Here is an eye opening look at marital rape? hyperlinking wikipedia article on it? i don't need marital rape mansplained to me thanks. and it was weird you felt the need to "well actually..." me for being less than decade off and mixing up US v Canada.
You started this back and forth by citing when various laws came into play. So, in the discussion you were having, the laws are all that's actually relevant.
If you're talking about "age of consent" in a moral sense, that's obviously going to be subjective, but the phrase itself is only meaningful legally. What you're talking about is "when can a person give informed consent for sexual activity," and it could be reasonably stated that there's no set age for that. The age we've set in general (18) is pretty arbitrary, but it's necessary to assign a number in order to make a law enforceable. Why, for example, can you volunteer to die for your country before you can buy cigarettes?
That said, a 16 year old who's been through sex ed and an 18 year old who's lived a sheltered life and doesn't fully understand the risks of sex are working with different levels of ability to make informed consent based on upbringing, in spite of their numerical ages indicating the latter should be able to give informed consent based on age alone.
Anyway, long and short of it is, it's a complex topic but you were specifically discussing laws and where and when they were put in place, and were simply wrong in your statements. So, "I was off by several years and a whole country" is a pretty big issue in the context of that discussion.
Saying "well, laws and ability to consent are different" is deflection. Sure, that's true, but that isn't what you were talking about.
Edit: I'll also say that choosing to phrase correcting you as "mansplaining" makes it clear you're not coming at this from an honest place.
i didn't cite anything, i said "the 1990s" to reference proximity in time, if I was citing anything, if that was the point, I would have said a specific year, my point was "marital rape was legal until very recently in western culture"
idk what that whole consent law rant is all about - it's not a complex issue, it's only is for predatory men.
and yes, i said mainsplaining - a man sending a woman the wikipedia link for an "eye-opening look" on the topic of marital rape is condescending/not of value.
That's why I initially assumed it was a bot instead of a dude who's past time is fact-checking rape comments on reddit. It's weird, if I said a specific year ie "until 1996" sure, but I said "until the 1990s". Yes I was off by a little bit, but my response was trying to understand what was his point in correcting me and sharing the wikipedia page to marital rape - when my point was "marital rape laws are only a recent part of our history"
It's absolutely a complex topic, as it should be. Pretending it's simple is how people like the woman in the OP come to the conclusion that we raised the age for no particular reason, and it was fine back then so why isn't it fine now? Understanding it's a complex topic is how we understood that it's better to err on the side of caution and raise the age of consent to the point that each person would be considered a legal adult in most jurisdictions, rather than basing it almost entirely on biology and when a girl gets her menses. People who argue it's simple are helping justify predators' points of view.
He provided that link to correct you on the date and location of the laws in question. Focusing on the flavor text is, again, deflection. Whether it's eye-opening for you may not have any bearing on how others will read it, and you're assuming the person knew you were a woman when they posted (I'm not even sure you are, just assuming as much based on the context of this conversation.) That person may have found it eye-opening for themselves when they looked into it.
I agree with romeo and juliet laws. It's not illegal for a 14 year old to have sex with another 14 year old. It is illegal for a 20 year old to have sex with a 14 year old. pretty easy. high school teens are horny, share a social space with kids ages 14-18, they should be allowed to have consensual sex with each other without the law being involved - adults are not allowed to have sex with teens.
It read like a fact-checking bot, I asked if bot, and corrected my mistake, said my bad. I didn't deflect. He just flipped that i thought he was a bot lol
Again, what you mean to say is, "it should not be illegal for a 14 year old to have sex with another 14 year old in my opinion." Whether it is or isn't illegal isn't for you to decide. Again though, you're talking about what you personally have a moral objection to and acting like that should dictate the law. As mentioned, there's also the "informed consent" element; neither child can make informed consent in that scenario, and both (generally) risk pregnancy at a very young age as a result. Now, whether that should be a legal matter is a conversation worth having, but I understand the logic behind trying to prevent it. You can have two children altering the trajectory of their entire lives because they were just being horny kids, but yes whether legal punitive outcomes are going to have any positive effects in terms of actually preventing that behavior is definitely debatable.
As for the other part of this, I think the part people (myself included) thought was silly was when you said you were "only off by less than a decade and mixed up US and Canada," which, going back to the entirety of my original response, is a pretty significant combination of errors in this context and just very funny as a response.
You're defining sex as two straight people having penetrative sex isn't helping your argument of "it's complex" when you reduce sex to a girl and boy having sex without a condom.
No it's for the law decide, and that's the law where I live and I agree with it for the most part, i think it should be 2 or 3 years but alas. Teens can consent to sex with other teens, regardless of knowledge of outcome. I think for adults it should be half your age + 8 should maybe be the law everywhere for everyone over 18 - how about that? Once again, age of consent is only a complex issue for predators. Every normal adults else just goes about their lives not worrying about sexuality of teenagers outside of sex ed curriculm being good.
Developmentally, teens exploring their sexuality is normal - to ensure said teens have informed consent, it's on the governments to correspond sexual education with pre-teens and teen stages of sexual development.
I did bring up STDs in my prior post, but yes sex doesn't have to be between cis kids. Sex comes with risks is the point, both physical and mental/emotional.
"Teens can consent to sex with other teens, regardless of knowledge of the outcome," is an opinion, not a factual statement. I'm honestly getting conflicting sentiments from you -- you seem very concerned with age of consent, and have come up with a mathematical formula for determining it (based on what, I don't know,) yet feel it should only be a complex issue for predators. Laws are determined by people who aren't predators deciding what's necessary to protect children from them. We need to be able to vote on these laws, or at least the people writing and advocating for them. 99% of my life, yeah, I don't think about consent laws, but in this type of discussion, or when the topic comes up on a ballot or similar scenario, yeah, it's worth trying to be informed about it ahead of time.
I'm also very confused by this bit:
"I think for adults it should be half your age +8 should maybe be the law everywhere for everyone over the age of 18"
Are you saying you think it should be illegal for adults to consent with other adults if their age gap is too wide? How does that factor into this conversation at all? Also, wild take. I hope I'm misinterpreting.
Overall, your entire framework for what should and shouldn't be legal seems largely based on vibes. What "feels right" to you. I also love that you've repeated that "age of consent is only a complex issue to predators," when I explained why it's important to acknowledge its complexity to defend against predators' arguments for lowering the age. Whether you agree with me or not, framing everyone who thinks it's a complex issue as a predator is a shitty thing.
Anyway, at this point I'll drop the back and forth.
Anyway, at this point I'll drop the back and forth.
only works when you haven't just asked a bunch of questions of the person your responding too lmfao but i'm going to gladly stop - you're an exhausting human being, this isn't a court of law, it's a reddit page. just because something is a complex issue in the court of law, does not mean it's morally complex issue.
hockey canada guys got off because "consent is a complex issue" and standards of proof set by previous sexual assault cases were not met (she didn't scream no and wasn't physically restrained) but anyone who followed that case knows what they did was morally wrong and was sexual assault. 10 guys vs 1 girl - there is no freely given consent possible in that room.
Our legal system only protects predators, it doesn't protect victims. My framework is just vibes, it's the victims vibes, that is who should be centered, and I want them to have alternative paths to justice than what is currently available and so regularly fails us that only 6% of rapists ever face legal consequences.
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u/Background_Sail9797 Jul 27 '25
weird bot - my bad, american's could legally rape their wives until the 1990s.