Age of sexual consent... Is pedophilia real or something we made up?

[Mikeferdy]

A few weeks ago, a local news covered a story about 52 men were arrested for patronizing a local prostitute who lied about her age. Everyone believe she is 20 years old when in reality, she is 16.

This actually sparked a debate in the local forum on who is actually in the wrong here. True these men did have sexual intercourse with a sixteen year old but they genuinely believed that she was 20 years old. She even admitted that she lied about her age coz the money's good.

But another debate sparked about the age of sexual consent. Throughout the world, age of sexual consent varies from region to region. Some countries have age of sexual consent as low as 12, some as high as 20, while others depends on marriage status instead of age.

Generally, people's perception of pedophilia is having sexual intercourse with someone who is under aged. But what is the consideration when deciding the age limit? Is it puberty, education, IQ?

Then there are strage theories about is it illegal to have sexual intercourse who is underaged in my country but is not underaged in another country? Also is there any legal standing with having sexual intercourse with someone who is just a few days away from his/her birthday?

I think we can all agree that having sexual intercourse with someone who have not hit puberty can be counted as real pedophilia but can we truly call someone who have sexual intercourse with another who have achieved puberty but is still under country's legal age a pedophile?

[Yasmin]

Then I guess that wouldn't exactly be pedophilia, depending on what way you look at it. But more of an unusual relationship?

[Mikeferdy]

Here's a question, what makes you so sure that a 13 or 14 year old is mature enough for relationship/sex? In fact, how do you define or measure maturity?

(Being stereotypical and exaggerative here) which one is more mature for sex? A blond 22 year old lady who hasn't finish high school with an IQ of 80 and lives with her daddy or an intelligent 14 year old girl with an IQ of 140, finished an accelerated education program, personally discovered the Higgs boson particle and running a multimillion dollar business?

Going back to the prostitution case, it is clear that the 16 year old girl understood what she is doing, she has a repeat business, she knows enough to lie about her age to get more customers, but she is definitely under legal age. Is she mature enough to understand sex?


Also a hypothetical question, what if 2 thirteen year old does the naughty dance? Should society punish the guy? Punish the girl? Punish both? Punish neither? Punish the guardians who knew nothing about the deed?

[Abreo]

1.) Maturity is the ability to make good choices. Not necessarily choices that turn out well because there's no way anyone can know exactly what will happen whenever they do anything but it's the ability to make good choices based on the information available. The only test for that is life I guess.

2.) The 22 year old. The 14 year old girl is book smart but not street smart. How could she be? She hasn't lived through enough to understand everything. She hasn't even really had a sexuality for that long there's just no way she could totally understand it or understand what is and isn't a good idea. The 22 year old has at least lived a good chunk of her life being sexually attracted to some people. The 22 year old has had plenty of sexual experiences with other people, even if she never even held hands. It's the way the world works, you can be smart but not mature and I have never met a mature 14 year old. I've met some who are mature for their age but never just straight up mature.

3.) Well this doesn't necessarily make her immature because nothing says you have to tell the truth but she shouldn't be lying about her age when that would get her clients in really big trouble. I don't know if she's immature but she either lacks empathy or understanding of what she's doing.

4.) Talk to the kids. Explain to them that they're too young to be doing that. Maybe go as far as to have the talk with them, if you're in a position to have the right to do that. I don't know why someone would have to be punished for that.

[Mary Napier]

1) I think it's partially up to the child, and partially up to the other person in the relationship, if it qualifies to be talked about here it would have an age gap. Like a 13 year old and an 18 year old. The 13 year old is straight up mature, and knows the meaning of love, and is in love with an 18 year old. The 18 year old is mature, is in love with the 13 year old, and understands what they are about to do.

 

2) I'm going to be completly honest, I don't think either are ready for a relationship and that type of 22 year old blonde your describing would end up getting raped or doing somthing she would regret.

 

3) I think she only did what she did for the money, and maybe because she was that girl who never had boyfriends.

 

4)Society is going to frown upon both of them for what they did and be all like "You two are too young to be making that decision. I know 13 year olds that have sex on a regular basis. Someone i know is 14 and has sex with her 17 year old boyfriend who turns 18 in a few months.

