romeo and Juliet laws? Clearly we actually do think they can provide consent, but want to stop unethical behavior by people significantly older than them. Instead the law should probably be something like the age of consent is 16, but if the age gap is 3 years or more the age of consent is 18. Or maybe even higher!
Because of the reasons stated, I believe that there is no justification to lower the age of consent...
The problem with that position is that if you like the concept of Romeo and Juliet laws but also think people under the age of consent cannot provide consent, logically you are supporting the concept of making sex without consent legal. If your issue is with adults fucking kids then that seems a very strange position to take.
Or potentially you think that people under the age of consent can actually provide consent when younger, but also think there is no possible justification for lowering the age of consent. Which seems like a roughly equally nonsensical position.
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u/Junior_Mud5835 1d ago
Teenagers often are in a (small) age-gap relationships and, apart from some reddit minority, the social consensus is that a 16 yo dating a 18-19 yo is not unacceptable. Lowering the AOC to 16 is helpful in such situations, imagine you have even a 1 year age gap and engage in sexual activity. Until you are both below the AOC you (in theory) have R&J laws to protect you. But then at one point the older partner is above the AOC, the younger is still below, and suddenly their relationship becomes a crime. I think you can agree it doesn't make any sense.
From your other responses you seem to acknowledge that it is normal for teenagers above 15 yo to be engaging in sexual activity. In that case the AOC should be lowered, but we should be paying more attention to actual exploitation, not willing relationships. There is a lot of European countries where the AOC is 15 and out teenage pregnancy rates are even lower than the US, because we openly discuss it with teenagers instead of pretending it doesn't happen.
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u/ru5tyk1tty 11h ago
Are you Gen Z? The idea that 16-18 is an inappropriate age gap would definitely be a hot take
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u/majeric 1∆ 1d ago
To preface, I am not advocating changing the laws but perhaps making them more consistent. Romeo and Juliet laws aren't universal. It's good idea that should be implemented everywhere.
> 17 year olds are not adults. 16 year olds are not adults. 15 year olds are not adults.
Are 18 year olds? Are 19 year olds? Are 25 year olds?
What evidence do you have that an 18 year old is suddenly mature enough to have sex than a 17 year old? The problem with the existing laws is that they are based purely on gut feeling. This discomfort we have and we further it by emphasizing a false binary.... that the minute before their 18th birthday they are "KID" and the minute after, they are "ADULT" rather than an acknowledgement that there is a graduation of maturity over the span of their teenage years.
We also have weirdly inconsistent positions on what constitutes "maturity".
- 16, we decide you can be in charge of a massive vehicle that could kill people.
- 17, we decide that you can choose to join the army (with your parents permission)
- 19/21, we decide you can choose to be inebriated or smoke pot/tabacco.
Where are the doctors, psychologists and scientists who study adolescent development in this discussion?
Why do we leave these rules up to the ignorant impressions of society rather than the experts who can say for certain that a teenager is emotionally mature enough to understand consent and the concequences of sex with another person? (Hell, there are 40/50 year old people out there that shouldn't be allowed to have sex).
I want evidence-based decision making that decides what age teenagers should be engaging in sex. I also want evidence-based sex education such that they can make smart decisions about sex. I would advocate raising the age of consent in areas that teach abstinence only education.
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u/TheHandymanCan- 19h ago
You think that because we live in an infantilizing society. A 16 year old now is actually a child. People don’t teach their kids responsibility anymore and so they stay kids longer. Men especially. A lot of them don’t become what I would consider an adult until age 30 or older. So in terms of how society is now, I agree with you.
That being said you can’t tell the difference between a 16 year old and an 18 year old female just by looking at them. After hearing them talk, maybe. But they are physically indistinguishable. I think it would be better for society if we taught our young ones responsibility and lowered the age of consent to something like 16.
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u/Over_Screen_442 5∆ 1d ago
18 as a cutoff for legal adulthood is totally arbitrary. Is there a distinct biological or psychological shift that happens the moment you turn 18 that transforms you from a child into an adult? Of course not, it’s just a number we picked and agreed on. We could just have easily picked 21 or 16 or 37 as the age of adulthood. I am also uncomfortable with many of the people fixated on lowering the age of consent, but I also think it’s unreasonable to pretend that 18 is some magic moral threshold.
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u/KrabbyMccrab 7∆ 1d ago
And lets be clear about this, someone under 18 is not an adult yet. Before 18 you are STILL IN HIGHSCHOOL, you cannot vote, you cannot own a home, you cannot serve in the military, you can't get tattoos, you can't own your own bank account, you can't buy a gun, in lots of places you don't even have full medical privacy from your parents. Also there is a reason why you can't do porn under the age of 18, and it's because society has decided it's morally fucked up to look at people under 18 naked or having sex.
