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Is there any reason the age of consent should be higher than 15 in the United States? I've concluded from Twitter that it's extremely difficult to find and good arguments against this. Meanwhile there's a lot of evidence for the position. Academics seem to agree with an age of consent around 15 while 18 seems to be more of a grassroots idea.
The arguments for an age of consent of 15 are multitude. First there's evospych; studies show most men in their twenties are attracted to 15 year old girls. Then there's ancient demography; the median age of marriage ranged from 16 to 18 for girls until 1600 AD and the minimum legal age of marriage ranged from 12-14 in most societies. Next there's the psychometric evidence: 15 year old girls demonstrate adult intelligence, while little children would be considered handicapped by adult intelligence standards, meaning the former should be able to understand sex and its consequences while the latter likely cannot. There's contemporary cross cultural evidence, specifically from Europe, which shows that wealthy modern countries can do just fine with age of consent set at 14 or 15. Example countries right now include France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Austria, Hungary, Estonia, and more.
All of this evidence points to 9 being too young, but 18 being too high. It seems like 14 or 15 is the optimal sweet spot. This is important right now as we can't properly judge Epstein without thinking scientifically about the age of consent. All of his victims were over 14, and that's not underaged everywhere. It's probable he would he charged with prostitution in Europe, but seeing this as a pedophile situation is not necessarily the right way to look at it.
The counter evidence I have been shown is essentially nil. It usually is just a death threat, actually. The best evidence is that the brain develops until 25, but then why not have an age of consent of 25? Why not let 24 year olds date 15 year olds? It doesn't really matter logically when the brain is mature, just when it is mature enough, given that 18 year olds brains are still maturing but they are seen as mature enough by these people.
The other main piece of objective evidence is that fecundity peaks around 20. The issue with this is that sex and dating do not mean pregnancy. Furthermore ancient demography shows that teen pregnancy is good enough anyway. Finally, the data don't seem to indicate that teenage girls are too young for pregnancy; the negative causal effects on their pregnancy are extremely mild and don't justify banning a 20 year old from dating a 15 year old.
Finally there's subjective evidence, lived experience. Interlocuters swear up and down that they weren't mature enough to date at 15. Well, that's not my experience and the experience of a ton of other people, including entire countries with nuclear weapons. I'm not sure who is wrong here, or if it's just something that genuinely differs between people. Still, lived experience is really not how I hand out felonies to loving couples. I find that idea odious. Especially when the girl and her family testify that their lived experience is different from the American norm.
WP on AoC:
So it would be more accurate to say that the ages 14 and 15 are a grey area. (Arguably, that grey area extends further (probably all the way to infinity) if alcohol is involved, which likely covers the majority of new sex partners. A judge might view the ability of a 16yo to consent after two beers lot differently than that of a 26yo. And of course sex work is 18+ only.)
To be honest, I was not even aware of the AoC being 14 in Germany. When I was 25, the thought to try to find an underage girlfriend genuinely did not even cross my mind. I strongly suspect that a man who decides to groom 15yo's does not have their best interests at heart. However, I also acknowledge that things do not always go according to plan, and sometimes people just fall in love over age gaps most would consider inappropriate.
I think just handing the power to the younger partner to decide if they want to press charges rather than investigating ex officio is probably a good compromise.
For the sake of completeness, I should also mention that I do not see a good reason to apply different AoC's for different combinations of sexes, so your proposal would also legalize gay men grooming 15yo boys, which I intuitively find as unacceptable as straight men grooming girls of a similar age.
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