A Grandma Reflects on Sex Offender Laws: “My Husband Would Have Gone to Jail”

But but but… that was like 70 years ago! Before the rise of the Snowflake Children and the teen culture that made a biological difference between those over and under 18!

Sarcasm off save for the remark about the snowflakes. As recently as the 60s no one would have cared.

if anyone should be punish it should be the girl who lied. she had to know that she wasn’t old enough to have sex legally but because she wanted sex she lied and messed up this guy who ask for someone old enough to do it with.

@Emily Morris
“But but but… that was like 70 years ago!”

We Are So Much Smarter Today ™

I also dated a *sex offender* in high school. I was 15 when we met and started dating (he was a senior turning 18). He went away to college the following year, and once I got my driver’s license, I drove to visit him. It was 5 hours away! I didn’t even have a cell phone, how DID i survive? My parents loved him as much as I did. We broke up in college and he is now a prominent doctor and has a lovely family of his own. I can’t imagine his life path if he was place on the registry just for dating.

My family would be teeming with sex offenders! My grandmother at 16 married a young preacher who was 28–12 years difference. They were married until he died at 86, and my mother was one of five children. When I was a high school freshman, for a while I dated a college senior–no sex, but dating alone would make him sex offender material today. I married when I was 16 and my husband was 23.

And I still attended college, graduating magna cum laude, and had a rewarding professional career; we also raised three children and have a large family today. How many lives would have been ruined or never existed at all had today’s sex offender industry existed then.

I’m glad that it allegedly worked out well for her, but the letter writer’s husband and grandfather are legitimate sex offenders in my eyes.

There is a huge difference in emotional and neurological maturity between 15/16 and 20/21. Any 20/21 year old who is interested in a 15/16 year old has some problems and needs help, not approval.

This is just sick.

And then I read the comments… oof.

Look, I’m sorry that so many of you have pedophiles in your family tree, but trying to justify and legitimize it now isn’t going to help anyone.

These predators are counting on you to make excuses for them like this. What they need is counseling to redirect their desires to age-appropriate persons and to deal with their underlying issues.

My twice-jailed (and rightly so) friend Ben wasn’t having sex with 15/16 year olds when he was 19-25 because he was in love and/or making mature decisions; he was targeting them because they were easier to impress than his peers, because emotionally he didn’t want to leave the glory days of high school.

My currently-jailed cousin-in-law Chuck didn’t marry a 17 year old when he was 20 because he was in love and/or making mature decisions; he targeted her because he knew that he could manipulate her. Thankfully the authorities stepped in and busted him for trafficking child pornography before he could make good on his online boasts that he was planning to groom their daughter for incest.

@Dan Guy: (Again) My cousin was 14 when she started dating a 19-year-old in the early 90s (he came to her school to watch some sport event of his younger sister, my cousin was on one of the other teams). They married ~12 years ago and now they have two little girls and are still happy together.
Not everyone is like your friend or cousin.

“but trying to justify and legitimize it now isn’t going to help anyone.”

But criminalizing it IS????!!!

I live in a country were 15 is the age of consent and a 15 year old can consent to sex with a person who is 15 years old or older with no further limits. There is also an exemption for those close in age so for example a 14 year old and 16 year old can be a couple without much fear on the part of the 16 year old. I see couples all the time where one is in their teens and the other in their early twenties and this is not a big deal here at all and if a parent does not like it, it is up to them to try to convince their teen to not do this, not something the police has anything to do with. I do not say that there are not 20 year olds who would not use a 15 year old, what I am saying is that this is not always the case,.

My view is that many of the 20 year olds who do date younger people are immature and really are mentally at the same level as their younger partner so they usually make a pretty good match. Often it is a mature girl and an immature guy so they are usually equals and the girl is sometimes even more mature.

Dan’s assumption also ignores the very recent cultural development of a teen mentality, which really did not exist until the past century.

