Age of consent - a relative number

The age of consent. We all know what it is. The government decides at what age a person is capable of making a decision that is in their best interest.

There are lots of ages the government decides that we are capable of making a good decision. 16 years old - we are able to drive. 18 years old - we are able to give ourselves cancer by purchasing and possessing cigarettes, we can purchase and view pornography (in most places), we can also enlist in the armed forces and die for our country in a war we may or may not believe in. 21 - We are able to purchase, possess, and consume alcoholic beverages.

The big one, the one that this site is all about, is one of the most controversial. The age of sexual consent. The age at which we are deemed intelligent enough to decide whether or not we want to have sex with another person, of age of course. There are different ages of consent in different states and countries. In Michigan, I believe the age of consent is 16. That means that I, a person over 18, am able to have consensual sex with anybody over the age of 16. Other places it is 18, other places it is lower.

The point is, first of all, everybody is different. What changes on your 16th birthday, or 18th, that makes you in a correct frame of mind to be able to make that decision? What is happening to you before the age of consent in your state that makes you incapable of making such a decision?

It's a hard rule to make. Perhaps theres a 14 year old out there somewhere that consciously understands the ramifications of having sex with a 38 year old, and is ready and able to accept them. Perhaps there is a 21 year old somewhere that doesn't have a clue what is going on and is unable to make that decision while keeping their own best interests in mind.

So we come to a wall. How does the government decide at what age everybody is able to make such a decision. There is absolutely no way to define this by the majority. Individual people have individual ideas and feelings, and most importantly, an individual level of competence and intellectuality.

The point is, what IS the point of the age of consent? It is inaccurate, in both ways. Some people of age are not mature enough to make that decision, and vice versa. I'm not saying that a 30 year old should be able to have sex with a 12 year old, of course not. I'm saying that there has to be some better system of figuring out at what age an individual is capable of making an important decision like this. Because this one is clearly not working. In one of our stories, a 23 year old was arrested for having consensual sex with a 19 year old student. The reason that he was arrested is because, simply, he was in a power of authority. I highly doubt that the student was forced to have sex with the teacher, or thought that her grades would improve if she did. She simply wanted to have sex with a 23 year old man.

And that is why the government should, in certain cases, stay the hell out of our personal affairs. Along with that, they should be able to determine what people are capable of making what decisions, based on something as inaccurate and relative as the day that person was born.