So, in America the age of consent is 16 to 18, right? It's around this age that we believe a person is mature enough to properly understand and consent to sex. Otherwise, even if they agreed to the sex, it'd be considered statutory rape, because they weren't of the proper age to consent to such activities. But, in other places in the world, the age varies by a large amount. In China for example, the national age of consent is 14 and in Japan it's 13. In America, if an adult were attracted to a 13 year old and wanted to have sex with them, they'd be labeled a pedo for sure. But in Japan, it's totally legal. Why? Why's the age difference so large? I know it's probably a difference in cultures, but isn't the reason the age of consent in America's so high is because we fear that sex at an early age can negatively affect the way a person develops? Shouldn't Japan and China be worried about the same thing, or do they believe that people are mature and knowledgeable enough to make that decision without it negatively affecting them even at such a young age?
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That is actually a very good question...
I thought about it before when I was in a discussion on a straight political board about arranged marriages and children having children in some cultures....and bottom line...I think Mother Nature has the final word....as in the ability to reproduce. It might seem horrible to a Westerner but in some cultures when there is pregnancy at such a young age....I think they are following biology and pretty much any living creature DOES reproduce when the time comes that they can....
In the above case...I don't think "sex" is even the driving force...maybe not even a factor....the instinct to reproduce is inherent in a lot of us...
The problem is...too many people DO think about sex with young people and the sex slave business is horrific and insanely cruel and damaging...I definitely think we need laws and age limits to protect children from becoming a tool for someone's fetish.
I think the laws here are good to protect kids and give them time to mature and make adult decisions. I think the law is STUPID when it is used to punish a 19 year old having sex with his or her 17 year old BF or GF...it makes a joke out of the whole thing. I don't know the answer though
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It is because consent is a complex thing to break down.
In short, the legacy is that the broader standard in the background was physical puberty. If a man or woman had experienced puberty, they were visibly changed and therefore not considered just children by many cultures.
It was not rare in the U.S. for 14-year-olds to marry, so it isn't just some far away standard that is in conflict with the current perceptions of maturity. Essentially, as a culture moves beyond agrarian and uneducated, the age creeps up as protracted education and delayed independence and financial responsibility push back the society's estimate of what constitutes an adult.
In our youth-obsessed culture, we tend to not even see 18-year-olds as adults. People dwell on their being short of an age when college-educated people take their independent place, a truly middle-class notion that may have nothing to do with the poor who will not proceed on to college. What would a man 18 years old do differently as a minimum wage worker than he would do at 22, still at a McDonald's?
Likewise, a doctor may take 10 years to get through his degrees and enter a practice. He is hardly an independent adult if he needs a job to earn his status as adult, so is he not accountable or responsible as an adult until then?
Age is no assurance of anyone's mental maturity or competency, but pre-adolescent and post-adolescent (the onset) have long been deemed important milestones. I've known salacious and seedy 15 year olds, and I've known naive and vulnerable 60 year olds. Society has to make the call broadly, and each one does.
Parents who do not educate their children on sexuality at puberty are increasing the chance that they will be taken advantage of, much more likely by peers than by some old bogey man. Because so many parents ignore this responsibility, we have correctly attempted to provide a minimum standard of sex education in the public schools, but it has largely failed due to morality police and public school incompetence.
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it also depends on the different states within murrica.
unless it changed, I think in the 50th state, the age of consent was 14, but it might have changed after I left...I should research the answer but im a half git this morning.
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It's not just a sex thing. It's the same for other "adult" activities. The age where one can drive, or one can drink (openly) also vary wildly.
Lex
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I know that in Canada, when sexual activity involves exploitation such as prostitution, pornography or where there is a relationship of trust, authority or dependency the age of consent is 18 years.
For other sexual activity ranging from sexual touching (such as kissing) to sexual intercourse, the age of consent was raised from 14 to 16 in 2008.
For drinking alcohol, the age of consent up in Canada is 19 (except in Alberta, Manitoba, and Quebec, where it's 18), whereas in the US it's 21. (Note: Underage drinking is allowed in 29 states if done on private premises with parental consent, 25 states if for religious purposes, and 11 states if for educational purposes.)
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East Wrote:the instinct to reproduce is inherent in a lot of us...
it always seemed weird to me, the ''instinct of reproduction''. i don't think there is such an instinct. there's an instinct of sex. and that has the consequence of reproduction already in it. having a sexual instinct is sufficient for reproduction. no other instinct is necessary for it. we might have an instinct to care for our young, and make sure they don't die (unlike some other species that abandon or even kill their offspring <-- so much for nature favoring reproduction), but a specific instinct of reproduction, that always sounded absurd to me.
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IDK [MENTION=21405]meridannight[/MENTION]... you know how women talk about their "biological clock ticking"? It may be more of a female than male thing, but I do think at least some of us do have the urge to produce offspring.
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Why does the age of consent vary so much?
