Please do not post in this thread unless you are one of the competitors. If you have something to say on the issue then start a new thread with the same topic.

Motion: The House Believes That Age Of Consent Laws Should Be Lowered(18 being the law)

Proposition: Devour

Opposition: Exilement

Judges: Alive, Wartooth, Bonk

Start Date: 10/04/10

Closes: 17/04/10

EDIT: Let me add that if the proposition doesn't post within two days of the start, I'll allow for the apposing argument to post.

I guess I'll start this off.

Coming from a part of the world where the age of consent has been lowered to 14 years old, it is much more reasonable, and much safer than having the age of consent being at 18. No matter what the law says, people are going to have sex at any age, if their hormones drive them to the act. The only thing that this law does, is that it makes condoms and other things that make sex safe for you harder to get ahold of. This is probably one of the reasons that Canada has a much lower teen pregnacy rate than the US does.
I've never been one to drag things on, so I'll leave my point at this.

Condoms and other birth control don't have an age requirement, they don't card you when you try to buy them. And a lot of high schools and clinics, and especially planned parenthood, make a point to make them accessible to people under the age of consent.

The law doesn't have anything to do with two 14 year olds having unprotected sex because the age of consent somehow makes it harder for them to buy birth control, it has to do with whether or not the law should deem people under the age of 18 legally capable of giving consent to the act of sex.

I'm going to wait to see if you have an actual argument on the topic before I go ahead and make my own

Well **** me and my uninformed opinion.

Why take a kid's choice away from them? If children at the age of 14 or 16 want to have sex, they're smart enough to decide for themselves whether or not they want to. Keeping the age of consent to 18 is unreasonable, quite rude, and is a step in the direction of minimizing free will of teenagers.
As it stands, there is really nothing wrong with a younger person having sex or getting married with somebody significantly older than them, as long as they're willing. The only thing that's wrong with it is if either person is not willing, and that's against the law in the first place.

Quote from Devour

Why take a kid's choice away from them? If children at the age of 14 or 16 want to have sex, they're smart enough to decide for themselves whether or not they want to.

Kids at the age of 14 and 16 also think it's a good idea to get massively drunk or do illicit drugs, and we take that choice away from them too, because they're idiots. But why is it during a developmental period when they have spiked levels of hormones that you're willing to say they're in any position to make judgements about what's right and what's wrong sexually?

Keeping the age of consent to 18 is unreasonable, quite rude, and is a step in the direction of minimizing free will of teenagers.
As it stands, there is really nothing wrong with a younger person having sex or getting married with somebody significantly older than them, as long as they're willing. The only thing that's wrong with it is if either person is not willing, and that's against the law in the first place.

Except the actual concept of "consent" is a legal term that depends on whether or not the person giving it is in any capacity to do so. I'm sure a horny 16 year old can be willing to have sex with someone older than them, but are they in any position to be making that call? People under the age of 18 are immature and can't completely realize the weight of their actions, and older people can and do take advantage of that. Not every teenager is like that, but for the ones that are there's reason enough to keep the age of consent at 18. The outlying cases are generally protected by "Romeo and Juliet" laws anyway, so it's not likely that a 17 year old having sex with a 19-20 year old is going to be classified as a felony. For the ones that it would affect, it's there to protect them

If you had a daughter that fell madly in love with a 30 year old when she was 15, would you say she's in her right mind and acting according to her best interests? Would you think she's mentally mature enough to decide that having sex with him is a good idea? If she went off and had sex on her own without you knowing, got pregnant, and he immediately cut contact with her, you'd have no case against him if the age of consent was lowered. You really think situations like those are worth risking at the benefit of giving teenagers more free will?

Kids are going to do whatever the hell they want to do regardless of what the law is, but legally it'd be nice to have some kind of defense when those stupid decisions actually come back to bite them in the ass.

Sorry if I don't make sense in some parts(I probably didn't). It's late and I'm getting tired.

Quote from Exilement

Kids at the age of 14 and 16 also think it's a good idea to get massively drunk or do illicit drugs, and we take that choice away from them too, because they're idiots.

