Talk:Statutory rape/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Prevalence

This is pretty much an American thing, right? I don't think we have it here. Perhaps someone could write where it's used? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.235.31.191 (talk • contribs) 17:38, 6 August 2007

Hi, not sure where "here" is. A lot of jurisdictions have a law that operates in this fashion, but it can go under several names, as well as be treated more or less "seriously". See Age of consent for a few more wiki-leads and definitions. --Monotonehell 12:48, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Obviously it's not "pretty much a US thing" since scores of countries have these laws. If it wasn't a problem they wouldn't have the laws, would they? PainMan 23:59, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

The confusion above is probably due to the fact that the term "Statutory rape" is seldom used in actual legislation and the concept in law is known in different places under different names. Also attitudes in different regions are not universal. Your point of view seems to be a little narrow. Please don't take offence at this, I'm pointing out that attitudes, terms and legal definitions across the World vary greatly on this topic. The umbrella article for this on Wikipedia is Age of consent. Although things aren't any where near as organised as they could be. As is the way of Wikipedia ;) --Monotonehell 04:01, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Whether or not "statutory rape" is the term used in actual legislation, it seems clear to me that it is the name for the crime in ordinary English discourse. I agree that attitudes, terms, and legal definitions across the world vary greatly on this. As far as I can read, the article does not claim otherwise. There is a high density of "in some jurisdictions" qualifiers in the lead section, which appear to me to convey the variability of statutory rape laws nicely. Is there claim in particular in the article you think is US-centric? (I would support a merger with Age of consent because there does not seem to be a clear difference between the subject matters, but I cannot see how this one is specifically US-oriented). –Henning Makholm 09:20, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't say it's THE name for the crime in ordinary English discourse. I'd say it's one of the nameS used. A quick survey of the AoC legislation we've collected on Wikipedia shows many different names are used, even in neighbouring jurisdictions. The article does have some non-US references, however it's still mostly from the US perspective and the specific references are US state law. However, having said that, the only real International survey on this subject is Matthew Waites's Age of consent, so it's a difficult ask. --Monotonehell 10:32, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Added website with ages of consent for other countries

Ages of consent for dozens of countries and all 50 U.S. states and some US overseas territories and the military.

http://www.avert.org/aofconsent.htm

I included an in-text citation for the webpage--Reference/footnote #1.

Supplied by an AIDS charity, "AVERTing HIV and AIDS."

PainMan 23:56, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Avert.org's AoC table is based initially on the outdated and inaccurate ageofconsent.com's data. They also take email submissions from anyone who cares to email them with corrections. As such they are no more authoritative than Wikipedia's own articles on the topic. In fact some of the information we have gathered here has been submitted and adopted by Avert. --Monotonehell 03:55, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Objection to inclusion with Pedophilia "project" (PAW)

The law in the US (and most countries) differentiate between child molestation and pedophilia. The latter world meaning "love of children." A 17 year old having sexual intercourse with his/her 15 year old boy/girlfriend is clearly not a pedophile. Sentencing guidelines also tend to support this since even in states, e.g. California (where all sex between persons under 18 is banned; teens the same age, in some cases have both been charged with statutory rape!), the smaller the age difference the less severe the punishment for the older party.

Statutory rape means that the underage person is biologically capable of having sexual intercourse (hence the average age for giving consent is 16) and the legal line between child molestation (i.e. sex motivated by pedophilia) is usually below 14 or 12.

Several US states (and Canada) have what are sometimes called "Romeo and Juliet" exceptions to their statutory rape laws. I.e. if there's a small age difference between the younger and older partners, there's no crime (though, in the US, the older person, usually male, is sometimes charged with other offenses such a "contributing to the delinquencies of a minor," or "lewd acts", which usually covers "non-vaginal" sex; so the fact that a younger partner is over the AOC is not blanket protection from prosecution).

The point is this: pedophilia is a recognized psychiatric disorder in the DSM 4 (the "bible" of psychology/psychiatry).

An adult having sex with a girl/boy aged above the child molestation threshold and below the statutory rape threshold is not engaging in non-pathological sex; the purpose of the latter laws is to "protect" a teenager who is judged by the legislature as not having the wherewithal to make the decision to have intercourse due to her age. The usually reason is that he/she can't properly evaluate the consequences of intercourse (e.g. pregnancy, STDs, etc).

