Barbara Hewson, a barrister in the UK, has caused a massive shit storm with her call for the age of consent to be lowered to 13 in the wake of what she calls a prurient witch hunt against men who traded favors with underage groupies decades ago.
So much to unpack! Let’s start with the age of consent.
Based on the information contained in this world wide ages of consent chart (which I will assume is true), countries that police the sexuality of their young citizens (and not all of them do), have consent laws that range from 12 to 18 years. Interestingly enough, some countries have different ages for girls and boys. In Columbia, girls can have sex legally when they are 12, but boys have to wait until they’re 14. In Indonesia, girls can legally consent at 16, while boys must hold off until they are 19. In Swaziland and Lesotho, it’s the opposite. Boys can legally have sex at 14, but girls must wait until they are 16.
http://www.avert.org/age-of-consent.htm
In the US, many states have age-gap provisions, and they allow a mistake of age defense. That makes sense to me.
This girl is 13 years old. Her name is Madison Gabriel, and she is professional model, and if you ran into her with her fake ID in a nightclub, there is no reasonable way you could know she is 13 years old!!!
http://msjanice.blogspot.ca/2007/12/janice-weighs-in-on-underage-models.html
This girl is 10 years old. Her name is Thylane Loubry Blondeau.
And here she is at 12 years of age.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/04/thylane-blondeau-10-year-old-model_n_918066.html
This is Elle Fanning. 13 years old.
Courtney Stodden is 16 years old. Her husband is 51.
http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20510475,00.html
This is Jennifer Pinches. She looks 12 years old. She is 18.
The point being that it can be incredibly difficult to know, just by looking at someone, how old they are. Girls in particular. Clothing, hair, make-up, attitude …. they can all suggest a girl is much, much older than she is. The laws in the US are designed to reflect the reality that it IS possible to mistake a girl’s age and it probably doesn’t help much if she lies about it.
Gosh, that probably NEVER happens.
Let’s deal with emotional maturity. The underage girls above are all posed in very sexually suggestive ways. Does that mean they are ready to have sex? Just because they LOOK ready? Obviously not, but that doesn’t automatically mean they AREN’T either. A lot of it will depend on the emotional maturity of their partners. A 13 year old having sex with her 15 year old boyfriend is one thing. A 13 year old having sex with a 60 year old is quite another, no matter how hot that 60 year old guy happens to be.
And again, the laws in the US address that disparity. The gap in age between the partners has an effect on how consent laws applies. Statutory rape is not always statutory. Very sensible. Most American teenagers wait until they are 17 before they start having sex, so underage teenage sex isn’t really that big of a problem (except for all the poor schmucks who live in states where the age of consent is 18).
There are three important variables that effect the average age of first sexual intercourse.
http://www.andosciasociology.net/resources/Sex.SamplePgs.pdf
Black girls are sexually active a full year before the average.
And girls who live at age 14 with both their parents delay having sex beyond the average and well beyond girls who do NOT have both parents present.
Not much of a surprise there.
http://judgybitch.com/2013/01/22/a-teenage-girls-best-weapon-against-slut-culture-her-dad/
Here’s the third, very troubling variable: 25% of kids from low income families are having sex and the average age of initiation is 12.
http://blogs.ajc.com/momania/2009/08/19/studylow-income-kids-starting-sex-on-average-at-12/
So there ARE girls out there having sex at age 12, and they likely come from poor families, which not coincidentally, tend to be fairly troubled.
http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/109074/chapters/Understanding-the-Nature-of-Poverty.aspx
The situation is not much different in the UK. The average age for first sex is 16 for both men and women.
Nearly a third (30 per cent) of men and a quarter (26 per cent) of women aged 16–19 had sex before the age of 16.
http://www.fpa.org.uk/professionals/factsheets/sexualbehaviour#kpXt4PoQvzktoZg7.99
And it’s the girls from socially troubled, low-income families who are most likely to report early sexual experience.
Let’s consider all of this information in the context of “Operation Yewtree”, which is the name police have given to their efforts to round up a group of men who were extremely popular entertainers and musicians in Britain some time ago. All quotes are from the Daily Mail article.
Lawyer Barbara Hewson described the arrests of celebrities such as Rolf Harris, Dave Lee Travis, Jim Davidson and PR guru Max Clifford under Operation Yewtree as a ‘grotesque spectacle’ adding it had ‘nothing to do with justice or the public interest’.
She adds: ‘But the low-level misdemeanours with which Stuart Hall was charged are nothing like serious crime.’
Ms Hewson continues: ‘Ordinarily, Hall’s misdemeanours would not be prosecuted, and certainly not decades after the event.
‘What we have here is the manipulation of the British criminal-justice system to produce scapegoats on demand. It is a grotesque spectacle.’
Well, what ARE the charges these men are being arrested for?
I took a look at just one “victim”, and I have to say, I am very inclined to agree with Hewson. The link below will take you to the story of Karin Ward, who accuses both Freddy Starr and Jimmy Savile of assaulting her when she was 15.