"Those choices are taken from them too" Isn't a great way to describe it, seeing that their choices actually aren't taken away. Kids are still getting high, doing drugs, and getting drunk, even though there's a law against it... same thing with the age of consent being at an overly high age. They're going to get down and dirty anyways.

Quote from Exilement

But why is it during a developmental period when they have spiked levels of hormones that you're willing to say they're in any position to make judgements about what's right and what's wrong sexually?

Implying that having safe sex with an adult is as bad as doing illict drugs. Really; there's nothing wrong with it. Sex between a younger person and an older person is the same as a younger person having sex with a younger person, except the age.

Quote from Exilement

Except the actual concept of "consent" is a legal term that depends on whether or not the person giving it is in any capacity to do so. I'm sure a horny 16 year old can be willing to have sex with someone older than them, but are they in any position to be making that call? People under the age of 18 are immature and can't completely realize the weight of their actions, and older people can and do take advantage of that.

At the most, being "being taken advantage of" would only cause the teenager to regret having safe sex with the older man/woman, assuming both sides were willing at the time. This is no different than people of the same age getting drunk and having sex with eachother some night in a party. If this is bad enough to abolish having sex, why not do the same for every age group? Adults take advantage of drunk women at clubs and parties all the time.
Either way, this sort of case isn't particuarily common. I wouldn't assume that teenagers in the age group of 14-17 would be getting high, drunk, or in a state which makes them horny with adults besides the hoster's parents around, as clubs have age limits of 18 and older. The way most minors would get into a sexual relation with an adult would be if the minor saw an adult, saw him/her as "sexy" and opened the sexual relation his or herself, or vice versa. In either situation, both people are in perfectly sober states of their mind. Either one of them have the time to, and will think for at least a while before they went after the other.

Contrary to popular belief, teenagers are not stupid. They know what the ramifications of their actions could be the best they can without experiencing them his/herself. In school, they are constantly educated about AIDS/HIV and the importance of safe sex. They are taught about the existance of condoms and birth control pills. They are also taught about the consequences of teen pregnacy and how bad it could **** their lives up.

Quote from Exilement

If you had a daughter that fell madly in love with a 30 year old when she was 15, would you say she's in her right mind and acting according to her best interests? Would you think she's mentally mature enough to decide that having sex with him is a good idea? If she went off and had sex on her own without you knowing, got pregnant, and he immediately cut contact with her, you'd have no case against him if the age of consent was lowered. You really think situations like those are worth risking at the benefit of giving teenagers more free will?

Response to the bold: As stated while I explained the non-stupidity of teenagers... yes. And as it stands, I would be very surprised if any sane teenager on the face of the earth saw a 30 year old as a better alternative to a person of the same age.
For the rest of your arguement. This scenario would be exactly the same with two 18 year olds. After the girl gets pregnant, even through the use of condoms and/or birth control pills, yes, she wouldn't have a case against the guy and her stupidity would have brought that on.
However, there is always last resorts for this. The daughter can either raise the kid willingly, give the baby away for adoption, or resort to abortion. It's pretty simple, and not all that horrible.

Quote from Devour

"Those choices are taken from them too" Isn't a great way to describe it, seeing that their choices actually aren't taken away. Kids are still getting high, doing drugs, and getting drunk, even though there's a law against it... same thing with the age of consent being at an overly high age. They're going to get down and dirty anyways.

Not sure what point you're trying to make here, I already acknowledged that kids are going to do whatever they want regardless of the law, I was just saying those laws shouldn't be abolished on the grounds that "kids should be allowed to do what they want". On a general basis, the choices the average 14-16 year old makes are not very good ones.

Implying that having safe sex with an adult is as bad as doing illict drugs. Really; there's nothing wrong with it. Sex between a younger person and an older person is the same as a younger person having sex with a younger person, except the age.

