To me, I think that there should be some equivalent to "Romeo and Juliette" laws that allow for consent between groups of certain ages. I think it follows that if the two could have met in school, like a freshman dating a senior (a 14 year-old and an 18 year-old), it should be legal. The younger the age, the closer in age the youngsters have to be for an act to be deemed truly "consensual."

Once a person becomes 18, I think they are legally an adult and can handle the responsibility to have sex with anyone they choose. Heck, I think most 17 year-olds can handle the responsibility, too.

I'm guessing, from the able-to-get-a-job-and-driver's-license-but-not-legal-with-adults references, you're 16 or 17.

There are areas where the AOC is absolute, but in most as far as I know there's some additional leeway given to partners who are close in age- four years or less apart seems most common standard IME.

Personally, I support such laws. Adolescence and early adulthood is a time of such rapid psychosocial development that just a few years DO make a big difference in overall maturity.

As PDXHopeful said, there are some states where if you're within a certain amount of years of someone you can consent, but only between certain teen years. And it's different if one party is in a position of authority. I'm in favor of consent laws as long as they're reasonable; I think teenagers around the same age should be able to have sex if they want. Obviously though we need good sex ed to go with these laws so people know what they're getting into.

I think that age of consent laws are a wonderful form of protection that adults don't have, given our society. We are reluctant to believe adults who say they were raped, because the presence of sex isn't the issue - it's the presence of consent that's relevant.

If an adult has sex with a child (teenagers are children, under the law), it is automatically rape. So, if they verbally said "no" and people fail to believe them about that, they still have the "I was a minor" argument on their side. They are lucky.

Of course, I want our society to change its attitudes toward rape victims in general. That's my greatest wish. But until that happens, I think age of consent laws offer protection toward already vulnerable children.

Were our society different and we were actually GOOD at keeping rapists locked up in jail and supporting rape victims (rather than belittling them), then this conversation would be different. I think it's ridiculous for two 17 year old high school seniors to get in legal trouble as soon as one of them turns 18. That's one of the flaws in the age of consent system - a flaw that gives age of consent such a bad rap.

I do think that those laws are intended to keep 40 year olds away from 17 year olds, or 25 year olds away from 13 year olds (these are just general examples). People are different psychologically at 40 than they are at 17, just as they're different at 25 than they are at 13. An age gap of more than 3 or 4 years, if one of the people is under a certain age, makes a relationship problematic.

Personally, I think the age of consent for everything - voting, drinking, buying lottery tickets, AND sex (between two people that are within 3 or 4 years of age of each other) should be around 20, but that's just my opinion. One of the goals would be to stop oversexualizing the "teen" aspect ("Ooh, she's 18 - legal but still a teen")... I hear that CONSTANTLY and it disgusts me.

At minimum, the age of consent should be the same everywhere, in my opinion. I don't like that it's 15 in some states, 16 in others. While it's disgusting for grown men to view 16 year olds sexually, the fact that they are legally allowed to does weaken our "teenagers are still children" argument - which is an argument that I still think needs to be made. As someone above said, a few years DOES make a huge difference during that period of a person's life. I was a much different person at 20 than I was at 18.

i think the consent laws in canada are pretty dead-on. anyone over 12 can consent to sex with someone within 2 years of their age. a 12 y/o can consent to sex with another 12 y/o, or a 14 y/o, but NOT a 10 y/o. a 15 y/o can consent to sex with a 17 y/o. anyone 16 y/o and over can consent to sex with an adult as long as that adult is not in a position of authority. while yes, 60 y/o shouldn't use this as a reason to oversexualize teens, a 16 y/o can and should be able to consent to sex with an 18 y/o.

I think that if there is sex involving someone 13 or under (or 14 or under), there needs to be a significant effort to find out if there is a history of sexual abuse in childhood. Children who are victims of rape, boy or girl, too often have sex at an age, or under circumstances, that is inappropriate.

The problem I have with AOC laws is the way they appear to be racially applied. I am sick of hearing about newly turned 18yo high school black boys being sent to prison for sex with a 14/15 y.o. high school white girl, while young black women 14/15 are engaging in sex with men in their mid 20s or older and there doesn't seem to be the outrage or prosecution from the media and white America.
Also, there is the issue that in some states a 15 or 16 yo can not consent to sex with a 18/19/20 year old but they can marry a 30 yo with parent permission. There is something seriously fucked about that scenario. If they are old enough to be married they are old enogh to sleep with anyone they damn well please. I think laws like that and that they continue to be applied says a lot about the way some states view women.

