5 ms·

Having sex with a 14 year old person is completely ok in a lot of countries, including places like Germany & Italy [1], with no pedophilia panic going on. --

by Strom 7y ago

Having sex with a 14 year old person is completely ok in a lot of countries, including places like Germany & Italy [1], with no pedophilia panic going on. -- [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_Europe

kungtotte 7y ago
I live in Sweden where the age of consent is 15. On paper it's technically legal for me (35 years old) to have sex with a 15 year old. Almost everyone in society would castigate me if I actually went ahead and did that, some going so far as to call me a pedophile but definitely labeling me a creep going after children. Don't confuse the laws with what people think.
- Strom 7y ago
  > Almost everyone in society would castigate me What are you basing this on? Is there wide-spread castigating going on in Sweden that would lead you to think this? I certainly agree that laws don't always match what people think, e.g. laws helping same-sex couples in countries where public polling goes against it. However laws in a well operated democracy generally seem to match either public opinion or a lobbied interest. Which makes me wonder, why do you think the law allows for it in Sweden? Is someone with deep pockets lobbying for it? Is the law so obscure in Sweden that the general population doesn't know it exists? To me as a neighbor Sweden seems to be quite progressive in allowing sexual variety.
  - kungtotte 7y ago
    I'm basing it on personal experience, so it's anecdotal. When the topic is discussed (because it does happen), everyone speaks out against it. It's not an obscure law at all, everyone is well aware of it and we've even got a colloquialism for it so there's no chance this is something the lawmakers tried to slip by us. The law exists because 15 year olds want to have sex with each other, and penalizing that is crazy.
DanBC 7y ago
Wikipedia is terrible when it talks about English law. It gets the UK entry pretty seriously wrong. The age of consent is 16, unless one of the people is in a position of authority over the other (where authority is defined in law and covers things like teachers) when it's 18; prostitution is legal in England but definitely not if the person is under 18. > Any person who engages in sexual intercourse with a person under the age 16 could be prosecuted. However this therefore means that even sexual intercourse between willing people of a similar age (i.e. A 16 year old and a 15 year old) could result in the older person being liable for prosecution for committing a sexual offence. Because of this, when the Sexual Offences Act 2003 was created, separate sections of the act were put in place to be used on how to appropriately prosecute a person who had sexual intercourse with a person under the age of 16, depending on exactly how young a person under the age of 16 was at time the sexual intercourse took place. This therefore maintained a "two-tier" cut off age system regarding sexual intercourse when it involved a person under the age of 16. Currently this depends on whether a younger person was Under 16 or Under 13 at the time of the sexual intercourse taking place, with the latter being automatically overall illegal, and the former still being illegal, but with defences due to the younger person's older age, more flexibility in sentencing and flexibility overall whether to prosecute or not based on individual case This is incorrect. The different ages exist in law because too many abusing men were claiming that they honestly thought that the 12 year old they had abused was a willing 16 year old. The law removes this dishonest defence by adding this 13 year limit. We want the law to adequately capture the seriousness of the offence of rape of a child. The reason we don't prosecute 15 year olds who have sex with each other has nothing to do with this two-step age limit: it is because our crown prosecution service has to ask two questions: "Is there a reasonable prospect of a conviction?" and "is it in the public interest to prosecute?". It's not in the public interest to prosecute children for having sex with each other so long as there's no element of coercion or force. The CPS guidance to prosecuting sexual offences is here: https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/rape-and-sexual-offences-chapter-2-sexual-offences-act-2003-principal-offences-and https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/rape-and-sexual-offenc... > The overriding public concern is to protect children. It was not Parliament's intention to punish children unnecessarily or for the criminal law to intervene where it is wholly inappropriate. During the passage of the bill, Lord Falconer said: > "Our overriding concern is to protect children, not to punish them unnecessarily. Where sexual relationships between minors are not abusive, prosecuting either or both children is highly unlikely to be in the public interest. Nor would it be in the best interests of the child ..." The guidance on youth offenders contains more detailed descriptions: https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/youth-offenders https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/youth-offenders
kaitai 7y ago
A late reply, to be sure, but I was reminded to check back by the new article about RMS on the front page now. The point (in this discussion about talking about feelings with friends and supportive others) is not to discuss sex with underage people. The point is that you can hash things out with your friends and get some perspective on how widely you feel you need to share. Somehow I have friends with whom I can discuss my thoughts on who should have sex with whom, and thus I do not need to bring it to a public stage or a professional stage. This saves me a lot of trouble.

by Strom 7y ago

kungtotte 7y ago

I live in Sweden where the age of consent is 15. On paper it's technically legal for me (35 years old) to have sex with a 15 year old. Almost everyone in society would castigate me if I actually went ahead and did that, some going so far as to call me a pedophile but definitely labeling me a creep going after children. Don't confuse the laws with what people think.

