If we changed the age of consent to 25

How long do you think it would take for most people (deniers) to start saying it’s sick, gross, perverted, and bad to think 24 year olds are attractive?

I bet it wouldn't take long. Peoples' supposed unattraction to girls under 18 is totally fake... and it makes no sense because many 15 year olds look 20+ and many 18 year olds look 14. I mean seriously, if I showed the same picture to two groups of 100... then told the first group of 100 the girl was 15 and the second group of 100 she was 18... most of the men in the first group would say she's unattractive but most of the men in the second group would say she's attractive.

Most people are just deniers. They will only admit to being attracted to what the current age of consent is. If it rises to 25, people will suddenly (a generation, at most) start claiming to only be attracted to 25+ year olds and talk stuff about people who say girls under 25 are attractive.

Don't you think the age of consent laws were made to align with majority opinion, rather than the other way 'round? Of course some individuals do decide what is right and wrong based on laws, but I think it would be difficult to impose laws if the general public is not supportive of them.

In countries where child marriage (and sexual relations between children and adults) is lawful, I think it would take a shift in public opinion to change their laws. (Not a change in law to shift the public opinion.)

javert wrote:Don't you think the age of consent laws were made to align with majority opinion, rather than the other way 'round? Of course some individuals do decide what is right and wrong based on laws, but I think it would be difficult to impose laws if the general public is not supportive of them.

In countries where child marriage (and sexual relations between children and adults) is lawful, I think it would take a shift in public opinion to change their laws. (Not a change in law to shift the public opinion.)

I do think it is inappropriate for an underage girl to have sex; however, I think that most people (including myself) still think they are beautiful and attractive. Some admit it, most deny it. Attraction does not require a desire for sex. Attraction can simply refer to the feeling one gets when one sees an attractive girl.

In my opinion, this feeling is based on looks not age. A beautiful girl is a beautiful girl... no matter what age she is. Since both 15 year olds and 18 year olds are both adolescents there is little difference in their appearance. In fact, as I previously stated, some 15 year olds look older than some 18 year olds and vice versa... this is why I think it is impossible for people to, for example, ONLY be attracted to 18+ year olds.

Sorry, I'm not sure how this relates to your first post and your claim that if the age of consent is raised to 25, people will suddenly change their behaviour and sexual attractions accordingly.

Truth22 wrote: In fact, as I previously stated, some 15 year olds look older than some 18 year olds and vice versa... this is why I think it is impossible for people to, for example, ONLY be attracted to 18+ year olds.

Is anybody arguing otherwise? I could say that I'm only attracted to Caucasian people, but maybe I'd be wrong because there's a Hispanic albino who I mistake for a Caucasian, and I find them really attractive. So what? Unless you're a Hispanic albino who feels unfairly excluded, what does it matter?

javert wrote:Sorry, I'm not sure how this relates to your first post and your claim that if the age of consent is raised to 25, people will suddenly change their behaviour and sexual attractions accordingly.

Truth22 wrote: In fact, as I previously stated, some 15 year olds look older than some 18 year olds and vice versa... this is why I think it is impossible for people to, for example, ONLY be attracted to 18+ year olds.

Is anybody arguing otherwise? I could say that I'm only attracted to Caucasian people, but maybe I'd be wrong because there's a Hispanic albino who I mistake for a Caucasian, and I find them really attractive. So what? Unless you're a Hispanic albino who feels unfairly excluded, what does it matter?

Attraction doesn’t change, but admitted attraction does. Instead of people pretending to be only attracted to 18+ year olds, they will pretend to only be attracted to 25+ year olds. My point is that all heterosexual men are attracted to underage girls, but we publically pretend to be only attracted to whatever the age of consent is.

Truth22 wrote:all heterosexual men are attracted to underage girls

Truth22 wrote:we publically pretend to be only attracted to whatever the age of consent is.

I can't agree with either of these points, so I think I'll have to bail out of this conversation, but before I do, I just want to make two points.

