[Little]

Children who think they are anything other than children ... are still children.
When I was 13, 14, 16, 18 ... I thought I was way more mature than anybody around me. I had lots of friends online who were much older than me who wouldn't have guessed that I was as young as I was. But thankfully, I had a diary to help me remember just how immature I was. Fifteen and sixteen year olds haven't, except in extreme circumstances, BEEN in the world. How can they know anything about it?
Anthropologists suggest that humans don't even reach full maturity until their mid-twenties.
There are parents who do much worse than contributing to the lock up an adult who has a sexual relationship with their minor child, and still don't alienate their children. I can hear it now, "I'm never talking to you again, mom and dad! I can't believe you would call the police just because my boyfriend(girlfriend) is an adult who willfully and knowingly violated the law just to get a child into bed with him(her)!"
Actually, I can hear it now. That's just the kind of flawed and immature logic that a child would use. And it sounds precisely like something a teenager would say. A 16-year-old, a 15-year-old, who has no business having sex with anybody outside of their age group, if at all. I think getting caught is the least of their troubles if they're engaging in sex with adults.

[A Dying Breed]

Children who think they are anything other than children ... are still children.
When I was 13, 14, 16, 18 ... I thought I was way more mature than anybody around me. I had lots of friends online who were much older than me who wouldn't have guessed that I was as young as I was. But thankfully, I had a diary to help me remember just how immature I was. Fifteen and sixteen year olds haven't, except in extreme circumstances, BEEN in the world. How can they know anything about it?
Anthropologists suggest that humans don't even reach full maturity until their mid-twenties.
There are parents who do much worse than contributing to the lock up an adult who has a sexual relationship with their minor child, and still don't alienate their children. I can hear it now, "I'm never talking to you again, mom and dad! I can't believe you would call the police just because my boyfriend(girlfriend) is an adult who willfully and knowingly violated the law just to get a child into bed with him(her)!"
Actually, I can hear it now. That's just the kind of flawed and immature logic that a child would use. And it sounds precisely like something a teenager would say. A 16-year-old, a 15-year-old, who has no business having sex with anybody outside of their age group, if at all. I think getting caught is the least of their troubles if they're engaging in sex with adults.

What we are saying is that somebody around the ages of 15-16 can be charged as an adult for a crime, yet they still get treated like a child. I know when I was 16 I was alot wiser than everyone I knew. I made the right decisions. Didn't get into drugs or drinking, didn't willfully disobey my parents just to spite them. It sounds to me that you don't trust somebody at the age of 16 and still want to call them a child.

I am not talking about sex outside of age group. We arent talking about pedophiles. We are talking about people who are in the same phase of development (just because you are a freshman in college doesnt mean you have the full mental capacity of an adult compared to somebody two years younger).

Maybe you had rough experiences and you didn't trust yourself at that age.

Starting from when I was 14, I trusted that the decisions I made were the right ones. I guess not everybody can have the same confidence, but I do think by the time you are 16 you do know, or at least should know the difference between wrong and right.

I guess it is just the difference between trusting somebody at a young age or wanting to treat them like they are still a child. And in my opinion, somebody in High School is no longer a child, no matter how much a parent wants them to be. They are by no means a full blown adult, and if they do want to live with their parents they have to live by their parents rules. But they also do deserve respect for the decisions they make for themselves. At least that's how I felt about myself at that age, and that opinion still hasn't changed.

[A Dying Breed]

Actually, I can hear it now. That's just the kind of flawed and immature logic that a child would use. And it sounds precisely like something a teenager would say. A 16-year-old, a 15-year-old, who has no business having sex with anybody outside of their age group, if at all. I think getting caught is the least of their troubles if they're engaging in sex with adults.

So I guess it is a difference of opinion of what makes a young person a child.