Karin admits her life has been a train wreck.
A qualified legal secretary, she has rarely worked on account of her chronic depression and anxiety.
Last year, she was diagnosed with bowel cancer. She has been married and divorced three times and has seven children by five different fathers, the youngest of which — a 15-year-old son — lives with her. Three of her children were taken into care as babies, and a fourth at ten years old.
She spent a year in prison when pregnant with her fourth child in 1982 for deception, having written cheques knowing she had no funds to honour them. All the result, she believes, of the abusive childhood she suffered.
Yikes! She must have suffered some pretty serious abuse at the hands of Freddy and Jimmy to result in such a severely fucked up life. What on earth happened that led to all this?
Karin claimed that when she recoiled from Starr’s alleged attempt to grab her breast and buttocks, he humiliated her by shouting out in front of the guests that he wasn’t interested in touching her because she was flat-chested.
I’m sorry. WHAT?!?
He tried to grab her ass and then called her a “titless wonder”? That’s the “abuse”? Are you fucking kidding me?
Oh wait. There’s more.
On one occasion, Karin claims, Savile persuaded her to perform a sex act on him in his Rolls-Royce on the promise of seeing one of his shows.
So there was more than one occasion then?
‘We’d think: “Jimmy’s here, we might get to go out.” If he came in his Rolls-Royce, he could get several girls in there and he would take us to the park, to a restaurant or London.’ There was, as the girls found out, a price to be paid for such generosity.
‘He wasn’t interested in us as people, he was only interested in one thing. We’d say: “He’s a dirty old man, a pervert,” but we’d laugh about it. We didn’t care because we were going to get sweets and fags and be taken to London to be on his show.’
‘We’d sit at the tables, smoking, thinking: “Poor cow, I wonder what she has to do,” and then we’d go: “Never mind, another trip to London.” ’
So basically, the girls were groupies. They wanted all the benefits of hanging out with a big star and they understood it came with a price and they paid it, perhaps reluctantly, but with full knowledge that the trips to London and the fags and the sweet weren’t free.
Why should they be?
They came from horrifically messed up families and had tons of problems long before they ever laid eyes on Jimmy or Garry or any of the other accused men. What they wanted was an escape. A way out. A free pass. They clearly had zero adult supervision. Who lets their young daughter go to London with a much older, famous entertainer? Who lets their teenager cruise around with a man reeking of cigar smoke and alcohol in a Rolls-Royce?
And now they are claiming the MEN abused THEM? Looks to me like it was the other way around. The situations and incidents Karin describes as abuse were nothing more than girls out famewhoring. Desperate for male approval and love and attention and power by proxy, they tried shooting for the moon.
It’s a story as old as bloody time. Young women with nothing to offer but their youth and sexuality chase after powerful men in exchange for favors. If we are going to arrest every powerful man who has ever availed himself of willing women, we are gonna need to build a whole lot of jails.
Hewson says the men being arrested are scapegoats. Scapegoats for what? For the anger and embarrassment and jealousy and bitterness the women feel because they FAILED to land the big fish? Would any of these women be complaining if they had ended up married to one of the stars?
Hell no. They’d all be divorced now with half his assets in their bank accounts, gloating over what idiots men are to fall for youth and beauty.
Hewson wants to lower the age of consent so that prosecuting these men becomes impossible. While I understand her ire, I’m afraid I can’t agree with her solution entirely. Lower the age of consent to 13? Okay. Sure.
But put in sensible measures like the United States. An age gap consideration and a mistaken age defense. With power, comes responsibility. That’s part of the deal. Powerful men have some obligation to use their power judiciously. Underage girls are off limits, no matter how willing they are to comply.
With power, comes responsibility. It applies to the girls, too. Youth and beauty and enthusiasm have power, and the girls have some responsibility to use their power judiciously. Chasing after much older men in the hopes of currying favor and gaining benefits is off limits.
But humans are humans. Powerful men always have and always will delight in young women hunting them. Young women always have and always will hunt for powerful men. Both sides are equally culpable. Both sides are engaging in abuse. Both sides are behaving shamefully. Both side are being idiots.
But only one side is being held criminally responsible? Bullshit. If the girls are not going to be strung up on charges of solicitation and prostitution, and I absolutely do NOT think they should be, then fairness and equality under the law dictates the men get a pass, too.
Sometimes you get the bear, sometimes the bear gets you.
That’s life.
Lots of love,
JB
judgybitch 
the amount of bullshit in the world now is too damn high!
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I’m not sure I agree with you that there is such a difference between a 13 year old girl having sex with a 15 year old boy, and a 60 year old man. Yes, the latter makes us uncomfortable, but is there really some objective reason why it is “bad”, other than our prejudices and social conditioning. Some will say “it’s yucky!”, but then so are a lot of weird fetishes people have, and we all agreed the government shouldn’t get involved in these matters. Others will point to a “disparity of power”. Well yes, of course there is, question is who has power over whom, and what kind of power we are talking about. If it’s physical strength, the teenager will likely be ever stronger than the sexagenarian, and if we look at who has the greater power of seduction, it’s probably the girl.
