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

[phillygwm]

Culturally, we've all read about ancient Rome and Greece where older men with younger boys were just the way things were done.  Presumably, those boys weren't horribly scarred from the experience because it was deemed normal back in the day.  Fast forward to today:  Sex is dirty, gay sex is still largely considered immoral, and large age gaps between partners are seen as inherently exploitative.  Whether that's "right" or "wrong", that's what we're taught as a society and there are ramifications for those who deviate from that.  Maybe in another 100 or 1000 years it will be normal again but we're living in 2024.  

If an older person is having sex with a 12 year old, even if it were made legal, it would still be frowned on by our society. Thus, it would still likely need to be done secretively.  If you can't tell people, especially your family, what you're doing, a kid will draw the conclusion that there must be something wrong or "dirty" about it.  Knowing that if they were discovered, the kid would be "in trouble "with his parents, that's an awful lot to put on a 12 year old.  IMHO, THAT'S what messes people up.  It's a much heavier burden than experimenting with the neighbor kid in the basement, not that you'd want to be caught in either scenario.  Another issue is one of power imbalance:  If you're my coach or mentor, I might feel obligated to put out:  I'm not with you because I'm attracted to you, I'm there because I'm afraid you'll cut me from the team, or you won't otherwise help me anymore.

The issue is picking an age of consent number.  It's going to be somewhat arbitrary, not much different than picking a legal driving, drinking or voting age.  Maybe there are some 12 year olds that could handle it.  There are likely some 18 year olds that can't.  A kid doesn't just wake up with emotional maturity one day, nor does it happen to everyone at the same age.

Look at the people on here, for example.  Many don't have any regrets about what they did as a young kid.  But there are a lot of people out there in similar scenarios who were really screwed up by the experience.  

 

Edited December 7 by phillygwm