Different jurisdictions have different laws concerning when a child is old enough to consent fully to sexual activity with people of adult age. In Canada, it used to apply only to girls, and the age chosen was 16. At that age, she could then consent fully and her partner would no longer risk being charged with “statutory rape.”
Later, the law was changed so it would apply to young people of both sexes. At the time, 14 was the minimum age for full capacity to consent. When the Conservative Party came to power with a “Get Tough on Crime” agenda, the age was raised to 16. This was ostensibly to fight paedophiles, an apparent epidemic at the time. (Incidentally, no young person is allowed to have anal sex until he or she turns 18.)
In the days of Women Against Censorship, which was published in 1985, editor Varda Burstyn said girls could legally consent to heterosexual sex from the age of 16, whereas homosexual relations were outlawed up to the age of 21. According to The Canadian Encyclopedia, any homosexual act was punishable by up 14 years in prison until the law was amended in 1969.
When it comes to sex, I subscribe to the philosophy that all laws must have a genuinely secular purpose. Therefore, when I see laws prohibiting certain types of sexual activity, or sexual activity between certain types of people, I tend to be suspicious of the intent of the lawmakers at the time they were passed. The only “taboo” that I continue to support unflinchingly is any type of sexual activity where an adult takes advantage of a person who may be too young or otherwise lacking in cognitive development to truly consent fully to sexual activity.
It is typical that adults will want to protect their children from all dangers, and turn to law enforcement and legal remedies against those who would harm their young ones. But is there any evidence to show that such laws accomplish the desired goal?
When sentences are rendered, the first objective is to punish the guilty party. The second objective is to deter anyone else who may want to commit a similar act, including the guilty party once he or she has served his or her sentence. Does this actually work?
It could be argued that if it did, such cases would be almost non-existent. But life doesn’t work that way. For millennia, people have been worshipping other gods, making and worshipping idols, taking some god’s name in vain, working on the weekly day of rest, dishonouring their parents, killing, cheating on their spouses, stealing, lying and coveting whatever belongs to their neighbours. And there will always be people who do so. Similarly, statutory rape laws exist only to make charging and convicting people easier.
If one were truly worried about the welfare of a child, there are better ways of seeing to that and better ways of investing taxpayers’ money. I would start with better sex education and, while we’re at it, better life education. Our teens come out of high school knowing how to do trigonometry, but they can’t fill out their own tax return. How logical is that? Similarly, when it comes to sex, our children and teens should be taught so much more than how to say no to people who would exploit them. After all, at some point, we expect them to say yes to those who will treat them properly.
Still, that doesn’t mean I’m necessarily against age-of-consent laws. However, the aforementioned Varda Burstyn did oppose them back in 1985 (I don’t what her view would be today). In Women Against Censorship, she writes that age-of-consent laws were enacted in the late nineteenth century purportedly to protect children from sexual abuse. But the laws were ineffective because child prostitution, rape and more subtle forms of coercion continued. Rather than punish the truly guilty, these laws served instead as a means of sexual repression of gay boys and men, and of working-class girls for simply being promiscuous or precocious. Burstyn could even see injustice where relatively non-exploitative sex occurred between men, including very young men, and girls who hadn’t yet reached the age of consent. She argued – and certainly convinced me – that these laws do not achieve their intended goals and wind up harming too many Speople. She too favours better education in matters of sex and self-esteem. On page 177, she has this to say:
Present age of consent laws are predicated on the assumption that adolescents are not sexual beings entitled to sexual experience with others. In fact, psychologically and emotionally, adolescence is a time of intense sexual feeling, and many adolescents take determined action to bring about encounters with partners who are considerably older than themselves. In terms of social policy governing education, state intervention and punishment, notions such as statutory rape or variations on that theme are more dangerous than useful.
See also Age of Consent to Sexual Activity.
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