Age of consent laws exist for one reason only: put a misplaced band-aid on bad or inexistent parenting. Of all statutory rape cases being heard, how many are really about a young girl being seduced by an older man, where her parents have no real way of intervening, and it truly takes the whole might of the state to crack down on the terrible conman? Seducing someone and taking advantage of them is not a crime, otherwise we’d see a whole lot of gold diggers behind bars.
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I live in South Carolina, and I rarely see the age defense work for the man. There’s a man that I used to work with, he was online and he had posted an ad on Craigslist. He was 32 A female answered and claimed to be 22, and she sent pictures of herself to him. They agreed to meet. He showed up and asked to see her ID. She got out a fake ID that said she was 22. They proceed to bump uglies, and her aunt walks in. She informs him that the niece is 15 years old. He left and never spoke to the girl or her family again. 6 months later, the police bust in his house at 3 a.m. and arrest him for Criminal Sexual Conduct w/Minor, 2nd degree. The whole story about her lying came out in the trial, the girl admitted that she lied and the fake ID was in the evidence. He got 15 years. I’ve seen the paperwork because I was trying to help him understand everything in it so that he could try and find a loophole that would get him off of the registry, which is for life in South Carolina whether you piss in the bushes or rape a baby, because once you’ve been to prison, you know that you keep every damned piece of paper they give you, even if it’s just the inventory sheet they make you fill out when you leave.
This guy lost his house because he couldn’t pay the taxes while he was incarcerated, his wife had never had a job, a house that he had built. His wife divorced him, and she wouldn’t let their kids see him. The judge basically laughed his ass off when he petitioned for visitation. He can’t live near a school or a park or a church, and there’s a lot of the latter where I live. Funny thing, you can’t live near a school if you have violent charges against children, but if you just tickled the kid’s genitals, they’ll let you live by them. Nice logic. Not that the residency restrictions are in any way helpful. Same with the registry. All it does is cast a mark of shame upon a person for the rest of his life, no matter how old the person was. Even if they’re a juvenile, the community knows and that person’s life is over.
I didn’t mean to go on a rant. I’m just pretty pissed about sex offender laws and how they are passed without even a little critical thought. I feel like calling every senator or representative that has ever voted for these stupid laws and giving them a verbal dress down that will make them cry so hard and long that they die of dehydration.
And no, I’m not on the registry, but I know several people on there, and none of them has a very good life.
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enjo kasai, or compensated dating, is a term used to describe middle aged Japanese men who take teenage girls out on dates (which may or may not include sex) in exchange for cash or a nice gift.
It’s not considered prostitution or any kind of abuse at all, and both parties are consenting participants.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Japan/JE10Dh01.html
I’m think we need to take a similar attitude. Almost all of the “victims” of these entertainers in Britain were alone with the men because they wanted something – an opportunity to be on a show, a trip, a present, a shot at fame…. whatever.
If they are old enough to understand that men can be manipulated into giving them these things, they are old enough to accept that there will be a price.
If there is abuse going on, it’s pretty damn mutual!
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Alex, I believe the world has exactly the quantity of bullshit it wants. Otherwise, reasonable people would sweep the bullshit away and sweeten the world up. Care to hold your breath that long?
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That is a horrifying story!
Was the girl with the fake ID charged with fraud? Or anything at all?
Let me guess: nope.
She destroyed a man’s life and walks away with zero consequences.
Outrageous.
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As a guy in his 40’s the idea of a relationship with any girl young enough to be a daughter makes my stomach turn. 10 years older or 10 years younger is a personal rule. As a guitar and bass player in club bands for 25 years, well even that far down on the music industry totem pole one encounters groupies and they get younger all the time. Avoid anything but a hello is the best policy for many reasons.
It does not take much observation to see where the real backlash of feminism is happening and sad enough it is the younger generations that are the casualties of the feminist virus.
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craigslist.
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You know, there’s a reason why most minors get sent to juvenile detention and not prison. It is because we as a society understand that children do not full grasp the concept of responsibility even if they are able to discern between right and wrong. We sympathize when they make mistakes because after all, they are still children.
Yes, there is a power that accompanies youth, beauty and enthusiasm. But I don’t think CHILDREN should be held responsible for it because at that age they don’t even UNDERSTAND what responsibility is yet. And keep in mind, we are not talking about the Dunbar Village Rape case here or anything of that extreme.
Also, just throwing something out there, a lot of us were teenagers not that long ago and remember fully what it was like. Yes, you do have girls/boys who lie about their age to gain certain advantages. But I assure you, MOST of the men (and women) who get caught with minors are fully aware of the situation. Especially, if they have known the minor for more than a few days. I promise you that.
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LOL this has to be the only time you’ve said the US has done something sensible!
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This is the only argument (but the best one) for men to date older women (or marry overseas).
