Quote from Exilement

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?

I denied Dinomut,
and I am god of the debate conversation,
So yeah sorta.
Don't worry, you're winning anyways.

yes .
What I'm talking about here isn't a big deal, as nothing would really change other than the fact that the age of consent would conform to the mean age of virginity loss, which would be more practical in terms of weeding out the pointless charges that sometimes are brought up by rowdy parents. It's one year difference, so it wouldn't change much, but it would simply make the tiny amount of time where it actually is necessary more apparent.

Well unfortunately you're more or less acknowledging that the benefits from this would be very minimal at best, which more or less means that any negative outcome from it would outweigh them.

I also can't find any cases of an 18 year old being charged as a sexual predator for having sex with a 17 year old online, I really don't imagine it's something that's very prevalent, at least not enough to call lowering the age of consent "practical".

But the thing is that there are no negative outcomes that outweigh the positive. We lower the age of consent to what is biologically seen to be the average age, REGARDLESS of brain development as that would do nothing to change the equation. We should listen to statistics and not an arbitrary number.

The idea is that we don't want to have a law that is on average broken by every single person in America, even if most of them are not caught, if not for practical motives, then for moral ones.

What are you talking about? The age of consent isn't supposed to correlate with the average age people have sex for the first time, it has nothing to do with that. It concerns the age that people can legally be held accountable for their own decisions when it comes to sex, and in cases where people might be charged with pedophilia, whether or not the minor can, in the court of law, have enough life experience and mental development to be in the right mind to say "I wanted to have sex". You can't say that 17 year olds are a better choice than 18 year olds just because statistically most people lose their virginity at that age, that has nothing to do with the line that's drawn. There isn't a huge difference between those two ages, I know that. Hell, in Illinois where I live the age of consent is 17. I'm not against saying 17 year olds can't make decisions on their own, but I can't make that argument based off of the fact that most people lose their virginity at that age, it has NOTHING to do with why the law exists.

And I'm really getting tired of saying that a 17 year old having sex isn't breaking the law, stop saying that lowering the age of consent is a move towards making fewer people criminals. As a quote:

"Often, enforcement is not exercised to the letter of the law, with legal action being taken only when a sufficiently socially-unacceptable age gap exists between the two individuals, or if the perpetrator is in a position of authority over the minor (e.g., a teacher, minister, or doctor)"

You make it sound like we need to lower the age of consent because all those 17 year olds are becoming helpless victims of an unfair law against them, but the age of consent doesn't criminalize people under it. If a 17 year old has sex they are, legally, a VICTIM, not a perpetrator. And that's only if they're having sex with someone significantly older than them. That's the only time the law will ever apply to them, and they're never once subjected to any laws when they have sex with people close to their age.

If your stance is that the law is too high and is making too many kids criminals for having sex, you really need to read up on what the age of consent law actually does when applied in a court of law, because it has nothing to do with that.

Teenagers may not be criminalized under it, but their partners sure as hell are. It takes two to have sex, and at least one of them will be penalized for the act if they are brought to trial for it, so my statement still stands that Americans are statistically shown to on average be criminalized by this law at least once. On top of that, we have no preventative measures being taken as a result of these laws, so they in effect do nothing to solve the problem anyways. The AVERAGE American is not solicited sex by a much older person, so we should conform to that, if not to protect the partner than to acknowledge the ridiculous idea that somehow everyone who has sex with a 17 year old (AKA on average everyone) is a criminal.
If we lowered the age to below where almost everyone decides to have sex without some huge lapse in judgment, we'd zero in on what this law is really about which is the protection of people without the reasoning to make the decision themselves.

Okay, this is my last argument, this has gone on long enough and I have things to do for the weekend.

