Is it illegal for a young lady (15.5yr) to have sex with anyone over 18yr or just them with her?

This did not stretch my mind.

The 15 year old child needs to wait until she’s an adult. The adults whom she’s advancing are, in fact, adults and should know better.

Laws differ from country to country .

If the girl wants to then she can have it [ depends on the country she’s in ] .

But I don’t think a 15 years old can make these decisions knowing all there is about sex [ or problems that can occur after , both medical and legal ] .

@Hypocrisy_Central Responding to your second paragraph :
Second part was if any of the men succumb to her advances they are seen as sick, perverted, etc, because they were not strong enough to turn off the visuals and just go off the mind that she hadn’t spent 18 winters on planet Earth; so hands off. Because she has the appetite for older males and not those nearer her age group how would that not make her as equally perverted by not sticking with the societal script and being interested only in males under 18 and closer to her age?

What ‘societal script’ are you referring to? I’m under 18 but am attracted to older guys, usually 18 or over. It’s not because of their money, or because they have their own place to hang out in, quite often they don’t. It’s because they are usually more mature and suit me.

Maturity can be looked upon from other points of view .
How about looking for maturity at a kid who’s 15 and has several younger brothers [ with dead parents and no other relatives / social services / neighbours to help around ] and has to provide for them . And he know that if he / she does not bring money / food / clothes home his brothers or sister will suffer .

In NY she gets off scott free. She’s a minor. The 18 year old is the one who gets screwed.
There was a recent case where a 15 year old sent pictures of her boobs to the 18 jock in her school. He did not request these pictures. She just sent them. He was charged with possession of child porn! For simply opening the mail! The case was thrown out of court. Fortunately.

In NJ two 14 year old girls were charged with a sex offense (I think it was contributing to delinquency of a minor) for sending pictures of themselves to their 15 year old boyfriends. If the boys were 18 they would have been in big trouble.

@MilkyWay What ‘societal script’ are you referring to? I’m under 18 but am attracted to older guys, usually 18 or over. Being I logically go off biology, many only want to refer to it when it suits them, I say once you can be a mother, you are an adult, maybe an inexperienced adult, but still an adult. That is why when humans were more tribal elders played a bigger part in society because they were the ones who trained the new adults in how and what they should do to fit in with the tribe, clan, etc, as adults they are anointed to.

Most of this ”societal script” as I have witnessed it all these decades is that any person, male or female, is too stupid to know what they want, especially sexually hence consent laws. I don’t know how old you are but if you are under 18 what I have witnessed by default you do not and cannot fully understand sex and relationship until you hit that magical number of 18, then somehow enough wisdom kicks in and you can choose to be with someone 30 years your senior if you chose to. Society doesn’t take in to account some people are like birches, others like oaks, and some like redwoods. Some people being on the planet the same amount of time, just mature quicker. Since they have to pigeonhole all minors in the same forest to keep lecherous lumberjacks from every tree, individual maturity goes out the window.

Personally, I would not doubt you in who you have an attraction to or at what age. Even if you make a mistake, you are in the company of many. How many people over 18 muck it up, and do so many times? If you can work a job, get taxed by the government, be sent away as an adult for a long time of you ever kidnapped someone or carjacked a car, I say you have a good grip on your romantic live, but that is just me, not society.

So to answer your question, generally, in the US, a 15½ yr old is not doing naything illegal if having sex with someone over 18. Someone under 16 (in your example) is not capable of consenting.

Bear in mind a lot of views on this have changed since the 70’s. The laws haven’t, but people have gotten much more protective of the minor. John Derek was 30 and Bo Derek 16 when they first hooked up. A lot of people thought that was creepy, but it was not universally condemned.

The age of consent varies, but the age of each partner is taken into consideration. If both are under age, they are both non-consenting.

Age of consent varies from state to state, its as low as 14 in several US states. Some states allow it if the age difference is less than X months/years (for example in ohio its 2 years). Some states have statutes where its illegal but the state won’t press charges if the under age partners parents agree not to.

I see nothing frankly wrong with a 15.5 year old having sex with an 18 year old, other than my own personal belief that most 15.5 year olds are not truly ready for that. But knowing full well a lot of people have sex before that even, I am not at a pay grade where I can judge them. But since there is a legal aspect of it, the partners should think about it first.

(and also as has been stated, under age porn even willingly sent to a partner who is ALSO under age…. is still under age pornography in the eyes of the law…... Technically nude photos of yourself could get you arrested if you are under age)

I think everyone agrees that the ages in age limits themselves are arbitrary and stupid. Obviously if my eighteenth (or sixteenth, in some states) birthday was today, July 13, there is really no difference if I had sex now as opposed to three hours and twelve minutes ago on July 12th.

