The first time I heard that was when I was in high school (graduated in 1991); the great state of FLORIDA wanted to reset the voting age to 17 at that time for the same reasons you just posted.

True but I don’t think anyone here actually disagrees with having age of consent laws.

The fly in that ointment is that some people are more mature than others. I’ve known teenagers who are/were far more mature than their parents.

Nature has already decided when a person is ready to have sex – puberty, the age of which will vary. Some go through it at 10 or 11, others at 15 or 16. Every person decides for him or herself when they are ready for a sexual relationship, not society (forcible rape, of course, is a whole different thing).

I’m not saying sex between adults and post-pubescent teenagers is right or should be criminal. I’m only saying that the legal presumption that teenagers are too immature or stupid to decide if they want to have sex or not is misguided. That many decisions they make may be unwise or disagreeable doesn’t mean they are mentally incapable of making their own choices.

This is shown by prosecutors always attempting to try teenagers as adults for various crimes, Then, the teenager is perfectly mature enough to understand his wrongdoing and appreciate the consequences of such. Even in rapes and sexual assaults, though the teenager is just too stupid to decide whether or not he wants to have sex.

Dirty little secret – Teenagers want sex. Many are sexually active and those that aren’t really, really want to be, regardless of their upbringing. Has everyone forgotten their own teenage years?

In Georgia (and presumably most other states), the law says the state has the burden to prove that a defendant had intent – that is, he knew what he was doing was a crime and made a conscious decision to commit it. If intent is absent, it’s the jury’s call if a crime was intentionally committed.

While lack of knowledge of age is not a defense, it certainly does go to whether or not the person had intent. I would think in cases of where a person had sexual contact with someone and didn’t discover until later that the person was under the age of consent, there was no intent.

I don’t think I’ve ever run across a jury trial transcript where the jury was charged on the intent element. I’ve come to believe that is by design, to ensure the jury finds guilt, particularly in sex offense cases.

Yes we are aware of the laws and I hope people follow them for their own good. Following laws also doesn’t mean that the person agrees with each word or point of the law.

Many laws have good intentions, yet still screw over a lot of normal people. Actually, many laws can be categorized into such a situation.

If people were more familiar with history they would see how many asinine laws existed years ago which people followed like the Word of God, the same laws which we no longer have or follow.

Oral sex being illegal in some states? Black people couldn’t ride in buses or use certain facilities? These were all Laws at one point and just the tip of the iceberg.

Maestro, thank god for someone with some damn sense. You just said what ive wanted to for a long time. Theres a reason marriage used to be around the age of 13-15. It was a common concept. If youre attracted to obviously prepubescent kids, then yea theres a problem. But as im sure all of us have seen and realized, plenty of 18-25 year old women can look “16”. This whole idea of a legal age, in one degree is ok, but then to throw down the hammer on someone, hell if the kid is 18 and she is 15 or 16, and the punishment is what it is today to be a severe as it is, is just morally and should be constitutionally wrong

This ain’t hard, y’all.