Age of consent

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Massimiliano B
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Age of consent

Postby Massimiliano B » 2014-11-30, 11:58

http://www.europeanrights.eu/index.php? ... p=3&id=288


Article 18:


18. Member states should ensure that any discriminatory legislation criminalising same-sex sexual acts between consenting adults, including any differences with respect to the age of consent for same-sex sexual acts and heterosexual acts, are repealed


Any legislation criminalising any differences with respect to the age of consent for same-sex sexual acts and heterosexual acts should be repealed... What does it exactly mean?
Last edited by Massimiliano B on 2014-11-30, 18:10, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Age of consent

Postby md0 » 2014-11-30, 12:04

It means that you cannot have a different age set for different-sex and same-sex sexual conduct.

Example: Cyprus before 2002 had different-sex age of consent at 16, and same-sex age of consent at 18. Before EU acquis in 2004, that had to be repealed to make Cyprus compatible with the ECHR. Now the age of consent is universally set at 17.

Feel free to ask your question again now that you were provided with an explanation, adjusting any parts of the question you feel they should be adjusted in the light of new information.
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Re: Age of consent

Postby Ciarán12 » 2015-01-18, 16:09

So, just to provoke a little more conversation on the topic in general, what is the age of consent in your country and what do you think it should be? And why do you think it should be that age specifically?

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Re: Age of consent

Postby linguoboy » 2015-01-18, 16:37

There is no uniform age of consent in the United States. It is 16, 17, or 18 depending on the jurisdiction. In both Illinois and in Missouri, it is 17. Some states (although not these two) have something called a "close-in-age" exception where, for instance, sex between a 16 year-old minor and a 17 year-old is not criminalised or is a lesser than crime than other forms of statutory rape. Illinois has an additional provision prohibiting sexual contact between someone under the age of 18 and someone 18 or older in a position of authority over them. (In the US, free universal public education is generally completed when a person reaches age 18, so this reads to me like a measure to prevent high school teachers from fucking their students. That seems sensible.)

I'm in favour of close-in-age exceptions because I think there is a world of difference between two teenagers of roughly the same age experimenting with each other and an adult sleeping with an adolescent. In fact, I think it might be possible to lower the age of consent even further if you maintained strict enforcement of age boundaries. I don't consider it necessarily a good idea for fourteen year-olds to be fooling around with each other, but I don't see this as an issue best dealt with by means of criminalisation.
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Re: Age of consent

Postby Ciarán12 » 2015-01-18, 20:25

I wasn't aware of the exact age limit in Ireland before now, from looking at this page it seems to be 17, with harsher legislation for offences relating to children under 15. (I also see that certain incest laws punish males a lot more harshly than females, though I'm not sure what the reasoning behind that is).

linguoboy wrote:There is no uniform age of consent in the United States. It is 16, 17, or 18 depending on the jurisdiction. In both Illinois and in Missouri, it is 17. Some states (although not these two) have something called a "close-in-age" exception where, for instance, sex between a 16 year-old minor and a 17 year-old is not criminalised or is a lesser than crime than other forms of statutory rape. Illinois has an additional provision prohibiting sexual contact between someone under the age of 18 and someone 18 or older in a position of authority over them. (In the US, free universal public education is generally completed when a person reaches age 18, so this reads to me like a measure to prevent high school teachers from fucking their students. That seems sensible.)

I'm in favour of close-in-age exceptions because I think there is a world of difference between two teenagers of roughly the same age experimenting with each other and an adult sleeping with an adolescent. In fact, I think it might be possible to lower the age of consent even further if you maintained strict enforcement of age boundaries. I don't consider it necessarily a good idea for fourteen year-olds to be fooling around with each other, but I don't see this as an issue best dealt with by means of criminalisation.


Completely agree with all of that. It seems ludicrous to prosecute a 17 year old for having sex with a 16 year old.

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Re: Age of consent

Postby Levike » 2015-01-18, 20:59

If I know well it's 15 in Romania and 14 in Hungary.

I think 14-15 is okay.

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Re: Age of consent

Postby Johanna » 2015-01-19, 8:45

In Sweden it's 15, but just like in Illinois it's illegal to have sex with someone under the age of 18 if the other person is above that age and in a position of authority over them.

I think it's a pretty good limit, the average age for having sex for the first time is about 16.5, so making it any higher would suddenly make a huge chunk of the teenage population criminals. I wouldn't be against a maximum age gap for people under 18 though.
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Re: Age of consent

Postby md0 » 2015-01-19, 12:13

I think it would be good to have a close age exception in Cyprus for people 15-17, but before that, we need sexual education in school, so that teenagers make informed decisions.
Being over the age of consent didn't stop me from making bad decisions and staying in an abusive relationship, which I only recently started getting over.

As for statistics, I couldn't find something concrete, but a news item on teen pregnancies in Cyprus mentions that 24% of a sample of secondary school students reported having already had sex (and I am no idea what the hell is going on with my grammar there), and 60% of them report it happened when they were under 16. You can't take a lot from those statistics.
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Re: Age of consent

Postby Multiturquoise » 2015-01-25, 14:11

The age of consent in Turkey is eighteen according to the provisions in the Turkish Penal Code.

If you want to get more information, check this link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_co ... ope#Turkey
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Re: Age of consent

Postby Vlürch » 2015-02-05, 17:36

I hope this is substantial enough to post in a kinda old thread. Also kinda rambly as usual?
Ciarán12 wrote:So, just to provoke a little more conversation on the topic in general, what is the age of consent in your country and what do you think it should be? And why do you think it should be that age specifically?

