Yeah I do agree that there’s a bit of an arbitrary hangup on age specifically, but that’s simply because some sort of line has to be drawn to protect people who are incapable of protecting themselves.
There will always be people who are more or less mature (mentally). Some will never be mature enough to understand consent entirely, whilst others can be shockingly adult for their age.
If I were to design a system it’d probably be a sliding scale. Something like a 2 yr upward age gap 12-13, 3 yr 14-17 and then free for all from the age of majority. Even though I personally would find some relationships icky, at some point people have to be “adult” enough to be responsible for themselves.
In my country the age of consent is 15. Doesn’t make dating teens socially acceptable for adults though.
And it’s hard to get a better proxy for maturity than age without opening the door back up for eugenics. Historically a lot of people have been sterilized because “they aren’t mentally advanced enough to understand consent/care for their child properly/etc” based on their lives being ruined by white supremacist oppression.
Yeah I do agree that there’s a bit of an arbitrary hangup on age specifically, but that’s simply because some sort of line has to be drawn to protect people who are incapable of protecting themselves.
There will always be people who are more or less mature (mentally). Some will never be mature enough to understand consent entirely, whilst others can be shockingly adult for their age.
If I were to design a system it’d probably be a sliding scale. Something like a 2 yr upward age gap 12-13, 3 yr 14-17 and then free for all from the age of majority. Even though I personally would find some relationships icky, at some point people have to be “adult” enough to be responsible for themselves.
In my country the age of consent is 15. Doesn’t make dating teens socially acceptable for adults though.
And it’s hard to get a better proxy for maturity than age without opening the door back up for eugenics. Historically a lot of people have been sterilized because “they aren’t mentally advanced enough to understand consent/care for their child properly/etc” based on their lives being ruined by white supremacist oppression.
If MAGA could read, they would be offended