Current Events > What should the age of consent for sex actually be? Is there science behind it?

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Im piggybacking off of that 15 year old topic. Our law in the US is mostly 18 as far as I know. It seems that Australia is 17 and Europe is 15. What is the correct age? Do we have science that backs what the correct age should be? It could be earlier or it could actually be later? What if science backs age 21 or older? What should we even be looking for with scientific research to determine the age? Puberty? When the brain fully develops? A combination? Maybe something else entirely?

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Physically, it can be like 13 or 14. That was the age I think for most of human history. The reason it went up is people stay childish longer now. Centuries ago a 13 year old was considered an adult. Now people take longer to mature. Thats the reasoning behind why it is the age it is

Don't have an opinion on this but wikipedia says Australia's federal age is 16 with only South Australia and Tasmania having it at 17 and the majority of the US is 16 as well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_the_United_States

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18

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Zikten posted...

Physically, it can be like 13 or 14. That was the age I think for most of human history. The reason it went up is people stay childish longer now. Centuries ago a 13 year old was considered an adult. Now people take longer to mature. Thats the reasoning behind why it is the age it is

No 13 or 14 year old should be having sex. If my kids do at that age, Hell, Ill high five then while dying inside before giving them a big freaking boring speech on responsibility.

Your post can be interpreted as furthering two very distinct viewpoints, so I will give you the benefit of the doubt. We are not all running around shitting in the bushes and dying of leprousy before we hit 50, after all.

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Kakapo posted...

No 13 or 14 year old should be having sex. If my kids do at that age, Hell, Ill high five then while dying inside before giving them a big freaking boring speech on responsibility.

Your post can be interpreted as furthering two very distinct viewpoints, so I will give you the benefit of the doubt. We are not all running around shitting in the bushes and dying of leprousy before we hit 50, after all.

I wasn't saying it should be 13 in modern day. I was explaining why it changed.

Wtf why wait until you are 18 in some us states? Thats seems awfully Puritan for what is meant to be a free society.

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Zikten posted...

Physically, it can be like 13 or 14. That was the age I think for most of human history. The reason it went up is people stay childish longer now. Centuries ago a 13 year old was considered an adult. Now people take longer to mature. Thats the reasoning behind why it is the age it is

It's not a matter of people being childish longer. Thanks to advances in medical science and technology, our quality of life and average lifespan growing by about 30 years over the last century. People were marrying young because they also died younger. Now the world is ridiculously overpopulated.

I just looked at Canada's agent consent laws, and it's interesting. 12 and 13 year olds can have sex with people up to 2 years older than they are, provided that they aren't in an abusive position of trust. 14 and 15 year olds can have sex with somebody up to 5 years older than they are, provided that they aren't in a position of trust or authority. Flat out age of consent is 16 years. I imagine most of that is an anachronism from when kids were marrying at 13 years old.

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There's no reasoning, it just is.

Powerful thing stigma is, prevents questioning what should be an apriori absurd idea.

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COVxy posted...

There's no reasoning, it just is.

Powerful thing stigma is, prevents questioning what should be an apriori absurd idea.

What's absurd about it?

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Intro2Logic posted...

What's absurd about it?

Let's frame the question in a couple of different lights.

Do you think that there's some concrete brain development process that enables "consent"? Or, if we could put a different way, what are the brain processes that contribute to consent that don't contribute to making other choices? Why is consenting a different process to the individual than say, choosing what food to eat? If we even think about the difference between the choices themselves rather than the individual processing them, it's a little unclear what is so complex about choosing to have sex over any other choice.

I think after thinking these things over, it's at the very least clear that consent is a complex sociocultural thing that likely doesn't have strong concrete biological links.

But, even if it did have strong concrete biological links to development, development is so variable across individuals that setting a mean cut-off is just not doing so much good.

Second, while it's easy to understand consent and non-consent from the personal perspective from one context as an adult to another context as an adult, personally I have no fucking clue when my "yesses" transitioned from "yea yea kid sure" to "real yesses". Do you? You'd think that if this boundary was so strong and meaningful, most people would be able to identify it.

