If it was up to you to set a new age of consent, what would the age be and why?

[GermanFucker]

IMHO the problem with some of the answers is that many guys here have very little contact with actual 13-year-olds and just rely on their own memory. Once puberty hits, every boy and girl WANTS to have sex, but few do right away, because few can actually really handle it. We tend to remember the desire of youth but sometimes forget the crudeness of reality. It kinda reminds me of the sunscreen song:

 

"... is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth".

 

By remembering our past, we are in a way inventing our own life story, rewriting it in a way that it all fits together and makes sense. When I read something like that:

 

Was forced at 9.  No regrets.

 

 

I say 13 is great. I got started at 11 my uncle fucked me one night when I was in bed. Have loved it since.

 

I sincerely doubt that the poster's attitude towards being forced was as positive then as he portrays it now. No child deserves to be forced sexually - period!

 

And even if collegekid really was attracted to his uncle, this crass statistical outlier should not form the basis of a law that applies to all. A law should deal with real life, the everyday reality of common people. That means that it can't really be based on extremes (and that goes both ways!). But it also means that it must allow for the fact that people are indeed different. What is right in case A might not be in case B. So the law should allow for some individual assessment rather than just one general rule. That's why I'm still a HUGE fan of the German model, which has not one, but three ages of consent:

 

14 - if the adolescent is clearly mature enough sexually and intellectually, if the parents allow it and / or if there's just a minor age difference between the sexually active youngsters (i.e. under 21). This means that the legal system here doesn't care about teenage romances, thank God. It also allows a judge to distinguish between a 15-year old that actively or even agressively seeks out sex with a 35-year-old (who then wouldn't have to be punished as a sex offender) and one that is being manipulated or even forced into having sex.

 

16 - is the relevant age of consent that applies in most cases. Although parents retain certain rights to raise their children according to their values (e.g. they are within their rights to forbid their children to have sex in the family home), otherwise the teenagers are deemed capable of deciding for themselves if and with whom to have sex, i.e. there is no legal recourse against their sexual partners. However, there are some restrictions:

 

- No coercion or abuse of a position of power, i.e. it's illegal if you're a teenager's teacher, educator, employer, landlord etc.. You can have sex with a 16 or 17-year-old, even if you're over 21, but he or she can't be your apprentice.

- No drugs! Especially supplying a young addict with drugs is considered coercion.

- No money can change hands in exchange for sex, i.e. no prostitution, no doing porn, even if it's legal above 18.

 

18 - adulthood, i.e. the end of the remaining restrictions, full sexual self-determination (within the scope of the law, of course. You still wouldn't be allowed to have sex in full view on top of the Brandenburg gate *LOL).

[Ocelot2000]

I started at 7, but that was just older men playing with me, not fucking.

[Guest ohboytumblr]

I started taking loads at 12, so around there. 

[rtpbbcub]

I sincerely doubt that the poster's attitude towards being forced was as positive then as he portrays it now. No child deserves to be forced sexually - period!

 

And even if collegekid really was attracted to his uncle, this crass statistical outlier should not form the basis of a law that applies to all. A law should deal with real life....

In this part of what GermanFucker said are a lot of important points to think about. Not the least of which is on the aspect of force. And force takes on a lot of different definitions in real life usage. It doesn't just mean holding someone down or using a weapon, or threatening to do so. It can also be the intimidation one feels about the possibility of that situation occurring.

Meanwhile, this is all after the fact and, as narrators of our own lives, our perspective and the facts may not align. Intentional dishonesty, trying to reconcile what we did with who we are, attempting to fit our actions into socially acceptable terms, charging our experience to model a kink, etc. can all color what we say and how we feel about a situation, and may change greatly over time, whether years or hours, depending upon who we are talking to.

And, if we are honest with ourselves, we have all done that.

The stakes are just a hell of a lot higher when the facts are sex with a minor. Which is the reality any law, and anyone engaging in sex with someone a child, and anyone hearing about an adult-child sexual encounter needs to remember.

[whoai]

18 certainly seems like a vestige from a time when kids entered puberty at 14 or 15. Kids mature a lot more quickly physically and mentally these days, I think. 

[CallMeSir]

Most guys reach puberty and 12/13. Once that testosterone starts flowing through their bodies they're sprouting boners throughout the day and night. They are at the age where semen is constantly accumulating and there is a physical need to release it. Virtually all boys after reaching puberty and throughout their teen years jerk off at least once a day and, more likely, multiple times. Even if they're shooting a few loads during the day, they still may have a nocturnal emission because the semen has built up enough in a few hours that it has to be released. 

