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Studies also show that men are more aggressive than women. That doesn't mean we should legalise assault.
The law makes a very clear distinction between the two such that self-defense is not assault.
In many jurisdictions, it absolutely is.
A "15-year-old girl who loves her 20-year-old boyfriend" is not the same as "a 15-year-old victim of statutory rape".
A 15-year-old who has sex with her 20-year-old boyfriend is, however, in most US jurisdictions ("Romeo and Juliet" laws tend to allow 4 years or less)
Yes, but the operative fact in that distinction is sexual contact. It's not a crime in and of itself for a fifteen-year-old girl to love a twenty-year-old boy, or vice versa. (Indeed, how could the law ever criminalise emotional states? That's right out of Nineteen Eighty-Four.)
And yet this actually is the law of the land; "woman regrets it afterwards" is the mechanism by which any sex may retroactively become rape. If and when this fails in a court of law, laws get changed to make sure future instances of this succeed.
Most (all?) modern gender politics are.
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While I agree that you can't criminalise emotional states, I'm also dubious about "but she loooves him!" arguments, because 15 year olds of either gender are damn idiots, and we've all seen grown adults ruin their lives over "but loooove!" Women who stay with men who beat the crap out of them, or who beat the crap out of their last girlfriend (but it'll be different with me). Men who get taken advantage of by gold-diggers and emotional leeches.
You won't die of a broken heart if mom and dad refuse to let you run off with your 20 year old paramour, and when you hit 20 yourself, you may be very glad they didn't let it happen.
Agreed. This is the entire reason we recognise the age of majority.
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Does the law ever pass judgement on which relationships are "loving" and which aren't? How would it even go about doing this? I know that in custody disputes between divorcing parents the judge may well take the respective parents' apparent affection for their children (and concern for their welfare) into account, but my understanding is that this is only one factor of many taken into consideration: if forced to choose between granting custody to one parent who really loves his children but is a heroin addict, and another parent who doesn't seem that invested in them but isn't addicted to heroin and always feeds and clothes them, I imagine most judges would choose the latter parent. Offhand I can't think of any instance in which the legal system adjudicates on which relationships are "loving" and which are not. Still less can I think of any crime which is not considered a crime provided the perpetrator and victim love each other. We used to recognise such categories (domestic abuse, marital rape), and it was considered a major feminist victory when we no longer did so. I, for one, would not like to go back to the world in which it is legally impossible for a man to rape his wife.
Which jurisdiction would that be?
No, it's not. If a fifteen-year-old girl loves her twenty-year-old boyfriend, but they have a celibate relationship, no crime has been committed. If a fifteen-year-old girl has sex with her twenty-year-old boyfriend, in some jurisdictions he will be considered a statutory rapist. The extent to which she loves him simply doesn't enter into it. We're not criminalising loving relationships, we're criminalising the sexual exploitation of minors, and as with literally every law in the history of the human race there are bound to be weird edge cases where it could plausibly be argued no real harm has been done.
You are aware that it is possible to have a loving relationship without having sex?
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Ah. Are we getting to the real nub of the argument now? And how many 20 year old men want to have babies with their 15 year old girlfriends, as opposed to getting to stick their dick into a hot, wet hole?
If we're going to argue old-timey laws and customs, seduction was also a crime, my friend, and that includes making a girl think she's in love with you and you're in love with her.
You've discounted feelings there, and that's the rationale of the laws around statutory rape: it used to be argued "it wasn't rape, she consented!" even in cases where it was clear the girl wasn't able to consent or was not mature enough to consent, and secondly the law is dealing in reason not feelings. It's bad for society when minors are exploited, even if minors consent to the exploitation and feel they are not being exploited and that they really do love the guy.
You don't believe the testimony of those who said they were not, in fact, old enough at the time:
But why don't you? These are people who are now older and mature and more experienced, saying "yeah gosh back then I thought I knew it all but I had no idea" and I think most of us find that out as we get older. The things we thought we understood and were equipped to deal with with, we had no real idea of what was involved.
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Okay, now tell me why you can't (or wouldn't) make all these same arguments about a 10-year-old who has hit puberty?
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