Dan Guy,
I hate to tell you but there has been no example of a pedophile in any of these stories. You should really educate yourself better.

Then again, you friend, your cousin…………hmmmm makes one wonder. People tend to hang around those with like interests.

I think this sentence from the original post says it best:

“Yes, we need to protect the innocent, but let’s do that by ensuring only those that truly are a risk to our safety are prosecuted.”

We need to stop lumping 17-year-olds who have consensual sex with 15-year-olds in with 40-year-olds who kidnap and rape 10-year-olds. It’s NOT the same thing! And filling the registry with the former only serves to hide the latter, the only ones likely to cause any danger to other victims in the future. (And the same goes for someone who urinates behind a tree in an emergency. That doesn’t make him a future danger to little girls.)

I also think this (from Anna) is a very good point:

“Something reading that letter brings to mind: the cost to society of rendering that many people essentially unable to support themselves and be productive citizens must be huge. I mean the cost in dollars — not to dismiss the other human costs, but that alone should be a strong public policy argument against these laws.”

The penalties of being on the registry are so harsh that we are almost guaranteeing that the “criminal” has no chance of “reform”.

And as stupid as I think hook-up apps are, the boy who was charged is, in my mind, also a victim of the girl who duped him about her age. As the mother of a 14-year-old boy, the power that young girls have to ruin any male’s life with an accusation scares the crap out of me. It’s like the Salem Witch Trials all over again.

According to the law, it is the person’s responsibility to be aware of the other person’s age prior to sexual play. That is the argument the prosecution would use against Zach. They’d say he should have checked her Drivers License or some other form of ID.

But at the same time, can we not use a little common sense here? I know a guy named Evan who is now a married 24-year-old man. Very, very nice person, thank God. Because when Evan was in the 6th grade, he was already shaving and had big sideburns and had a deep voice. When Evan turned 14 and was in the 9th grade, he could grow a beard and had hair all over his chest. Evan was a big, strong kid who played football and wrestled. He looked like he was 22 but was only in the 9th grade!

Well, if Evan was not the nice boy that he was, he could have easily hitchhiked to the nearest college town, popped into a frat party and struck up a conversation with a very attractive 19-year-old female college sophomore and told her that he was gonna be a junior majoring in business and that he lived in such and such a hall on the other side of the campus, etc., etc. Basically a bunch of lies. Then before you know it, he could have been invited back to the girl’s dorm room for a little evening delight. BUT, Evan is only 14!!

So would it have been unreasonable for this 19-year-old college sophomore to assume that Evan was of legal age and that he really was a student at this university? Would she have been foolish for not asking to see some form of ID that would verify Evan’s true age? And even if she did, what if he had a fake ID? Would it have been her fault for not recognizing the ID as being fake?

Unfortunately, in probably 99 our of 100 cases, a Judge would still declare this girl (woman) guilty. Because the general public reading about this case in the newspaper or internet would NEVER see a picture of Evan because he’s a minor. The fact of him looking way old beyond his years would not resonate with the public. So if the Judge acquitted this girl because of that particular circumstance, everybody would be asking for the Judges head and he might even be removed from the bench! In the meantime, CPS would throw Evan into counseling because he was sexually “abused” by this adult! Forget the fact that he was twice as big and three times stronger than the 19-year-old female. This is how crazy American society is when it comes to kids and sex. No perspective and no common sense.

Fortunately, Evan had very good parents who brought him up right! They did not tolerate him taking sexual advantage of any female and particularly an adult female. Because they knew the advantage he had and would emphasize to him the consequences the woman would face. But apparently, not every physically mature kid has parents like Evan’s.

“17-year-olds who have consensual sex with 15-year-olds”

A 15 year old is incapable of granting consent.

“I mean, teens should not be having sex at all.” I for one agree with you on that, and I imagine some others here do too. But that doesn’t mean we should criminalize it, and even less so that we should put such teens into a special class of criminals that will make them outcasts for life. Do you?

