[sybarite]

No, everyone is not the same, but that's precisely why legislation protecting teenagers from adults who should know better must involve an assumption that the teenager is fairly innocent. On the sliding scale of maturity that teenagers occupy, obviously some will be more mature than others. Legislation must stipulate a cut-off age to protect those kids who are relatively innocent or sheltered from adults abusing their power.

I was pretty innocent at 14 and even 16. I wouldn't have known what to do if an adult came on to me, personally. However, I suspect more sexually experienced 14 or 16 year olds also wouldn't know what to do, necessarily. It's not a question of are teenagers under 18 able to handle sexual relationships with adults; it's (again) why are these adults sexually drawn by underaged teenagers? And that being the case, protective measures must be put in place for these teenagers.

Yes, there are exceptions. Life isn't always fair and I would rather have a sexually frustrated 17 year old legally prevented (however it plays out in reality) from having sex with an older adult, than a confused 17 year old coerced into sex by an adult with no legal recourse.

[katiebelle2882]

well the point is is not everyone is the same.

[girlygirlgag]

I really don't care if I sound condescending. I am 30 and was 15 at one time. I think even now some relationships get a little too intense for me when sex comes about. When I was 15, I may not have known it at the time, though I was not sexually active for the most part, but I look back and know I was not ready to handle a sexual relationship. Especially with an adult.

[katiebelle2882]

i wasnt much different btw 16, 17 and 18. now, between 18 and 20 i would say i had a huge leap, with going to college and all.

[mornington]

ok, I've been lurking and...

I'd say that, in general, there is a lot of difference between a 16y.o. and an 18y.o. - although I also think that there can be a world of difference in maturity between two 16y.o.s. I think that as anyone gets older - I'm talking more in a teenager-to-adult sense - maturity is a more individual issue. There are some 16y.os capable of "adult" relationships, and yet there are people my own age (20) who I wouldn't consider capable. Ultimately, I think it is an individual judgement; I'm a lot more mature now than I was at 16, but then again at 16 I was a lot more mature than a lot of my schoolfellows.


I guess my view has been altered by the fact that my last relationship, started when I was eighteen, was with a man eight years my senior - no, it didn't work out, but it is strange to think that I was leaving prep (elementary) school when he was starting university. Just a thought.



edited: what rose said.

[roseviolet]

Well, as another person who lost her virginity at 15, I'd like to say that my drive towards having sex at that age had a hell of a lot to do with the newness and unexpected pull of hormonal urges and sexual drive and very little to do with emotional or intellectual maturity. But even at that time, I knew that it would be wrong (even disgusting) to have a sexually-charged relationship with someone 5 or more years my senior.

But I agree that the problem here is not with the teenager, but with the adult. I feel that any adult - especially an adult who is old enough to have completed college like Debra Lafave - who then gets involved in a sexual relationship with a teenager, is actually revealing their own emotional immaturity. I know that I personally experienced a great deal of growth between the ages of 15 and 20. In fact, I know that when I was 20, I looked back at the actions of my 15year-old self and was amazed by how much I had learned and grown in that time. I would consider anyone who went through that time period without feeling that they had grown and changed a lot to be highly suspect - perhaps to be stunted emotionally-speaking or highly sheltered.

[msp]

You really don't believe that with each passing year you gain more knowledge, more experience, more wisdom?

[katiebelle2882]

I would hope that, even as a mother, i could be objective enough not to be a hypocrite and tell my daughter (if she was mature for her age) that she was wrong for doing something like that. I mean, i am 24, and clearly, more mature then i was at 16. however, i really dont see the difference (and no one has been able to answer this) between 16, 17 and 18 year olds.

[msp]

I think you're making a lot of assumptions about people based on little more than the fact that they (in some cases, strenuously) disagree with you. We're hardly one foot in the grave, you know. But yes, I'm sorry, 16 does look a lot different at 30, 40, 50, than it does at 18 or 20. I considered myself pretty damn mature at 16, but at 32, I am not the same person. I am more mature now. How could I not be? I think about things differently. I make decisions differently, based on my age and experience. I have a longer view of things than I did then. There's nothing wrong with it, it just is.

I occasionally got hit on by older men at that age, guys in their twenties, and even then it raised my eyebrows. I don't think it's inappropriate for a 16-year-old to want to sleep with a 20-year-old. I think it's inappropriate for a 20-year-old to sleep with a 16-year-old. The 20-year-old's a college sophomore. The 16-year-old's a junior in high school. (Although, truth be told, 16 and 20 isn't really giving me heart palpitations like 15 and 20 would, or 16 and 21.)

