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Grey areas regarding sexual relations
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
Anyone seen this is the news?
A welsh Chief Constable has said that classing anyone who has sex with someone under the age of 16 as a paedophile is wrong. He suggests that there should be a grey area for those having sex with someone between 13 and 16.
13 being the age beneath which sex is considered rape, and 16 being the age of consent.
The way the law stands at the moment my 16 year old boyfriend was commiting an offence when we had sex and I was 15, and could have been put on the sex offenders register had it been reported, which to me seems to be utterly ridiculous. Apart from anything else I know damn well who was the more mature one in that relationship.... (it wasn't him!)
Thoughts?
A welsh Chief Constable has said that classing anyone who has sex with someone under the age of 16 as a paedophile is wrong. He suggests that there should be a grey area for those having sex with someone between 13 and 16.
13 being the age beneath which sex is considered rape, and 16 being the age of consent.
The way the law stands at the moment my 16 year old boyfriend was commiting an offence when we had sex and I was 15, and could have been put on the sex offenders register had it been reported, which to me seems to be utterly ridiculous. Apart from anything else I know damn well who was the more mature one in that relationship.... (it wasn't him!)
Thoughts?
0
Comments
I think it needs to be more based on the differing ages, a 13 and a 14 year old having sex is quite different from a 13 and a 40 year old having sex.
There is also the fact that people are reaching sexual maturity and becoming sexuall active earlier than they have done in the past. The law should reflect this.
In several countries in Europe the age of consent is 14, 13, even 12. It should eventually be lowered here as well, though it might be a good idea to set out limits on the age of the older participant. Like it's been said before, there is a lot more wrong with a 60 year old having sex with a 15 y.o. than an 17 y.o. doing it with a 14 y.o.
This was what I was thinking. Maybe allowing the police and the courts to use their discretion for these cases would be the way forward. As I understand it if someone admits having sexual relations with someone under age that automatically puts them on the offendors register.
That said I think there is a point that a 40 year old having sex with a 15 year old is different from a 17 year old having it away with her. That said I'd still criminalise 17 year olds having sex with 13 year olds
As such, I agree with him. Law is about morality, and as such, it needs to make a judgement as to whether the relationship is 'acceptable', in which case it can take into account the age of both parties, as well as the methods by which they met. Someone grooming and manipulating someone online for months with the specific aim of sleeping with them, is different from someone simply meeting someone normally and ending up forming a relationship with them, even if the offending person is of the same age. Equally, I think there is some type of condition for someone who is specifically interested in sex with teenagers (it has a name, and I can't remember it). Of course that is a different problem than someone meeting a girl socially that they like, who just happens to be under the age of consent.
Here's him defending his statement.
I wouldn't want to have sex with someone that young now because they're mostly not mentally mature enough, but when I was 17 many would have been. So why should a 17-year-old boy be treated the same as, say, Graham Rix? There are also problems with telling how old someone is- it is very hard to tell between a 14-year-old girl and a 18-year-old girl on physical appearance.
I really like the idea of grading the age of consent. If two people want to have sex, and they are willingly going into it, then there's nothing wrong with it, even if one or both are a bit under the legal age. As I say, there's something far more wrong with an older man having sex with a 16-year-old than there is a 20-year-old having sex with a 14-year-old.
That`s a sentiment I can wholeheartedly agree with.
By definition.
How old was he when he was put in prison?