Re: The Intimate 5th/6th Graders
minah_pa,
Legal age of consent is 13 in Korea, Spain and Nigeria. In Chile, Mexico, Paraguay and Colombia it is 12. In many Gulf countries it is reported to be in single figures. 14 is also pretty common around the globe. The lowest inside United States is 14 in Iowa. (For females)
www.ageofconsent.com is an excellent and pretty dependable resource for age-based laws and assorted paraphernalia.
Re: Sex
A justification used by some people is that parents should hold no legal right over their children's physical body and acts involving it. Hence, age of consent and abortion without parental notification. However, a look at body modification laws, including piercing (which need parental permission) totally dispels it.
Anyway, minors will go on having sex no matter what happens. By reducing the age to 14 or 15 or 16 the government just extradites itself from a lot of essentially petty little hormonal quibbles. :p
Seriously though, a contract is different from sex. A teen is held responsible enough to drive at 18, to marry before that, to die for his country but cannot buy liquor legally till the age of 21? Now, what universal justification is there for this? (Pub age was initially set at 21 due to the sudden increase in drunken traffic incidents after it was lowered to 19/18 for a while) Government found real-life evidence and made logical assumptions that drunken 18-21 drivers were generally incompetent and a threat to the society.
In the same vein it can be said that society determined your average teenager was mature enough to engage in sexual intercourse at the age of 16 without any serious aftermaths. Of course, the age may vary considerably from person to person but as I mentioned earlier a minimum-line has to be drawn somewhere to keep any semblance of order in the system.
Maturity has many levels, and you can be deemed mature enough for certain acts whilst being barred from others.
Re: Naked Jaywalking
I catch your drift but I still have to disagree in large part. If a seventeen/sixteen/fifteen year old walks naked down the street of own consent, then he does 'deserve' what he gets. I honestly cannot see it anyway else. The key point here is whether the person in question is fully aware of the implications and consequences of his actions? A normal seventeen year old 'aught' to have sense enough not to walk naked down the street, or to kill anyone, break into someone's house etc. When you break a law, you are punished. The very fact that a teen knew the law and deliberately broke it shows how much he cares for it.
You cannot go on flaunting your own lifestyle at the expense and inconvenience of others. (which is what you or I would be doing if we walk naked along Times Square)
I ask you this: Do you believe that a 12 year child who committed a murder in cold blood be punished? Or do you think that a 12 year old child is somehow incapable of understanding the insinuation of the very idea and hence shouldn't be held responsible for it?
I don't exactly get the instance you are talking about. What is to say that the parents of the couple who were sitting in the 'Jalebi' position don't dissuade their child? And If they do admonish them, while the child still does the same thing again and again, then do you still believe the parents are to be blamed?
We don't have enough evidence from PCG's anecdotal evidence to rule one way or the other. Indeed, we ourselves are looking at it from a distinctively tainted perspective. Some might argue that the very acts in which the children were languishing aren't wrong.
… HISPANICz ALL THE WAY !!! 