Firstly, of course people are reluctant to publicly advertise that they have sexual attractions that may be deemed improper. Sexual attraction can be quite a personal thing, so I find it reasonable that many people only choose to discuss it with tolerant and familiar company. I haven't heard too many people say they're sexually attracted to dogs; I don't think that means that everyone who doesn't declare their love for pooches is a denier.

Secondly, "18+ years old" is just a category. It's not a rule that people have to be held by. As I wrote before, I might think that I'm only attracted to Caucasians, but actually be attracted to non-Caucasians who look like Caucasians. Does that mean I'm a denier? If I say I'm only attracted to humans, but I happen to fall for an alien who looks amazingly human-like, are you going to call me a liar?

javert wrote:Sorry, I'm not sure how this relates to your first post and your claim that if the age of consent is raised to 25, people will suddenly change their behaviour and sexual attractions accordingly.

They'd change their behaviour because it would be illegal. I think most men do find 14 and 15 years olds attractive and I also think that's normal. But I think the reason it's considered illegal is just below 14 and 15 you have 13 and 12 and so there needs to be a barrier of what's legal and what's not.

Leviathan wrote:They'd change their behaviour because it would be illegal.

If this were true, why do so many people download movies illegally? I suspect that in general, people only follow those laws that have majority support. So if the age of consent was changed, and the community did not support the change, I think many people would not alter their behaviour to obey the new law. Perhaps it would be different if the new law was tightly enforced and punishable by death, but I'm thinking about the situation in my own community - not how it might be in some military dictatorship.

Truth22 wasn't talking about a change in behaviour but a change in discourse. The gist of what he's saying is that people conflate ages of consent with ages of acceptability of attraction.

The idea of legislation reflecting prevalent sociocultural opinion is nice if a little naïve. Legislation is also used as an instrument of control, as an instrument of power, as a means of encouraging and instilling certain values (e.g. a conservative government passing laws that reflect conservative values rather than values held by the entire electorate - bearing in mind that in the UK a conservative majority can be obtained with far less than 50% of the vote). 'Prevalent sociocultural opinion' doesn't make a distinction between rationally held, long-standing opinion and those opinions born of sudden mass hysteria. If that assertion seems a little vague, I'd like to point out that in the UK the age of consent was raised from 12 to 13 in 1875 (after 600 years of being set at 12) for rational reasons and then raised again to 16 only a decade later as a knee-jerk reaction to W.T. Stead's newspaper articles entitled The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon. Sure, Stead's articles influenced 'prevalent sociocultural opinion', but this prevalent sociocultural opinion was the product of a wave of mass hysteria, upon the crest of which the new legislation rode. Interestingly, the government were set to amend the age of consent to 15, but instead raised it to 16 at the last minute thinking the hysterical public needed a bit more appeasement than a 2-year raise would provide.

Of course, by selecting the age 25 Truth22 is exaggerating to make a point. But given David Cameron's penchant for punctuating less popular government decisions with well-timed populist ones (more PR than PM, as Labour cyclops Gordon Brown once said), it wouldn't surprise me if the aftermath of the Jimmy Saville/BBC scandal culminates in a move to raise the age of consent to 18. Often, what gives rise to changes in legislation is not gradual, subtle shifts in public opinion but populist moves on the part of lawmakers in response to sudden outcry.

javert wrote:

Leviathan wrote:They'd change their behaviour because it would be illegal.

If this were true, why do so many people download movies illegally? I suspect that in general, people only follow those laws that have majority support. So if the age of consent was changed, and the community did not support the change, I think many people would not alter their behaviour to obey the new law. Perhaps it would be different if the new law was tightly enforced and punishable by death, but I'm thinking about the situation in my own community - not how it might be in some military dictatorship.

If the law was changed and say it was legal to have sex with 14 year olds then more men would do it. Knowing they wouldn't be branded a pervert or wrongly a paedophile. You also have to remember though that the oposite of this is young boys. There's generally a much bigger difference in terms of physical maturity between a 14 year old boy and a 20 year old man and a 14 year old girl and a 20 year old woman.

That's why it's usually 16 for age of consent in many countries. Girls mature quicker then boys, and just lowering the age of consent for girls would have the feminists going crazy.