Teen laws for dating older men

So, though I saw it as a normal and mostly positive sexual experience, had authorities been notified of it for whatever reason, they would have declared it a crime.

I found that the only way I could follow them was to look at some specific examples.

History and Purpose of Statutory Rape Laws Statutory rape laws (which are called by a plethora of other names) refer to those laws that “criminalize voluntary sexual acts involving a minor that would be legal if not for the age of one or more of the participants.” The premise behind these laws is that until a certain age, young people are incapable of giving their consent for sexual behavior but the intent behind the laws has morphed over the 700 years or so since they were first codified.

The first known law, passed in Westminster England in 1275, made it illegal to “ravish” a “maiden” under the age of 12 (also the age at which a girl could legally marry) without her consent. The result was that an underage girl did not have to show that she had struggled in order to prove that she had not given her consent as her older friends did.

Should we really treat teenagers who have sex with other teenagers as criminals?

Should our legal system play any role in regulating “consensual” teen sexual behavior?

Each state has its own law and decides a number of factors for itself, including age of consent, minimum age of “victim,” age differential, and minimum age of “perpetrator” in order to prosecute. Only 12 states have a single age of consent below which an individual cannot consent to sexual intercourse and above which they can.