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Yeah how sweet and innocent and victim like can she possibly be if she got a fake ID and went to all this trouble to appear older and actively hunted an older man.
It’s not like he picked her up at Chuck E. Cheese playing skee ball.
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That is just an awful story. I’m sorry that happened to your friend.
Few things:
-Why did he ask to see her ID? When I meet a guy and say I’m 22, he doesn’t ask to see my ID. I understand it was an online meeting but did he have doubts that prompted the ID request?
-“Her aunt walked in” Where where they having sex? Did she show up at a family house and thought nothing of banging some chick he barely knew in a house full of people?
-What’s a married man with children doing on an internet dating site?
No this isn’t victim blaming, I HATE victim blaming. But these are questions (men and women) should ask to prevent FURTHER victimization of either sex.
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Everyone is entitled to an occasional mistake. :)~
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Jimmy Page was well-known for dating an underaged groupie. Because of that, I’d prefer the laws stay the way they are. Maybe then he’ll be convicted and disgraced, and like Gary Glitter, we’ll never have to hear any more awful music again on the radio.
Zeppelin sucks! In fact, most post-British Invasion music was a pallid imitation of great American sounds and should never have been allowed on the radio over here. It’s a shame cute white boys pushed the sounds of brilliant Americans off the radio because of the tastes of 13-year-old girls. For this alone, many should be jailed.
Get thee to a used record store and trade in your Beatles, Stones, and Zep for the real thing: Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, even Sinatra.
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If we are going to arrest every powerful man who has ever availed himself of willing women, we are gonna need to build a whole lot of jails.
That may be the point.
Hewson says the men being arrested are scapegoats. Scapegoats for what? For the anger and embarrassment and jealousy and bitterness the women feel because they FAILED to land the big fish?
For the construction of Rape Culture. That this is happening in the UK is because there is not statute of limitations on this type of charge. So these men can be charged with “offenses” that occurred 40 years ago. Now, I have no problem with having no statute of limitations on crimes like murder, and maybe some of these guys are guilty, I don’t know, but I’m sensing a deeper game.
With the incidence of rape–at least in the US–decreasing, as JB noted earlier this week, you’d think feminists would be cheering. Yay! We’re reducing the incidence of rape! Yay!
But it’s kind of hard to construct a Rape Culture if you’re actually having less rape. Rape Culture is specifically designed to expand the definitions of rape and part of that is to eliminate the statute of limitations for rape where they currently exist (about half the states).
So, yeah, building more prisons to hold all these newly minted rapists may just be the point.
Oh, and I don’t think the age of consent should be lowered. But perhaps having defined mitigating circumstances would be in order…
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“10 years older or 10 years younger is a personal rule.”
Hope you checked all their IDs. Because if one lied to you and the law is now retroactive, one day your whole world could come crashing down around you. It may come as a shock, but young girls have been known to lie about their age.
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With power, comes responsibility. It applies to the girls, too. Youth and beauty and enthusiasm have power, and the girls have some responsibility to use their power judiciously.
Ideally, yes. But the feminine imperative dictates that girls and women not have to suffer the consequences of their decisions. Responsibility without any incentive to actually be judicious is actually no responsibility at all.
I enjoy your blog!
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This is one of the few times I disagree with you. If a girl is too young to have sex with a man over 18, then she’s too young to have sex with someone her own age.
I personally think it should be a family decision, ie anything past puberty but younger than x age for full adulthood should be permissible with parental permission. This is how many countries used to work, and is just slightly modified in many of them now.
I matured early, and was at my full adult height at the tender age of 12, while also working 40+ hours a week doing physical labor during the summer. If I would have known how to read their signals back then, I could have slept with numerous buddies single mom’s, and the idea that this would somehow be a form of rape still doesn’t make sense to me.
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In other words, you’re more into sex with your sister. A fine selection
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Don’t get me started on the sex offender registry.
These so-called “Megan’s Laws” were originally intended to register hard-core pedophiles (Megan Kanka was seven years old) but have been expanded in many, if not most, states to include any crime of a sexual nature, or not even sex related at all (Michigan includes kidnapping and “public vulgarity” in theirs). Yet in the minds of most people when they hear that someone is on the list will only be an image of a shady guy who is itching to diddle five year olds.
When the original Megan’s Law was studied in New Jersey about five years ago, it was found to have virtually no effect at all on in reducing child molestation or re-offenses by the small number of convicted who do so. Nor did it have any effect on the number of victims.
However, it can be good at getting people killed. One guy in Michigan was murdered by vigilantes. His crime? As a teenager, he had sex with this girlfriend who was two weeks away from her 16th birthday.
These are indiscriminate laws that are ineffective at achieving their stated goal but are expanded far beyond their original scope and whose sole purpose seems to be to further stigmatize men who have already served their time for their crimes.
In other words, a perfect law for our feminized society to love and make more use of.
Bobby, I’m very sorry for what your friend is going through. Trolling Craigslist for early 20s ass is probably a poor choice for a married man. But the punishment seems a bit harsh, and the registry means essentially his life is over. About the only option he has once he’s released is to create a new identity and flee the country. Seriously.