You can't say there's no distinction between the two just because the act is the same. There's a massive difference

I'm acknowledging that if there's a circumstance that someone under 18 falls in love with someone much older than them, and they somehow have perfect judgement in what they're doing (not something teens ever really have but I'll run with it), then the age of consent laws are unfair. What you're ignoring are the countless sex offenders and pedophiles that manipulate people under the age of 18 into a state of mind that would cause them to want to have sex with someone they normally wouldn't want to. You can't say that doesn't happen, it's a known fact that it does, and you think there shouldn't be any legal consequence if they do it to a 14 year old just because their false judgement led them to say "yes"?

At the most, being "being taken advantage of" would only cause the teenager to regret having safe sex with the older man/woman, assuming both sides were willing at the time. This is no different than people of the same age getting drunk and having sex with eachother some night in a party. If this is bad enough to abolish having sex, why not do the same for every age group? Adults take advantage of drunk women at clubs and parties all the time.

..yeah, that's called rape, assuming the woman wouldn't have wanted to have sex with those men in a sober mindset. And you really don't seem to consider how negatively it can affect someone to be manipulated into having sex with someone twice their age, even if it doesn't lead to pregnancy or an STD or some other more obvious negative effect. I had a friend that was being used for sex by a 32 year old that she was convinced was madly in love with her, and she more or less shut down afterwards. I realize this can happen in the same age groups as well but there's no reason to think that most older men are going to legitimately love a child more times than they're going to prey on them and manipulate them for sex

Either way, this sort of case isn't particuarily common. I wouldn't assume that teenagers in the age group of 14-17 would be getting high, drunk, or in a state which makes them horny with adults besides the hoster's parents around, as clubs have age limits of 18 and older. The way most minors would get into a sexual relation with an adult would be if the minor saw an adult, saw him/her as "sexy" and opened the sexual relation his or herself, or vice versa. In either situation, both people are in perfectly sober states of their mind. Either one of them have the time to, and will think for at least a while before they went after the other.

I didn't really present a case, and your idea of a child meeting an adult and love blossoming between them isn't exactly common either.

Contrary to popular belief, teenagers are not stupid. They know what the ramifications of their actions could be the best they can without experiencing them his/herself. In school, they are constantly educated about AIDS/HIV and the importance of safe sex. They are taught about the existance of condoms and birth control pills. They are also taught about the consequences of teen pregnacy and how bad it could **** their lives up.

I'm not really sure how this applies to cases of sexual predation, which is the main concern for the age of consent

For the rest of your arguement. This scenario would be exactly the same with two 18 year olds. After the girl gets pregnant, even through the use of condoms and/or birth control pills, yes, she wouldn't have a case against the guy and her stupidity would have brought that on.
However, there is always last resorts for this. The daughter can either raise the kid willingly, give the baby away for adoption, or resort to abortion. It's pretty simple, and not all that horrible.

The case could happen with two 18 year olds, but which seems more likely, two 18 year olds falling in love or a 17 year old and a 40 year old? And like I said before, a person being used for sex, becoming pregnant and having to abort a fetus or give up a baby after 9 months of embarrassment among her friends is extremely psychologically damaging. You make it sound like the thought process would just be "oh, I really shouldn't have had sex with that guy, guess I need an abortion". That could ruin interpersonal relationships for someone for the rest of their lives.

In the cases where the end goal of the adult is sex, that's sexual predation, and that's what the age of consent means to protect. I really don't think there are enough teen-adult relationships to warrant getting rid of any legal ramifications against those predators. And since you generally don't know until the damage is done, there's no reason to not assume the worst.

Uhhh should I post in here or is there a new thread?

Do it here

The question of whether to lower the age of consent law or not is not a matter of right or wrong, it's a matter of the ability to enforce the law itself. Sure, teenagers are not developed enough to make the right decisions for themselves, and sure, hormonal imbalances at that time make them even more irrational, but the fact of the matter is there is no way to keep them from having sex. This law may have a just motive, but in the end it does next to nothing to prevent the crime. No teenage couple is worried about the cops when considering the risk of underage sex. They are worried about parents, STDs, and many much more relevant concerns, because the odds of them actually being punished for breaking the law is far below the odds of contracting herpes, or of their parents finding out.

