Graded Age of Consent Laws

Why not propose a scheme along these lines?  The first number is the age of one partner, and the range of numbers is the range of people of a certain age who can legally have sex with a person of first.  It goes for any combination or number of sexes.

14: 11-17
15: 12-18
16: 12-24
17: 12-25
18-21: 14-up
21: 15-up

The thing that really bugs society is the whole ADOLESCENCE/children question around the consent laws.  In theory, we have no immediate moral problem with a 25 year old fucking an 80 year old, since both of them have made the mystical transition into adulthood.  However, we say that a 40 year old and a ten year old is RIGHT OUT.  To quantify the ages so precisely around adolescence seems strange, as well.  To accomodate this, we could have less nasty non-jail sentences (seeing a shrink/community service) for, for example, an 18 year old tapping a 13 year-old), all the way up to whatever age is right-out.  Send a 25 year old who got with an 8 year old to jail.  The process of fixing the age cutoffs could be helped by the psychological establishment.

>>46
I didn't say it wasn't a risk, i said it was a far smaller risk than the alarmist media would like you to believe. But the point still remains that its not conceivable to avoid sex in teens, wether you want to or not, or wether people think its right or not. The whole idea can't be implemented unless you result to inhumane restraints, even in the Victorian age with the castrations and such, teen sex was still rampant.  Point being that the theory of teens not having sex may be a nice thought, but in reality will never happen.  Therefore we have to resolve to the next best thing against unwanted pregnancies and the like.

I have no doubt that if a minor has sex and ends up pregnant, we would shift blame on the parent, the key here is to avoid such a situation, weather by abstinence (not likely), or contraceptives (works at least most of the time)

Make no mistake, I do not envy pregnant teens the same reason I don't think the world needs any more people, i just think we should fight teen pregnancy with realistic, efficient means.