Strom 7y ago
> Almost everyone in society would castigate me What are you basing this on? Is there wide-spread castigating going on in Sweden that would lead you to think this? I certainly agree that laws don't always match what people think, e.g. laws helping same-sex couples in countries where public polling goes against it. However laws in a well operated democracy generally seem to match either public opinion or a lobbied interest. Which makes me wonder, why do you think the law allows for it in Sweden? Is someone with deep pockets lobbying for it? Is the law so obscure in Sweden that the general population doesn't know it exists? To me as a neighbor Sweden seems to be quite progressive in allowing sexual variety.
- kungtotte 7y ago
  I'm basing it on personal experience, so it's anecdotal. When the topic is discussed (because it does happen), everyone speaks out against it. It's not an obscure law at all, everyone is well aware of it and we've even got a colloquialism for it so there's no chance this is something the lawmakers tried to slip by us. The law exists because 15 year olds want to have sex with each other, and penalizing that is crazy.

DanBC 7y ago

Wikipedia is terrible when it talks about English law. It gets the UK entry pretty seriously wrong. The age of consent is 16, unless one of the people is in a position of authority over the other (where authority is defined in law and covers things like teachers) when it's 18; prostitution is legal in England but definitely not if the person is under 18. > Any person who engages in sexual intercourse with a person under the age 16 could be prosecuted. However this therefore means that even sexual intercourse between willing people of a similar age (i.e. A 16 year old and a 15 year old) could result in the older person being liable for prosecution for committing a sexual offence. Because of this, when the Sexual Offences Act 2003 was created, separate sections of the act were put in place to be used on how to appropriately prosecute a person who had sexual intercourse with a person under the age of 16, depending on exactly how young a person under the age of 16 was at time the sexual intercourse took place. This therefore maintained a "two-tier" cut off age system regarding sexual intercourse when it involved a person under the age of 16. Currently this depends on whether a younger person was Under 16 or Under 13 at the time of the sexual intercourse taking place, with the latter being automatically overall illegal, and the former still being illegal, but with defences due to the younger person's older age, more flexibility in sentencing and flexibility overall whether to prosecute or not based on individual case This is incorrect. The different ages exist in law because too many abusing men were claiming that they honestly thought that the 12 year old they had abused was a willing 16 year old. The law removes this dishonest defence by adding this 13 year limit. We want the law to adequately capture the seriousness of the offence of rape of a child. The reason we don't prosecute 15 year olds who have sex with each other has nothing to do with this two-step age limit: it is because our crown prosecution service has to ask two questions: "Is there a reasonable prospect of a conviction?" and "is it in the public interest to prosecute?". It's not in the public interest to prosecute children for having sex with each other so long as there's no element of coercion or force. The CPS guidance to prosecuting sexual offences is here: https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/rape-and-sexual-offences-chapter-2-sexual-offences-act-2003-principal-offences-and https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/rape-and-sexual-offenc... > The overriding public concern is to protect children. It was not Parliament's intention to punish children unnecessarily or for the criminal law to intervene where it is wholly inappropriate. During the passage of the bill, Lord Falconer said: > "Our overriding concern is to protect children, not to punish them unnecessarily. Where sexual relationships between minors are not abusive, prosecuting either or both children is highly unlikely to be in the public interest. Nor would it be in the best interests of the child ..." The guidance on youth offenders contains more detailed descriptions: https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/youth-offenders https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/youth-offenders

kaitai 7y ago

A late reply, to be sure, but I was reminded to check back by the new article about RMS on the front page now. The point (in this discussion about talking about feelings with friends and supportive others) is not to discuss sex with underage people. The point is that you can hash things out with your friends and get some perspective on how widely you feel you need to share. Somehow I have friends with whom I can discuss my thoughts on who should have sex with whom, and thus I do not need to bring it to a public stage or a professional stage. This saves me a lot of trouble.