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I tentatively agree with your more moderate points.
Sure. I think the age of consent laws Should have generous exceptions for young adults crossing the boundary. There's a difference between a 21 year old dating a 17 year old in his dating pool, vs a 40 year old teacher dating their 17 year old student. Yes, it is technically possible for them to actually fall in love and get married and form a stable family, but 90% of the time that's not what's going on there.
...maybe. If it was actual literal rape then yes, it should be a felony. If it's consensual but she only consented due to lies and deception (man tells girl he loves her and will divorce his wife for her but has no intention of doing so) then I'd say it's right on the border: minor felony or major misdemeanor. If they actually just like each other and there's no shenanigans going on then it's probably fine.
But... how do you tell the difference? In a legal sense, how does the law get set up in a way that you can prove one or the other beyond a reasonable doubt?
Now, in a lot of cases you don't make things illegal just because they might be bad, but in a lot of cases you do, when the probabilities are sufficiently strong. We make it illegal to drive while drunk, even if some people might be really good at driving and not crash even while drunk. Some people might be really good at holding their liquor and barely deteriorate in skill even if they blow a 0.08% BAC. Is it fair to jail simply for driving drunk if they haven't crashed or caused any harm or damage? Yes. Because they might. It's an irresponsible and negligent thing to do, and making it illegal causes more good on average than harm. Are innocent people inconvenienced by the inability to drive themselves while legally intoxicated but practically competent due to their unique situation? Sure. But a lot more people are saved in comparison to the minor harms that people can easily account for and compensate for.
I am tentatively in favor of decreasing the penalties for sex with teenagers. I don't think it should count as "rape" or use the term "rape" unless it's clear that there was actual force involved. But it should be punished, because it's not something adults should be doing. It's significantly more likely to cause long lasting harm than it is to make anyone's lives better.
Cool. I re-iterate that I agree age of consent laws should have exceptions for people close in age together. For people with larger age gaps, as far as I'm aware it is 100% legal for a 15 year old and a 40 year old to date while not having sex. Maybe it's super out of fashion to date while not having sex. Maybe this diminishes their likelihood of staying together when either of them could have sex with their peers. But if they actually fall in love they can be patient and keep it in their pants for a few years. If they're actually in love with each other specifically then they have their entire lives ahead of them, there's no need to be impatient. That's the thing here. It's not saying "you can never be together" it just says "wait, take things slow, and make sure before leaping into something you might regret". Teenagers are impulsive. I remember classmates in highschool getting in a new relationship every 3 months on repeat (this is also bad). If these chain relationships had been with 40 year old, wealthy, sexually mature/greedy/desperate men this would have likely been a lot worse. Saying "hey, slow down" seems like a good thing to me. Again, anyone acting in good faith can just date them without having sex for a couple years and everything is fine.
I've noticed a problem that a lot of the dumbest laws that makes no sense today were set up in the 20th century. Much older customs are Lindy; they persist between ages. Very recent laws might make sense for right now. But stuff invented by people between 1910 and 1970 were temporary patches for a bygone era. High age of consent laws are an example of this. 15 year olds just aren't as sheltered as they were in 1940, and trials aren't just based on witnesses and testimony like they were in 1940. When someone has a relationship, there is a huge electronic paper trail of the promises and dynamics of that relationship. Therefore, the government can prove much more subtle things than just "she is 15 and they had sex." Through online messages and social media, the government can show where a man lied and did not follow through. The law does not recognize this because it was created 100 years ago for a specific people that are now gone, when all of that would have been spoken in private, mouth to mouth, in a world where that couldn't even be secretly recorded, leaving no objective evidence behind. There is no reason to assume that law is the best for us, with all of our technology, medicine, hygiene, and education.
I believe adultery should be a felony and deceptive seduction should be a crime, maybe a felony. So in the case of a 40 year old and a teenager, one or both of those applies in most cases. If neither applies, then we are condemning age gaps or fornication, which could be okay, but I'm not sure how the mainstream society can consistently justify that (they never justify anything though, it's always just feelings).
Why, other than STDs, cutting out teenage boys, adultery, and deception? I think all of those except cutting out should be illegal on their own. Cutting out is good actually because I don't think most teenage boys are mature enough for dating. Personally I was not mature enough to date for marriage until I was 20. I think they ruin the girls far worse than a 20 something could. 40 somethings are in between, they're more mature but you get into the massive age gap issue and the question as to why a 40 something is dating a 15 year old. Is it frequently adultery? Did his wife die in childbirth? Otherwise, why is he even available for that? And so on.
Say this to the gays and see what happens. I don't find this reasoning consistent with current sexual ethics; it's special pleading, and the exception to the rule can't be justified.
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