[vesicapisces]

i would like to know however, what about the fact that people, back in the day, got married around 15 or 16. was that ok back then, or were they just uninformed? this doesnt even address the fact that this is what happens in other cultures to this day.

I don't think any of us (women) would have wanted to be 15 and married "back in the day." Esp. since so many women were married off to older men, often with existing families, to be the new brood mare, keep his house, and raise his children.

And Katiebelle? Keep this post so when *you're* older you can look back on how you felt about this issue. Odds are you may have a different insight. Esp. if you have kids.

[katiebelle2882]

personally, i am finding the older busties insistance that a 15 or 16 year old doesnt know what they were doing to be extraordinarily condescending and "know-it-all". not to mention judgemental. to somehow imply that i, or any other mature for her age 15 or 16 year old didnt know what they were doing really just hints at a gross inability to keep an open mind, and a judgemental attitude that, while many busties would like to think they dont have, indeed do. maybe its bc a bunch of you have kids of your own, and therefore are responding in regards to that, but while YOU may think its inappropriate for a 16 year old to sleep with a 20 year old, you are conviently forgetting that not all 16 year olds are as immature as clearly you perceived yourself to be at that age.

some people have bad experiences, some people have good ones, i for one wouldnt take back a single experience i have, nor would i say its for everyone. but, as mr FJ says, things do happen on a case by case basis, and you cant legislate based on a case by case basis.i for one dont like the goverments way of arbitrarily picking an age. and clearly, bc some of you are well past the age to remember what it was like to be 17, perhaps you've forgotten that in most cases, not much changes between 17 and 18, or even 16 and 18.


i would like to know however, what about the fact that people, back in the day, got married around 15 or 16. was that ok back then, or were they just uninformed? this doesnt even address the fact that this is what happens in other cultures to this day.

[mr_falljackets]

mr. fj-you disagree that it's wrong for an adult teacher to have sex with a child in their class? child meaning, under 18, still in high schoolor below?

No, Maddy, I didn't say that. I was pointing out that not every relationship with a "power differential" is inherently wrong and when I used the teacher/student example I honestly had more of a professor/college student thing in mind to illustrate my point. You chose the word "child" in your reply. I didn't use that terminology in that part of my statement because, frankly, my understanding of the word "child" conveys the very lack of maturity without regard to age that is at the heart of this discussion. In my opinion there are 35 year-old children walking around just as there are the occasional 16 year-olds, to pluck an age out of thin air, who are mature beyond their years. But that is beside the point here. I did not frame my response as a child-adult dynamic. To your point, I think it would be wrong for an adult of any age to take advantage of a child of any age. That raises obvious questions such as: when does the child become an adult? but thankfully we have legislators to decide that for us arbitrarily as our judicial system does not enjoy the luxuries of time or efficiency to decide the matter on a case-by-case basis.

[maddy29]

i gotta say ew to that. actually EWW. if he liked her so much, why didn't he just wait to fuck her until she was older? and he started fucking her? not just dating or anything? that's just hella creepy to me. anyone can "seem" happy, don't mean much to me.

just my opinion.

i'm leaving tomorrow just in case i start a shit storm, but mr. fj-you disagree that it's wrong for an adult teacher to have sex with a child in their class? child meaning, under 18, still in high schoolor below?

[falljackets]

I wasn't trying to say my logic was right or wrong, msp. Sorry if it came off that way.


crap... wrong acct.

[msp]

My dispassionate logic here notwithstanding I would have to agree with you.

Ah. Well, I guess I'm doing the best I can with my emotional illogic.

[butterfly]

I am nothing if not inconsistent.

.....and thank goodness for that

[mr_falljackets]

so I guess we do agree.

I am nothing if not inconsistent.

[butterfly]

My dispassionate logic here notwithstanding I would have to agree with you.

so I guess we do agree.

[mr_falljackets]

it would horrify me to learn that my 22-year-old friend was having sex with a 13-year-old girl.

My dispassionate logic here notwithstanding I would have to agree with you.

[butterfly]

Yeah, I'm not trying to tell anyone else when they should do ANYTHING-smoke, fuck, drink, drive(though I'm gonna call time on doing those two at the same time in the butterfly world order) or go for a jog(why oh why would you wanna do that?).

I just hope that we all don't generalise/make assumptions about people we don't know- ie, assuming some young guy's gonna be counting his blessings that some older woman picked him out for her 'special' education. Or, that your neighbors are screwed up because of the nature of their relationship. I can't walk in their house and tell them that he's this or she's that. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't even think it.

But- sorry mrfj- if I'd met her when she was 13, and she was telling me all about this great 22yr old guy she'd met? Yeah I'd probably want to have a chat wth her about what choices she had. Not to tell her what I thought she should do, but to see what she wanted to do.