 

I would say the age of consent for a boy should be 16. Give him a few years of playing with his cock and exploring every fantasy he might have. Give him a few years to let his mental maturity catch up with his physical maturity. If an adult forces himself on the boy without his consent, then it's rape and should be prosecuted as such.

 

If the boy has been fantasizing about cock for a few years, once he reaches 16 and is now legal, he is going to go on a non-stop search for it. Most, whether or not they admit it, love finding a Daddy to teach them. They can get on their knees and slobber all over that fat Daddy meat and learn that their job is to service and worship Dad's cock until it explodes in the boy's mouth. And when they first get their holes played with and tongue fucked they quickly learn where cock should go. They'll start thinking only about sitting on cock and riding it as much as they can.  Cock sucking will no longer be enough. Getting boned and bred will dominate the rest of their lives.

[pervinmt]

I said 16, although it is true different people are ready at different ages. I actually lost my virginity at 14 to a 21 year old. Most people would think he was a predator, but I initiated the entire thing. I knew about safe sex and practiced it. I continued to "hook up" with him every few months even into college. I have never regreted what happened, nor felt in anyway victimized. I have always thought back fondly on what transpired and often wonder what happened to him.

[PhoenixGeoff]

I just came across this quote on Wikipedia:

Next time someone talks to you about "traditional values" add that one to your list - fucking a 10 year old (and in some areas a 7 year old) is apparently "traditional". Of course, so was owning slaves.

But a little more seriously – can someone please explain to me how the kids today are less ready for sex than they were in 1880? I mean if anything they're more ready. They have sex ed now. They have the Internet where they can see pretty much anything. Kids today understand sex in a way their counterparts 134 years ago would never have imagined in their wildest dreams.

The issue isn't that sex is riskier now. I mean Syphilis was a big problem back then. If it's an issue of better understanding the impact sex has on kids – haven't we overdone it a bit? I mean we live in a world where kids are pampered like crazy, and many types of risk are considered "unacceptable". The whole risk avoidance culture we live in is a rather big problem IMHO. It makes our society less creative (and interesting). And then layer on top of that how we see sex as dirty and evil and it just compounds the problem.

I guess what I'm saying is that, if there isn't any coercion or force, what's the big deal? Why can't we just teach our kids to say "no thanks" or laugh off sexual advances like we teach them to do in other non-sexual circumstances where they're not interested?

[bTW, I'm playing Devil's advocate a little bit with what I just said. I'm not saying we should go back to 10 as the threshold, but honestly the more I think about it the more I think the whole age of consent issue is rather fucked up. We need something more sensible.]

 

(Dredging up an old, but very good post that I seem to have missed)

 

I think what you have to understand here is that the age of consent in the 18th and 19 century is identical with the age you can marry.  People in the 18th and 19th centuries did not think about sex in the same way as we do.  Hell, they didn't think about marriage in the same way either.  Marriages may not have been arranged, strictly speaking, but it was still customary in this country well into the 20th century for a young man to ask his future father in law for permission to marry his daughter (and permission was not necessarily automatically granted).

 

So what you're talking about there isn't sex in the sense of hooking up on BBRT.  It's sex in the sense of let's get married and raise a family.

 

Granted, they still had brothels and prostitutes and there were also young women who got pregnant out of wedlock, but those things were not the norm (as sex outside of marriage has become now) and carried extremely heavy burdens of social disapproval, as did, of course, sex between men.  Sex was extremely closely regulated in many ways it isn't now, especially as you climbed up the social ladder.

[PhoenixGeoff]

I would submit that, as a group, the membership of this forum is uniquely unqualified to venture an opinion on this subject.

 

First, there seem to be a lot of guys here who themselves experienced sexual abuse of some kind when they were young.  Regardless of whether you experienced that positively or negatively, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that such an important experience in one's life would absolutely warp your judgment on this issue.  I find it very difficult to believe that anyone who lived through that experience could possibly arrive at an objective opinion.  To make an analogy, rape victims have had an intense sexual experience.  Much as I might sympathize with them, I would not want them writing the laws for how we deal with rape.  They could never form a balanced opinion; they're too close to the issue.

 

Second, every one of us here is a pretty extreme outlier in terms of our sexual activity (or we aspire to be).  Everyone here, to a greater or lesser extent, has built their life around having sex.   Without passing judgment on the choice, I would say that taking such an out-of-the-mainstream position disqualifies us to be able to judge what would be right for society at large.