The problem I have with AOC laws is the way they appear to be racially applied. I am sick of hearing about newly turned 18yo high school black boys being sent to prison for sex with a 14/15 y.o. high school white girl, while young black women 14/15 are engaging in sex with men in their mid 20s or older and there doesn't seem to be the outrage or prosecution from the media and white America.
Also, there is the issue that in some states a 15 or 16 yo can not consent to sex with a 18/19/20 year old but they can marry a 30 yo with parent permission. There is something seriously fucked about that scenario. If they are old enough to be married they are old enogh to sleep with anyone they damn well please. I think laws like that and that they continue to be applied says a lot about the way some states view women.

The problem I have with AOC laws is the way they appear to be racially applied. I am sick of hearing about newly turned 18yo high school black boys being sent to prison for sex with a 14/15 y.o. high school white girl, while young black women 14/15 are engaging in sex with men in their mid 20s or older and there doesn't seem to be the outrage or prosecution from the media and white America.
Also, there is the issue that in some states a 15 or 16 yo can not consent to sex with a 18/19/20 year old but they can marry a 30 yo with parent permission. There is something seriously fucked about that scenario. If they are old enough to be married they are old enogh to sleep with anyone they damn well please. I think laws like that and that they continue to be applied says a lot about the way some states view women.

The problem I have with AOC laws is the way they appear to be racially applied. I am sick of hearing about newly turned 18yo high school black boys being sent to prison for sex with a 14/15 y.o. high school white girl, while young black women 14/15 are engaging in sex with men in their mid 20s or older and there doesn't seem to be the outrage or prosecution from the media and white America.
Also, there is the issue that in some states a 15 or 16 yo can not consent to sex with a 18/19/20 year old but they can marry a 30 yo with parent permission. There is something seriously fucked about that scenario. If they are old enough to be married they are old enogh to sleep with anyone they damn well please. I think laws like that and that they continue to be applied says a lot about the way some states view women.

The problem I have with AOC laws is the way they appear to be racially applied. I am sick of hearing about newly turned 18yo high school black boys being sent to prison for sex with a 14/15 y.o. high school white girl, while young black women 14/15 are engaging in sex with men in their mid 20s or older and there doesn't seem to be the outrage or prosecution from the media and white America.
Also, there is the issue that in some states a 15 or 16 yo can not consent to sex with a 18/19/20 year old but they can marry a 30 yo with parent permission. There is something seriously fucked about that scenario. If they are old enough to be married they are old enogh to sleep with anyone they damn well please. I think laws like that and that they continue to be applied says a lot about the way some states view women.

"...I think it is kind of obscene that the state in which I reside in allows a woman of my age to operate a motor vehicle and get a part time job, yet I can't be seen as mature enough to decide whether or not I can have sex..."

Ah, but does it allow a woman of your age to get a full-time job?

If it doesn't, then your earnings have this big extra restriction on them and it's far less likely that you can afford to leave whomever has custody of you...and has the legal right to keep spanking you until you cave in and obey whatever legal orders she, he, or they give you. Meanwhile, if your state did set the age of consent younger than you are, then those legal orders would include ordering you to appear to consent to sex with anyone your parent/guardian wants you to have sex with.

"I'm really torn here. Where do we draw the line? Age 11? 13?"

I'm not torn at all, and wasn't when I did the math myself as a teen. Draw it at or after the minimum age for full-time employment in the child labor laws of the place.

For example: suppose child labor customs in a community set the minimum age for full-time breadwinning at 16. This would make it considerably more difficult for someone under age 16 than for someone over age 16 to afford getting disowned, afford leaving corporal punishment, etc. (more difficult to get even a minimum-wage job, more difficult to afford even slummy housing for 1 person, etc.).

Now suppose the minimum age for sexual consent is 13 and the minimum age for full-time employment is 16 in the same community's customs. Someone who knows about a 9-year-old's or 14-year-old's upcoming wedding there can't be sure if this kid saying "I do" actually wants marital sex or just wants the spankings to end, can't afford any other way to escape them, and is about to get raped. If this kid is 9 then the community's erring on the side of caution, recognizing that the kid's "yes" may not actually reflect the kid's own wishes, and the community's authorities are better able to prevent the rape. If this kid is 14, then the community takes the kid's "yes" at face value instead (how convenient for rapists who convince kids' parents that they're "good providers" or that the bride prices they offer are "worth it" or whatever).

Meanwhile, suppose another community's customs sets its minimum age for full-time breadwinning at 15 instead of 16. In this other community, setting the age of consent at 15 could make more sense than setting it at 16.

