Should the age of consent be raised to 18

[mids2019]

I have never really thought deeply about consent laws in England until my daughter's reached their teenage years and to my (maybe old) mind 16 seems too young for consent. I know the age is probably chosen woman at arbitrarily to balance protection against the reality of teenagers and young people engaging in sexual contact but to my mind it seems strange that a 35 year old male would be quite rightly criminalized for having sex with a 15 year old but that protection suddenly stops at 16.

At 16 in the way of the law you are a child so what protections are offered for 16-18 year old girls in this regard. There are laws about sexual exploitation but are they sufficnet? To my mind the 16 figure is planting an idea of maturity in some young people that some simply don't have. I know children get plenty of sex education but it you still have the age of 16 for legal consent then does this give a kind of legitimacy for older men to hit on under 18 year olds?

I think it should be raised. Potentially to 17. Kids turn 16 during Y11 GCSE year. It’s gross to think of an adult having sex with a Y11. My dd is almost 18. Her close friendship group, none have had sex. At her school though, there are a few having sex. Very small number are in a committed relationship, most of the sex going on is extremely promiscuous and also inappropriate/damaging. One girl transferred school over it.

I agree. You are still a child at 16 and having a legal consent age of 16 leads to knobs of state permission for sex. (Compare with alcohol where many look forward to a first drink at 18).

it is a really grey area but it leads to absurdities of being able to have sex at 16 but it being illegal to take a naked picture of yourself or partner. Surely it would be easier to extend protection of children by having a consent age of 18? Yes there will still be teenage relations but there would be in reality no prosecution of the police are sensible.

I agree about the long term implications of sexual activity of those under 18 (maybe I am an old pride but I think the law is wrong on this or at least it could be rethought)

We’re actually in line with most of the world.

Some countries have a “small age gap” exemption. While I don’t think there’s anything wrong with 16/17 year olds having sex with each other, I do get the point about older people potentially exploiting those who are legally children. So if there were to be a change, I’d prefer it to be kept at 16 but made illegal to have sex with someone under 18 if you are 21 or older.

I think leave it at 16 but have some sort of scale that means that it would still be illegal for a 35 yr old to have sex with a 16yr old. So, age of consent is 16 as long as the person is no more than 3 yrs old than the and not in any position of authority, or something.

You don’t have to have sex at 16 though; and a 35 year old man would be arrested for having sex with a 16 year old if she didn’t want to.
I think there’s a lot less pressure to ‘lose it’ just because you are 16 now which is a good thing. Kids are more clued up about consent etc than we were (I’m late 40s; DD is early 20s).

I agree with an age gap law under 18 rather than criminalising 16/17 year olds. Though the kids I know would really look down upon anyone more than a year older pursuing a 16 year old.

It should be 21.

With what we now understand about brain development, this would make sense.

That would be completely ridiculous in practice though.

I'd prefer s "Romeo and Juliet" type of law to criminalising teenagers. Two years age gap for U18s. Maybe 5 years for U21s.

Should we then raise the age at which people can vote to 21 as well, rather than reduce it to 16 in an attempt to shore up a party thats losing relevance, I wonder…

I agree with this approach.

30-40 years ago, a 16 year old girl in a relationship with a 21/22 year old man was seen as quite acceptable. I’m delighted that attitudes have changed and my teen dc would view such relationships through a very different lens.

But we do need to go a step further and look at protections for those in the 16-17 age group.

I think to be sensible it should stay at 16 so that 16-17 year olds can legally have sex with each other (they’re going to anyway!) but like a few previous posters it should be illegal for anyone over the age of 21 to have sex with someone under the age of 18. So extend the protection but not so that it loses all meaning because if the age of consent is 18 a huge number of people will break the law.

I think it should be raised, possibly to 17 initially with a view to going to 18 shortly after.
There will always be teens who have sex younger but currently the consent age does mean a lot of teens wait u til 16 so hopefully teens with that mindset would wait until 17/18. There’s also the pressure from boys once girls ten 16 because they are old enough now (not the same as being ready) and it would hopefully deter (some) predators from preying on 16/17 years, plus teens do grow up a lot between ages of 16 and 18.

Laws won't stop 16 year olds having sex if they want to - after all a lot of teenagers drink before they are 18.

Absolutely agree op.
now that my dd is 17, it is far far too young.
some of her friends are having sex and not a single one of them is anywhere near emotionally ready
also with the ‘they’ll do it anyway’ comments, I think none of the girls want to do it at 16 anyway, they’re doing it cos the law says it’s ok and cos the boys want to. Moving it up will give girls protection.
I would also like to see staggered consent, it shouldn’t be legal for an 18yr old girl and a 40yr old man, that’s grooming.

I think it’s sexist to assume that “none” of the 16 yr old girls want to have sex. Why would that be true?

I’m not saying that law is fine as it is, but changes shouldn’t be made based on nonsense statements like that.

17 is not too young to have sex. It's a very normal age to start having sex. I'm early 20s so only just on the other side of this, and trust me, the girls are just as horny as the boys.

No, that's ridiculous.

That's rubbish - many 16 year old girls (and younger) want to have sex.

A more sensible approach would be to have some kind of rolling consent age eg at 15 max age of partner is 16, at 16, 18 at 17, 20 at 18 25 then anyone… ish how you would police is a nightmare

But at 16 yrs they do want to have sex and yes they know exactly what they’re doing. Nobody coerces my dd, and she went behind my back

Its in line with other rules around bodily autonomy. At 16 you are deemed able to consent to medical treatment. I agree though, that there should be some sort of age gap caveat so that 16 year olds are not exploited by gross old men.

Quite a few people have commented on my post about girls not wanting to. I’m really not sure, I’m going by the girls I know only. Do they really ‘want’ to? That’s the big question for me. Or are they doing it because it raises their status with the boys? I don’t know btw, just musing. We know girls more than boys are people pleasers, is this just an extension? Anecdotally whenever any students are caught, you only ever hear ‘Sue was giving Bob a BJ’ never ever the other way round.

Ah the old daughters really want to be nuns and dont want their pureness spoilt by being within 20 feet of those terrible awful things called boys/men

Not all females want sex same and males, but yes some females do! If 16yo have to make decisions on what to study, go to uni or get a job or both, move out of home, and make other grown up decisions all that happens at 16 but not sex?

Girls have agency. Why, on a feminst board, do people think girls and women don't know their own minds?
Yes, pressure from boys exists. Yes, peer pressure from other girls exists.
But even when I was at school (30+ years ago) we knew what we were doing and we knew what we wanted.
If someone had told me at that time I didn't know my own mind, I'd have laughed at them.