“A 15 year old is incapable of granting consent.” And this is a fact because. . . ? I have to assume that your position is based on an unarticulated assumption that the law creates morality. The law says she can’t consent, therefore she can’t.

It’s entirely possible that on the whole it’s good to have laws that posit that (i.e., statutory rape laws) but exactly how they should be framed and what the cut-off should be is clearly a prudential matter. Do you really want to argue that because in America in 2015 the law happens to say 18 is the age of consent, that therefore that’s the bright moral line of absolute morality, by which all humanity past and future should be judged? Who knows, perhaps the next generation will be shocked we thought 25-year-olds could consent, given that we now know they have a right to be on their parents’ health insurance because they’re still children.

As others have pointed out here in the past, it’s a bit odd that our legal system currently posits that a 15-year-old is morally capable of committing murder with full intent and should be prosecuted as an adult, but at the same time that it’s completely impossible for her to consent to sex with her 17-year-old boyfriend.

@Dan Guy – your comments would be amusing if you didn’t seem to be serious. Arranged marriages of post-pubescent girls to men over 20….established men….is STILL the norm in many non-Western countries. And anecdotally, from friends who are in them or have relatives who are, the majority seem to work out fine, better than many of our love marriages due to shared expectations. And good luck with informing my aunties who married men a fair bit older that their husbands were sex offenders.

The key is post-pubescent. My 15 year old would be a pedophile’s dream currently as she’s mentally and emotionally mature and about a month away from the age of consent here, but still has the body of a child. I would be angry and deeply suspicious of any person wanting to sleep with her, in spite of her close-to-legal status. The 14 year old on the other hand is fully physically mature and can dress up to look like she’s late teens/early twenties. Should she choose to lie about her age, go out partying and sleep around, it isn’t the boys or the men I’d be cross with. …

All the people noting the marriages in their family history are missing the point; marrying was how you got around these rules back in the olden times.

Too many people confuse interest in sexual activity with morals. The two are utterly unrelated. Someone can lie, cheat and steal and be celibate; a person can have sex with every willing partner in a four state area and be completely virtuous. People have had an unhealthy interest in the sex lives of other people for approximately all of history.

There have been people having premarital sex for, well, longer than there’s been marriage. But if you insist on pretending that everybody only has sex with one other person during their lifetime, well… you’re going to end up with some teenage marriages.

Did Granny have sex BEFORE they were married?

I know, who cares about children, we need gay, trans, whatever “marriage” because adults are all important. But we need to be paranoid about kids.

As I keep mentioning (and being ignored), if the man sires a child, he will be responsible for child support for at least 18 years, and the child him/herself will likely outlive him.

Is “free range kids” supposed to be “kids abandoned by their fathers because we find it problematic”?

One of the reasons we have ceased to have “free range kids” is that the mother is biologically hardwired to be overprotective. Most fathers are absentee, but take the kids out and challenge them and let them explore, and take risks, and occasionally get hurt (and say whining about bruises or tiny cuts or insect bites is not proper).

Any time I see a Government creating a permanent hate lists of citizens it tells me this has become a society in decay. It will soon devour itself as it runs out of scapegoats and eats its own. They said it would only be sex offenders but oh what a slippery slope it is. Next it was domestic violence lists and animal abuser lists, then drug dealers and every day they think up more. Soon everyone will be on a list created by a Government that is supposed to represent us. Get rid of the lists and return Liberty to our land.

