by Daniel Relph

Created on: January 27, 2010

No, absolutely not and here’s why.

The idea behind the age for sexual consent is that we don’t want our pure and chase children being corrupted by dirty old men; and, sometimes dirty old women. This is why laws set age limits to where a child could give sexual consent; in the United States the official age for sexual consent is between 16 and 18 depending on the state.

This was the original idea, but we found that our children just weren’t so pure and chase. We were sending 14 year boy to jail for having sex with their 13 year old girl friend. So we change our laws so that our children could have sex with their chronological peers. The idea being that our children still needed protection from dirty old men, but not from each other. This is called the “Romeo and Juliet” laws. The Romeo and Juliet laws are strongly gender biased. For example, in some states a girl of 19 can have sex with a boy of 13, but a boy of 19 cannot have sex with a girl of 13. The laws are written as with phrases like “the offender engages in sexual penetration.” For the most part the girls do not penetrate their partner.

But that is not the whole of it. Most states allow sexual relations between children close to the same age. A boy of 14 can have sex with a girl of 13 for example. The way the age difference is determined can also cause problems. In some states a 18 year old boy can have sex with a 13 year old girl, but if that boy has a birthday before the girl, then he’s guilty of statutory rape if they engage in sex on or just after the boy’s birthday. Other states differentiate the age difference in months so as to lessen this problem.

Some states have laws that make it illegal for children to have sex before their 12th birthday. So if good old Johnny and Jill, both are age 10, are found naked and feeling out the differences between boys and girls then felony laws are being violated. It might be just Johnny that in violation or it might be the both of them depending on the state.

Most states also have the exception that a married couple may have sex even if one is under the age of consent. In many states the age of consent is for getting married is lower than the age of consent for having sex. Which doesn’t make much sense; one would think that getting married is a much more life changing event than getting laid.

These laws are not enforced with much enthusiasm unless the infraction is obvious. Police often shake their heads,

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