 

Third, and most importantly, most of us are not fathers.  I believe that parenthood changes your opinion on how you look at children and teens, for the better.  If anyone is going to be using their judgment for when it is appropriate for men to become sexually active, I believe that parents, not us (especially not those who look at these kids as objects of desire), are best placed to make those judgments.

[tallslenderguy]

Back at the time of the purported birth of Christ, Jewish women traditionally were married around the age of 13 or 14. As the story goes, Mary would have been about 13 or 14 at the time God impregnated her. That would make God a pedophile by our current cultural standard, which ironically has many roots in religion. 

 

I pretty much agree with those who note a general rule cannot be applied to everyone, everyone is 'ready' at a different point in life. I think religious cultures are mostly responsible for making rules about sex in order to exercise control. They make sex into a morality issue. They teach you cannot have sex till married, and where does marriage traditionally take place? "God" controls the basic human needs (the blessing over the meal, sex can only happen after a "God" approved wedding, etc.), and the people who head religious institutions decide who God is and what God wants.  Who wants to make gay sex illegal? Who calls it a "sin." Who argues that allowing people to be gay will lead to "pedophilia?" The very institutions whose beginnings were born out of "pedophilia"... except then, that was accepted practice by their culture, so it was okay.

 

If you take away the religious element, what is it that makes sex at any age immoral or inappropriate? To my way of thinking, the immorality comes from one person manipulating or coercing another human being to do something against their will. I don't think sex, in and of itself, is immoral. I think it's simply a natural drive, just like the drive to eat. We don't have laws against adults feeding kids McDonalds till they become obese and sick.

 

In that vein, it makes sense to me that kids would have sex with kids, usually, because they are more likely to be on the same level when it comes to ability and maturity. Adults having sex with kids increases the risk of manipulation or coercion and a violation of another's autonomy.  I personally do not think most kids today are emotionally mature enough to make decisions about many things, not because of age, but because culturally we have dictated and ensured that they are still emotionally immature. In other cultures where people take on adult responsibilities at younger ages, they also end up in responsible positions and romantic/sexual relationships at younger ages. But honestly, if I question the reasons why one might not have sex (at any age)? The only thing I can come up with is the risk of disease and thus harm (pregnancy is not a question between 2 guys).  To me there would need to be a level of competency/maturity.

Maybe we should administer a sex test and license to ensure the operator knows what they are doing and that is what determines legality?

[PhoenixGeoff]

I think religious cultures are mostly responsible for making rules about sex in order to exercise control. They make sex into a morality issue. They teach you cannot have sex till married, and where does marriage traditionally take place? "God" controls the basic human needs (the blessing over the meal, sex can only happen after a "God" approved wedding, etc.), and the people who head religious institutions decide who God is and what God wants.  Who wants to make gay sex illegal? Who calls it a "sin." Who argues that allowing people to be gay will lead to "pedophilia?" The very institutions whose beginnings were born out of "pedophilia"... except then, that was accepted practice by their culture, so it was okay.

I gotta disagree with a lot of this pretty strenuously.

 

First of all, while it is true that in the English Common Law tradition (of which the US is a part), regulation of marriage was strictly reserved to the Church historically (first the Catholic Church, then after the Reformation, the Church of England), that's actually an unusual state of affairs among European countries (having to do, mostly, with the murder of Thomas Becket in 1170).

 

In civil law countries, regulation of marriage has historically been the province of the secular state.  As a matter of fact, you can trace the antecedents of civil marriage law all the way back to Roman times.  It's there in the Justinian Code.  And, going back to pagan times, there was no monolithic ecclesiastical authority that could regulate marriage.  While Shakespeare may have Romeo and Juliet married by a priest, in Mozart operas (e.g. Così Fan Tutte), marriages are always conducted by a notary.

 

In fact, even in Roman Catholic Canon Law, marriage in a church before a priest is not a requirement for the creation of a marriage until the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215.  Prior to that, all that was needed is for a man and a woman without any impediments (e.g. a prior marriage) telling each other they will marry the other.  No witnesses, no nothing.  The whole elaborate marriage ceremony, done in a Church cam about because disputes that arose out of such marriages conducted in secret became impossible to work out fairly, as they turned into "he said, she said" arguments.

 

But beyond that, there are actually good reasons for why sex may need to be regulated pretty tightly in order to preserve social harmony.

