Age of consent & age gaps

[LolitaIsNotRomantic]

Due to my own personal history, it's a topic I deeply care about. For context, I was abused by a teacher aged 15.
My daughter is the age I was when I met him and it's made me think about those issues a lot lately.
Now, my question is this: would it not be a good idea to make a distinction between the age of consent when both parties are minors (16-17) and raised to 18 if one is over 18?
I'm asking because in my case, the guy groomed another young girl after me but it was legal as she wasn't his student and not underage. Yet it damaged her too.
Does anyone else think it might be a simple solution to prevent similar situations and protect teens better?

Changing the law won't deter most men like your abuser, it just makes it easier to punish them if caught. Yes some will wait it out until she turns 16 so it's not illegal but the number of girls under than age who are abused show legality isn't a deterrent. What's needed is proper punishments and more in place to protect children.

Re ahe of consent, agree it would need to be ab age gap thing. 17 and 18 could be in the same class at school, there's no abuse of power on that relationship.

When I was young we talked about the "rule of 7" to determine your upper and lower age limits. So you halve your age and then add 7 to get the lower limit (17 when aged 20). To get your upper limit you minus 7 from your age and then double it (26 when aged 20). While not practical as a basis for the law, it was something being regularly discussed when I was at uni 15 years ago.

@LolitaIsNotRomantic

Well i did think of the US posting this but not sure of how it works there exactly.

The laws are different in every state.

In Victoria, Australia, 12-15 year olds cannot have sex or sexual contact with someone more than 2 years older then them. 16-17 year olds cannot have sex or sexual contact with anyone that is in any sort of caring or supervisory role, eg teacher, tutor, social worker. So there is a recognition that teens having sex with someone their age is not a sexual offence.

I've been thinking about age gap relationships a lot recently- all the relationships I have had have been with older men. At 14 I was seeing an 18 year old (very innocent, just holding hands and the occasional kiss - he was scared of my dad), at 16 I dated a 22 year old and got engaged to him - again very innocent, nothing happened besides kissing. Engagement didn't last long after I found out he was a criminal. But from 17 I was used for casual sex by a man in his late 20s who also slept with some of my friends, and then I was in a serious relationship with a 30 year old married man from 17 to 20. At the time I thought it was true love and only now can I reevaluate the grimness of this married man going to a school girl's leaver's ball as her date amongst other 17 and 18 year olds. His thought processes must have been so skewed, how did he hide hiring a bloody tuxedo from his wife? If he didn't hide it, what did she think it was for? If I suspected my DH had hired a tux to attend a school prom with a sixth former, I would have been aghast. She did find out about us and kicked him out, we ended up engaged and living together when I was 18, but he wasn't a good guy (although he was outwardly so respectable and has since gone on to marry a woman the same age as me, and is still with her even though she's now in her 40s).

I eventually married a man twice my age and we have been so happy, I clearly have a preference for older men and that's fine. But the ones I encountered as a teen were clearly predatory.

@thatwaslulu
Sleazebags like the two guys you mention when you were 17 are examples of behaviour I'd love to see die out.