However, if the law doesn’t have an exact limit, it makes it difficult if not impossible to enforce. The point of the law is to keep people from being manipulated into making bad decisions until they are mature enough to make good decisions. We have decided that age is the thing that proves maturity. Obviously it is very flawed. But, as I have said in previous posts, the law isn’t meant to protect every person perfectly, it is designed to protect the majority of people in the easiest way possible.

@zenvelo John Derek was 30 and Bo Derek 16 when they first hooked up. A lot of people thought that was creepy, but it was not universally condemned. I would bet my dollars to anyone’s donuts that it is more condemned than openly accepted. I don’t know who John Derek was but I can fathom hw was in the biz and well liked or admired. There have been other noted unions, Loretta Lynn and her husband, Celine Dion, and hers, not to mention Jerry Lee Lewis. In each of these the female was the younger, back when the West was lost, by the 1st Nation, it wasn’t too uncommon for a gal to be married by the time she was 14. –Guess they went more off biology than some arbitrary number—.

@YARNLADY If both are under age, they are both non-consenting. Finally an incident where two de facto wrongs do make a right.

@tedd I see nothing frankly wrong with a 15.5 year old having sex with an 18 year old, other than my own personal belief that most 15.5 year olds are not truly ready for that. Even though you say you don’t believe they are ready at 15.5yrs, which is what many believe, you also mentioned 18yr for the partner. If they make a mistake with an 18yr old how much worse of a mistake can they be if the partner was older? In the case of minors they may not be ready for a lot of things, signing or entering into contracts, working hazardous jobs, operating vehicles, working 40 hours a week, and in all of those cases some law or ordinance disallowing them to do it or participate for their safety. As you say, even under 18, or even 16, many will have sex anyhow, and there is no law saving them or stopping them for their protection; a 16yr old male can knock up a 15yr old female just as good as a 32 year old college student.

@iamawinner To anwser your question it is wrong for an adult to have sex with minors. Covered that part. That is a given, but it doesn’t say it is illegal for the minor to want, and engage in sexual activity if they pleased, even if it is illegal for the none minor partner to do so. There isn’t even a law that the minor could be charge with inciting or enabling the breaking of a law by being an active participant in an illegal act. In short, there seem to be no law, very, very few, that would restrict a minor from having sex, most laws just restrict who can’t have sex with them.

@Hypocrisy_Central Bo Derek was the actress in the movie “Ten”. Her husband John Derek was a well known fashion photographer who saw Bo on a beach in Southern California when she was 16, started dating her and soon married her. The whole story was widely know in teh late 1970’s.

So I am trying to understand your motivation for asking this question: do you believe there should be a law that punishes under age kids for having sex?

@zenvelo I remember Bo Derek, what kid didn’t back at that time, I guess the scandal surrounding her and John I missed somehow.

So I am trying to understand your motivation for asking this question: do you believe there should be a law that punishes under age kids for having sex? Part of my motivation was that when it comes to minors and sex it is quite nebulous, in just about all other areas there is a clear line, for the most part. The way minors and sex is handled it is as society gets wishy washy. Even when it comes to nudity or partial nudity the line is not hard in the minds of many. If it was an alcohol issue treated like this, it would say minors cannot buy booze and shouldn’t drink it, but if they are at a party and snatch a beer from the adult ice tub, it is OK because it was free. All anyone will say to Sparky is if you feel your head swimming too much or you want to puke then stop. If a 15yr old girl gave the alarm code to some thug of the homes she babysat in, and gave him a diagram of the location of all the valuable items she would be charged with aiding and abetting a criminal, or inciting a person to commit a crime. In the case of a minor having a fling, affair, or whatever with anyone over 18 they should be charge the same, because if they know it is illegal for their partner to have sex with them and they do it anyhow as an active participant, they have abetted the crime de factoly.

For minors having sex with other minors, I think they should be fined and given community service. If for nothing else, to have a constant as with underage drinking, buying or selling tobacco products to minors.

@Hypocrisy_Central So yes, you do believe there should be a law punishing minors for having sex. Is that just for sex between minors, or do you think a minor should be punished for having sex with an adult too?

That is awfully puritanical, making it a crime for kids to have sex?

Comparing it to alcohol and cigarettes is absolutely an “apples and oranges” issue.

Access and use of alcohol by minors is the number one contributor to teen mortality. Cigarettes are harmful from the first puff, teens who smoke are likely to be smokers as adults. Sex, on the other hand, is not considered a mortal act. And, by the way, in many locations it is not OK for a kid to grab a beer out of the ice chest.

You say minors and sex it is quite nebulous, in just about all other areas there is a clear line,. Actually there is a very bright line: If you are 18 or older don’t go around having sex with kids under the age of consent.

Just the eighteen year old, in my state. Legislators have no objective standard to use to determine maturity except age. This is a circumstance where a guy over 18 would have to be an idiot to imagine that he could equivocate on what “old enough” actually means.