Stacey Smith:
Well well well, did you have much trouble climbing up on that high horse?
I can't see how busting your chops for making disgusting insinuations about another poster is climbing on a high horse. If you were more capable of discussing things like an adult you wouldn't have to fight dirty, but it appears you like dishing it out but don't like taking it... poor diddums...
I was spitting at YOU in the gutter, if anything...
Isn't it amazing how it's the males here who find fault with setting a younger age limit for legal sex with girls. Just amazing.
Hello Stacey, please read the above sentence of yours again;
Do you mean (leading on from my question to you regarding your age and that of the person you first had sex with) that "it is amazing males here find fault with female-female sex having a lower age of consent than female-male sex"?
If so you're a massive hypocrite; whatever the age of consent is it should be the same for boys and girls; there are females who predate adolescent females too, you know. If I hear another lesbian try to convince me that teenage lesbian love is fine but teenage heterosexual love isn't I'm gonna projectile vomit all over their double-standard combat trousers and wallet on a chain.
Or do you ACTUALLY mean the reverse of what you say (as previously it seems you're being critical of guys being in favour of a age of consent lower than 18, but you actually say the reverse of that above)?
ok, I've grown weary of this thread.
Yes of course dear; nothing to do with the fact you've shot your mouth off, been offensive, and are either to indolent, stupid or arrogant to either defend your argument, answer questions or apologise. I don't actually think you're stupid, but the other two aren't great choices, are they?
Oh, by the way, I love you in Will & Grace...
core:
No one here is really advocating lowering the general age of consent from 16; it's wise that it's there for exactly the reasons you give, let alone the sociological reasons it's changed in the last century.
The lower limit only appplies to sex where both people are under 16 or within two or three years of each other in age. I can't see the lower limit changing, and any argument based on a generalised fear of "the ratchet of lowering standards will always move things down not up" (which is itself a fallacious arguement) is a fallacious argument of adverse conceqenses (the slippery slope argument).
shamus:
Paedophile strictly speaking refers to someone attracted to prepubescent children. I'm reliably informed by my friend who is a psychologist that hebephile is the correct term for those with a sexual attraction to adolescent females.
I actually think that Western society is guilty of MASSIVE hypocracy in this area, as a fair examination of images of young women in the media make it look like many Western males enjoy hebephilic imagary.
Just watch MTV for a little while... or Romeo and Juliet, as Simon points out... hell, if Mary was 14 when "god's spirit came upon her", then he's a hebephile too.
Now, I think it's completely natural that from puberty onwards people develop their sexuality, rather than it magically arriving in a box on their 18th birthday. I think it's essential that younger teenagers are protected from adult sexual predators. But if we don't want people in their late teens to be sexual we have to change society as it's not just their genes and hormones that sexualizes late-teens; it's society.
I also agree that a 40 year-old with a 17 year-old is tacky.
Yes, there are 17 year-olds who could be taken advatage of by 40 year-olds, just like there are 21 year-olds who can be taken advantage of by 45 year-olds. But you have to draw a line somewhere; a 17 year-old is already begining to make life changing decisions on their own. Sex is just another part of life, not something that requires different rules or logic to the rest.