tz, interesting points raised. I’d submit the idea in relation to what James Pollock was saying. Sure, Granny possibly was having sex before marriage as this is indeed as old as time. But culture plays a lot into this. Before the advent of the pill with its greater reliability of pregnancy protection, marriage was a way of protecting all parties in the case of pregnancy. Sometimes it was considered the honorable thing (and I’d generally agree with that, get a girl pregnant, own up to it and help all parties.) I heard of one culture where the two biological parents didn’t raise children, but the biological mother and one of her male relatives. An uncle was more beholden to his nieces or nephews than his own offspring. Family unit of the sort intact. Even if premarital sex wasn’t necessarily frowned upon, marriage offered stability. Indeed, in many cases it was a possible part (perhaps unofficial, but hey) part of courtship–you could have sex outside of marriage and reasonably expect the creation of a stable family unit. Sure, there are all sorts of stories where an out-of-wedlock pregnancy ended badly, but I think many cultures had their ways of taking care of everything, one way or another. Not knocking the pill, but I think in some ways it placed all familial responsibility on the female. If we’re going with the general notion mothers are more likely to be protective, this might decrease your number of free-ranged kids.

I’m sure this idea could be picked apart by those more knowledgable than me, I’m just throwing out my musings.

But back to what tz was saying and my thought process from there: if we can’t trust to some reasonable level that all possible results from sex could be handled by the parties, then yes, we will probably develop laws to protect parties and those laws could extend far beyond the mark of where they are helpful.

“Sexual conduct is very much a part of many moral codes, both cultural and religious.”
But wrongly s9. Are you capable of dealing with someone you’re sleeping with in a moral fashion? Are you capable of dealing with someone you’re not sleeping with in a moral fashion? Did you answer the same to both questions?

“As for not having sex with more than one person, I married my husband and then slept with him, and so far haven’t slept with anyone else. At my age the options would be arguably limited, lol, but whether to have sex or not is a CHOICE.”
Sure it’s a choice. The reason cheating damages marriages isn’t the sex. It’s the lying.

“I do get sick of our oversexed culture acting like sex is some kind of overarching drive that it is impossible for individuals to do without. What rubbish! It’s heaps of fun, but not the be all and end all of life.”
Agreed. Some people have a high sex drive, and some people don’t. This has nothing to do with anything else.

Also, regarding the high sex drive, so what? People go through times of high and low sex drive. So those with a high sex drive at the moment are somehow exempt from, or unable to say no to, sexual encounters? Will tell my husband that the next time I feel like bonking the hot mechanic down the road.

We talk here all the time about not treating kids like babies. Now you want to infantilise the whole human race? And make us slaves of our biology?

Again, James, absolute garbage. You are free to bonk as many women as you like. Just admit that that’s a choice, and not something you’re forced to do. Also, don’t make the mistake of assuming that those who choose to wait for sex and then just have it with one person have a low sex drive. They don’t, they simply choose to exercise willpower – they make a choice to follow a particular code of conduct.

You, James, are making the mistake of assuming a moral code is whatever feels right to you. Neither of the examples you mentioned are moral men by any code of morals I know.

And as for your huh comments, try rereading. You might get it if you try hard enough. Although I did mean to imply that people with high sex drives are not exempt from the need to say no to that drive at inappropriate times.

Actually, you might try reading. …forget about rereading. ..before you cut and paste what others have written.

I am a little concerned about your seeming lack of ability to comprehend simple statements people make. Or rather I would be if I were a client of your’s. Even Warren, who is in a trade occupation, seems to have a better reading comprehension rate. You are supposedly a lawyer, but you seem to need things spelt out in very small bites.

Bonking someone implies you have their consent. Rape would be another matter. Do I seriously need to spell that out?

In her book “Delinquent Daughters” Prof. Mary E. Odem describes how “age of consent” laws at the turn of the 20th century were used to control young women’s sexual choices. Such laws aren’t to protect girls, they are to protect the power of others to control women’s sexual choices.

hineata,

Not a problem. It is all about exposure. Hell I enter into service contracts with customers and in all honesty do not fully understand some of the legal jibber jabber. That is what we pay our accountant and our attorney for. Just as I would not expect a lot of people, even those with higher education to understand some of our technical jibber jabber.

I have know highly educated idiots, and barely educated genius’. And vice versa.
As my Grandpa use to say,”Schooling doesn’t make the man, neither does his job. The man makes the man.” When I asked him what he meant, he told me “Everyone has the same opportunities. One can be a great person or an asshole.”