I think realistically, the truth is that people will manipulate people into sex and that's rape, and that's the way we should treat these cases. I think setting an age cut off allows us to stop thinking about it critically, and also reinforces puritanical values. All "good" things for society.

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65

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The answer to both questions is no.

No one can do the sex at any age, and no one can have science.

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tote_all posted...

https://www.dana.org/article/wounds-that-time-wont-heal/

Shut the fuck up. If you want to have a "hot take" on a subject like this at least do some research. There are absolutely reasons behind it.

I don't have time to read that whole thing at the moment, can you please quote the part where it specifies why age of consent is as it is and why it is different in different places?

@tote_all

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COVxy posted...

Let's frame the question in a couple of different lights.

Do you think that there's some concrete brain development process that enables "consent"? Or, if we could put a different way, what are the brain processes that contribute to consent that don't contribute to making other choices? Why is consenting a different process to the individual than say, choosing what food to eat? If we even think about the difference between the choices themselves rather than the individual processing them, it's a little unclear what is so complex about choosing to have sex over any other choice.

I think after thinking these things over, it's at the very least clear that consent is a complex sociocultural thing that likely doesn't have strong concrete biological links.

But, even if it did have strong concrete biological links to development, development is so variable across individuals that setting a mean cut-off is just not doing so much good.

Second, while it's easy to understand consent and non-consent from the personal perspective from one context as an adult to another context as an adult, personally I have no fucking clue when my "yesses" transitioned from "yea yea kid sure" to "real yesses". Do you? You'd think that if this boundary was so strong and meaningful, most people would be able to identify it.

I think realistically, the truth is that people will manipulate people into sex and that's rape, and that's the way we should treat these cases. I think setting an age cut off allows us to stop thinking about it critically, and also reinforces puritanical values. All "good" things for society.

So based on your good, we can assume the tl;dr of this waffle is that youre pro statutory rape?

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That's a really weird thing to take away from my post. You okay dude?

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Bump.

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25

Rather than individuals and specific ages, is it not more the amount of people at any age being reasonably smart enough to make informed decisions that they won't regret?

Like that's why it's definitely not 15, cause most 15 year olds are dumbasses that dont yet fully understand all the physiology and the complex psycho-social intricacies that go along with it, especially when it comes to having older partners. You can be a lot more confident that by 18 most people have it figured out.

i'm generally in favor of 18, with romeo and juliet laws in place for people within a few years of each other if one of the partners are 16 or 17.

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16 as long as there is a 2-3 year age gap. I wouldn't go any lower than that, and tbh, I think that's a decent age gap since that's usually what the high school gap is like.

Alucard188 posted...

I just looked at Canada's agent consent laws, and it's interesting. 12 and 13 year olds can have sex with people up to 2 years older than they are, provided that they aren't in an abusive position of trust. 14 and 15 year olds can have sex with somebody up to 5 years older than they are, provided that they aren't in a position of trust or authority. Flat out age of consent is 16 years. I imagine most of that is an anachronism from when kids were marrying at 13 years old.

My guess would be it's more about not criminalizing teens who are probably going to have sex anyway if that's what they feel like doing, as long as they're doing it with other people their own age rather than being taken advantage of by some creepy pedo. Kinda a "we hope you don't do this but if you're going to, it's stupid to consider it a crime" thing.

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COVxy posted...

There's no reasoning, it just is.

Powerful thing stigma is, prevents questioning what should be an apriori absurd idea.

I knew I had tagged you accurately

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UnholyMudcrab posted...

I knew I had tagged you accurately

People who do their best to signal that they hold to the letter of the law are far more concerning than people who try to understand the spirit of it.

*shrugs*

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Puberty plus 3 years should be the standard. There is no magical age, rather its maturation after puberty that's the key to consent. After 3 years, you are knowledgeable enough to make a decision, and pursue it no matter the consequences. Its how nature intended it.

IE Boys itll be 16. IE Girls should be 14, They are ready. Make a law that forces condom use for 14-17 year old, and make condoms free for those ages.

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18 because CE will think you're a sick creep if you go even a day younger than that.

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Is this another simulation?

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