TWO Adult Female Teachers Prey On A 16 Year Old Boy=Rape

[Xithras]

62. Do you think it's rape when two 16 year old teenagers sleep with each other?

If a 16 year old boy willingly chooses to insert his penis into a vagina, there is no fundamental difference between a 16 year old vagina and a 26 year old vagina. Age of consent laws exist solely to protect teenagers from potential power imbalances in relationships and to reduce teenage pregnancy rates. Legally, there is no question that a 16 year old in Washington is capable of consenting to sexual activity with a 26 year old. Society has chosen to ban that kind of sexual activity not because sex is inherently harmful for a 16 year old, but because the potential for abuse is too high to tolerate. I happen to agree with that prohibition, but there is a huge difference between "rape" and "sex that is prohibited by law". Until Lawrence v. Texas, 14 states had laws making sodomy illegal too. Legally, gay sex was rape in those states, because nobody could consent to that kind of activity.

That's the real difference between consent laws and corporal punishment. If an adult strikes a child with a belt, that strike is always painful and causes harm. If an adult has consensual sex with a 16 year old, it is not inherently harmful, but society has decided that it has the potential to be abusive or offensive.

Here is California, by the way, there are no Romeo & Juliet laws on the books, and our age of consent in 18. If you are under 18, you cannot consent to sex with anybody. That makes me, and everyone else in the state who had sex in high school, both a rapist and a rape victim. Under our laws, sex with anyone under 18 is ALWAYS rape, because consent can never be legally granted.

Most Californians realize that the law is a bit silly on that point. Rape is not always rape, even when the law says it is.