People who have just reached puberty are far easier to manipulate into having sex than someone who's older. I think the point of the law is to stop older men from using children as something like a prostitue; Instead of money, give them a lolipop and attention, get laid. The point of the age limit is that if you haven't learned not to get into that kind of relationship by the time you're 18, you're not going to learn.

I don't think there's necessarily anything immoral about a relationship with a large age difference, but I think it is more likely to be than the "normal" relationship.

My state has an exemption from age of consent if the people involved are over 14 and less than three years apart in age. I think 5 would be more fair. I think the real problem with consent laws is that so many of the people reporting the "crime" are parents who doesn't like who their child is dating.

__________________
The woman in my avatar is Cristina Scabbia and the woman in my profile picture is Tarja Turunen
Sun flames and moons glow, timeless the tides will flow, what will I face, what will be mine, fortune and fate the other side...

Public thanks to Catzmeow for enabling me to make my goal of half a million credits by Xmas.

I see nothing wrong with emotional or even sexual relationships with people of adlescents.

Do we get our genitals knotted up when a fifty year old dates a twenty year old? It might make us uncomfertable, but we figure "hey, that's their right".


So why is love some people's right instead of everybody's right? You might want to argue that someone dating a twelve year old is just a pervert and has no intention of loving that person, but think about all the perverted crap that goes on between adults.


If you want to define age gaps, then do so.
If you want to define perversity, then do so.

But this is not justice. This is just ape(*)(*)(*)(*) circles of inconsistent rantings. By our own morality, the people on Girls Gone Wild should be executed more then that teacher who had sex with her fourteen year old student should've been in-trial...


That sortof thing bothers me. I dated a girl alot younger then me for about two years. The entire time I was the (*)(*)(*)(*)(*) of the relationship. Thank God I look young, or else besides being abused by her, I'd have to deal with other people's bull(*)(*)(*)(*) about exploiting a young girl. I was inlove with her. I still am. Nobody has the right to take that feeling away from me.


But she was immature, and she dumped me for some younger, handsomer fellow. Two years of my life wasted. So who ended up getting hurt?

But ofcourse because she's the young one she has to be the victim right?

Granted alot of good came out of it. I met a wonderful girl, and I'm much more confident that our relationship will last till the day we die. She's not a child neither...

But would I do it all over again? In a heartbeat, that girl made me feel ways none of you could ever make me feel. And I'll be (*)(*)(*)(*)ed if I let you tell me how to feel...


There's only three things a man needs.

Love
Food
Shelter

In that order.

The government can't provide the former, and the latter they don't need to.


So maybe the government needs to just stay out of people's love lives.


The government needs to arrest rapists, rapists are violent criminals who more then often are murderers rape is just a biproduct of their demented need to have power over an innocent person.


But ofcourse I can't expect government to understand such a concept. They're rapists themselves.

I believe your relationship is valid dude, I think age laws are a load of crock developed by the same people who complain about homosexuality. Apparently love is very narrowly defined if we left it up to the whackjob reactionaries...


People get irate with me, usually my girlfriends are alot younger then me. I dated a 13 year old back when I was 21. That pissed off alot of people. They called me all sorts of of things, they were certain I was manipulating her. But you know what?


No-one would've cared if it had been the other way around. If I had been 13 and her 21, they'd have made jokes, and called me a lucky punk. Why is this? Aren't men "immature" when compared to women? Doesn't that mean naturally older men should be dating younger women? So if anything, the older woman is even more of a pedophile then a man would be in her position..


But then most laws and most cultures are not based on rationality, merely habit. That's what makes them so annoying, and so counter-productive...


My mom gets on me about it too. She's convinced Chris Hansen is going to burst through out window and karate kick me lol! But I told her this, and you should tell anyone who questions your love the same thing:


Nobody cares. People don't care about you, so what should they care what you do? You're not robbing anybody, you're not killing anybody. It's none of their business. The day government can decide who you love is the day they make a G-harmony website or something where government programs exist to create functioning, long-lasting couples.. But sense the government has never even attempted such a thing, it needs to keep his big mouth shut about who we sleep with.

I for one oppose the concept of an age of consent altogether, and would favor its abolishment.