Also, in the vast majority of cases where the female in the relationship becomes pregnant and then marries the father, charges are almost never pressed against the older party.

Georgia and Maryland both have laws which allow a minor to marry if the female is pregnant (regardless of the sex of the older party) without parental consent. These laws were passed to reduce abortions. PainMan 00:21, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

All of your WP:POV rant above aside. What actually was your point here? If it's regarding the PAW template above, PAW's point is to watch articles where pro- or anti-paedophilia edits occur and to attempt redress any bias that tends to creep into these kinds of articles. It's not labelling this article with any kind of definition. --Monotonehell 03:47, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

The technical term for attraction to adolescents is ephebophilia, not pedophilia. Colloquial misuse of the term pedophilia should not be perpetuated by scholarly works. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.250.117.217 (talk) 00:14, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Coersion

By law (statute), any such sexual activity is assumed to be coercive since the minor is considered by law to be incapable of giving consent to the acts."

From the intro. I'm just wondering, is this correct? Being incapable to give informed consent (an informed needs to be stuck in that phrase btw, since consent alone just means being able to say 'yeah') to doing something doesn't necessarily mean that you need to be coersed to do that something. In many cases, it may even be the opposite. I had thought that rather than the law assuming coersion, it actively limits the freedom for sexual intercourse (or other sexual activities) to protect minors from the risks of sex (disease, pregnancy) and to protect them from the associated mental traumas that can come from those unprepared for it, including that of being coerced, which adults are not protected from so long as there is no overt threat. Is 'assumed coersion' truly present in all legislation, or even any at all? Source req I guess. The threat of being coerced and associated dangers of sex are equal in sex between minors, which I assume is not punished simply because the 'culprit' is also a minor, and thus not held criminally responsible for their actions in the same way an adult is. It is interesting how the age of criminal responsibility is often lower for other actions though. Tyciol 15:39, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Of course nothing is true for "all legislation". Even when looking at particular statues, it is often not clear whether the legislative intent is

• to protect minors who want sex from their own folly, by requiring adults to reject their offers, or
• to protect minors who don't want sex, by making it possible to convict abusers even when lack of consent cannot be proved

One suspects that often both motives have inspired legislators to some degree. The wording of a law may suggest one or the other, but that will often be a product of "legal engineering" as much as a useful clue to the intent of the law. One particular legal device that can to achieve the desired result is to declare by legislative fiat that no minor ever wants sex, and mandate that courts disregard any evidence advanced to the contrary. I think what causes confusion in this article is that some readers consider this particular legal fiction to define the phrase "statutory rape" whereas others consider "statutory rape" to cover any legislation that makes it criminal to have sex with a minor, irrespective of the legal mechanics employed. Unsurprisingly for a Wikipedia article, the current text does not apply these two viewpoints in a consistent manner, and it sometimes appear to switch between them in the middle of a sentence. I suspect that is what has gone wrong in the sentence you quote - its beginning wants to state (correctly, in and of itself) that almost all jurisdictions have "statutory rape" laws in the broad sense, but its end goes on to describe (correctly, in and of itself) how "statutory rape" laws in the narrow sense work. Feel free to try to edit it such that it becomes less confused. –Henning Makholm 22:05, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Mentally Disabled/Disadvantaged

Many years ago I also heard that it is also statutory rape when a mentally handicapped person - regardless of their age - consents to sex and the partner knows that they are not responsible for their consent because they do not understand what they are agreeing to. Anyone know anything about this??? TinyMark 23:33, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I have added the relevant content.[1]

Mdbrownmsw 15:03, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

making out

If making out is an integral part of sexual intercourse, how come it doesn't constitute statutory rape if adult makes out with minor? Because it is so rare for an adult to make out with somebody who is a minor albeit above the age of consent, that I am convinced that making out may be some criterion for the crime. --Koopa turtle 06:10, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Here is an HTML page that kinda answers my question. http://www.avert.org/ageconsent.htm Because the term "sex" is just too generic, and we need to make the article less ambiguous. That is why I put a criteria section listing actions that the statutory rape law encompasses. --Koopa turtle 06:32, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

