Quote:
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Originally Posted by ngdawg
Ew, just ew!
YoOu think it's ok for someone old enough to be a parent to the other to be screwing with them?
If so, give me a call, I'll be in Tennessee all weekend  |
There's that visceral reaction I mentioned.
I did say I was doing the whole devil's advocate thing. I'm making arguments for some things I don't necessarily agree with, based on the premise that a balanced discussion is better than one person defending himself against everyone else. It's more productive this way, dig?
If you want to know what I
really believe, I figure mostly what's been said; age-of-consent laws aren't necessarily perfect but they do serve a useful function. It's an imperfect solution to a complex problem. Most complex problems don't have perfect solutions and I'm okay with that.
And yet, I still don't see the difference. If we're going to say that a 17 year old is old enough and mature enough to have sex, the unspoken assumption that goes along with that is that said 17 year old is wise enough to make informed decisions on the matter. If we take that as granted, then, how does the age of the partner factor into it?
Girls older than 17 can still be taken advantage of and there are plenty of girls younger than that who are smart enough not to fall fo any 'tricks.' And what about the boys?
See, this is just it. People are trained by the society that they live in regarding what's right and wrong. We tend to think that a 50 year old having sex with a 17 year old is wrong, because that's what we've been told. This, in turn, becomes so ingrained that it leads to an instant visceral reaction to any such situation. Regardless of that, I'm still not sure I understand
why it's wrong. Is it somehow better for a young woman if she gets pregnant from/catches an STD from/regrets having sex with a 19 year old than if it's a 30 year old? The potential consequences here are the same. We trust both parties to make an educated decision on the matter. So where does age figure in?
If we take an average sampling of youths aged 13 to 17 and attempt to gauge how many of them are emotionally and mentally prepared to enter into a sexual relationship with a partner, I imagine the result would be somewhat linear, with a higher number being ready as we get to the older individuals. The appropriate age of consent, I would imagine, is the age at which the majority of individuals are capable of handling the emotional (and often physiological) consequences of having sex. My uneducated guess would put that somewhere between 16 and 18, but who knows? Maybe most 15 year olds are wiser to the ways of the world than we give them credit for.
(Now, about that phone call...)