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]At 14, I was more mature than most 20 year olds - I had 2 jobs, played several sports, was an honors student, was very well informed on many subjects (during spares in high school I'd go to the library and read encyclopedias) and heck, I looked 20 and had no issues getting into bars (drinking age is 18 here). I dated guys that were 18, 19 and 20. It was the crowd I hung around with. My best friend was 16, and the other girls I hung out with were all 18+. I was just one of those kids - 14 going on 40.
I'll say one thing - those guys didn't take advantage of me like my 14 and 15 year old male classmates did or tried to. I didn't have sex with any of the 'older' guys but I might as well have, we had many fun nights. And it was all consensual. And let me tell you, if my parents would've decided to arrest my boyfriends and dragged us through a trial, it would've completely ruined my life and caused much more damage than dating older guys could have EVER done. My parents did know about the relationships and didn't like it (if only because they didn't like 'how it looked', because they didn't really care about ME) but at the time the age of consent here was 14, so they were out of luck. Those 18-20 year olds treated me better than my parents ever did anyhow. The age of consent here is now 16. I think an age of consent of 18 is too high. To me, 14-16 is about right.
I have a 15 year old bi daughter that hangs out with a lot of 18 year old girls (women, really, they are adults here), because they are all in the same afterschool drama club. If one of those 18 year olds dated my daughter, it wouldn't bother me one bit - they are in the same peer group. Those consent laws should be enforced only to keep 40 year olds away from 12 year olds, not to persecute older boyfriends and girlfriends from the same peer group because the parents "don't like" the relationship.