But picture this. You are 19 or 20, and your boyfriend is 23. You two have been together at least a few months, but are by no means engaged or in a very serious long term relationship. Same general age, there arent many differences mentally between the two of you. You are very close to the age of being able to drink alcohol, but it is still illegal. You tell your boyfriend that you really want to try drinking, and that you want to drink alcohol with him. Now there is a risk that he can just get you drunk and then take advantage of you while you are incapacitated. But you know this, and still choose to drink with him anyways. So he buys a nice bottle of champagne, and maybe a little vodka. The two of you turn on a sports game and start to have some fun. So you drink and find that you are by no means an alcoholic, but enjoy drinking.


The next morning your mom visits and finds you hung over, with an empty whine bottle next to your bed. She learns that your boyfriend bought you the alcohol, and has him charged with providing alcohol to a minor. He is then charged and found guilty. You see no problem with your drinking because you did it responsibly and enjoyed it, but society and the law told you you couldn't. So your boyfriend ends up being sent to jail and even though you go to visit him, his imprisonment pretty much breaks the two of you up.

Now wouldn't you be mad at your mother? Now I am not saying you will ever not speak to her again, or stop loving her, but would you not have an alienating feeling she betrayed you and took away something you felt were doing responsibly?

[Little]

As I mentioned earlier, at 16 I was supporting myself. Anything I needed, I bought with money earned by my own hard work. I didn't drink, do drugs, or have sex until I was at least 18 (didn't do drugs ever) and graduated with my Bachelor's degree by age 20.
Just because I did all that doesn't mean that I was mature enough to handle a sexual relationship at 16. Doesn't mean that MOST children are mature enough.
A 16 year old and a 20 year old are not in the same age group in America's society. A 16-year-old is not generally responsible for herself. Her care is left to someone else. Her decisions are not always hers to make.
A twenty-year-old is responsible for herself. Regardless of whether she has elected to stay in her parents' or someone else's care, she can leave or be left at any time to no consequence. There is no safety net.
Children should never be tried as adults. The only problem with trying them as minors is that their records get purged at 18 - not good if a 12-year-old has a history of incest and violent rape. But still no reason to try him as an adult; there should just be changes in the law concerning record purges for certain violent crimes. I googled "15 year old tried as adult" and it seems the only cases younger teens are getting tried as adults for is murder. As young as 12 years old, just on the first page of results. But that's a completely separate argument than at what age, and with what age gaps, should a person be allowed to have sex. If a 17-year-old is a minor in the law and has sex with another minor under the law ... s/he should not magically become an adult in the courts.
In my state, there is a 4-year gap law, with consent at age 18. The kicker is that the gap law requires parental consent (in writing) for the minor child. I think that at least here, they've got it about right. If the person whose care you are in can consent to you doing what you do, and you have enough maturity to ask them for permission, then even at 16 I think you should have the legal right to do what you wish. But I doubt that there are many (healthy) cases where 16-year-olds and 20-year-olds are hooking up with parental consent. The case stated above is one in a million.
EDIT: to your second post, why would my mother have unrestricted access to my home at age twenty, when I am an adult? If I were a person who was still using my parents' money, I would not have room to complain - they would still be responsible for my care in that manner. But as I was no longer even eligible to be on my parents' insurance at age 20, they had no tie to my care, no reason to feel responsible for me other than out of emotional obligation. But I couldn't really hold against her if she chose to follow the due process of the law to attempt to protect me from bad influences.

[rcoreyus]

I think there needs to be a gap between "distasteful" and "felony". I find generally distasteful and sad that a 24 year old would have sex with a 16 year old - but I don't think they should go to prison for it. There may even be cases where it is OK.

I think we need a safe gap between our moral rules and our legal ones.

[WildChild]

What we need is some common sense and rational thought.

[KMonte85]

What we need is some common sense and rational thought.