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HA!
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Excellent points all. His friend didn’t think his escapades through but sure as heck didn’t deserve 15 years in jail.
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Yep I know I do. I lost my virginity at 16 years old, and knew exactly what I was doing.
The AoC laws in the western world are for the most part crazy, and things are only getting worse and worse in the United States. The “mistaken age defense” is just that; a defense. No different then the temporary insanity defense, and it works just about as often. That is to say never.
Also the “age gap provision” makes no sense. Why should a 16 year old girl having sex with her 21 year old boyfriend be considered a rape victim; when the same couple, who are the same number of days apart in relation to each other; be totally in the clear a month earlier?
In my opinion the AoC should be 14 years old, or the onset of puberty [the ability to become pregnant for women]. Whichever comes first.
The U.S. standard of: an AoC of 18 years old in most places; along with an “mistaken age defense” that is non-existent in practice, an illogical “age gap provision”, and mandatory lifelong sex offender registry has ruined a lot of lives.
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Mary was probably about 12 or 13 when God implanted his divine seed into her.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_birth_of_Jesus#Cultural_context
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If a 13 y.o. girl (or boy for that matter) is legal, they should be legal for everybody. If it is legal to sell cannabis to all people aged 13 or more, it shouldn’t matter whether the seller is 15 or 99.
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By the same token, a girl should only be taught at school by teachers her own age. No more 40 y.o. math or English teachers.
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Because if one lied to you and the law is now retroactive…
“No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto law shall be passed.” ~ Article I, Section 9, Clause 3, United States Constitution
But hey, who pays any attention to, let alone follows the letter of that Goddamned Piece of Paper anymore?
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My only argument for lowering the age of consent would be in the area of sexting cases for two reasons: One: because sexting rarely involves any form of abuse. It’s generally just a thing that one person does to flirt with another. And Two: Every time a prosecution is made, it’s the boy who gets in trouble, not the girl, regardless of who sent who what.
The girl always turns state’s evidence. The law is always applied in a sexist manner. No teenage girl ever went to prison for sending a shot of herself to her boyfriend, or for receiving a shot of her boyfriend. And in reality, if you did want to put a stop to teenage sexting, you would punish the girls who are largely the source. They are both the creators and distributors. They seek to benefit from child pornography, even if it is themselves in the image. The worst that happens to them is the images may get passed around the school, which is okay if you’re an attention whore, or just a whore.
And the boys? They’re the ones who get to end up on the sex offenders list. Forever.
If we lowered the age of consent, at least for photography, to 16, we could clear a huge majority of these cases out of the courts. And lets start taking away the cell phones from the girls, or disable the damn camera.
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“With parental permission”.
I’m trying to envision this system. The adult, hoping to screw a minor, goes to the girl’s parents with a contract and asks if he/she can screw their 13 year old daughter/son?
I’ll just say it. Any woman who would have sex with a 12 year old boy belongs in prison. If your parents would have agreed to this, you have incredibly irresponsible and crappy parents.
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No. Absolutely not. The AoC should not be determined by the onset of puberty. I got my period when I was 9 years old! NINE! No nine year old is capable of understanding the consequences of having sex. Regardless of her (or him) having sex with another 9 year old or a 19 year old. My sisters, and most of my girlfriends hit puberty wayyy before 14, maybe not 9 like I did, but close to it.
The age gap makes sense to a certain degree. If a freshman (usually 14) starts dating a junior(16) and they continue the relationship until the 16 becomes 18 and the freshman now 16-it protects them. And there is nothing wrong with that. I understand where it becomes illogical, but it is implemented to protect honest intentions.
The AoC should remain at 18. Yes, you have children who mature sooner or take longer (past 18). But it is the best age for AoC. You say you lost it at 16, was the girl 24? Or 21+? I’m leaning toward her being closer to your age at the time. But then again, I don’t really know.
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Actually I like the xkcd rule. Not for a law but just as a rule of thumb. It is “your age, divided by two, plus seven.”
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As a man with a girlfriend 20 years younger, I must say it’s the idea of a man your age banging a 60 year-old woman that makes my stomach turn. And yet I defend your right to do so, because stomach-turning should be no basis for legislation.
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@ jack4510. As a 22 year old, the idea of banging a 42 year old makes my stomach turn. Ugh..gross! But you’re right, to each their own.
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It isn’t about age so much as age gaps. Those that don’t see a difference between a 15 year old boinking a 16 year old vs. a 15 year old boinking a 32 year old are missing the point. A 32 year old can use age and wisdom to coerce consent more easily than a 16 year old can. In my opinion there is no way a 32 year old dates a 15 year old without there being a serious imbalance there and that’s not good.
Its why I think the xkcd rule with a hard cutoff at say, 14 at the bottom end and then 18 for the age where the rule no longer applies (even though I think the rule is good advice for all ages) , is the best bet. Furthermore, reduction of penalty for a consensual encounter regardless of age. Make it more like a misdemeanor than a felony, until the perpetrator becomes a repeat offender. It isn’t rape so stop treating it as such.
