This article is cliche and creepy, and I'm surprised and ashamed to see it in a left-leaning publication.

Why do we need another argument by another man shifting blame onto victims, and as he specifies, young girls? Young girls are eroticized enough in pop culture - Slate shouldn't be adding to it.

The laws that are currently in place are to place blame and repercussions squarely where it belongs, the ADULT.

Do I think that teen sex, where both parties are under 18 should be criminalized? No. In California, a 19 year girl won't get in trouble for having sex with her 17 year old boyfriend. Should a 17 year old be penalized for having sex (of any kind) with a 13 year old? Yes.

Be original Slate, and don't feed into the status - quo.

California facts about statutory rape:

Men over 25 account for twice as many teen births as boys under 18 years old.

The Average Age difference between the teen victim and the adult defendant in cases filed by the District
Attorney is 7years 9months.

Men over 20 are responsible for 5 times as many births among junior high school girls.

In California almost 70% of teen births are fathered by adult men.

On an average California day 76 teenage girls, 17 & younger, will give birth.

In 1993 1,572 births in California were to mothers 14 years or younger.

The rate of sexually transmitted disease among teenage girls is twice that of teenage boys.

perhaps if the teenage females do not have sex, then they wont be on the victim rolls,,feminists, the perpetual victims.....

You obviously didn't even get the point of the article -- if you use the word "adult" you are using a poorly difined term and therefore invalidationg your own response to this article. The writer of the article is debating the term "adult" not whether the sex is innappropriate.

i was responding to YOUR post.

Actually, I just looked it up and in California, the 19-year-old girl with the 17-year-old boyfriend is can be in trouble with the law -- not criminally, but civilly -- a fine of up to $2,000 if the age difference is less than 2 years and up to $5,000 if more than 2 years -- so it depends on just when the respective birthdays fall.

(A) An adult who engages in an act of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor less than two years younger than the adult is liable for a civil penalty not to exceed two thousand dollars ($2,000).
(B) An adult who engages in an act of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor at least two years younger than the adult is liable for a civil penalty not to exceed five thousand dollars ($5,000).
Link

I would be curious to learn if that provision is often enforced.

yr boyfriend sounds just another feminist with nanny-state tendencies... and makes a wholly logical argument to boot.

The author's point is that perhaps we should rethink our notions of "age of consent" for sex; that perhaps when a 13-year-old has sex with an 18-year-old, perhaps there are no victims, just two teenagers having sex.

yr boyfriend responds in typical PC fashion: rather than addressing the heart of the author's argument, instead just throw around a bunch of empty PC victimology rhetoric ("just another man blaming the victim..." blah blah blah.

And, why exactly does it even matter what the author's gender is? And why is it that all of your statistics involve men preying on girls? Is it because you really think that predation only goes one way?

Let's see... thumbs through today's headlines... whaddya know there's ANOTHER schoolteacher who's gotten caught with their teenage lover / student. And, what do you know, the 25-year-old teacher is FEMALE and the 13-year-old is MALE...

Seems like yr boyfriend may want to think those misandrist biases...

Hmmm... how much rent do they charge you for that rock you live under?

Don't call "yr boyfriend" MAY be a feminist, but the more salient point is that the poster is unreflective. There are many feminists who would disagree with that post -- I am one -- and would bristle at your sly knock on "feminism" as a way of thinking about things.