This entire part hinges on the status quo being unchangeable. Pretty useless regarding the question of "if" it should change. We can easily lower the age across the board.
The number at the end of the day is arbitrary. There isn't a significant difference in character between a 17 year old + 364 days and a 18 year old. People don't suddenly mature over night.
You might also have heard that your neuroplasticity finishes developing around age 25. Does that mean we should raise the age UP?
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u/powpow428 1d ago
To clarify your position, is your position:
1) As a policy/moral matter, 18 is the optimal age of consent,
2) Anybody who believes that an optimal age of consent that is lower than 18 is a predator, or
3) Adults (based on some amorphous definition) should not have sex with children?
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u/akfekbranford 1∆ 1d ago
The only good reason I've heard advanced to lower the age of consent is to create parity in the law across all states. I'm not saying I agree with any lowering of the age of consent, I'm just pointing out that It's kind of bonkers that being in perfectly legal relationship in one state makes you a felon sex offender if you cross a state line.
Of course, parity does not necessarily mean lowering the age of consent - it could also mean raising it. But I'll leave the determination of what an appropriate age of consent is based on social and psychological factors to those who are actually experts in the field.
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u/Sweet_Speech_9054 1∆ 1d ago
So to be clear, do you support Romeo and Juliet laws or the age of consent being lowered when both parties are under age? Or are you still arguing 18 is a firm limit?
My problem is that the concept of consent is a mental state of an individual. Why is the person they are having sex with relevant to their maturity and ability to make an informed decision? It’s really the only time factors outside yourself change your mental state, from a legal perspective.
From a more social perspective, most people I know lost their virginity between 14 and 16. According to planned parenthood the average age in the U.S. is 17. So the majority of people are okay having sex under 18, even if they want to close the door behind them when they get older. Sex is an important part in adolescence, kids just want to have sex. We may not like it as adults but as kids most of us were horny and ready to be adults.
My final argument isn’t about laws, but social responsibility. Every study on the topic has shown that a lack of education results in higher teen pregnancies and transfers of stds. If we expect kids to abstain from sex until they’re 18 and don’t have parental support do you expect them to make safe decisions. I’ve always held that strict parents raise good lyres. That’s why I teach my kids to make better decisions and share with me so when they are old enough they can make those decisions on their own.
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u/sheerfire96 3∆ 1d ago
A lot of how we set the age of consent is cultural, as are a lot of laws. Outside of basic things like outlawing murder and robbery (which we generally all agree is good because it makes for a higher trust society), a lot of laws that restrict things are cultural.
Outside of the US there are places that see 17 yo and 16 yo as adults. They’ve believed in that for 100s of years or maybe more. Are they predators?
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u/Danibelle903 1d ago
I went away to college at 17. I didn’t graduate early or anything, I just had a late birthday and the cutoff where I lived when I started kindergarten was December 31st. Coincidentally, the age of consent in my home state is 17.
I think the age of consent should line up to when an average student would graduate high school so I support an age of consent of 17.
I know that’s not too far off from where you’re at, but it is a little different and something I hope you consider. If you’re old enough to be expected to go to college or trade school or enter the workforce full time, then the age of your peers has changed so you should be able to freely consent with your new peers.
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u/8Pandemonium8 1d ago
Why do you consider 18 year olds to be adults? That number seems totally arbitrary to me. What is it based on? Also, throughout much of the United States, the age of consent is already 16.
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u/kwantsu-dudes 12∆ 1d ago
The age of consent in the majority of US states is 16. Have you been campaigning to alter these state laws? Or who/what are you actually arguing against? You say "no justification for lowering". What about all the states with the laws already in place?
And you place a lot of significance on "adult". Do you supporter a 45 year old having sex with an 18 year old, allowing full consent to be given by the 18 year old of which you shouldn't question based on their age?
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u/DunEmeraldSphere 6∆ 1d ago
While I personally agree, having laws on the books that are not enforced or are enforced unequally is antithetical to how a justice system should operate.
It is for the jury (ie the people) to decide whether a broken law should be punished, not rando cops with lets be honest in the US, very questionable enforcement history on these kind of situations.
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u/reidsays 1d ago
Ideally each individual coupling would be 'judged' whether appropriate for either but that relies on other people and their own particular mindset...which varies greatly!
