~*sing along*~
one of these things is not like the other,
one of these things does not belong
statutory rape is bogus, arbitrary construct and relationships with age gaps involving someone younger than 16-17 or so should be judged on a case by case basis.
You’re kidding right?
Are you not aware of the huge mental/psychological gap there is between the ages of say, 15 and 20?
These laws exist for good reason.
But these laws don’t exist everywhere, and whether or not they exist, many young girls will seek older men and older men will seek younger, post-pubescent girls. It’s in the genetic programming, and attempting to deny our nature only insures that it will come into its own far more dangerously in an absence of legal oversight.
I have known 15 year olds who have their lives together far more at that young age than many legal adults ever do, and even if their marriage turns out to be a bad decision, if they’re that into the relationship, the odds are that they are already taking great pains to hide it from the law/their parents in order to maintain such a relationship. A great deal of teenage angst and impulsivity could be actually end up being preemptively quashed if they are aware psychologically in the back of their minds that their relationships have the ability to be legitimized. It could take away much of the allure of the forbidden (much like with drug legalization in other countries), however many people actually dive in and fail.
I’m not saying there should be no line—obviously, a clearly prepubescent or barely pubescent child is off limits, because the line has to be drawn somewhere, but I believe that the upper limit of the line we currently have needs to be a lot more flexible, as its existence seems to be contributing to far more societal harm than good. Provided anyone below the age of 18 is still required to attend high school if they wish to cohabit or apply for a marriage license, I don’t see a shift in perspective altering much save for the incarceration rate and the rate of runaways who become obsessed with their fear of these laws.
Statutory rape is like marijuana—it’s widespread and rarely harmful, yet our standards appear to be maintained through a superficial obsession with prohibition. Even more troubling, this reflects a pervasive infantilization of the teenager to the point that they are denied accountability yet given free rein to fuck up because it’s always someone else’s fault. This unnatural prolongation of childhood leads not to greater maturity but to an attitude of entitlement that encourages abuse of the systems designed to protect them from themselves and others and insulate them from the type of meaningful consequences which must at times be painful enough to become permanently lodged in memory. Some will be traumatized by life and be unable to continue, but that could happen to anyone at any time.I’m almost certain you’ll reject the comparison, but don’t tell me you could look at me with a straight face and say that an 18 year old should go to prison for having sex with a 17 year old. And if you concede to the shaky ground that such a judgement is placed upon, surely you must recognize that there are situations considerably further down the scale which merit case-specific investigations and judgements.
tl;dr u r a rapist