General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Is it okay for a 18 year old to have sex with a 14 year old [View all]Hekate
(91,340 posts)A person does not transform to adulthood overnight when they turn 18, either physically, psychologically, or emotionally. Nor should they in legal terms. Our society has gotten so punitive that sentencing is out of control.
If we can recognize that an 18 y.o. shouldn't be legally drinking alcohol, yet can vote and enter military service, why can't we recognize that both boys and girls MAY become sexually active earlier than their parents would like, and yet try to prevent the underaged from exploitation by older people?
Acknowledging sexual activity and allowing girls to obtain reproductive services is not the same thing as saying a girl (and a 14 y.o. is still a girl) is fair game for older men. We can haggle over the age of consent and the age of culpability, and indeed the courts should not use that damned one-size-fits-all mandate, but it is still a fact that the human brain is not finished developing until about the age of 21. In other words, it really is true that teenagers do not think like adults, and for physiological reasons.
So I do not accept the fact that kids are often tried as adults as any good reason for the rest of the legal system to lay every fact of life on that Procrustean bed.