to wonder if a conversation is needed about "staggering" the age of consent

[Servalan]

Apologies if there is already a thread dealing with this - I've looked but couldn't find anything.

I listened to Women's Hour earlier where "Alice" (the woman who was allegedly raped by Russell Brand at the age of 16) was being interviewed.

At the time, she was in a "relationship" with him - she was 16, he was 31. She was talking about the power imbalance, how she didn't have the tools to advocate for herself or really understand what was happening to her.

Now, obviously, forced oral sex is rape and is illegal.

What I'm wondering about is whether a consentual sexual relationship (which "Alice" thought she was in with Brand up until the rape) between a 31 and a 16 year old should be legal.

The ages of 16 and 17 are not seen as being an adult in the eyes of the law, yet the age of consent laws mean that a much older adult can have consentual sex with a 16 or 17 year old child.

Seeing conversations on here about age gap relationships where the youngest person is 16 or 17, there is disapproval and distaste expressed - so it's frowned upon but it's not illegal.

I come from a generation where at the age of 16, I had friends in relationships with adults in their late 20s and no one batted an eyelid, but I think it was (to use a cliche) "different times". Childline was founded when I was in my mid teens and before that, in my personal experience, people didn't really talk about child abuse much - it existed of course, but was swept under the carpet. Over the years I have seen a massive shift in how the nuances and power balances in this type of age gap relationship are discussed.

Now I have a 17 year old DD I see things VERY differently to how I did when I was younger. I think a lot of us do.

The reason I'm wondering about a "staggered" age of consent is that it is normal and healthy for 16 year olds to be having sexual relationships with people within their peer group - but wondering if there is a way to safeguard from predatory older people.

Presumably it would be easy enough to phrase the law as 'it's illegal for anyone over the age of 18 to have sex with anyone under the age of 18'.

I'm not sure it necessarily a bad thing for kids to wait until 18 anyway tbh.

Playing devil’s advocate, if we for example say 16&17 year olds can have sex with each other, then 18&21 yo’a etc (meaning 18yo’s CAN’T sleep with 16/17 yo’s and 21 yo’s can’t sleep with 20yo’s) what happens when Bob turns 18 in September and has been dating Sue for a year, but Sue doesn’t turn 18 until June. Are they expected to stop having sex or will Bob just become a rapist all of a sudden?

I think 18 is young enough. Yes kids will be having sex earlier than that but actually they shouldn’t be and it won’t harm them to wait.

Might even lead to a better quality of sex life if they’ve had to time to learn more, masturbate more, invest in friendships more, find out who they are a bit more and not be scarred by the damage of naively having crap sexual encounters too young.

@0021andabit

What about those only 5 months apart in age, my dd met her dp at 17, he was 18, same school year. Hardly a crime to fall in love!

The police aren't interested anyway unless there is coercion

It's impossible to have it staggered. If it becomes illegal that an 18+ sleep with an under 18 what happens when all the 16/17s become 17/18?

I also think we need to move away from consensual and non-consensual as it blurs lines. It's either sex or it's rape - you don't need the descriptor with sex. You're either having sex with someone because you want to or being raoed because it's against your will.

I think people having disucssions like this seem to forget that humans ( like most animals) are driven by sex, once they become sexually mature they will have sex

You can put some boundaries around it but not much. the idea of saying that a 19 year old having sex with a 17 year old is illegal is laughable.

At 17 I was in a relationship with a 23 year old. I consented. He was abusive (controlling what I wore and jealous, and I was naive) but I did consent to sex. I think we need to teach healthy relationships to dc and focus on that.

This already exists to some extent.

The age of consent is 16.

But the age of strict liability is 13. If over 13, and provided the other party is no more than 18, then there will be no prosecution, unless there are exceptional factors. No-one wants to criminalise two enthusiastically consenting 15yos, no matter how misguided we think they are.

And even at 16, if the older adult is in a position of power/influence (such as a coach or teacher, then it is potentially criminal (until the younger person is 18).