[Yasmin]

Shouldn't a mature 18 year old know better than to get in a relationship with a 13 year old? No mater how mature the 13 year old might be the 18 year old obviously has more experience with sexual relationships than the 13 year old. So while they might be on the same level maturity wise, they are not on the same level sexually or relationship wise. 

[Mikeferdy]

You assume too much that age = experience. True under normal social situations, the older you get, the more mature you become. But age alone as a factor does not constitute maturity in sexuality or relationships.

Eg: an 18 year old virgin, home schooled by strict parents and never met or even seen a boy her entire life vs a 14 year old street smart have lotsa friends, a best friend of the opposite sex and is already quite knowledgable on how to use a comdom from research.

[Lori S.]

Well, in terms of pedophilia, it's kind of silly to use it to refer to sex with anybody underage.  Nothing magical happens at 18.

However, sexually, a lot happens during puberty.  Pedophilia is, technically, sexual attraction to prepubescent children.  

But a 16yo has likely gone through puberty, and is physically sexually mature.  I would not say that somebody who is sexually attracted to a 16yo is a pedophile.  For much of human history, a 16yo (or any post-pubescent adolescent) would have been considered an adult.

So I think it's wrong to imagine there's something, like, pathological about one postpubescent person being sexually attracted to another postpubescent person.  I would routinely have way older guys--like in their 30s and 40s--hit on me when I was a teenager.  It wasn't because they were dirty old men, it was because I was very physically mature, and was often mistaken for being in my 20s.  We're a culture that worships youth and beauty, and we shouldn't be surprised when people are attracted to just that.  I mean, the models we hold up as the epitome of female beauty are often 15-18.  It seems ridiculous to then turn around and say that anybody who is sexually attracted to a 16yo is a pedophile.

So, I don't know.  I honestly don't know that I think there should be age of consent laws that go by a certain age; I think it should be case-by-case.  I think there are 13yos and possibly even 12yos who are capable of consenting to sex, and 16yos or even 18yos who aren't.  I'd rather take things on a case-by-case basis, consider the nature of the relationship, whether any manipulation/coercion was involved, and look at the emotional, sexual, and intellectual maturity of both people involved, before making any decisions about whether the sex should be considered illegal or not.

[Mary Napier]

The only conclusion I've come to so far is the only thing making a pedophile what it is, is maybe a 20 year old man who preys on those cute five year old girls with those little dresses, etc...

And something else, if there is a 17 year old person, who seriously has feelings for a 13 year old, who's to say they can't? And what if the thirteen year old literally looks way older than her age and they thought she was 17 or 18? And they liked them for who they were? There's nothing wrong with that, I think it really gets into pedophilia when it comes to rape and the like.

 

They are feelings that can't be controlled, that's why there are no definitions that are solid. People can call it pedophilia if they want but there are exceptions and nothing is impossible when it comes to love.

[Lori S.]

I think there's a lot of problems with people throwing around the label "pedophile."

Technically, it's a clinical term, used to refer to people who are attracted to prepubescent children or, in some cases, older children who are going through puberty but not yet sexually mature.  There's this whole thing called Tanner staging, that determines sexual maturity.  Pedophilia is only applied, clinically, to people attracted to people at Tanner stage 3 or below.  Most people hit stage 4 by 13 and are at 5 (full sexual maturity, physically) by 15, so it's extremely unlikely that somebody sexually attracted to person who is 14+ is actually a pedophile in any clinical sense.

But, we now use "pedophile" as an insult.  Because, really, in our culture, there are few things we consider worse.  It's basically like saying, "You are an untouchable."  And I'm really uncomfortable with that, especially when it's people in their early-to-mid-20s we're labeling that way, for being attracted to people in their later teens.

Again, nothing at all magical happens at 18.  Nothing.  There are two times in people teens/early 20s that we see significant changes--puberty, when people undergo significant physical change (as well as emotional), and the early-to-mid 20s, when frontal lobe development completes and we see rather significant emotional/psychological changes (people become far less impulsive).  Really, though, there's not a huge amount, in terms of biology, that makes a 14yo and a 22yo that different.  There are CERTAINLY social factors because of how we structure our society that create significant differences.  But those are differences primarily based on culture, not on anything inherent or "natural."