You appear to be using "make out" as if it had a well-defined meaning. It does not. People seem to use the phrase to describe anything from enthusiastic kissing to full vaginal intercourse. Regardless of its many meanings, tough, it is a slang term which is not appropriate when writing in an encyclopedic style. –Henning Makholm 14:51, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

consensual

An editor has added the word "consensual" to the lead, resulting in "The phrase statutory rape is a general term used to describe consensual sexual relations that take place" (emphasis added). This in my view is incorrect. Minors cannot give informed consent, therefore sex with them is inherently coercive (except for close-in-age exemptions). I think what the editor is trying to say is that the encounter is not necessarily overtly violent or with threat of violence or use of force, like regular rape. If so, the editor needs to find a way to say that without muddying the meaning of the term "consensual". (However, as far as I know regular, violent rape of a minor is also statutory rape, therefore it is plain wrong to state that it need be non-violent. I think.) Herostratus (talk) 13:57, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree the emphasis is unnecessary. However, I do think there should be some distinction between violent rape and "consensual" statutory rape. I'm trying to keep a neutral pov, but there is an obvious difference between the two, and if there wasn't a difference then there would be no need to invent the term "statutory" rape. If they were the same thing, then this article would be titled "rape" and we wouldn't be having this discussion. --ErgoSum88 (talk) 23:01, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

It is consensual. Minors do give consent in statutory rape. However, their consent is not recognized by the court, making it rape. "consensual is a legal and moral term, in this case consensual means one who morally consents but does not have the legal authority to do so, therefore the distinction must be made"(from another editor) Randomfrenchie (talk) 00:10, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

The difficulty is not just a moral question - kids are not able to consent because they don't have the life experience to know what they would be consenting to, and because they can be tricked or manipulated by subtle threats or guilt-trips by an adult. (I am not referring to close-in-age situations in this comment). That's especially so in the case of incestual abuse, when the child or young teen may be fully dependent on the adult who is seeking the so-called "consensual" sex.

I don't have time to add this to the article currently, but here is a source that can be useful in this if someone wants to use it:

Statutory Rape Is Illegal Sexual Activity Between Two People When It Would Otherwise Be Legal If Not For Their Age: In accordance with the FBI definition, statutory rape is characterized as non-forcible sexual intercourse with a person who is younger than the statutory age of consent.

http://www.sexlaws.org/what_is_statutory_rape --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 04:26, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Though I disagree with the word "consensual" this is what the source uses, so to change it is OR. "Statutory rape is a general term used to describe an offense that takes place when

an individual (regardless of age) has consensual sexual relations with an individual

not old enough to legally consent to the behavior." ResearchEditor (talk) 03:02, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

A general question: if consent is given (and not later denied) by two involved minors, who is the plaintiff? Given the condition that neither minor opposed the activities, would it fall to the state to prosecute activities that they were aware of? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.79.251.248 (talk) 03:59, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

deleted OR by anon IP

"and ordered the state to return those children who did not complain of sexual abuse. Criminal charges are being contemplated by authorities." If true, please provide source. ResearchEditor (talk) 02:13, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Finer criteria

Can't anybody list the finer criteria for this type of offense?

Because I have gotten a tip that lipkisses and belly button touching for a number of seconds on a minor are cheaper criteria to the offense than oral sex or intercourse. --Roadstaa (talk) 00:13, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

• Roadstaa has a point, there seems to be no references to making out in the article as an exception or an example of the offense. --Boxstaa (talk) 03:01, 25 October 2008 (UTC)
  • The details depend on what jurisdiction you're in. If in doubt, consult a legal professional. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 03:48, 25 October 2008 (UTC)
    • Maybe I will. But sometimes things that aren't sexual in a scientific way can still have covert sexual value in the activity. But I still wanna be on the safe side since examples such as lapdances are something that I'm uncertain about too! Or maybe just any sexual value at all can fall under the criteria. see what I mean? If only we could just clear these examples out of the way... --Boxstaa (talk) 19:27, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

archiving

I've boldly adding auto-archiving for stale threads. The bot will leave at least 5 threads on the page so to not empty it. -- Banjeboi 22:14, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

religion

Is this sentence really necessary? Specifically the part about religion. Who cares if it's sourced. It's still insulting to religious people. I've edited out the last part of the sentence concerning religion. This is the paragraph pre-edit:

Critics argue that a young teenager might possess enough social sense to make informed and mature decisions about sex, while some adults might never develop the ability to make mature choices about sex, as even many mentally healthy individuals remain naive and easily manipulated throughout their lives, for instance, religion. Blooddraken (talk) 10:02, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

How is it insulting? It's the plain truth. Read up on Neurotheology. There are certain parts of the brain that, when stimulated, represent the experiences that many people would categorize as religious. This is just an example, so get over it.

If you don't see how religion manipulated people, read up on cults and compare the checklist with any Christian institution for example. You will notice that they all instigate feelings of guilt ("man is sinful by nature"), offer one and only one way of explaining everything ("Jesus Christ", "God", "the Devil"), usually there are many Church activities, so people get a sense of group identity. In many cases, non-religious people are cast out and mainstream media is prohibited (just think of the "Harry Potter" bannings in some Christian hick cities or some people getting assaulted for not being Christian you always hear on the news). Now think again about the above statement ;) --Tauwasser (talk) 18:11, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

1. Your statement, "It's the plain truth" undermines the point of your response. You deride other people's adherence to a truth yet clearly have your own truth you follow. So whose truth is right? Naturally most people assume they have never been manipulated in their lives (which attitude you seem to take)--it's just the other people who are deluded, right? I think the main point that the first commenter makes is haranguing on religion is beating a dead horse. To limit the blame to religion is dangerous because we neglect to see that there are many power-weilding institutions that manipulate naive people including: government, school, media. Targeting a very narrow westernized perception of religion, is limiting. We are all manipulated merely by the limitations of our own experiences Mere6232 (talk) 02:07, 21 August 2011 (UTC).

Shotgun weddings

I think it is necessary to examine the history of these laws if they are to be included in the encyclopedia. The likelihood that such laws originated due to contemporary attitudes about sexuality in the young is absurd. Those attitudes are nowhere NEAR as old as these laws. History would suggest that the sex-with-adolescent-women side of this law is derived more of the expense fathers would have if their daughters should become pregnant with no husband--thus making the law into an implied "shotgun" for shotgun weddings. Certainly I would not add this without citation, however, so why is it OK to just assume the other perspective and report without citation that these laws, enacted decades and decades ago, are put in place due to contemporary psychological attitudes. Ridiculous.76.107.212.233 (talk) 20:44, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Sure, originally they are grounded in the need of clans and families to prevent Don-Juan type escapades and make sure their daughters' reputations were preserved. But that doesn't stop the popular and cultural rationale - as opposed to the judicial one - from having moved towards a need to rally against 'uninhibited' sexual mores among teenagers. Where these laws are enforced today, it's often against relations between, like, 17 year old boys and 14 year old girls, and the support for resisting that is galvanized much more by moralism than by the supposed damage to the marriageability of the girl. After all, keeping off sex until marriage or betrothal is no longer a strongly applied norm in mainstream western societies. In many high school classes, both in America and elsewhere, the girls are more worried about becoming the last one to lose her virginity than about being able to save it up for her coming hubby. And parents are aware of this competitive need to explore sexuality, and (most of them) not terribly committed to forcing their girls to "stay at home", under their eyes until marriage, because premarital sex would have destroyed her and their reputation or forced a wedding. Strausszek (talk) 08:15, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Citation needed for societal perception claim

I added a "citation needed" flag to the claim that societal perceptions have shifted away from acceptance of female on male statutory rape. The statement is quite dubious and has no source. I suspect it is original research. Blackworm (talk) 04:16, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

In at least one to one of many

The source talks about California courts joining the same decision other courts in other states coming to the same conclusion, previous was talking about only one case happening which isn't true. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Silver163 (talk • contribs) 05:47, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Specific laws depending on countries