So under my new rule, a sixteen year old could blink a 15 year old
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Sorry, got cutoff. An 18 year old could date a 16 year old. A 21 year old could date as young as 17.
But more importantly if they break the rules in a consentual relationship no one’s life is ruined. They get a traffic ticket and get told to knock it off.
Also there would need to be exceptions for relationships that started during legal age gaps but worked into an illegal age gap later.
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I highly doubt their would be an explosion of parental consent for their children having sex if things changed. It would generally just be more of dad cleaning his gun when his daughter went out on a date.
But it puts the emphasis back with the family, where the parents should understand that sex brings a whole lot of responsibilities with it, including being the basis of things like marriage, versus just being a game people play. Unless they’re shitty parents, which happens.
But if I would have had consensual sex with a 30 year old women at age 12, and my parents didn’t give permission (which they never would have done), then it would not have been rape. It shouldn’t even be called statutory rape. I wasn’t a retard at 12, I just would have been happy with any warm hole.
And, if sex was wrong for me at 12, I should be punished if I went out and had it. Would I have gotten a pass for stealing or violent crimes committed with an adult, because they tricked me into doing it? No. Why should sex be any different? Unless it really isn’t that important.
The surest way to make sure a criminal act continue to happen is to let one side off free, and even reward them in many cases.
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In the case of stealing or violent crime committed by a 12 year old there would be victim. In this case, the 12 year old IS the victim. And if the 12 year old would have sex with a five year old the five year old would be a victim, even if the five year old consented because he or she wanted a candybar. The relationship in such cases is exploitive. That’s why laws protect children in such cases. And a twelve year old is absolutely a child, whether normal or developmentally delayed.
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Bull. Whats your rule for a 13yo and a 15yo? What about 13 and 16? 15 and 18? 15 and 19? What about if the 13yo is an eighth grader and the 16yo a tenth grader? Then consider the 13yo as a 7th grader and the 16yo a junior. Is there going to be a chart you can reference?
Its stupid that someone would claim a 13 or 14 yo can’t give consent. If they commit a crime they are held responsible. If its a serious crime they will be charged as an adult. There is no other circumstance where whether you’ve committed a crime or not is determined by an arbitrary qualifier being applied to the victim and the criminal.
Whatever the aoc is determined to be, the child should not be allowed to have sex. Depending on the circumstance, the younger party should also be charged. If a 21yo buys booze for a kid, the kid still gets a fine for trying, inappropriately, to do adult things. These young girls arent being tricked into having sex and can often be the initiator. The girls in my area from junior high would try to get with the navy recruits. When i would come back from college there was always a girl who just thought i was the coolest. Just because they dont fully understand the full consequences of their actions doesn’t mean they’re innocent and certainly not that someone else should be punished for them.
Finally jb, you’re awesome. And hot. Im confused about something though… You’re British, but you have an American accent. Also you use Britishisms in your writing but not in your speech?
Keep up the good work!
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The only protected sex for men in USA is gay sex. Any male to female sex is open to any number of rape charges
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a href=”http://human-stupidity.com/stupid-dogma/teenage-sexuality/teenage-sexuality-the-immense-complexity-of-local-laws-state-lines-and-international-travel”>Teenage sexuality: The immense complexity of local laws, state lines and international travel
This is what your suggestions lead to.
Add strict liability laws (you go to prison even if she had a valid state ID, because she duped the department of motor vehicles) and draconian many year prison sentences with life long sex offender registration.
You need legal counsel and a detective for ID background check for every person that has sex with anyone that looks under 28
Great blog, judgybitch.
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Teenage sexuality: The immense complexity of local laws, state lines and international travel
correcting the link
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It is a crime when the one who’s seduced it’s underaged.I think of statutory rape as a way for parents to be able to fend off pedophiles.When the kid it’s a minor most of the shit he does falls on them anyway, so they should have at least this.When I was 13 I used this thing to fend off older guys as well.If they hit on me, I would tell them I’m 13.When they insisted (they did), I’d repeat that I’m 13 and it’s illegal to have sex with me.For some reason only then they’d get the message.I don’t mind people who have accidentally slept with someone younger because they haven’t been told their real age but if you have indeed been told by either the kid or his parents or whatever then you are to blame.
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Isn’t sodomy still illegal in certain states?
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Pretty sure the only people charged with sodomy nowadays are straight men.
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She was given a big fat nothing. To make it worse, when the man went to his court appointed counseling, they told him that he was 100% to blame.
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Any opinions on the young or adolescent boys who’ve been abused by older, high-status, protected men- are they fame whores too?
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1) He’d always been wary since he saw his cousin get accused of virtually the same thing.
2) They were in the aunt’s house, in the girl’s bedroom. The aunt had left before he arrived, he didn’t know she lived there. She came back and they didn’t hear her, and she heard the noises, so she burst in the room.
