Should the age of consent be lowered to 14?

[Famous Mortimer]

Whatever the age of consent is, it should be uniform across the country. It is insane that a coupe can have consensual sex in one state and it's perfectly legal but if they do it one mile away, the dude will be put in jail for 10 years and never be able to find a job after he gets out.

[NeverAgain]

North America with NE and WI in the right colours:



Other Western countries for comparison:

Holy Sh**t Spain!

[PJ]

OP is a creep obvs.

If there was to be a standardized national age of consent, it should be 16. However, the precedent of throwing people in jail for consensual activity is a dangerous one, so I'd be reluctant to enforce it outside of extreme circumstances. Like DavidB. said, there should be certain ages where the law is not enforced (15 year old with a 16 year old, for example, is fine).

[Bojack Horseman]

No, but I think that we should change the sex offender registry laws to provide mitigating factors for age differences. An example is a 19-year-old here in Michigan who met a girl on a dating app who said repeatedly that she was 18. Turned out she was lying out her ass and she was really 14, and so the 19-year-old boy spent 90 days in jail and will be on the sex offender registry for life. The girl and her mother testified at trial that she lied about her age repeatedly the entire time, and he testified that if he'd known her age, he would have shut the whole thing down from the start. That guy doesn't deserve to be labeled for life the same way that a 40+ year-old man who abuses a child deserves to be.

Deceit by the younger 'partner' should be a mitigating or even exculpating factor.

If I were over 21 and dating someone who in any way looks or acts like a teenager I would insist upon identification before 'getting physical'.  Teenagers can lie convincingly... and anyone dating a teenager needs be careful.

Forged or misappropriated (older sibling?) ID? The person in technical violation of an age-of-consent statute should get away with it. An innocent state of mind and due caution makes one innocent so far as I am concerned. (That explains why simply being wrong is not perjury).   After all, we are talking about something less trivial than hiring someone for a job. The sex-offender register is rightly for sexual predators.  

Problem is that most states' laws defining statutory rape have provisions that specifically state that the so-called victim lying about her age (in many states, statutory rape can only be committed by a male unless a woman is in a position of power. Teacher, prison guard, etc.) is not a valid defense and can't be used as a mitigating circumstance.

[Cory]

Problem is that most states' laws defining statutory rape have provisions that specifically state that the so-called victim lying about her age (in many states, statutory rape can only be committed by a male unless a woman is in a position of power. Teacher, prison guard, etc.) is not a valid defense and can't be used as a mitigating circumstance.

Well that's stupid.