I would add that the age of consent is 16 in the majority of U.S. states, and thus, a sexual relationship between you and your partner would most likely be legal. If not, there's no need to broadcast it far and wide. The government has no business interfering in your personal affairs, and you don't need to give them ammunition.

Allow me to explain the specific reasoning behind my opposition to the concept of an age of consent, and my support for its abolition. I believe that the support given to age of consent laws is utterly misguided, and would be better focused towards targeting legitimate sexual offenses such as violent rape and sexual assault or battery. To equate consensual sexual relationships that happened to violate an Orwellian and intrusive law with these crimes is utterly offensive to true rape victims. One might even compare such an appalling assessment to the victim being raped all over again; an addition of insult to injury.

It is claimed that legal adults naturally possess a great degree of authority over minors. I reject this as a premise of ageist bigotry, similar to the bigotry that gave rise to anti-miscegenation laws prohibiting relationships between whites and persons of color. I also consider it contradictory and intellectually dishonest for pundits to claim that adolescents are “out of control” and constantly defying and challenging adults on the one hand, and then to claim that they are meek and mild weaklings who can easily be exploited by adults on the other.

If the reasoning behind the age of consent is to protect minors from the physical dominance of adults, then that reasoning could just as easily be applied to all heterosexual relationships, as it is a biological fact that men are typically a good deal stronger than women.

If the reasoning behind the age of consent is to protect minors from sexual activities because they are not emotionally capable of “handling” them, then I am puzzled as to why this standard is only applied to minor-adult sexual relationships, and not to their relationships with each other, at least in the legal realm. (Perhaps pundits and policy makers secretly realize the invalidity and intrusiveness of such laws?) I might also add that emotional maturity is such a fickle and ambiguous concept that it cannot effectively be regulated or measured by an age restriction. Such a law would deliver a great injustice and disservice to many. I would also add that the idea of sexual expression being a deeply emotional act is a mere social construction. While it could theoretically serve as such, it need not in all cases. Sexual expression could be recreational as well as intimate and emotional, as we have seen through the sexual practices of many non-Western and non-Christianized cultures.

I would also add that, contrary to popular belief, the health benefits of sexual expression are numerous, and include physical, mental, and emotional benefits such as increased vigor and vitality, and reduced stress. Furthermore, I would add that sexual expression is a natural and healthy behavior for adolescents, as they are biological adults, and were largely regarded as such until the Industrial Revolution. Adolescence itself is also a social construction. As was documented by Margaret Mead in Samoa, sexual expression is a healthy behavior for adolescents. None of the “teen turmoil” presently regarded as biologically motivated in the West was exhibited in Samoa. The dreaded emotional consequences of adolescent sexual behavior were also curiously absent in Samoa. (Could it be that they do not exist?) Mead did us a tremendous service by discovering these facts. (In case you will respond by citing the work of Mead critic Derek Freeman, I would point out that his book was officially condemned by the American Anthropological Association, and I believe that he sorely misrepresents Mead’s views.

If you are interested in further arguments against the age of consent, and indeed, age restrictions in general, I would suggest that you read Escape From Childhood by John Holt, and Birthrights by Richard Farson. I also have a thread discussing the issue of age restrictions here.

(And honestly, a person who is sexually attracted to a person in their mid to late teens is more "normal" than most men. Biologically speaking, 19 is the best year to bear children, and it is more than natural for men to be attracted to the most fertile females. Or vice-versa.)

__________________
ANARCHISM, the name given to a principle or theory of life and conduct under which society is conceived without government — harmony in such a society being obtained, not by submission to law, or by obedience to any authority, but by free agreements concluded between the various groups, territorial and professional, freely constituted for the sake of production and consumption, as also for the satisfaction of the infinite variety of needs and aspirations of a civilized being.
-Peter Kropotkin

At least this never devolved into a flamefest.

__________________
ANARCHISM, the name given to a principle or theory of life and conduct under which society is conceived without government — harmony in such a society being obtained, not by submission to law, or by obedience to any authority, but by free agreements concluded between the various groups, territorial and professional, freely constituted for the sake of production and consumption, as also for the satisfaction of the infinite variety of needs and aspirations of a civilized being.
-Peter Kropotkin