It's 16 in Finland, and I think that's fine. It could be lower (anything between 13 and 15), but I honestly don't care much because I don't have any plans to ever have sex with anyone. Besides, kids hump everything that moves all day long whether it's legal or not and it's not like anyone's stopping them if their parents don't mind.

The only issue is that I can't perv on cute junior high school girls as much as I'd like to. :P I mean, I'm not ashamed to admit that I look at 13-year-olds and think "damn, she's sexy" only to find out that she's underage. I'm not good enough at self-denial to change my opinion. Teenage girls tend to be pretty hot, and half of them look at me in a way that makes me think they think I'm somewhat attractive as well; the other half look at me like I'm a disgusting pervert... which I am, so it's okay. But really, there's nothing wrong with anything as long as you don't turn your fantasies into reality even if they're illegal. But for some reason, I generally only find 20+year-old guys attractive. :hmm:

But yeah, 16 is probably perfect for the so-called sexually normal people, even if my societally totally messed up sexuality has always been and is still considered biologically normal. People are hypocrites and not everyone wants to admit it, which is perfectly fine as long as they don't hurt others with their denial. And hell, I'm pretty sure half of the population never looks at anyone younger than 16 as attractive since they've set the law at that age.

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Re: Age of consent

Postby Varislintu » 2015-02-05, 23:15

Vlürch wrote:The only issue is that I can't perv on cute junior high school girls as much as I'd like to. :P I mean, I'm not ashamed to admit that I look at 13-year-olds and think "damn, she's sexy" only to find out that she's underage. I'm not good enough at self-denial to change my opinion. Teenage girls tend to be pretty hot, and half of them look at me in a way that makes me think they think I'm somewhat attractive as well; the other half look at me like I'm a disgusting pervert... which I am, so it's okay. But really, there's nothing wrong with anything as long as you don't turn your fantasies into reality even if they're illegal. But for some reason, I generally only find 20+year-old guys attractive. :hmm:

But yeah, 16 is probably perfect for the so-called sexually normal people, even if my societally totally messed up sexuality has always been and is still considered biologically normal. People are hypocrites and not everyone wants to admit it, which is perfectly fine as long as they don't hurt others with their denial. And hell, I'm pretty sure half of the population never looks at anyone younger than 16 as attractive since they've set the law at that age.


Hmm, I think you're somewhat misunderstanding the reason for the legal age of consent, and possibly also the reason for why our current society frowns upon significantly older people fawning over very young teenagers. It's not that their post-pubescent bodies are not supposed to invoke any feelings in you ever, it's that the power difference that stems from the age difference is substantial, and the loser if something goes wrong will be the younger party.

At 20, you have almost twice the life experience of someone who is 13, and more importantly, you have many more times the experience of being a post-pubescent person. You have years and years more experience in being a sexual person. You also have double the amount of education. You can also do things like drive, vote, work, buy alcohol and cigarettes. A 13-year-old can't even drive a scooter, let alone buy kotikalja. In many cases they aren't even physically fully grown yet, so at 20 you even have a sheer physical advantage. Do you know those plaques that are often found in elevators, especially older ones with a sliding gate? "Under 12-year-olds must be accompanied by an adult while operating the lift." A 13-year-old has just recently graduated to the physical and mental maturity to be trusted to use an elevator with a sliding gate without hurting themselves. Do you think they might hurt themselves in a sexual relationship with a 20-year-old? I think it's likely. Not pre-determined to happen, but likely. It's not an encounter between equals.

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Re: Age of consent

Postby Vlürch » 2015-02-06, 9:51

Varislintu wrote:Hmm, I think you're somewhat misunderstanding the reason for the legal age of consent, and possibly also the reason for why our current society frowns upon significantly older people fawning over very young teenagers. It's not that their post-pubescent bodies are not supposed to invoke any feelings in you ever, it's that the power difference that stems from the age difference is substantial, and the loser if something goes wrong will be the younger party.

At 20, you have almost twice the life experience of someone who is 13, and more importantly, you have many more times the experience of being a post-pubescent person. You have years and years more experience in being a sexual person. You also have double the amount of education. You can also do things like drive, vote, work, buy alcohol and cigarettes. A 13-year-old can't even drive a scooter, let alone buy kotikalja. In many cases they aren't even physically fully grown yet, so at 20 you even have a sheer physical advantage. Do you know those plaques that are often found in elevators, especially older ones with a sliding gate? "Under 12-year-olds must be accompanied by an adult while operating the lift." A 13-year-old has just recently graduated to the physical and mental maturity to be trusted to use an elevator with a sliding gate without hurting themselves. Do you think they might hurt themselves in a sexual relationship with a 20-year-old? I think it's likely. Not pre-determined to happen, but likely. It's not an encounter between equals.

Well, that makes a lot of sense. Not that it really applies to me personally since I've been stuck to living at home since I was 15 without even being able to go outside easily due to social anxiety and stuff, but generally to 20-year-olds; I guess I'm "socially retarded" in that sense (no offence to mentally disabled people intended by using that word) so I forget that not everyone is... :oops:

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Re: Age of consent

Postby mōdgethanc » 2015-02-07, 2:37

As a rule, "retarded" should be avoided if you're trying not to offend disabled people. It's like the n-bomb in that the number of social contexts in which you can use the word without causing offense, no matter what your intentions may be, is vanishingly small.
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