To think the age of consent should be 18?

[enemaofthestate]

The discussions about a certain news story have got me thinking about the discrepancy between the fact indecent images of 16-17-year-olds are classed as children/illegal but those same children are above the age of consent in law.

So a grown man could be breaking the law by having an indecent photo of a 17-year-old girl, yet still legally be allowed to have a sexual relationship with her, despite the fact everyone can see it is inappropriate and wrong.

Surely if the law can recognise one is wrong then it should apply to both???

Well seeing as teenagers under the age of 16 are having sex and having babies what good do you really think changing the age of consent to 18 would be???

All it would mean is that there are even more People having underage sex

No.

Personally if there was a way of saying,

16+ but if one person is 16 or 17, then their partner may be no older than 18.

Otherwise 18+ for any ages.

I think that would be best

@firef1y has it. How would you enforce or police this?

How would you police it ?
Some teenagers are already having sex under the age of 16 .

I think its fine as it is. I didn't wait till 16.

I actually thought the same. How ridiculous to be able to look at a naked 16 or 17 year old in the flesh, but not a picture.

Maybe a change in law that you can't have sex with an under 18 if you are more that 2 years older would be a good thing.

Increasing legal age won't stop teens having sex

No. Instead I would put in much stricter rules about age gaps, e.g. two 15 year olds could be legal, a 30 year old and a 17 year old should not be legal. And much better education about needing enthusiastic consent, not just the lack of a "no".

Yes, I agree OP

It's not about degreasing teenage sex but about putting barriers in place to stop grown adults having sex with under 18s.

The age of consent was always more about protecting young people from predatory adults, rather than normal teenage experimentation with peers. I wonder how that could be reflected in law. Two 17 year olds messing about is normal. But a 35 year old sleeping with a 16 year old is all kinds of ick.

But what about older adults with younger people?

How can it be illegal for a 50-year-old man to possess an indecent photo of a 17-year-old girl… yet okay for him to be in a sexual relationship with the very same girl?

If we regard the first one as wrong then why not the second?

That is more what I’m thinking of rather than younger teens sleeping with each other.

The age of consent for sexual contact should be relative. While it isn’t ideal for two 14 year olds to have sex, it should not be illegal. It also shouldn’t be illegal for two 17 year olds to have sex. Yet it absolutely should be illegal for a 50 year old to have sexual contact with either a 14 or a 17 year old.

the problem isn’t just age, it is a difference in maturity and power in the relationship.

if I were writing the law I would allow for an age window for minors for consent and only allow open consent when all parties are 18+.

The age of consent is not about policing teenagers having sex with one another. Its purpose is to protect children from predatory adults. I agree with raising it to 18. At the moment any person under 18 is subject to child protection laws, despite being over the age of consent. It creates a weird legal grey area and confusion in the minds of the public.

There are lots of situations in which sexual relationships with 16 and 17 year olds can already be considered illegal and prosecute. Making the age of consent 18 would be much more logical and clearer. That doesn’t mean we would start prosecuting 19 year olds having sex with 17 year olds. Just like we don’t currently prosecute 17 year olds who have sex with 15 year olds.

The law should protect 16 and 17 year old children from predatory adults who are at a significantly different developmental stage to them. They are still children and deserve the same protection as 15 year olds. It isn’t about banning them from sex with similarly aged children and young adults.

Personally I think there's nothing wrong with two 16/17 year olds having sex, but a 16 yo and a 35 yo? No. So I'd say the law should be that 16/17 year olds can have sex, but with someone no more than 3 years older than themselves.

I like this idea.

And also make the sex offence laws in line with this. I am aware of a 18 year old boy who, so I am told, ended up on the sex offenders register for having sex with a 15 year old. She was a summer born, all her friends were 16, she told boy she was 16.

If this is true, a 18 year old is not exactly a sexual predator by having sex with a girl he thought was 16.

There are lots of countries who have the law whereby at 15, its not illegal if the person is 2 years older, or at 17, if the other person is 2 years younger etc etc

So it can be done.

There wont be any perfect law, there will always be anomalies or loop holes but at the moment it doesnt make sense for a 15 year old with a 17 year old is considered as not being able to give consent when of course they can and do and the police wont be interested a peep if its reported as consensual.

In my experience that would only turn out like that if the girl later said, I didnt consent properly/at all/was coerced and pushed a prosecution

The police really are not interested (and shouldnt be) in 15 year olds having sex with their 18 year old partners.

yabu

@Createausername1970 I suspect that you’ve not been given the full picture. I work in child protection and cannot imagine police prosecuting a consensual sexual relationship between two teenagers in year 11 and year 13. There are highly likely to be other aggravating factors there. They don’t use the age of consent to prosecute consensual sex between young people of similar ages. For it to get to prosecution and sex offenders register then I’d guess that there is an issue around consent, whether that’s capacity (intoxication, SEND, other vulnerability that makes the younger girl less able to consent) or position of power (e.g. the 18 year old being employed by the school/ volunteering at a club etc.).

I grew up in the western United States. The age of consent was 18, but realistically teenagers had sex all the time and there wasn’t prosecution of teenagers having sex with each other. Adults having sexual contact with teenagers was broken down in three categories: under 13, 14-15, and 16-17. These are statutory crimes which mean if the events are proven to have occurred there is no defense - the crime occurred and the penalty should be imposed.

Under 13, anyone over 18 is subject to criminal penalties.

14-15, anyone over 18 is subject to criminal penalties but the level of penalty is two tiered. If more than 4 years age difference one penalty and less than 4 years age difference another penalty.

16-17, a little more nuanced. If the person knows or reasonably should have known the minors age and is less than 9 years older than the minor one penalty. If more than 10 years older (full stop) than another penalty.

This seems to me to recognize teenagers need to be protected at different ages in different ways. The real problem is lack of reporting and failure to prosecute sometimes. But overall I think something similar to this is a good balance.

I thought this may have been the case, that there was more to it than I was being told. The person who told me was friends with the boys family, so I did wonder if it was an attempt to get one side of the story across, damage limitation, as the girl was from another area, apparently, so her side would be less known.

But as my son was younger than the lad in question and moved in totally different circles, I never heard this from anyone else. So if it was damage limitation, it didn't work because I now know something about this lad that I might have been otherwise unaware of.

But, as I have never heard it from anyone else, I am now wondering is it even true?

No you would just criminalise the perfectly normal behaviour of plenty of 16 and 17 year olds.