I've added the template Accuracy dispute to this section, because a crime called "statutory rape" doesn't exist in legal codes of Denmark and the Netherlands (or any continental European country for that sake). It would be described as "illicit sexual relationship with a minor" or "child molestation" (cf. German Sexueller Missbrauch von Jugendlichen), but never as rape. Statutory rape doesn't exist outside common law countries. I think that this section should be either deleted or moved to a more neutral article covering laws against sex with minors. --Seerus (talk) 00:37, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

The lead of the article acknowledges that "very few jurisdictions" use the term "statutory rape." It states, "Although [statutory rape] usually refers to adults engaging in sex with minors under the age of consent, it is a generic term, and very few jurisdictions use the actual term 'statutory rape' in the language of statutes. Different jurisdictions use many different statutory terms for the crime, such as 'sexual assault', 'rape of a child', 'corruption of a minor', 'carnal knowledge of a minor', 'unlawful carnal knowledge', or simply 'carnal knowledge'. In statutory rape, overt force or threat need not be present. The laws presume coercion, because a minor or mentally challenged adult is legally incapable of giving consent to the act."

It also states that "the term 'statutory rape' generally refers to sex between an adult and a sexually mature minor past the age of puberty. Sexual relations with a prepubescent child, generically called 'child molestation', is typically treated as a more serious crime."

So, basically, "statutory rape" is an umbrella term for legal adults illegally engaging in sexual activity with minors. Because of this, I don't see an issue with the section in question being in this article. Flyer22 (talk) 02:47, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Current issues section improvements

This section needs to some improvement for clarity and content. The main issues people seem to have these days with statutory rape laws rest on the following concerns:

• A debate over what the proper age of consent should be with most people who are not pro-pedophilia activist, arguing it should be somewhere between 12-18 years of age, reflecting the current AOC range in Western countries.
• What sort of exemptions to the statutory rape laws should exist such as whether a mistake of age exemption should exists, whether a close-in-age exemption should exists, whether sex between two minors under the AOC should remain crime but be reduced to misdemeanor.
• Whether exemptions should exist in case of legal marriage between an adult and a child or where the adult marries the minor legally after the fact, say due to her being pregnant.
• Even where there is support for statutory rape laws in principle, there is debate on how much time and effort should be put into enforcing such laws, what steps should be taken to discover catch perpetrators, such as requiring pregnant minors to inform on adults who get them pregnant or some other similar reporting requirement by doctors, social workers, etc.
• Debate of whether the strict enforcement of statutory rape laws is a good ways to reduce teen pregnancy involving adult fathers.

As such, this article could summarize the above issues, provided adequate sources can be found for each issues. There is already an article on the AOC debate that could be summarized her with a link to the full article. As far as the current legal cases mentioned in the article, I think they should have their own section regarding legal cases involving statutory rape though any case that directly relates to the above controversies could remain in the section. It may be best to rename the section to something "Current debates" or something along those lines. --Cab88 (talk) 19:27, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

It looks like this article could be much improved by taking some ideas and sources from age of consent. As it is, this is not a good article.160.39.230.130 (talk) 23:15, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

I just tried to add a recent case, but my attempt to cite a reference went wrong. I'm a newbie, and don't know how to cite a reference correctly. If someone could a) correct it, and b) explain how to do it right, I would appreciate it.Anonnymos (talk) 02:02, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

USA centered

As the above comment hints at, much or this article, as with MANY Wikipedia articles is very USA centred. American contributors seem to very often forget there is a whole world outside the USA, using terms like 'the government' or 'the law' when they mean "the United States government" or "USA law" Adagio67 (talk) 11:35, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

^I can't believe you spelled 'centered' wrong. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.164.38.81 (talk) 06:31, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

The reason for the USA focus is that most western jurisdictions are far more flexible and accept the fact that a 15 year old girl can be much more mature than a 22 year old guy. So statutory rape is much less an issue here in Europe than in America. By the way, centered is just a regional spelling of centred. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.227.141.86 (talk) 18:04, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

I think that the 'centred' thing could be irony since it is under the heading 'USA Centred'. However, the correct part of speech with which to qualify a verb (e.g. spelled) is an adverb (wrongly) not an adjective (wrong), and I suspect that this is the case even in the US.