This could, potentially, be extended, so that for those aged 16-18 there is an upper age limit for the older partner (probably somewhere between 21 and 25)

That's why it would make sense to say that anyone over 21 cannot sleep with someone under 18. You can't police it once they are adults.

I don’t think 16/17 year olds are mature enough to deal with being in a relationship and those huge age gaps add to the mismatch of expectations.

I was in a (good) relationship with someone a year older than me, we went to same school and had the same goals in life, but even then the highs were high and the lows were dramatically low. Eg fall outs would make it hard for me to focus on my a levels and study, sex/my appearance were more important than my a levels at times. Luckily I did okay for myself but it really was a rollercoaster as I wasn’t mature enough to have my boyfriend constantly staying over and being in love for the first time. He would do things like come to my house if we had a falling out, I had no space…

I think if you’re dating someone as a teen, you really need your partner to steer you in the right direction. I really doubt that Russell brand gave a single fuck about Alice’s future or best interests or education. Just what he could get out of her as a 30+ year old that’s had sex with 100s of people & is used to casual flings.

You really are prone to manipulation and being taken advantage of as you don’t have as much emotional control. I’m an educated, successful adult now and have always been ambitious. Nothing in my my personal circumstances made me vulnerable. Yet I was still susceptible

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.

18, they’re adults. The line has to be drawn somewhere and hopefully other laws will protect.

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. Nothing will ever be perfect.

I had a boyfriend who was 22 and I was 16. He was lovely and if anything it was me who pushed the sexual side of things. What was wrong was when I was 17, my 35 year old married manager taking me out the back of our workplace when we had finished for the evening and shagging me in his car. I felt grown up but I now know that was wrong and gross.

I think there's already a slight stagger eg a -5 year old girl and 17 year old boy is seen as ok, 20 year old boy no. But I think 18 would protect children as long as they weren't penalized for sleeping with each other .

So a 16yo could have sex with a 19yo in your scenario, but the following year when they turn 17 and 20 they'd have to stop?!

Thing is, we can dance on a pinhead about the age of consent all we like, but until rape and sexual assault is a prosecuted crime in this country, it won't make a blind bit of difference.

I was ecstatic when the laws came in about coercive control. How many men have been prosecuted for it since?

Well said!

We have to walk before we can run

It's mumsnet - plenty of middle aged women who think this way. Libido is a foreign word.

Well I don’t think it’s creepy for an 80 year to go out with someone younger in general but there are many cases of very old (rich) men using their power to date much younger women. For eg High Hefner who was in his 80’s with girls in their teens and 20’s. I don’t think there should be any upper age limit on dating but ffs I least date mature women.

Some states in the USA have a juliet clause. So it’s not statutory rape if it’s a 16yr old and a 17 year old. Not sure what the ages are but I think it’s pretty sensible. It affords some protection to teens from adults.

I agree OP. I think it's totally unrealistic to raise the age to 18. It's difficult enough to get the randiest teens to acknowledge they have to wait till 16.

But if you said say that 15yos could be legal ONLY with someone no more than 6 months older than themselves, 16yos ONLY with someone up to 18 months older than themselves and 17yos ONLY with someone up ro 30 months older than themselves it would provide a safer context for experimentation with each other.

Along with a hell of a lot of public education campaigns to remind them over and over again that they need to use at least two forms of contraception, and more info about consent, especially consenting to this but not that and then but not now.

Ageist

I interpreted the "creepy " comment in reference to an 80 year old wanting to have sex with someone half their age or younger.

And that is creepy

21

In some countries it’s 16 as long as the other person is also under 18. I think it should be like that.

I'm sorry that happened to you.

Something very similar happened to me (this was a soldier). When we lived abroad due to my dad's posting.

I've told no one in real life. Not even my husband. I was too scared at the time due to, among other things, how it could affect my dads career (dad was quite low ranking and let's just say that, certainly at that time, any accusation from me would be met by ranks closing very, very quickly).

I get so angry at many peoples acceptance that these age gaps are ok. They aren't.