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 agree with those saying keep it at 16 but no one over the age of 21 should be having sex with under 18s. I honestly don’t think teenagers are in as much of a rush to lose their virginity these days as I, and my friends, were in the 80s and 90s. They also seem to spend a lot more time in the ‘talking’ stage online before actually committing to anything, which probably isn’t a bad thing. Also, there are plenty of 16 year old girls who are ready for sex, and plenty of 16 year old boys who really aren’t interested. It’s not all one sided.

I’m not saying that some girls don’t know their own mind, of course they do. But there are many 16year olds who have grown up in families where they haven’t been taught boundaries. I’d like these girls to have some protection, by giving them chance to mature more.

Goodness what strictures. I think there are good ideas to be explored around age gaps but society has done a good job of self policing on this and most teens are very aware of inappropriate age gaps in a way that is so different to when I was a teen.

How I loved my teen sex. Some of my best memories! That time and passion and energy. I think I started at fifteen but felt like I had waited ages. More education, more emphasis on good sex and more work that counteracts the damage of porn. I don’t think pushing it up to 18 aligns with hormones and reality.

I think it's about protection and I do take the points teenagers do have set and obviously there are a lot of hormones flying around.

However you could argue that the law is there for society as a whole and there is an obvious responsibility with six e.g. pregnancy which could lead to need for child care etc

I agree with the age gap laws. I don't know if this is self policed in a way with most teenage girls telling men where to go but there has always been a bit of a thing with girls wanting mature males and I suspect some would be open to the overtures of a financially independent man.

How would you police it? Lock up 16 and 17 year olds who had consensual sex?
Would you want your daughter giving birth in prison.

At 16 I was having a lot of good consensual sex with another 16 year old. I was able to consent and enjoy it. I was very ready.

You’d police it the same way they currently do for 15 year olds. Whatever that is. But this post misses the point. The point and problem is that by having the law set at 16, it normalises it, so that puts pressure on the kids who simply aren’t ready. Also, 16 year olds aren’t ready to be having babies.

I think yes because I don't think it should be normalised and I think 16 is too young.

But I don't want 17 year old boys (or even 18 year olds) being criminalised for having sex with their 16/17 year old consenting girlfriends. So no.

So I'd say leave as is.

She said emotionally ready. That doesn't always line up with when hormones kick in. In my experience in a best case scenario there is always lots of drama around teenagers in relationships at that age. Yes, some people can never emotionally mature and making mistakes is part of growing up. But teenage boys and teenage girls don't have the emotional capacity/maturity to navigate relationships with adults. (I also wouldn't want my child having sex with another 16 year old because as I said, drama, but I wouldn't want to make that illegal). Which is why I am glad there is much more social stigma around adults having relationships with under 18s than there used to be.

True. Also in my experience older males also often imagine themselves to be more attractive to teenagers than they are. Creepy men will always be creepy men but I think further stigmatising full grown adults trying to chat up 17 year olds in the forlorn hope that girls that age prefer older men to boys would be a good thing.

I think the age of the other person should be considered. Two 16 year olds or a 16 and a 17 year old I would not criminalise.

Yes I think it should, but 16-18 year olds having sex with eachother shouldn’t be prosecuted (much like 14/15 year olds wouldn’t be prosecuted now).
I think raising it to 18 would just make young people think twice about it and make relationships between adults and 16/17 year olds unacceptable and risk a criminal record

I had sex with a 20 year old boyfriend when I was 17. It was consensual and a good first experience, but looking back I wish I had waited and I think part of why I did it was because of not wanting to go to uni a virgin/some of my friends had already done it/he was older and more experienced

I wouldn't have been allowed to have sex until a month after I got married 😂

I am in favour of a blanket raising to eighteen though, I think I was almost eighteen when my husband and I first slept together, but we had already been "waiting" for three years to feel ready before that point. Many people are unable to refrain from sex until such a time as it won't be emotionally damaging, and it would be good to have more safeguards in place. I will personally be encouraging my own children to wait until marriage as not everyone is so fortunate as to have had their first relationship lead to marriage and the scars from sexual experiences in failed relationships are not worth the risk. And no, this isn't hypocritical - just like how habitual drug users will advise their children against touching drugs even while they continue to take them, I recognise that I made the wrong choice and was lucky that I had no consequences.

Yes it should be 18. An adult can legally have sex with a 16 year old but it's classed as having children abuse images if they have naked/sexual photos of them? It's absurd.

I've always thought 16 was too young anyway.

I’m another who thinks there should be some kind of age gap law for under 18s.

I’m definitely in favour of a law preventing over 21s from having sex with U18s but I think that two 16 year olds should be allowed to have sex. I also think it’s very naive to assume that girls don’t want to have sex at that age and are just pressured into it. I’ve no doubt some teens do feel that way (both boys and girls) but there are also many girls with hormones and a sex drive that want to explore it and there’s nothing wrong with it.

This. If a country has a voting age of 16, then a 16 year old is an adult, expected to make a choice about intensely serious subjects. A personal choice, obviously influenced by arguments presented to them by other people. Same situation for sex. A 16 year old is a particularly ignorant type of adult, who will probably make some ridiculous and ill-thought-out choices, but an adult nevertheless. Lots of older adults are frighteningly ignorant, and no-one's stopping them voting and having sex, are they?

She also said "I think none of the girls want to do it at 16 anyway" which is what I was responding to.

My child I had at 16 is parented better than most the kids in their class, almost top of the class too and were talking 30+ kids here. Not relevant to this thread because my dcs dad is the same age as me, just saying.

I have a lot of American cousins and age of consent is 18 there they all think old men sniffing around 16/17 year olds is repulsive. I certainly wouldn’t be happy if my daughter was in year 11 being picked up from school by a crusty 50 year old noncey “boyfriend” (manfriend?)

Let's move the driving age up to 21 as well then. It's not safe to let young people whose brains aren't fully developed operate heavy powerful things like cars.

It all feels a bit hypothetical, is there evidence that 35-year-old men harming 16-year-olds by having sex with them is an actual problem that occurs and isn't dealt with sufficiently by the laws we have?

Prince Andrew, Russel Brand... Just of the top of my head.

Theres a whole genre of porn around "barely legal". Its basically grooming.

Raising the age of consent isn't going to stop men like that. As evidenced by all the American girls Epstein preyed on, and the age of consent there is 18 in most places.

Age gap laws would be far better.

Yes, but when the photos of Andere and Ghislaine first came out (and there were rumours before then) there were people pointing out that technically if they had slept together it wasn't against the law (although sleeping with a sex trafficking victim is if you know they are sex trafficked). Everyone still thought it was gross. Of course, men like Andrew etc were protected by being powerful anyway so maybe it won't have made a difference. But the other poster asked for evidence that men in their 30s above harming 16 year old girls by sleeping with them was a problem that occurs. I gave 2 high profile examples. Other examples could be a number of murder/DV cases reported in the news over the last few years where the age of the woman when the relationship started was far below the mans.
Regarding Russel Brand, Rape and coercive control relationships are still illegal, even if the girl is over 16 (so over the current age limit) but it's harder to prove it. And I would argue coercive relationships are going to be the norm where one person is middle aged and the other under 18.