Have been sitting here waiting for a shipment that is now very, very late. My youngest is crashed on the shop sofa with the twins (grand beagle/aussie crosses). She brought me a coffee and insisted on staying to help unload. TV is on as background noise, Sean Connery in The Untouchables.

Now with all the hang ups, worries, and preoccupation with sex in the states……..well the last time the US was this bothered by one single thing going on in society it led to prohibition. How are you going to prohibit sex, and are you going to have a bunch of federal agents crashing into people’s bedrooms with shotguns, in pin striped suits yelling “This is a raid!!!!!!” In a heavy scott accent?

I met my husband in 1996 at 16 in Arkansas. He was 21. If I didn’t have a child already he would be in jail too! Luckily in Arkansas it has a clause if you already had a child nothing happens. We have been together for 15 years.

@Warren – amen! To your grandfather’s ideas. And Hooters. …must be an interesting bar exam there..

@Catherine Scott, agreed, and I’d add please do tell me why people can’t understand what a pedophile actually IS?

Zach Anderson will likely get his reprieve under intense public pressure, but what then? One teen may be rescued from the registry, but there are over 845,000 names on that registry, and only a few of these names are those who will reoffend.

The concern I always have with movements focused on one person is that the root of the problem is rarely addressed. That problem is the registry itself.

The registry MUST be repealed– not revised, reviewed, or merely reformed. The registry is a hydra– if you cut off one head, another head merely takes its place. After all, the registry, under the Jacob Wetterling Act, was a police access-only list of repeat or serious offenders and the registration period was only 10 years. It only took 2 years to change that law with Megan’s law. The registry was then made public. After a decade of increasing the scope of those added to the registry, the USA passed the “Adam Walsh Act” (AWA) in 2006, changing the scheme by which we separate the “high-risk” from the “low-risk.” The AWA increased the number of high-risk offenders overnight.

Michigan is an AWA tate. Zach was given a level 2 status by virtue of the fact his “victim” was a minor. Ironically, the AWA has a “Romeo and Juliet” provision but the age difference was too much. (It is worth noting the AWA’s R&J provision does NOT have to be implemented for a state to be considered “substantially compliant” with the federal law). Under the old law, Zach might not have received registry status but even if he did, it would have been as a Tier 1.

As long as the registry exists, we will see more Zach Andersons. Slay the hydra!

Paul Bearer: AMEN!

“As someone who works with teens, I find it alarming that we focus so much on age when consent and intent are always the real issue.”

This makes sense to me. It seems to me, it might be reasonable to have statutory rape laws on the books (though probably with a minimum age difference of several years specified), but the purpose of having such laws is to be able to throw the book at the true creeps, like 40-year-olds who seduce their 13-year-old Sunday school students.

But given that such a law flies in the face of our biology (which has no problem with post-pubescent sex) and is premised on a legal fiction (nobody under 18 is capable of consent, period), it should be enforced with great restraint, only when doing so obviously serves justice, not every time you can find someone who can technically be prosecuted.

“But given that such a law flies in the face of our biology (which has no problem with post-pubescent sex) and is premised on a legal fiction (nobody under 18 is capable of consent, period), it should be enforced with great restraint, only when doing so obviously serves justice, not every time you can find someone who can technically be prosecuted.”

You want to write the law in such a way that every time it’s violated, it should be prosecuted if the evidence is available. You DO NOT want to write the law so that the prosecutors decide whether or not to pursue something based on something other than “is there sufficient evidence here to secure a conviction.”.

@Hineata: You’re welcome, hahaha 😀

“”You want to write the law in such a way that every time it’s violated, it should be prosecuted if the evidence is available.” I disagree that this is even possible.”
I assure you, it’s entirely possible to want this.

“There are things we need to be able to prosecute, but also able not to prosecute.”
So, things like the murder law in the Jim Crow South, where we don’t bother to prosecute if the victim was a black man and the murderer was white?