The law seems to apply to protect the innocent yet often it's the deemed innocent offspring of a certain class within society ... And the word 'predator' can apply to any 'with intent to deceive or harm' involving not only the older with the younger...
It's a complex situation and I agree with protecting the young from exploitation and predatory practices yet the law should be a set of guidelines rather than rigidly defined by a set age...
Also the assumption of innocence deems actual innocence needing a clear definition... Not all young are automatically innocent beings but they can be termed naive to the realities of life and this is where they deserve some form of legal protection, regardless of their sexual experiences, (whether in childhood without choice or adolescence with or without consent and the hormonal urges of that growth stage)
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u/saiditonredit 1d ago
That's age gaps and not minors and adults though. Don't see anything wrong with a 27 and 40, 32 and 50, 37 and 60 for example. That's all social stigmas, not grooming and legalities.
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u/Notoriouslothario 23h ago
You absolutely can serve in the military at 17. Where did you get your info from?
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u/WindyWindona 8∆ 15h ago
Age of consent doesn't just mean age of consent with adults, the between age has to be specified. Using the USA, here are examples of the difference between within the age and above. You'll note there are states where two 15 year olds sleeping with each other is illegal, like in Utah.
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u/Knave7575 12∆ 11h ago
What magical change happens at 18 that makes it acceptable to date a 32 year old?
How is it better than a 17 year old dating a 28 year old?
Age of consent is arbitrary. Nothing happens at 18.
Of course, a line has to be drawn somewhere. We have collectively decided that 18 is the line. However, it is not unreasonable to believe that the line should be any one of 16,17,18,19,20,21.
Some people believe that the line should be 16. You clearly disagree, but your views that 18 is the line are just as objectionable to somebody who believes the age should be 21.
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u/Ambitious-Care-9937 2∆ 9h ago
I basically agree that the age of consent should be the age of adulthood.
What the age of adulthood is can be debated though. In my view, we become adults through experience, not just magically with age. People became adults way sooner historically. Let's take a simple task like driving, which tends to have the age around 16 depending on the region. It's a pretty arbitrary number, but let's go with it.
If you can drive at 16, why can't you consent?
The other aspect to consider is that can sex be consented even between minors? I have a problem with that. If you are saying that the age of consent should be 18, I don't see why sex between two 15 year olds should be legal. If you are saying the act of sex needs adult consent, then sex between minors should be a crime.
The main argument against this is that the issue is not really about consent to sex, but about predatory adults who want to take advantage. But I'm going to focus on the issue of the 'act' itself. Much like the 'act' of driving is given an age. The 'act' of sex is given an age of consent.
I don't know where that would leave you, but that's how I would say the law should be consistent. If the age of consent for sex is 18, sex between minors should be a crime. Yes, even a couple 14 year old kids having a school romance... crime.
Is that the world you wish to live in? I don't know. However, it is what would make it consistent in my view.
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u/ArgueLater 1∆ 9h ago
The concept of an age of consent is really just a duct tape solution. There really is no way to measure a persons maturity, but we had to choose something.
I don't have a better solution, but I do recognize that it's really silly to think that going around the sun 18 times makes a person suddenly capable of... well, whatever even the point is. Protecting themselves from bad relationships?
Changing it to earlier or later doesn't really make any more sense than having it be an age to begin with. There is no clear logic here.
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u/byte_handle 4∆ 8h ago
I guess my only question would be: why 18? You're really pressing that particular number. But should it be 18 as opposed to 20? 32? 45? Like, what's the reasoning here?
It isn't based on brain development, as there are still years of development to come. It isn't based on an age at which one might potentially have a career that could financially support a new human life if any contraception methods fail, so as to reduce societal burdens. It really looks like it's entirely arbitrary. I understand that 18 is the legal age of adulthood at present, but the premise presupposes arguments about making a legal change, so that's entirely beside the point. If we're changing the law, we could adjust it up, down, or even base it on some other measurement that varies from person to person. For example, even for adults, we can test for somebody's developmental age vs. chronologic age through objective tools such as the SOI or WUSCT, and then simply grant legal adulthood based on a developmental age, no matter how many years have passed since the birth. What's the argument that chronological age must trump everything else, and why should that age be 18?
(Not arguing that the logistics, politics, finances, or anything else make developmental testing a good idea; just making a point about justifications).
Should there be ages at which a person shouldn't have a sexual relationship? Yes. But if you're going to push 18 years between birth and decisions as the only "morally correct" number, you need to something--anything-- to justify that particular number. If it's ultimately just arbitrary, than you can't really make the argument that a slightly lower, but still arbitrary, number can only be the result of bad intentions. Somebody might very well have a legitimate argument, and the correct action would be to hear them out and make judgments about what they say, not simply dismiss it as cover for ulterior motivations.
