I've long argued that the age of consent needs to be rethought, for a couple basic reasons: puberty is happening earlier, and I also think that society has a role.

In my view (and I'm not saying this because I believe it per se, it just seems to be a natural progression), consent also plays a role. If a 14 year old girl can go to the school nurse and request birth control info and/or pills, then she is making an "informed" decision. Ditto for trips to abortion clinics. If her parents are not notified, then she is, in a very real sense, being treated as an adult, i.e. she is making decisions on her own without the guidance of her parents.

Is that not a plausible definition of an adult?

As for the whole question of age appropriateness, I don't buy that at all. Once a person is an "adult", by whatever measure, then it becomes a matter of legislating morality. Sure, I think that if the Age of Consent were lowered to 12, there would be something creepy about me (I'm over 40) seducing a 13 year old girl. But if she's 18, what difference does it make? I know people who connect with someone 15-20 years older, and they're happy and stay together for years. What's wrong with a 35 year old man (or woman) getting together with a 19 year old?

Once you decide on an Age of Consent, you live with it. Deciding that a girl is a "mature" 13 and can handle sex with a 17 year old, but not a 25 year old is ridiculous. Which of the lovers is going to be more likely to actually care about her and her experiences?

Finally, I think that we must recall that other agendas can be involved. For instance, what about NAMBLA (I think that's the correct acronym)? Some of their members advocate sex with young boys, for whatever reason. And in some societies, Islamic for instance, women are "marriageable" at younger ages than we in the US are comfortable with. Is it permissable for a Muslim to marry a 13 year old? In their culture, yes. According to the author of this article, no. But that could be considered discrimination, right?

Let me note in ending this overlong comment that I have no particular dog in this fight. I don't have a young daughter, and I'm not terribly religious. I just happened to read an article about this one day, and found that there were a lot of inconsistencies in our laws. And I do agree that, while I've seen attractive young women who, to my chagrin, turned out to be 13 or 14, I do understand- and think- that it would be completely inappropriate for me to do anything other than shudder at the thoughts that might have passed through my mind.

To me, this is all just an intellectual exercise. But the entire issue has some ramifications that we don't tend to consider. I think the change is coming, and it probably ought to.

quixote:

Deciding that a girl is a "mature" 13 and can handle sex with a 17 year old, but not a 25 year old is ridiculous. Which of the lovers is going to be more likely to actually care about her and her experiences?

If I'm not mistaken, that is a favorite argument of true pedophiles, which is why I stay way the hell away from it. The guy who went to bang the 5-year-old in Michigan promised her "mom" online (a fake mom, invented as part of the trap) that he always took good care of his little girls.

Here's what I've learned from being a dad: You're here for the kids, not the other way around. If you're trying to get sexual pleasure from them (regardless of whatever "pleasure" or "teaching" or "care" you claim to be giving them at the same time), you already 1) don't understand what it means to be an adult, much less a caretaker, and 2) are acting on it, which means you need to be physically separated from kids.

quixote:

If a 14 year old girl can go to the school nurse and request birth control info and/or pills, then she is making an "informed" decision. Ditto for trips to abortion clinics. If her parents are not notified, then she is, in a very real sense, being treated as an adult, i.e. she is making decisions on her own without the guidance of her parents.

. . .

Deciding that a girl is a 'mature' 13 and can handle sex with a 17 year old, but not a 25 year old is ridiculous. Which of the lovers is going to be more likely to actually care about her and her experiences?

The quotation marks around "informed" give the weakness of the first paragraph away. No, she's not exactly informed. A 14-year-old just isn't very likely to understand how sex, or abortion, will affect her emotions. (Of course, none of us can predict our psychological reactions to anything with 100% accuracy, but a 14-year-old's rate of success is abysmal.)

As for the second passage I quote, I see your logic, but there are a couple of problems. One: the kind of 25-year-old who chooses to have sex with a 13-year-old tends not to be just an ordinary person who just happens to be significantly older than his or her partner. The ones I've known are attracted to 13-year-olds in large part because they perceive the 13-year-olds as easier to manipulate, control, and eventually discard than partners their own age would be.

Two: even if this hypothetical 25-year-old is an unusually caring, empathetic, and responsible person, that doesn't mean the sexual relationship is good for the 13-year-old. Even mature, sophisticated kids tend to see the adults they have any kind of significant relationships with as people who are responsible them, or at least as people who *should* be responsible for them. And an *average* 13-year-old girl, I'll hypothesize, is pretty likely to see the 25-year-old guy who's having sex with her as some kind of daddy, or husband, or both. But is the hypothetical 25-year-old really going to stick around for the long haul?

Maybe 25 is more likely than 17 to make sure that 13 actually has a nice time in bed. Or maybe he doesn't, because 13 is too intimidated by 25's incredible age and authority and wisdom and experience to tell him what feels good and what doesn't. But in either case, I'm betting that 13 has unrealistic expectations of 25 than she doesn't have of 17, and that 25 won't live up to them.

Penuel,

I actually agree with you in a way. I used the term "Informed" deliberately. I don't believe that a 13 year old going to an abortion clinic is really "informed", because as you mention, there are other issues which she is not told about. So yes, I do actually agree with you, but I think it actually supports my argument.

As for the 25 year old and the teenager, I've seen some good points in the responses. Since I don't have kids, I suppose I'm just "ignorant", in the most neutral sense of the word. Your point about an adolescent expecting more from an adult is correct.

I suppose in the end my thought is that age doesn't matter in a sense. Once upon a time, it wasn't too unusual for a 14 year old girl to marry a 30 year old man. It was culturally acceptable. However, as you point out, the girl would have expectations that she would be "taken care of". Nowadays, she would never be able to count on that, and her life would be too bizarre for her to comprehend.

However, I still stand by my basic premise: Once you lower the age of consent, then it becomes harder to make distinctions. The age of consent, to me is about the point when you begin to consider a child to be an adult, making choices on their own.

Whether they actually are an adult or not.

I don't believe that teenagers can get birth control pills without their parents knowing. To get a prescription, you need a full gynecological exam. And I'm pretty sure that anyone under the age of 18 needs a parent or guardian to sign release forms before they can get any kind of medical treatment. Condoms, you may be able to just walk into a drug store and purchase. Many states also require parent or guardian consent for teens to obtain abortions.

seeker,

you are uniformed about this subject. A girl/woman can go to Planned Parenthood and recieve a free gyn exam and free birth control (or sliding scale fees if she is employed).