“That’s why any justice system needs to involve not just laws and regulations but people with some discretionary power in charge of enforcing them.”
Only if you can track down incorruptible men to be put in these positions of authority.

“It’s also why there has always been such a thing as executive privilege and executive pardons”
Just the opposite. Executive clemency is applied after a conviction (Nixon’s notwithstanding). When you have a conviction that was technically correct but not in the interest of justice.
You want to write the law so that, if a person has violated it, they deserve the conviction that results from being caught and tried. You absolutely do not want a law that covers 100 things, 50 of which should be punished and 50 things which should not be, and then rely on the prosecutor to use discretion and only prosecute the 50 that deserve it. Instead, you want to rewrite the law so that it covers only the 50 things that should be punished, and does not cover the 50 things that should not be punished.

Which would be better… a law that creates a registry that puts only people who have convictions for violent rapes where force was applied or threatened, or a registry that puts anyone convicted of a “sex crime” on it, at the judge’s discretion?
: because any laws that are severe enough to protect society when need be, are also going to be too severe and cruel in certain cases.

“‘Only if you can track down incorruptible men to be put in these positions of authority’
ANY system of authority has that as a weak point.”

Absolutely true. Which is why you want your laws written to minimize the exposure.

The Zach case on the next thread over is a prime example… the prosecutor had discretion to use a provision in the law that would have kept this kid off the registry, and didn’t do it. The judge had discretion to overrule the prosecutor on the matter, and didn’t do it.

“The judge had discretion to overrule the prosecutor on the matter, and didn’t do it.”

That’s another problem. The general public is addicted to the chemical that produces outrage. If he overruled the prosecutor, (I think he should have) the public would hang him for being light on sex offenders. Unfortunately, we built a system of ‘Damned if you do, Damned if you don’t’. That’s why I keep bringing up how many people have become weaklings. I compare them to a puppet on a string and why changing this problem is so difficult.

My blog explains it a bit further

http://www.onmysoapboxx.com/puppet

“Something reading that letter brings to mind: the cost to society of rendering that many people essentially unable to support themselves and be productive citizens must be huge. I mean the cost in dollars — not to dismiss the other human costs, but that alone should be a strong public policy argument against these laws.”

Or a strong argument for not supporting “criminals” with social security checks…
Which of course would drive those people into becoming actual criminals, resorting to burglaries, drugs trafficking, armed robbery, etc. etc. to make ends meet, at which point some cop comes along and shoots them, problem solved, or they get shot by a home owner or gas station employee, problem solved.

Many of these people don’t get old anyway. They’re high on the list of suicides, problem solved.

And yes, it’s problem solved. If you’re the politician who cares only about using laws like this to get votes and denying votes to others, because these people wouldn’t vote for him anyway, and would vote for someone else, so if they’re dead that’s effectively 2 votes for him…

“Congress gave us our original sex offender laws in 1994.”

California gave us our original sex offender registration laws, some fifty years previous.

“I’d be willing to bet that some, perhaps many of them them, would have been “Candidates for the Registry” like Jill’s husband, had these idiotic, cash cow laws been around WHEN THEY WERE COURTING. The laws THEY passed. Before THEY PASSED THEM.”

The registry might be new (ish), but statutory rape laws existed. In fact, fornication was a criminal offense in many states. The Mann Act was passed in 1910. The United States Supreme Court struck down laws making consensual sodomy a criminal act… a little bit less than 15 years ago. It’s not just age difference that was criminal back when grandma and grandpa were courting… extra-marital sex may have been a criminal act, oral sex, in or out of marriage may have been a criminal act (depending on when, exactly, your state got around to repealing these sorts of laws.)

“the label, ‘Judge Soft on Sex Offenders’ would follow him around for years. It makes a great headline and will sell newspapers.”

Whereas politicians’ races are routinely contested, judicial elections are almost never contested.