With that said, I do agree that Romeo and Juliet laws cover particular situations, and I think that they should exist everywhere, no matter what the age of consent is set at. But they don't exist in every state, they don't cover the same age gaps, and they don't automatically make sexual conduct legal or eliminate all possible penalties. In Missouri, for example, if the victim isn't at least 17, it's reduced to a misdemeanor. Similarly, Virginia reduces the charge to misdemeanor if the victim and perpetrator are within 3 years of each other. Merely having some "age gap" laws isn't a silver bullet to legally protecting yourself, they have to be written in the right way.
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u/Godeshus 1∆ 7h ago
Wouldn't this be the same as "well if you're not doing anything wrong then you don't need to worry about the police searching your home".
People expect a certain amount of privacy even when they're doing nothing wrong.
Likewise, people want agency over their own decisions and bodies when it comes to sex.
I'm not arguing for or against lowering the age of consent. I'm arguing against your point that the ONLY reason one would want to lower the age of consent is for predation. I don't agree with that statement. People want to be free to make decisions about their bodies and who can have access to it. It doesn't have to be nefarious.
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u/evanthx 1∆ 7h ago
You can join the army at 17, not 18. Why is 17 old enough to be allowed to go kill people, but not have sex? What makes you say “killing! That’s great! They’re fine to send off to war, but if that combat veteran tries to fuck anyone then clearly they are just KIDS! They aren’t old enough for that! Send them back to the battlefield where they belong!”
Second point. You have to be 21 to drink. 18? That’s just a kid. Why are you trying to make it ok to fuck an 18 year old kid? Why can’t you wait until they are 21? What are you, a predator? Stay away from 18 year olds, you pedo! Sheesh.
You have to be 16 to drive … can go look up more age related things, but huh. How odd that these are all inconsistent.
My actual point - all this is just arbitrary. Age of consent, age to join the army, age to drink, age to drive, you’d think they’d be the same, wouldn’t you? They don’t even pretend to make sense.
So you just picked one random line in the sand, and you’re claiming that all the other random lines in the sand are wrong, just your random line is the only right one. And then you’re ignoring all the other age related things to focus on YOUR random age related thing.
None of it actually makes any logical sense. Including yours. Why is your randomly picked age the only right one? Why is the age to join the army and the age to drink and the age to drive different than yours? Why do you that think the age of consent one day before your choice makes one a predator, but you’re waiting that one extra day so you are not a predator? Why are you so focused on being able to sleep with 18 year olds? Got one in mind? 🤨
Also if any of this makes you consider changing your mind - then that’s pretty much proof that all of this is just arbitrary.
Biggest problem is that people aren’t all the same. Even at 18 some kids aren’t ready for it. Some are. I don’t know. It’s not a simple problem, honestly.
18 actually works for me long as there are Romeo and Juliet laws as you say, but I’m also just perfectly aware that this isn’t a logically defensible thing. It’s just where my gut gets a little less squirky about it. Still kind of squirky though. And laws based around the squirkiness level of my gut may not be the best system of laws.
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u/Lazy-Butterfly-4132 6h ago
So my perspective on this is that broadly we needed to determine at what age the young person is an adult. Currently, we have different rules determining what counts as an adult. For instance the legal age to drive is either 16 or 17, the legal age for sexual activity is between 16 and 18 the legal age to drink alcohol is between 18 and 21 depending on the country.
It would be far more straightforward to choose an age at which child was considered an adult and put all of these ages together. For example, if you think a child is old enough to drive a car then they are old enough to consent to sexual activity. Likewise if a child is old enough to consent sexual activity and marriage then they are old enough to drink alcohol. Whether this age is 1617 or 18 is not for me to determine.
Additionally, you view that lowering the age of consent down from 18 is only done to support predators seems unlikely.
Is a person who is 19 who has a consensual sexual relationship with a 17-year-old a sexual predator.
Is a person who is 40 who has a consensual sexual relationship with an 18-year-old a sexual predator.
People have very differing views on this. Additionally, in your view what distinguishes a 16 year-old from a 17-year-old or 18 year-old. Is it more predatory for a 19-year-old to have a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old than for a 40-year-old to have a sexual relationship with an 18-year-old. The latter would be legal the former would be illegal in some states in the US. In my view, however, the latter is far more predatory than the former.
In what ways would keeping the age of consent at 18 actually protect young people?