I have no doubt that there are some 13yos more mature than some 17yos.  I have no doubt that there could be situation, where a 13yo and 17yo were having sex, where the 13yo was the aggressor/manipulator.  Will that always or usually be the case?  Of course not.  But, it certainly could be, because there is no magic that occurs in those four years, and individuals vary a whole heck of a lot in terms of how quickly they emotionally mature.  So I'm really hesitant to apply any labels in a situation like that, or pass judgment, without knowing the details.

Certainly if a 17yo pursues a relationship with a 13yo because that person is young and because they think they can be easily manipulated, that's a huge problem.  I still wouldn't say the 17yo was a pedophile, but he or she is a douchebag, absolutely.  But, what if a 17yo and a 13yo just happen to meet, have a lot in common, and get along super well?  They might decide to pursue a relationship, and I really don't see anything wrong with that.  Yes, for a whole lot of reasons, it would be very, very wise for them to hold off on having sex for a long time.  And, if it were one of my children, at 13, in a relationship with a 17yo, I'd put some limits in place on the wheres/whens of their meetings (although I'd do that with any relationship a 13yo was in), and would do the best I could to impress on them the importance of waiting to have sex (but, again, I do that if they were in a relationship with another 13yo, too).

But, really, I wouldn't think there was anything fundamentally wrong with their older boyfriend/girlfriend, and wouldn't think it was especially problematic.  Two very good friends of mine started dating when he was 26 and she was 19.  They have been married for 12 years, have tons in common, have a totally healthy relationship, where the age difference now isn't even something that registers.  I have another friend who recently got married to a guy she met when she was 18 and he was 27.  Again, they have a great relationship and are very compatible and happy.  

I honestly think it's kind of sad that we've decided that it's, like, disgusting and immoral for a teen or young adult to date something a few years younger than they are, and that really it's just another way to control teen's sexuality, especially young women's.  Because, most of the time, the younger partner is a girl.  Most of the guys I dated when I was in high school were 2-3 years older than me, and the same was true for many of my friends (some of whom dated guys 5-10 years older).  By saying those relationships are immoral or even illegal, we're basically pathologizing and controlling consensual sexual relationships that many teen girls choose to engage in.

[Kayla Smith]

I want to go ahead and make one thing perfectly clear, pedophilia is a sexual attraction to a human being who has *NOT* reached puberty. This is not wrong. A person who is into pedophilia should not be judged, it is not inherently their fault for finding people of that age group sexually attractive. Kids are having sex at younger and younger ages, I think that as long as kids understand what sex is and what a huge commitment it is, there should not be any laws prohibiting them from doing what all humans do at some point or another. Having "age of consent" laws tends to ruin a lot of peoples lives. Several boys have gone to jail and have been labeled sex offenders because their girlfriends were 17 and they had sex. The girls parents get pissed off and have the by sent to jail. It isn't fair. Rape and coercion should be illegal not having sex with someone under a certain age.

[Lori S.]

Right. "Pedophilia" doesn't mean "had sex with somebody we think is too young for them." It means an attraction to prepubescent children, or children/preteens/teens in early puberty. But most people 14 and older have reached a level of physical sexual maturity that would preclude anybody sexually interested in them from being officially labelled a pedophile.

And, yeah, these laws ruin lives. So many times they aren't applied to people who have sex with prepubescent children, but people in their early-to-mid-20s who have consensual sex with girlfriends/boyfriends in their mid-to-late teens.

I actually just read something that indicated that something like 36% of teens (under 18) have sent naked images of themselves via a mobile phone or the internet. The way the law works, every single one of those teens could be charged with child pornography.

Our laws around these things are kind of insane, and at this point seem to be used more often in the service of policing (and punishing) the consensual sexual activity of teens rather than protecting children.

[Kayla Smith]

I completely agree. One thing I find funny is that, the concept of "being too young" for sexual activity is a relatively new concept. Very young girls used to be married off to these older men, and sometimes still are, because life expectancy was low and marrying them off early made sure that they were taken care for the rest of their lives. No one had a problem with this, yet all of these men would be thrown in jail for it because of today's laws. Shoot, I wouldn't be surprised if someone in my family a few generations back was a "pedophile".