Like many things, our lack of historical knowledge seems to really mess up how we view things. Age of consent laws were not historically rooted in theories of psychological development. People under a certain age were considered “unable to consent” not because we believe they were biologically or psychologically incapable of consenting to sex or of having a sexual relationship (of course not, as historically the age at which a person can marry has been below the age of consent), but because they were under the authority of their parents and thus unable to legally consent. It was positional–their parents were in a position of authority over them, and were the ones to make decisions about what sexual relationships their child could or could not enter into–and not psychological. And, it was also rooted in a deep prohibition against premarital sex. Traditionally, age of consent laws were about protecting parents’ ability to determine who their child did or did not enter into a marital relationship with.

Of course we’d find that abhorrent today. We’d find the idea that a parent has the right to determine who their 15 year old daughter can or cannot marry or to determine what she does or does not do with her body regressive and patriarchal and gross. So, we’ve decided that instead of post-pubescent teens being positionally unable to consent to sex, they are psychologically unable. The problem, of course, is that that’s nonsense and we all know it. Nothing magical happens in our brains when we turn 18, or 16, or 21. Maturity varies widely between people–you can find 14 year olds far more mature than some 18 year olds, and vice versa. And, as noted, just because about a hundred or so years ago we invented a category of people called “adolescents” (replacing the older pattern of people being children and then, after puberty, young adults) doesn’t mean that human nature has changed. If 14 year olds were capable, for much of human history, of marrying, having sex, working, and raising children, they didn’t suddenly become unable to do so because we have decided that they are of more use to society if they stay in school until 18 or 21 or 25 and put off marriage and childrearing until their education is completed. (I’m not arguing, to be clear, that our current belief is not good or even better. Just that it’s new and certainly not somehow indicative of some fundamental truth about human nature or psychology or development.)

I’m not arguing against age of consent laws, but simply against the belief that a person who violates those laws with a fully-willing, non-coerced post-pubescent partner is a disgusting, sick pervert who has abused a poor, helpless child, as opposed to somebody who made a choice that many people throughout history have made, but that we no longer allow because it just doesn’t fit with the structure of our society and who we can punish in a way that is sensible, non-hysterical, and that allows them to move on with their lives.

“I’m not arguing against age of consent laws, but simply against the belief that a person who violates those laws with a fully-willing, non-coerced post-pubescent partner is a disgusting, sick pervert who has abused a poor, helpless child”

The catch, of course, is knowing if a person is fully-willing and non-coerced. Is mostly willing and barely coerced close enough? Partly willing and no more than 50% coerced? This is why the law is written as it is… making this kind of determination is hard enough when both people are actually telling the truth. But people tend to lie about their sexual activities. Figuring out the actual facts are difficult, at best. So the laws are written not on whether or not a person has freely chosen and is capable of accurately figuring risks and benefits, but on whether they’ve passed a specific birthday… that’s easy to check. Are some people fully ready before they reach that birthday? Yep. Do some people think they’re fully ready before hitting that birthday, but they’re really not? Yep. Are some people still NOT ready after hitting that birthday? Yep a third time. But you can make the same arguments about obtaining a driver’s license, or voting, or drinking age.

Age of consent. I’d like to hear more about this from those of you who are more knowledgable than I. I was deeply moved to hear from one comment that there is an entire country where the young people are so well behaved and well brought up and responsible and clever that the age of consent is fifteen (15). For the whole country. Not just the brightest and the best?

And I read in the news recently that in Denmark sex education in the schools is now designed to teach young people how human reproduction actually works. This, because the birth rate has dropped to such low rates that the country is in danger of becoming seriously UNDER populated.

Funny, in a way! Pick your poison!

Oh, and our laws are not “written the way they are” because it’s just too hard to prove coercion. Of course not. They are written the way they are because, as I noted, historically minors–especially minor women–were considered unable to consent because of the structures of authority in the household. The young woman was under the authority of her parents, including in matters of her sexuality. Their will overrode hers, legally. So she could not consent to sex because that was a decision for her parents to make, not her.