 

First, there is the question of monogamy and the paternity of children.  Whether or not it's logical, it is undeniable that, in general and on a very deep subconcious level, most men are concerned that the offspring their wives bear and that they raise are their own.  This is a simple fact of human nature.  The lengths men have gone to to prevent their wives from having sex with other men is amply documented in history, literature, art, mythology, everywhere you turn.  There is strong cross-cultural documentation of this possessiveness; it's not just a European or Judeo-Christian thing (there's ample proof of it in the classical period of Greek history, for instance, long before the birth of Christ).  Marriage laws and customs simply codify this fact of human nature:  they tell you it's a bad idea to fuck another man's wife, because it's going to cause trouble.

 

Second, there is a very deep suspicion in many cultures of indulging in actions aimed at fulfilling one's own desires.  Again, this kind of self-denial, while deeply embedded in Christianity, can be found in many other places too.  Buddhism is an excellent example, as is Aristotelian ethical philosophy.  The general idea here is that chasing after ones desires, whether for sex, power, wealth, glory, fame, whatever, is ultimately self-defeating.  Fulfillment of desires does not bring lasting happiness.  It may temporarily satiate you, but then the desire returns, stronger than ever, always seeking more and more for fulfillment.  As exhibit A, I submit the bottom guys here, endlessly chasing more and more sex, and never satisfied with what they have.  Exhibit B might be the Wall Street hedge fund managers, who have more money than generations of the their families could ever spend.  And it's still never enough...they need more.

 

These various religions and philosphies teach that the only way to find lasting happiness and satisfaction is to learn how to lose those desires and to live without them.  All desires, both wants and needs, are suspect.  You train yourself to avoid them by practicing self-denial.  This is why fasting is an important part of many religions.  This is also why sex is closely regulated.  Obviously, it's needed to propagate the species, but the desire for sex is an incredibly strong one, right up there with food, water and air, and so it's one that historically has been regulated very closely.

 

On a related note I think it's pretty apparent that people who are motivated strongly by their self-centered urges often do a fair amount of collateral damage to society around them.  Look at the would-be dictator craving power.  Look at the payday loan operators charging usurious interest to those least able to afford it.  One reason many religions try to get people focused on identifying with and helping to meet the needs of others is that it helps foster a much stronger community than having everyone focused on chasing after his or her own personal desires and goals.

 

Third, historically, sex has been a vector for a lot of really deadly diseases.  This community should be very well aware of just how dangerous promiscuity can be.  But it's not just HIV.  Many other STDs, like syphilis or gonorrhea had very high mortality rates prior to the discovery of antibiotics.  Syphilis, in particular, had a particularly gruesome end, with people in the tertiary stage often suffering blindness and dementia.and eventually dying of the disease.

 

One could make the argument that many religious prohibitions have the roots in efforts to prevent the spread of disease.  For instance, the prohibition of eating pork in Judaism may be related to deaths caused by trichonosis.  Alternatively, it may be related to damage caused by pigs to the more delicate semi-desert ecology of the Levant.

 

In short, there are a lot of reasons why religion may regulate behavior, not all of them reducible to gaining and keeping control over the population (not even Marx, who conceived of religion as the "opiate of the masses" would have viewed religion in such simple terms).  Perhaps those reasons are wrongly conceived.  Perhaps they have been superseded by techonological and cultural change.  But perhaps not.  In any case, I am rather of the opinion that traditional reasoning should not be lightly dismissed, at least not without taking a long, serious look at it and determining why it's wrong.

[cman54]

This topic seems to be getting very detailed. Which I guess is ok but lets try to keep some things simple. Girls do mature a bit younger then boys so here are my thoughts. If a girl has been having her period for one year then she should be able to get fucked if  she wants to. Girls having baby's that young is no big deal anymore.  For most this would probably be 12-13 years. Boys maybe 14-15. Getting into sex at a younger age I think would make most more confident as they get older. And I say encourage experimentation with same sex experiences too.

[Guest]

I was ready at 6 but It was not exactly my choice... by that age my uncle had started molesting me.

I was eager to suck, get fingered and eventually got to the point where I was begging for it.

After that I started being the "slutty" guy at school and had a lot of cocks to suck.

Still... this is my experience, I consented when I was very young but probably I would not have known anything bout sex if it was not for my uncle.

[KindaBasic]

Though I was convinced I was ready at 13-14 (and maybe I was), I think 16 is probably as good an age as any. We all peak at different times, and I've met some guys my own age that were clearly not ready to make a mature decision.

[poztwink]

I don't think this issue is that complex. Sex is so mainstream now that developed folks (post-pubescent) can decide for themselves. The sex taboo is eroding, law should accommodate that.