This problem of enforcement has come up in the past, as there have been many laws that have no concern for the fashion in which the law can be enforced and end up being absurdly irrelevant and unnecessary. Even now we see many of these laws doing absolutely nothing to solve the problem they were made to combat, and in some cases (the illegality of marijuana in the US is the driving force of Mexican drug cartels which cause thousands of deaths each year) make them worse.
This law isn't even taken seriously by corporate America, who target teenagers for sales of condoms with complete disregard for the fact that the use of their product by them is illegal. The mean age of losing virginity for the American teenager is 17. Yes, 17. The average American breaks this law. How can we possibly support a law that is so meaningless that it is STATISTICALLY EXPECTED to be broken by every single teenager in America (using the US as an example because most people on this forum live there)?

We should be focusing our law enforcement elsewhere, to areas in which we can actually prevent the crime we're fighting against. Teenagers are irresponsible and naive, but they have rights, and there is no way for us to monitor them and prevent them from having sex without encroaching on at least one of these rights. That is why we should lower the age of consent law below the average age that the American teenager loses their virginity, or we will be fighting a war that we have no reasonable way of winning.

Wait, why is dinomut part of this now?

How much a law will be broken has no standing on whether or not the law should be changed. Something like half of the US population has tried marijuana, a huge percentage of teenagers smoke and drink, does that mean we should add stipulations to the law to make fewer people guilty of breaking it?

That and you're assuming that every average 17 year old is losing their virginity to someone 18 or older, which isn't always the case. And an 18 year old having sex with a 17 year old will never really be charged with anything in a realistic situation. The reason those teens have no worries with the law is because the law more or less doesn't apply to them, it's a legal protection of teenagers from much older people that could be soliciting those teenagers. I've already stated that.

Quote from Exilement

Wait, why is dinomut part of this now?

How much a law will be broken has no standing on whether or not the law should be changed. Something like half of the US population has tried marijuana, a huge percentage of teenagers smoke and drink, does that mean we should add stipulations to the law to make fewer people guilty of breaking it?

No, it means we should revise it so that it fulfills its goal more effectively.
To drink, a teenager must go through a host of obstacles to obtain a fake ID and then buy alcohol on their own, so one could say that the drinking age has made it harder for teens to obtain alcohol.
To smoke, a teenager must go through the same obstacles above, and if they intend to smoke marijuana they have to find a dealer, which adds another level onto the challenge, so one could say that the laws against smoking and marijuana both at least put obstacles in the way of someone intending to break them.
However, age of consent laws have absolutely no way to stop teenagers from having sex. They don't need to buy anything that we can make hard to obtain for them. All they need is another person and they're set. THIS LAW DOES NOTHING TO MAKE IT HARDER FOR TEENS TO HAVE SEX. It's simply a moral guideline that the government endorses with a few punishments thrown in to make it more ominous.

Also, in the case of protection from these much older people, the lowering of the age of consent to 17 would change nothing. I have yet to see a "relevant" situation in which the age of consent being 17 instead of 18 would cause any harm. The protection of most teenagers from people soliciting sex to them would remain, while the age of consent would be below the mean age that most people lose their virginity.

The law itself has nothing to do with keeping teens from having sex. Have you heard of Romeo and Juliet laws? Read them. You can keep saying that 17 year olds who lose their virginity would benefit from lowering the law but they don't currently have any record of suffering from it in the first place, so I don't see why you're speaking as if this would be a good thing for them.

What it would affect are the 17 year olds being manipulated for sex by older people which, with your suggestion, would no longer be criminals for doing so. If there's no positive benefits of lowering the law then why submit those 17 year olds to that?

And I still don't know why I'm debating with you instead of devour

Pardon the inturruption please excuse this post.

Quote from Devour

asdf I'm already losing interest. Debating bores me and I was never really into it.

Quote from Wartooth

I can remove you if you'd like to commit suicide.

Quote from Dinomut

Can I replace him?

Quote from Devour

Yeah, I don't mind. I was halfway finished writing my reply myself, but then boredom overcame me and I switched to something I found more interesting.
I feel so ashamed

So what the hell, I'm supposed to just go along with it and shift the argument's focus halfway through without any notification? Why isn't he just disqualified?