3) His wife was unable to have sex without pain due to a back condition. She had agreed that he could have discreet affairs.
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His wife had agreed that he could have affairs since she couldn’t have sex without feeling excruciating pain. He wasn’t looking for a girl specifically in her 20’s, but for a woman in general.
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Kids as young as 11 have been caught sexting, and in the majority of the cases, like you said, the boy gets the shaft, no pun intended. Same as two kids exploring. There are kids as young as 8 on the registry because they played doctor with the neighbor girl.
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My context is feminists do not want any men to desecrate and defile and pussy that they may get their tongues on.
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They wanted all the benefits of hanging out with a big star and they understood it came with a price and they paid it, perhaps reluctantly, but with full knowledge that the trips to London and the fags and the sweet weren’t free.
Are you implying that you think it was a fair price? That this was a fair trade for his charity work for Duncroft House?
Fiona from the ‘Exposure’ documentary related a similar story to Karin Ward. You can watch it here (starts around the 5.50 mark): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tY5btAYs02c
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Many of your examples would be illegal and I think rightfully so. That being said, I wonder if you didn’t read the part about essentially decriminalizing consensual encounters before you called my response”bull” as I think that’s the most important part.
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Doesn’t matter if KB thinks the price is fair or not. The girls obviously did, and that’s really the upshot here. Criminal prosecution should be off the table for consensual encounters. Did these guys do wrong?
Maybe. Hell, I’d even say probably.
But not enough wrong to justify the punishment they are about to get.
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“The girls obviously did, and that’s really the upshot here.”
Did you watch the video I linked to?
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Ah, the Savile monster. I think you should all read these blogs:
http://www.annaraccoon.com/annas-personal-stuff/nonce-sense/
http://jimcannotfixthis.blogspot.co.uk/
The conclusion reached by women who were at the Duncroft school (only about 25 pupils btw), is that it is made-up nonce-sense to grab the compo. And none of the other allegations stand up under examination either (there has been ZERO police investigation of the claims made against Savile – see the introduction to the Yewtree report linked to in the first blog).
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exactly a period cannot indicate age of consent. I know he did not mean this but girls can be born having a period and breastfeeding toddlers can also get one depending on how their mother’s hormones affect them (this happened to my daughter). That being said I think the age of consent should only be a rule for age differences larger than 3 years or so.
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i do not let my 13 year old girl or boy to have sex but i let them look at each others bits
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Thylane Loubry Blondeau looks 10 and 12 in her respective photos. Makeup and clothing does not serve to make girls that young look older. You can tell by their body composition, bone structure and facial features their general age. Mid teens gets a little trickier since their composition and features are closer to adult sizes.
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Judgy Bitch, what to you make of all the current hoopla over these “Asian sex gangs” in the UK? Pakistani “Muslim” men supposedly “preying upon vulnerable British girls”? I’ve read several articles and the parents said they tried to stop their daughters from being “abused” by these men but somehow couldn’t manage to keep their daughters away from them. Some of the girls are/were also in the “care system”.
These men are now being arrested and thrown in jail after men years of “operating” either without notice or due to what is being called “politically correct denial” by the UK police force and care system.
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I did. He was a sexual predator. They often enter into fields where they can gain easy access to their target groups; children, young teens, “at risk” youth, etc.
Parents or guardians have been conditioned to trust people who do “charity work” or “help people” because the default position of human naivety and innocence is to think, “oh, what a nice guy”.
They are anything but.
Its a shame that because of predators now we have to put up shields and be on vigilant look-out with EVERYONE.
Children in the “care system” are particularly vulnerable.
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“They wanted all the benefits of hanging out with a big star and they understood it came with a price and they paid it, perhaps reluctantly, but with full knowledge that the trips to London and the fags and the sweet weren’t free.”
Savile was doing all that in the name of “charity”. He was the stereotypical “nice guy” trademarked. Putting on a facade of generosity, charity, concern for “at risk” youth in “care homes” – all to gain access.
Adults here seem to be forgetting how awkward and confusing puberty and adolescence can be. Add to that a “father or uncle figure” who is trusted by the government/care givers in the “care home”, it is only natural that young girls would put their trust in him and think “he gives charity to our “care home” and is giving us free stuff because he cares about kids without families”.
I mean why on earth would a young orphaned girl assume sex in exchange for charity from someone who is celebrated as a great philanthropist in her country?
I know I certainly wouldn’t.
Its because of cunning, manipulative predators like him that all parents and caregivers now must be on hyper-sensitive red alert with ALL adults that show any sort of humanity to kids today.
Its a shame its come to this but you can blame pedophiles for it, not the overly protective “fanatic” parents or care givers.
