Would US teens want a lower age of consent?

From 2007, about when I started talking about this here (2006 I think)

Quote:

Having sex at 12 is a bad idea. But if you're pubescent, it might be, in part, your bad idea. Conversely, having sex with a 12-year-old, when you're 20, is scummy. But it doesn't necessarily make you the kind of predator who has to be locked up. A guy who goes after 5-year-old girls is deeply pathological. A guy who goes after a womanly body that happens to be 13 years old is failing to regulate a natural attraction. That doesn't excuse him. But it does justify treating him differently.

I'm not saying 12 should be the official age of "consent." Consent implies competence, and 12-year-olds don't really have that. In a forthcoming review of studies, Laurence Steinberg of Temple University observes that at ages 12 to 13, only 11 percent of kids score at an average (50th percentile) adult level on tests of intellectual ability. By ages 14 to 15, the percentage has doubled to 21. By ages 16 to 17, it has doubled again to 42. After that, it levels off.

By that standard, the age of consent should be 16. But competence isn't just cognitive. It's emotional, too. Steinberg reports that on tests of psychosocial maturity, kids are much slower to develop. From ages 10 to 21, only one of every four young people scores at an average adult level. By ages 22 to 25, one in three reaches that level. By ages 26 to 30, it's up to two in three.

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/human_nature/2007/09/the_mindbooty_problem.html

Quote:

What do "cutting slack" and "throwing the book" mean? If you're young, we could let your parents handle it. We could assign a social service agency to check up on you. We could require you to get counseling. We could issue a restraining order. We could put you on probation. We could put you in a juvenile facility, a mental institution, or jail. In the worst case, we could subject you to a mandatory minimum sentence.

Whatever the particulars, the measures taken should be developmentally appropriate. "Age-span" provisions, which currently allow for sex with somebody near your own age, are a good start, but they're not objectively grounded. That's why they differ wildly from state to state. I'd draw the object line at 12, the cognitive line at 16, and the self-regulatory line at 25. I'd lock up anyone who went after a 5-year-old. I'd come down hard on a 38-year-old who married a 15-year-old. And if I ran a college, I'd discipline professors for sleeping with freshmen. When you're 35, "she's legal" isn't good enough.

What I wouldn't do is slap a mandatory sentence on a 17-year-old, even if his nominal girlfriend were 12. I know the idea of sex at that age is hard to stomach. I wish our sexual, cognitive, and emotional maturation converged in a magic moment we could call the age of consent. But they don't.

But I "whack" according the the genius named Set.....very much alleged genius BTW.

1 Reply

@hawkeye10,

Now see that is what is wrong with you...reasonable thought out attempt to discuss whereas all this site wants is toe the line orthodoxy . People like oyu never make good Nazis, or Communists, or religious nutters because you try to think things through . That is not required . Others have done all that messy thinking for you, you are only required to agree . TROLL !!

1 Reply

@Ionus,

I insist on having my say, that is what is wrong with me...I have been bullied into silence for much of my life and at some point I decided to not do that anymore. I say what I think and I mean what I say.

That makes me dangerous. The most dangerous guy out there is the guy who somewhere along the way stopped giving a **** if he is liked or not.

there used to be more of us.

We used to be better.

EDIT: a lot of people say they dont care about popularity, some actually believe it, but not many of us actually walk that walk.

We scare people.

0 Replies

I think it should be up to medical science, not ethicists or politicians or even voters, to decide what is safe physically and psychologically. Opinions should not replace science.

I also think that children mature at different rates, even within the same gender, so having a one-size-fits-all policy is bound to be fraught with absurdities when applied to individuals. If/when the question arises as to whether or not an individual is mature enough for sexual behavior. that person should go to a doctor and get evaluated objectively.

1 Reply

@FBM,

Now you're talking about Premeditated Sex. Nice plan, especially if parents have to be involved in medical procedures for 14 and 15 year olds.

1 Reply

@roger,

I haven't lived in the US for a long time. Is it normal for a kid to get a doctor's permission before playing, say, football or basketball?

1 Reply

@FBM,

Yes, if is a school team. Are you suggesting sex as a team sport?

1 Reply

@roger,

Well, not really, no, though I understand some people do treat it that way. Instead, I was just thinking that it wouldn't be too much of a burden to get a medical opinion for something like whether or not a person is sexually mature. For example, if the parents of a teenager want to accuse a person of rape, despite the relationship being consensual, it would be better to have a doctor's opinion than a blind law that applies to everyone regardless of their personal level of maturity.

1 Reply

@FBM,

OIC! Still, it would be much more difficult to gauge emotional fitness than biological. As a matter of fact, I think there would be some negative selection involved as those submitting themselves for examination would be a rather rare breed.

2 Replies

@roger,

Maybe. But I remember going through a rebellious phase in my teens. If it would've made me feel more grown up, I'd probably have done it. And, yeah, I think the psychological component is just as important as the physiological one.

0 Replies

@roger,

Let's see a vote from teens on that: given what we the adults have done over the last generation to **** things up, how cool is it that they get to rate our kids fitness? These adults who are going to turn over a broken down country and a drawer full of big bills that we never intended to pay?

Adults should just STFU on teen sexuality. And drinking. We should stop issuing manipulative and untruthful lectures, we should make the law reasonable, and we should learn that successful parenting looks like not running our kids lives. Everytime we micromanage represents a loss, it means we failed as parents.

1 Reply

@hawkeye10,

Why have them vote if you don't care what they do, anyway?

1 Reply

@roger,

roger wrote:

Why have them vote if you don't care what they do, anyway?

I care what they do. I said that the elders have lost the right to give lectures, or to hand out harsh rules.

1 Reply

@hawkeye10,

You care, but it's not at all clear what it is you care about.

1 Reply

Maybe it's just me, but I'd rather not have science subjected to popular vote, whether by adults or kids.

1 Reply

@FBM,

The idea of waiting till we are perfectly ready to have sex is like waiting to be perfectly ready to have a kid....it never happens. So lets not pretend that it does.

1 Reply

@hawkeye10,

Nobody's talking about a doctor giving a permission slip to anyone for a night of banging. It would just be a medical assessment of the person's reproductive maturity.

1 Reply

@roger,

roger wrote:

You care, but it's not at all clear what it is you care about.

I will be taking questions tomorrow 3-4pm. Look for the thread " The Hawk Eye is Now In".

1 Reply

@FBM,

FBM wrote:

Nobody's talking about a doctor giving a permission slip to anyone for a night of banging. It would just be a medical assessment of the person's reproductive maturity.

Great, another chance to add corruption to our lives. No doc is going to say no to sex. The exam only effects the lecture these poor people will have to suffer before the state will allow what I grew up thinking was God given, mine and free. And still mostly do.

1 Reply

@hawkeye10,

hawkeye10 wrote:

roger wrote:

You care, but it's not at all clear what it is you care about.

I will be taking questions tomorrow 3-4pm. Look for the thread " The Hawk Eye is Now In".

Dang. I was all fired up and waiting for something evasive.

0 Replies

Would US teens want a lower age of consent?

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