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Raising The Age Of Consent Fails To Protect Young Teens
How young is too young to have sex?
How young is too young to have sex? Canada has been experimenting with that question, in an effort to protect young teens from sexual abuse.
In 2008, Canada raised the age of consent from 14 to 16. A new study suggests that shift did little to protect the most vulnerable kids: 12 and 13 year olds.
Rather than focus on age of consent laws, the study recommended using existing laws to do more to protect these very young adolescents from sexual predators. They also point out that it’s often not the age that matters, but the age gap between partners.
They found the 14-16 year old set mostly made sane sexual decisions. They tended to have sex with people about their same age, and to be about as safe about it as older teens. Teens of all ages have problems reliably using safer sex practices. But the fact that 14-year-olds weren’t substantially worse at choosing safe partners or making healthy choices about birth control and STIs suggests that 14 isn’t a worse age than 16 to start having sex.
Statistically speaking, of course. When it’s your own kid, you get to have whatever complex feelings you have about the age of consent. Or simple ones like: NOT UNTIL YOU’RE A GROWN UP.
Younger teens were a different story. While very few 14 to 16 year olds reported having sex with someone five or more years older than themselves, nearly half of sexually active kids under 14 said their partners were at least five years older.
It’s hard to see any argument for calling a 20-year-old having sex with a 12-year-old anything other than abuse. That’s not two kids messing around; that’s a young adult preying on a kid.
Pushing the age of consent upwards doesn’t seem to help prevent that. Instead, the study recommended increasing enforcement of child sexual abuse laws, and focusing on education and enforcement strategies to protect middle-school aged students.
Photo: Courtney Cardomy
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2 Comments
Amgine commented on Nov 17 10 at 10:00 amBrilliant. This summation is better than almost every ‘journalist’ article on the story.
Marj commented on Nov 18 10 at 7:05 pmI don’t think raising the age of consent will change much immediately, but I think it will eventually have an effect on the culture. Right now, they see 12 and 13 as “almost legal” which means, almost sexually mature…as in “close enough”. It’s how most Americans view 17 year olds (and even 16 year olds). This is a cultural change that will take time. A good thing in the long run.
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