As another comment a while ago said:

"...i don't see a better societal solution than to pick one age threshold for these things, knowing full well that some people will be emotionally mature enough sooner, and some will be later..."

Yes, that's fairer than any alternative. Setting it at puberty would be unfair to people who reach that later (as if a 15-year-old who doesn't menstruate or ejaculate yet is somehow less mature than a 9-year-old who does). Setting it at whenever community elders say "this one's mature enough" would be unfair to people whose sexuality isn't privileged by those elders (as if a 20-year-old lesbian dating a classmate and being told "grow out of that phase already!!!" is less mature than a 12-year-old who has a crush on a teacher her parents think is a "good provider").

When I was in highschool, it was the rare student under 17 who had the self-confidence and self-awareness to be able to make an informed consent to much of anything. Yes, many of my friends were having sex; they were usually doing so because they thought they "should" be or because they were quite obviously pressured into it or because of issues resulting from sexually abuse/assaults in the past or because they thought their boyfriend would be less likely to break up with them. I think lowering the age of consent would only make it more common for teenagers to feel like they "should" be having sex, or tell themselves there was something wrong with them if they didn't want to have sex with someone; that would only lead to a greater number having really terrible (or risky and dangerous) early sexual experiences, and end up having to get past a lot of baggage in order to have healthy sexual relationships later on.

The person who asked "would you be okay with twelve-year-olds masturbating" I think is missing the point of age of consent laws. Sex is not masturbation; sex involves placing your body intimately in the hands of another person, who could easily cause you permanent damage. Further, sex and relationships in the teenage years are full of ALL SORTS of drama, which impacts people for decades to come. Masturbation doesn't carry any of those risks. The question isn't whether teenagers are sexual (does anybody seriously argue that they aren't?) but rather whether they're capable of handling their sexuality safely (emotionally, mentally, physically) when another person is allowed into the mix.

Honestly, if we're requiring parental involvement for medical decisions, I think it's a no-brainer that the teenagers shouldn't be able to consent to sex.

Seventeen or eighteen is a good age for consent laws, I think. I wouldn't suggest putting any kids in jail for behavior under the age bracket (though I might suggest counseling/screening if there's a referral to ensure it was voluntary, and to ensure they aren't in an abusive situation). But I really don't think that the vast, vast majority of teenagers under the age of 17 are capable of the kind of thoughtful consideration of risks/rewards, sans outside influence (or alcohol or drugs), which taking on a new sex partner requires.

I lost my virginity at the age of 11. I was extremely mature for my age and I knew very well what I was doing. However, I know that I was one of the few, and that most 11 year olds are not mature enough to handle that. I think the way the law needs to be is that starts in the sixth grade(the year kids either are about to go to middle school or the year they enter middle school depending on the school district)and will finish in the seventh grage, take a comprehensive sex ed class where they are taught everything including abstinence as a choice, biological process of the menstrual cycle and pregnancy, reproductive anatomy of both sexes, what sexual intercourse is, contraception and how it really works (this would include a lesson on how to use a condom) STD's and STI's how a healthy relationship works, ect, and I think that it should also include a section on LGBT issues and how those relationships work as well. Then the age of consent should be set at thirteen because these kids would have completed the sex ed course and therefore should be responsible enough to make those decisions and know that they must use contraception. The statute would only include consent of for sex with a person of the same age until they are 15 at which point they could consent to a relationship with a person 18 or under and at 17 they would be allowed to have relationships with people over the age of 18 as long as that person was not in some kind of power position over them (ie a teacher or a boss). That is the most reasonable solution because making it illegal for teenagers to ave sex with each other is not going to stop it from happening any more than telling them to wait until they are married will. I think we need to face reality and make this acceptable because its going to be the best way to prevent teenage pregnancy, aboritions (not saying that somebody shouldn't have one just saying we should try and do everything we can to reduce the need for someone to have one), and STD's. Allow them to have relationships in a healthy context where they are fully informed about the decisions that they are making and you just may see some kids choose to wait until they are older, and for the rest you are making sure that they are protected and understand the decisions that they are making

I think the age of consent should be 18 across the board. At the least no younger than 16. Kids mature at different rates and its easy for one child to convince another to do something he/she doesn't want to do. Children do all kinds of things to try to maintain their friendships with other kids.

Absolutely there should be age of consent laws to protect young people from adults. Something along the lines of no sex with anyone under 16 and an older person, no sex with anyone 16-18 unless the other partner is under 21.