I agree with this wholeheartedly, WC! I think one of the biggest issues is that parents use the statutory rape laws as a way to punish their teenager for acting outside of the parents' moral compass. and a way to punish the older person for having sex with their pure, innocent baby. They are angry - angry that their kids would disobey or have a morally unacceptable relationship, and they lash out. Regardless of if both the teen and the young adult were consenting. So they send that message. They ruin that yound adults life, out of anger and spite, instead of taking time to cool off, understand the situation, and deal with it rationally (ie not sending the older party to prison for 10 years and forcing them to report as a sex offender for the rest of their lives). Now, if the teen was not of stable mind (gotten drunk and taken advantage of, for instance), then of course the book should be thrown at the offending party... but there is a difference and right now the law does not make room for that.

I still believe teens need to be given more credit for their reasoning abilities. They are given far too much leeway, treated like morons who just don't know any better and need to be protected. Ever notice that people given low expectations will live up to them?

8 years ago I had the same mindset I do today, albeit with less education and money. I knew what I wanted from life, I was given free reign from my parents to do what I liked so long as I got good grades and went to work, and they told me if I was ever in trouble that they should be my first call, but I never got in any trouble. I met the LOML at 16, and maybe its just my town, but I can name off several couples I know well who were in the same situation as myself (one partner a minor, the other 18 and over)... most have married, some have children, all have a lovely home and family - so I don't think my situation is one in a million. I think it can very well be the norm if parents give their children a proper education about life's priorities, sex and healthy relationships, and teach them how to be self reliant and responsible, instead of treated them like hormone raged nincompoops and calling the cops the first time they do something the parents find morally reprehensible.

[Jayla2251]

when I was 14 I was dating a boy who was 18. My parents found out and freaked out. We had sex once, I consented. My dad told me he was going to press charges if we had sex, because he was going to take me to the Dr and they could tell him (yea I was 14, lol I thought they could). So I lied and said I wasnt a virgin but that we hadnt had sex. Whole ordeal was terrible. But I didnt want him to get in trouble for something I wanted too. I was not in-love or had any other motives for sex, other than to experience it.

I think it's hard to put a number on somethings like that. Really, it all depends on the situation. And maybe that something that should be discussed family wise instead of criminaly.

[ItsASecret]

I look at it as if I were to have a child and my baby girl at 13, or 14 decides that she is 'mature enough' or 'competent enough' to have sex with some teenage boy I would feel like I went wrong someplace along the lines of parenting. No 18,19,20+ year old boy should lay a finger on my baby girl at that age because she is a baby, not fully cognitively developed, and barely aware of what consequences can happen. If my girl ever played the "zOmg Ur nawt fair mOm i luvs diS b0i!!" I would press criminal charges on the young lad-not to mention my potential future husband will be a cop so God help the boy lol. Granted not all kids will act like that but that is a fear of mine when I have a child. One of my worst fears as a potential mother is that my baby would think that they are able to "be an adult in thinking" when it comes to sex. Sorry but no. You can have a paper route job at 12, clean your dishes after supper, take the dogs for a walk, finish your homework on time, and be polite to guests but you are not mature when it comes to real life issues.

Education is of utmost importance, and personally I will be making my kid take a high school biology class because around here a part of the required material is to learn sexual anatomy and of the sexual diseases. From there they can ask me any questions they want because to me that is maturity...being able to fully recognize what can happen and how it happens. Personally my problem is if kids are under the age of 16 and having sex just because the "other kids are". All I can think of is such an innocent unaware child going through motions of being a kid and such innocence should not be pressured into having sex. If my kid AFTER the age of 16 decides that sex is something they are interested in then okay. I may not be happy about it but if they are going to do it then there is nothing I can do to stop it. All I can do is beg that they do it in a safe manner.

[WildChild]

Maturity levels vary widely and there are some 14yr olds in the world who know far more about sex than some 30 yr olds. I agree with KM, a lot of it is how you raise your kids and the expectations you set. You have to be realistic, they need increasing responsibility and freedom as they get older and you have to remember that they are their own people.