Adult at 14

[mieow]

Is anyone watching this?? Options please!!

I think that the age of consent is too high at 16 but I also believe that the law needs to protect the children

Difficult one, isn't it? Kids need protecting but why should they - or older 'partners' - be penalised for concensual relationships?

It is tricky, don't know the answer personally.

Like they were saying, the definition of consensual needs to be improved a lot.

TBH, I didn't see it, but I do have quite a problem with the whole age of consent thing. Kids mature at very different ages, and a blanket ruling just cannot be right for everyone.

It caused quite a stir here Me and DH disagree on this subject largely.... I believe the age of consent needs to be lowered but he thinks it needs to be raised. I had sex at 15, he was 17 and we were both ready and he made sure I was fully ready too. I don't regret my first time at all, I had been with my bf for 5 months and I loved him. I wasn't ready before then. We split up about 3 months after but I don't regret it.

I didn't see the programme, but I think 16 is just fine!

Having a fourteen year old I didn't watch it. Which seems slightly mad but we have a good relationship and I don't want to get over anxious about such things, when I really am quite sure these things don't apply YET. Read Rebecca Rays' a certain age... and found it terribly shocking. (I am not a prude but 13 and fourteen year old girls giving blow jobs in their lunch breaks is shocking to me!) Not sure if I should have written that.

Personally I think the age of consent for heterosexuals is just fine. People will always break these rules I know, in my experience plenty of sixteen year olds can still be incredibly immature. (Or maybe I am just getting old I do not think lowering the age of consent will help anyone. Just my opinion.

I have a 16yo. I saw part of a drama about 14yo girls losing their virginity in lifts and so on. I thought it was incredibly depressing, if thats how most girls are today. And if the majority are not like that, surely they being misrepresented by such a programme. Dd didn't think it representaive of her cohorts, at any rate.

I think the age of consent is just fine at 16, as it offers some protection. A line has to be drawn somewhere and it's always going to be arbitrary - some girls have sex at 12 or younger while others wait much longer than 16.

Think it's fine where it is. It protects children from predatory older partners, offers young teenagers a 'get-out' clause - eg they can say they won't because it's illegal, even if they don't feel strong enough just to say it's because they don't want to, and also says to younger teenagers, you are not a freak if you don't want to yet. Having the age of consent at 14 or even 12 (God forbid) would, I believe, put huge pressures on children to try and 'lose it' at the 'right' age. I cannot think of a single good thing that would come out of lowering the age of consent - nobody is ever prosecuted at 15, say, for having sex with their 16 year old boyfriend - the police don't get involved, so nobody's suffering from the current age of consent.

I think that lowering the age to 12 is wrong.... defo...... but everyone matures at a different rate. I have two daughters, aged 3 and 2, not sure how I will feel if they started having sex very early. The girl who had a baby at 15 was very mature but she said that her bf at 13 talked her into sex and it was the wrong time for her.
From what i understand the goverment want to make kissing and cuddling illegal for under 16. This is going too far. We have one of the highest age of consent but the highest number of teenage pregnancies in europe. Because the age of consent is 16, teenagers are scared to get madical help and advice in case they get done for it. We need more sex education and centres where under 16s can go without feeling scared.

I think 16 is about right

the age of consent is fine, those who want to have sex younger will.

however the law should be there to protect children from the manipulation of adults. personnally i think somethings not right if you are 15 and having sex with someone who is 56. i would like the law to get involved to protect the interests of the child even if he or she doesnt think they need protecting.

its a damn shame kids have to even think about it - nevermind the peer pressure.

my son is 14 if i thought he was having sex i dont know what i would do - it is just plain wrong.

the possibility of a 14 year old child being a daddy at 14?

thata another good reason the law is 16 - you can damn well work at 16 - you get pregnant - you support the child. any younger than that and the burden falls to their parents.

3 years make such a difference - whereas my son is out snogging some good for nothing slut down the street ( ok never met her - she might be nice but i am his mum so she is a slut!) i have a friend with a 17 year old daughter - she told her daughter to go out and get laid!! and sent her on a weekend to butlins. fortunatley the daughter is more mature in this area than her mother!

16 is fine.

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16 seems fine to me, although I 'lost it' a few months before my 16th birthday.

Lowering it to 12 is MADNESS.

I really don't think the age of consent matters at all!
I lost my virginity at 15 and I was the last in my group of friends by a long shot! Most girls I know have sex at 14/15 yrs old. Not once did I think that my 17y yr old boyfriend was breaking the law!! He wasn't taking advantage of me, we discussed it and decided we were ready. And is was lovely... no regrets.
However, if we had gotten pregnant am I right is saying that he could've been jailed for having sex with me???? How would that have helped me?

Yep, it's classed at statuatory (sp?) rape. Bonkers.

I saw a debate about the lowering it to 12 idea and all I could think of was my DS1 who will turn 12 next May. He is NOWHERE near ready, the very idea of it being legal for a 12 year old child to have sex is repulsive to me. I think it also opens the floodgates for perverts to find loopholes in the system when they are found out.

Didn't watch the programme so maybe I will be talking out of the top of my hat.....

I would be unhappy about lowering the age of consent to less than 16.

I think the law is there to protect young adolescents from certain adults - you could envisage an impressionable 14 year old being cajoled into sex with a much older paedophilic man. How would you prove whether or not there was consent in this case? - on the surface a 14 year old might have consented..but was it 'real consent' of was the 14 year old mixed up, unstable, had unhappy home life etc which might make her prey to these advances.

Its not the 14 year olds having sex with other 14 year olds that unduly bothers me - its about protecting younger members of our society from the wrong sort of person.

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Sorry to go off subject for a moment Dadslib, but you used 2 of my least favourite cringesome words, 'petting' and 'fondling' . ICK.

IMO they should stop all this concentrating on age limits as people all mature at different ages and circumstances for everyone are different. What they need to concentrate on is not how to do it all the time but that it's not wierd to just giggle about it and you don't have to go out there and do it asap because everyone else is at it so you must be wierd if you don't. not put very well but that's my opinion. Too much pressure to conform in every which way and for what?!

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