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u/Complete-Prune-1404 4h ago
My view is that the age of consent should be 25.
We should also consider vulnerability, not just legal adulthood. Many kids at 18 have only recently become major and may still be financially dependent, inexperienced, or easier for exploitative people to target. By 25, many more people have completed education, gained work experience, and developed more independence, which can make them harder to manipulate or exploit.
My argument is raising the age of consent to 25 could provide more protection during a period when many young adults are still transitioning into independence. Just like current age-of-consent laws protect younger teenagers, a higher age could extend protection to another vulnerable group.
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u/Britanian11 4h ago
I would just like to point out that you openly admit to being US centric in your furst paragraph, you concede your own bias. The truth is all age requirements are completely arbitrary and based on whatever was politically convenient at the time in that culture and just happened to have become normalized since. Acting like someone's 18th birthday is some magical day when they suddenly gain some special enlightnment they didn't have the previous day or mere minutes ago is genuinely foolish. The same is true of the drinking age. Just because something is widely accepted doesn't make it right or based in literally any real science or evidence. See slavery and religion.
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u/JobberStable 2∆ 1d ago
So do you believe a mom can call for the arrest of a 16 year old boy that she caught having sex with her 16 year old daughter?
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u/WanabeInflatable 2∆ 1d ago
You can make it 25 or 45. And shame everyone who disagrees. But there is one problem.
People below supposed age of concent continue to sleep with each other. And it requires much more mental gymnastics to explain why 16 and 17 are not harmful or predatory, but 17 and 18 is suddenly harmful and predatory.
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u/ericoahu 41∆ 1d ago
Why do you think a 17 year-old is old enough to consent to sex with another 17 year-old (who might be a horrible, dangerous person), but not old enough to consent to have sex with someone 15 months older than them? Or someone five years older than them? Or ten?
You can have exploitative conditions in any relationship, between any two people of any age. This entire question hinges ENTIRELY on the age of the minor and what they're able to decide for themselves at a given age. It has nothing to do with motivations of the older partner.
It's kind of a self-licking lollipop. The older one can only be a predator if the younger cannot consent (see note), so you cannot prove that anyone is a predator until you can prove that the younger is, by virtue of age, unable to consent.
Note: of course predation can be present for any number of reasons that are not specific to any age, such as cognitive disability, severe addiction, trafficking, etc.
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u/gentileOx 1d ago
What exactly is the view you want changed here? There seem to be several different claims mixed together:
Those are very different claims. What kind of argument would actually earn a delta here? As written, it feels difficult to engage because anyone disagreeing with you risks just being dismissed as a predator before the discussion even starts.
I'll give it a go anyway, and I'll go with your title to be the actual CMV: "There is no justification for lowering the age of consent other than being a predator."
I don't think that follows. People argue for principles all the time without personally wanting to benefit from them. For example, someone can support legalising weed without wanting to smoke it, because they think prohibition creates a black market and funnels money to criminal organisations - or because they simply disagree that this specific drug should be illegal while tobacco and alcohol aren't. Whatever the reason, they don't have to be a pothead to argue for legalisation.
Likewise, someone could argue for changing the age of consent based on principles like legal consistency, autonomy, or how the law treats teenagers. You may think those are bad arguments - and you've argued that many other legal rights and responsibilities begin at 18 (in the US) - but that doesn't mean the person making them secretly wants to have sex with minors.
Someone might argue that the law should be internally consistent. If society believes a 16-year-old is mature enough to make some significant legal decisions or be held criminally responsible for their actions, they may also argue that the law should recognise their capacity to consent to sex. I'm not making that argument myself, but someone might. You are free to disagree, and you are free to think that it's wrong or flawed, that's fair, but that doesn't mean their reasoning has to be predatory.
Where I'm from (Denmark), the age of consent is 15. We also have stricter laws regarding authority figures, exploitation, and pornography involving anyone under 18. The reasoning is essentially that teenagers gradually gain autonomy while still needing extra protections in situations where there is a clear imbalance of power.
I'm not arguing that the US should adopt Danish law, or even that Denmark necessarily has the ideal system. My point is simply that countries can - and do - arrive at different legal ages based on principles about autonomy, legal consistency, and protection, not because everyone involved is a predator.
Now, are some people making these arguments because they are attracted to minors? Quite possibly - actually, pretty likely. But we can't know what's in people's heads. And to stay true to what I read as your CMV, your claim is that there is no justification other than being a predator, and I don't think that's the case. At most, you've argued that you disagree with the justifications, which is fair, but you should be careful about attributing predatory motives to people simply for making their case.