Age of Consent Laws

In the US, the ages that an underage teenager can consent to sex with someone over the age of 18 very from state to state, but the average age is 17. In England it's 16, in Canada it's 14 (which IMO is too young.) What's your take on this, should it be lowered or stay where it is?

I think it should be raised in Canada. I remember how controversial it was when the age was lowered from 16 to 14 - can't remember why, but people were not happy. The problem is, it's like drinking and can't really be controlled. what raising the age (I'm speaking as a Canadian here) would do, was protect children from the sex trade and from getting lured into unsafe situations. I think it's ridiculous that the age was lowered in Canada and it should be raised back up to at least 16.

The law is one of the few things keeping sex-hungry adults tempered away from minors. The # of 40 y/o men messing around with 12 y/o's would skyrocket if the law permitted it. 17 is a good age. By then kids are mature enough to decide to have a relationship with someone older.

I say make it 18. When you're a legal adult, then you can decide.

TSJFan4Ever wrote:I think it should be raised in Canada. I remember how controversial it was when the age was lowered from 16 to 14 - can't remember why, but people were not happy. The problem is, it's like drinking and can't really be controlled. what raising the age (I'm speaking as a Canadian here) would do, was protect children from the sex trade and from getting lured into unsafe situations. I think it's ridiculous that the age was lowered in Canada and it should be raised back up to at least 16.

What was Canada's reasoning for lowering the age of consent to fourteen, do you know? That's just so very young.
I think seventeen is a good age to keep it.

Nope - I said in my post that I couldn't remember the reasoning. It is very young and a lot of people were upset by it.

It should stay the way it is.

There is absolutely no reasonable justification in my mind as to why a 14 year old should be considered mature enough to consent to sex with an adult. Some 14 year olds are JUST entering puberty, yet Canadian law feels they are sound enough to have a relationship with a forty year old lover? GTFOHWT.

As far as the US is concerned, IA with 17 being the standard. By that time the average kid is either past the midway point of their adolescence, has taken enough info. about safer sex practices, is becoming more sophisticated in their rationale and is nearly grown. That kind of liberty can be extended to a youth that age...

Well thank God we're not in Japan, THEIR age of consent is 13...and these people are the ones who live to be 120 so what's the reasoning there?


Anyway, the thing I never got was how is it if a teenager kills somebody, they can be tried as an adult, but if they have sex and then falsely accuse somebody of rape, oh they're a minor, they're too young to understand the consequences? That makes no sense to me.


As for the original post, I say keep it higher...people for some sick reason want it lowered to 14 or 13 or whatever age girls get pubic hair at (you can't convince me people like that aren't sick), I say keep it closer to the adult age...you can't even see an R rated movie at 14 without an adult present, why should you be considered mature and responsible enough to handle the consequences of sex which could become a matter of life or death?

^^^^That latter point is actually quite a valid one. lol

In Michigan, it's seventeen. I remember being in high school, and my social studies teacher talking about how if an adult has sex with a seventeen year old, they're pretty safe; if an adult has sex with a sixteen year old, that's a maybe/maybe not; and if they have sex with a fifteen year old, under the prison they go.

I agree that they should be universal amoung the 50 states. As to the actual age, I don't think anything younger than 16.