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Back in 1981, I had a summer job where I met a 17 year old guy with a 12 year old girlfriend. As I got to know them I found out that they were sexually active. He could pass for 19 and often purchased alcohol. She could pass for 17 and when her father told him she was only 12, he was “shocked” and perhaps more than a bit worried about what would happen. He got over both in short order. The girl had already dropped out of school, not finishing grade 7 over the objections of her father and mother. He had also dropped out of school, not finishing grade 10 but had a hot car and some money to spend on booze or whatever but did not do weed or hard drugs. They had met at a video arcade where she pursued him. It was a short chase (she was interesting and he interested and available at that moment). One summer day he was out drinking and driving with her along and he got stopped by the police. He was charged with impaired driving (good going cops) and contributing to the delinquency of a minor (which was total bullshit if you knew her). He was sent to juvenile detention for a few months. He had dated her for 5 months or so. By this time her father had kicked her out of their home due to her delinquent behavior, including but not limited to, sex, alcohol and her total refusal to go to school or obey any house rules including curfew. She went and found a 40ish man to live with. She was just 13 at the time.
In Canada prior to 1984, We had a different age of consent law than what was used in the USA or is used in Canada today. Back then, as I understood the law, the age of consent law applied only to girls. Girls under 16 but at least 12 could have sex with persons more than 2 years older than her IF SHE WANTED TO. A man could not be charged with a crime simply because he was more than 2 years older than her. The prosecution had to show that the man took advantage of the girl’s inexperience or vulnerability by “Making a false promise of marriage” or similar (PUA BEWARE). One specific defense allowed by the law was that if the girl was promiscuous, it was not a crime. Girls under 12 were prohibited from having sex with anyone, regardless of the age of the other. That includes the 11 year old girl with a 12 year old boy. There was no age of consent for boys to have sex with older women but there was an age of consent for homosexual acts between men and boys.
In 1984, the government changed the age of consent law. The age of consent was set to 14 with those under 14 restricted to less than 2 years older (or younger) than themselves. The promiscuous provision was removed from the law and the law was extended to include males under 14. This law and its format were introduced “to make it easier to prosecute those who break the law”. In the process what that 17 year old guy and his 12 year old girlfriend were doing went from “clearly legal even if immoral” (“she wanted it”, “knew what she was doing” and “NO ONE was going to stop Her”) to criminal (TOSS the BASTARD in JAIL. What she did or wanted does not matter.)
My opinion on the age of consent law is as follows:
Those under the age of 16 have a limited understanding of sex and the consequences of their actions. Anyone who takes advantage of that limited understanding can be said to breaking the law. Individual within 2 years age of each other are to be considered to be of similar understanding of sex and the consequences of their actions. If an underage person can be show to have wanted it (being promiscuous or similar included) then the age of the other person is not relevant. If a 12 year old girl wants to have sex with a 60 year old guy, that is her business, not mine. Or that of any one else.
Some may find those last lines offensive. Why? Does a number on a piece of paper determine if a girl does or does not consent to what happened? In Canada a 15 year old girl can consent to sex with a 19 year old guy, both of whom know the others age, but the same act by the same people is a crime in most of the USA. Why is it a crime? If a 12 year old girl can be held responsible for murdering a 60 year old man, then why can she not be held responsible for having consensual sex with that 60 year old man? Why do you object? If she gets pregnant, a 60 year old guy might be able to support a family. If she got pregnant by a 13 year old boy, which by law is legal, he cannot at that time support a family and probably wont be able to do so for some years to come.
Then there is the provision in some age of consent laws: “Except when married.” A 13 year old girl is found having sex with 21 year old guy. !!!SHOTGUN WEDDING!!! And all is legal. And Good!! Right? Right?!? Yes? No? Why?
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Ibelieve that it was the impressive Eleanor Roosevelt who
said that every day comes wijth new energy and new thoughts.
I thank you for putting new ideas imto mmy head.
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I have to disagree with you on one point, JB. I reckon we should keep the age of consent as it is. However, I do agree that a close-in-age exemption and a mistaken age defence should be brought in. If someone sees their potential partner getting successfully carded and served in a pub, then they shouldn’t be on the hook if that I.D. later turns out to be fake and the boy or girl is actually two years below the age of consent.
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WE all know how misandric this twisted society is. It’s no wonder it’s collapsing. The funny thing is that the real criminals in this world are the politicians. They’re the biggest evil scumbags on the planet yet they just do as they please. The hypocrisy is sickening.
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Meanwhile, in Japan…. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDqaTXqCN-Q&list=UU33_tIj4m1_XaqfFcomShvw&index=14
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Yeah… No… Two things, JB: Look up the rest of what some (particularly Saville) of these guys did, and back away from defending rapists just because some of their sex life wasn’t as rapey as the rest. Also, the defining issue with age of consent and age gap stuff is just that, the age gap. Finding a 13 yo and a 50 yo equally culpable for the same stupid is stupid. Surely 50 years is long enough to learn to keep it in your pants?
*shakes head* Nice to see you hand them more ammo when they’re otherwise desperate…
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Men live in fear of teenage girls flirting with them: “Teacher trolling” is now a national pastime and some pubescent girls see capturing incriminating photos of “pervy” male teachers as a sport.
On the Saville hysteria, check
http://stevemoxon.blogspot.co.uk/
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