The law has nothing to do with average cases. If we're going to speak in average cases, people between the ages of 16-20, give or take one or two years, have sex without any problems from any parties on average. Your claim that "Americans are statistically shown to on average be criminalized by this law at least once" is completely taking the word out of context. Being "criminalized" implies there's legal action taken against those people for having sex, when clearly there isn't. Lowering the age of consent won't have any impact on average cases, whom you seem to be focusing on as the "victims" of this law. You can't say the law is unfair or immoral if, as it stands now, no action is taken against the average 17 year old that has sex with someone insignificantly older than them, or their partners. I for one can't find any proof that it ever has

The people this will affect, and the people you seem to be ignoring, are the 17 year olds unfortunately used for sex by older people due to a lapse in judgement. While this isn't an average case, it still happens (hell, it happens to 18 year olds and older, I've seen it myself), and all lowering the age of consent will do will render those teens helpless from the law and those people who would otherwise be considered sex offenders innocent. The only benefits you're offering to contradict that obvious problem is the notion that lowering the age of consent will prevent a 17 year old's partner from being a criminal, but as I keep saying, the law does not apply to them in practice. They aren't criminals until they're charged with anything, and that simply does not happen enough to warrant lowering the age because it's "unfair". The potential harm that can come from it simply outweighs the potential benefits, as I've already demonstrated that the only benefit is getting rid of a theoretical, unpracticed criminalization of legitimate teenage couples. At least that's the only benefit you've offered, even though I showed it to be unsatisfactory sometime in the last page, I really can't keep rephrasing the ways it's not enough to warrant changing the age of consent.

That's it from me here.

Okay, this is my last argument, this has gone on long enough and I have things to do for the weekend.

The law has nothing to do with average cases. If we're going to speak in average cases, people between the ages of 16-20, give or take one or two years, have sex without any problems from any parties on average. Your claim that "Americans are statistically shown to on average be criminalized by this law at least once" is completely taking the word out of context. Being "criminalized" implies there's legal action taken against those people for having sex, when clearly there isn't. Lowering the age of consent won't have any impact on average cases, whom you seem to be focusing on as the "victims" of this law. You can't say the law is unfair or immoral if, as it stands now, no action is taken against the average 17 year old that has sex with someone insignificantly older than them, or their partners. I for one can't find any proof that it ever has

The people this will affect, and the people you seem to be ignoring, are the 17 year olds unfortunately used for sex by older people due to a lapse in judgement. While this isn't an average case, it still happens (hell, it happens to 18 year olds and older, I've seen it myself), and all lowering the age of consent will do will render those teens helpless from the law and those people who would otherwise be considered sex offenders innocent. The only benefits you're offering to contradict that obvious problem is the notion that lowering the age of consent will prevent a 17 year old's partner from being a criminal, but as I keep saying, the law does not apply to them in practice. They aren't criminals until they're charged with anything, and that simply does not happen enough to warrant lowering the age because it's "unfair". The potential harm that can come from it simply outweighs the potential benefits, as I've already demonstrated that the only benefit is getting rid of a theoretical, unpracticed criminalization of legitimate teenage couples. At least that's the only benefit you've offered, even though I showed it to be unsatisfactory sometime in the last page, I really can't keep rephrasing the ways it's not enough to warrant changing the age of consent.

That's it from me here.

So what you're saying is that lowering the age of consent laws will more affect the 17 year old victims of lapses in judgment which eventually lead to legal action being taken on the behalf of the 17 year old.
My closing argument:
The sacrifice of a single year of protection is a worthy price to pay when it strengthens the validity of the law itself. If we can simply not enforce the law for most cases in which it is broken, it will have less power when exercised in a relevant situation. Since the law is rarely enforced due to the massive amount of people who technically break it, it becomes harder to draw the line on when to ACTUALLY enforce it. I propose we lower the age of consent to a point where breaking this law would be statistically unusual and therefore be much more strictly enforced. This would essentially weed out almost all irrelevant offenses and focus on the negative outliers, which would make a much more efficient and effective way of charging worthy offenders. This is why I propose the age of consent be lowered to 17 years old.

Time's up, make your concluding statements.

Already did, thanks

Ok,
this was definitely interesting to watch. And where Dinomut makes a somewhat stable argument, I'm going to have to side with Exilement. I believe the quality in which he debates, and the fact that he was amazingly great at combatting against any and all arguments Dinomut made. Dinomut did not make a valid enough point within his side of the argument, so, again, as I said earlier, I'm voting for Exilement.

Dinomut had a good point going at the end there, almost tipped me over, but Exilement was strong throughout and takes the cake.

Okay, so this got kind of ****ed up in the middle, but I thought Exilement generally made the best case regardless, so my vote goes to him.