Again, it wasn’t until recently that we threw out the idea that unmarried women were under the control and authority of their parents. Once we did, we came up with a new rationale for our age of consent laws, which became that people under a certain age were innately, psychologically incapable of consenting to sex, despite there being no evidence that this is actually the case (and the age that states and countries pick vary).

@James, but we used to allow people to marry at 13 or 14, with parental permission. So the issue was NOT that “children” could not make “adult” decisions. It was that primarily unmarried women were under the authority of their parents. Once she was married, she was no longer under their authority.

You seem to have very little understanding of the thinking that influenced the development of these ideas in common law. It was NOT that teens were children, because at the time, they were not seen that way. It was all about structures of authority.

“@James, but we used to allow people to marry at 13 or 14, with parental permission.”
Used to and still do.

“So the issue was NOT that “children” could not make “adult” decisions. It was that primarily unmarried women were under the authority of their parents.”

This does not follow. We allow underage children to marry “with parental permission” not because the parents have authority, but because the parents are adults (thus, able to make adult decisions) with responsibility for their childrens’ well-being. “with parental permission” doesn’t mean that only parents can make the decision… courts can also override age limits on marriage.

“Once she was married, she was no longer under their authority.”
But parents who do not have authority over the child can ALSO authorize underage marriage (and underage enlistment in the armed services).

“You seem to have very little understanding of the thinking that influenced the development of these ideas in common law.”
Right. No, I don’t have your wacky notion, is what you mean.

“It was NOT that teens were children, because at the time, they were not seen that way.”
At common-law, teens are “infants”. Really. Look it up. The age of majority was 21, and people who were below it could invalidate otherwise enforceable contracts, solely because they were minors.

“in the U.S., we actually do not have laws against coercing a person into sex”
Unless you count the many, many laws that are against coercing a person into sex, sure.

“For somebody who is such an expert on all matters legal, you don’t even seem to have Wikipedia-level understanding topics you know oh-so-much about.”

Thank you for the compliment. No, I DON’T have a Wikipedia-level understanding of law.

I really appreciate this blog and an alternative perspective to the scare tactics used by the mainstream media and politicians bent on climbing the rung on the backs of former offenders.

I molested my sister’s friend when I was in my late 20s and she was 15. Yes, she was fully developed physically and very sexually active, and I knew what I was doing was not appropriate. I turned myself in because I did not want her to go through all that I did, having been molested/raped at 15 myself. While it does NOT excuse my actions, nor do I say it to diminish/excuse my actions, I never got to be “the victim”; I never got the healing process of being recognized as being victimized and the ensuing help that should follow. Yes, I believe my rape left me emotionally damaged and lead to my crime. But since that time over 20 years ago I went through lots of counseling and healed that part of me to where I don’t feel shame and guilt over what happened to me as a child.

But 20 plus years later, despite serving a sentence, I am still serving a sentence. I honestly would have less consequences in my life had I murdered someone. I can’t get a business loan. I can’t travel out of the country. I can’t use Facebook to stay in touch with my family. I am ostracized at every turn work-wise and housing-wise. This is a lifetime sentence. And then I get the usual “well your victim will suffer a lifetime so should you” Actually, the courts set my punishment. They did not say lifetime. I didn’t get a life sentence even though the consequences continue. What has happened is they created the Registry, and now I have received a life sentence because I am on the Registry. With all the punishments meted out because of my inclusion there, its a lifetime sentence.

Looking back, I could have lied and said nothing happened, that she made it up. But once I did it, I knew I couldn’t put someone else through what I suffered through. And I felt that I had crossed a line I knew I shouldn’t and that scared me, I knew I needed help. And that first step in getting help was taking responsibility and exposing myself to the shame not only of what I did, but what happened to me. It was the only way I knew she would get help and I could finally start to heal.