The age of consent in many other developed nations is 16. What makes the US's 18 years age of consent the golden rule, especially when most aspects of other American law fail so spectacularly and are continually exposed as being corrupt? 16 is much more reasonable as a binary decision rule yet still avoids "laws that encourage pedophilia." The punishments should fit the scenario better, and absolutely shouldn't be these sorts of archaic binary decision rules. If anything, the punishments need to be less severe, and more focused on rehabilitation.
A kid I went to HS and college with, and knew for a long, long time got tangled up in some stupid bullshit when he was 19. He wasn't perfect, but he was one of the better people I knew in most aspects of life - he was also very academically gifted, and importantly, very intellectually curious. He was learning programming and had just landed a research assistant position in a biomedical engineering lab. His fuckup involved sexting with a 16 year old (she was turning 17 in a month). Ultimately, this completely and utterly fucked up his life.
It's easy to try and paint him as some psychopathic pedophile that was going to go on to rape and murder children...and that's tragic, to see the world in such black and white. He could have done some tremendous good in society; alas, age of consent = 18 + insanely strict laws completely fucked his life. He should have been given rehabilitation instead.
There was a 3 year difference between him and the girl, and yet this is viewed as completely and utterly morally repugnant. My girlfriend is 14 years older than me, and we started dating when I was 18. Honestly, I didn't even 'grow up' and become and 'adult' until around 25. Yet somehow, this is completely OK.
Shit makes no sense to me, and I find it utterly disgusting. Besides, it's just sex. If we didn't raise children so puritanically about it, people wouldn't flip out so much over the most minor sexual glances even. It's shameful how much shame we make our children feel about sexuality. Idk...