Rape is well understood both legally and morally
To call consensual sex "rape" is something as far as I know unique to US.
There certainly is no moral equivalence between raping somebody and having consensual sex with them, even if she is 17. Especially if the older partner did not know that the younger one was under 18.
Other developed counties have laws protecting youth. However, hey do set a more reasonable age of consent and they do not pretend that non-rape is rape. It's funny how so-called liberals get medieval on this one issue and will defend US puritan attitudes toward it as the only sensible approach.
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People can look older than younger than the age they are. What are you people advocating? Carding all potential sex partners? Even IDs can be faked.
Jesus! It sounds like Derec is defending sexual assault! Heaven forbid we call it rape.
No, I am saying that consensual sex in not rape or sexual assault.
While some here (laughing dog, Patooka) seem to think it's rape (and indeed like raping 10 year olds according to Arctish) if you have consensual sex with somebody young-looking even if they are over 18.
Derec you seem to be attempting to define consent as “they said yes” without any regard to whether they are qualified to say yes.
That’s what the statutory rape laws are all about.
Young people, developmentally delayed people, drugged people, drunk people, none of these are in a condition to make a rational assertion of consent. It’s why you can’t hold them to loan or mortgage papers they sign, for example, because while they might enthusiastically WANT to buy a bridge in Brooklyn, they do not have the capacity to understand the consequences of the situation. And so, the law helps everyone out by defining who is not capable of making decisions like mortgages, sex, car loans, and alcohol or tobacco purchases.
You love to ignore this reality, because you seem to advocate for sexual access to people who don’t know better, specifically drunk and underage women.
But the reality is that the law defines who is mentally capable of these decisions in order to help society avoid exploitation. And that’s the law.
Of COURSE there will be developmentally disabled women who will say yes to sex. Of course there will be 12 year olds who say yes to sex. Of course there will be drunk people who sign a loan for $1M to buy a bridge. And the mentally competent people who accept that “yes” are exploiting the lack of capacity, and thereby breaking the law.
With sex, there is an added buffer to help the exploiter, in many cases, the romeo and juliet provisions. But for people outside of that window, they know better, and there is no excuse to for their plan to exploit the poor decision-making abilities of those named as unable to give consent.
You argue this again and again and again. That you don’t want to take any responsibility to detect exploitable people, that you’d like it to be considered an accident if you happen to exploit one. No, no, that you’d like it to be
her fault if you get one. That you’d like to be able to be considered LESS SMART than the 15 year old and a victim of their deceit. (Honestly not sure why you are so vociferous in arguing that you are less able to make a wise decision than a 16yo, but you’ve been very clear and consistent on this.)
But in the end, society already decided, and it is not confined to sex, of course, that it is helpful to identify who is and who is not mentally competent to give consent to life changing decisions. And all people doing any of those transactions are required to be the adult in the room and make sure they are not exploiting vulnerable people.
I repeat, the adults are expected to be the adult in the room, regardless of the pull of their penises.
