I think 16 years olds should have expanded autonomy. I think they should be able to vote. In some western European countries, 16 is when you can start to drink, its when you finish state mandated education, and in the US its when you fan start to drive.

I think 16 year olds should be allowed to make decisions about their own bodies; whether we prohibit them or not, they will have sex. 16 may feel low, but its the age that most human beings start having sex. 33 and 16 is a huge age gap (literally twice her age), but if we set the age of consent at that level theres really nothing legally we can do to prevent such a relationship.

I think part of our conservative ideas about teenagers and sex(education) in america stems from the fact that the state artificially keeps teenagers in a state of utter dependence on parents and the state until people are 18 years old at the earliest, and 22 years old at the latest. It would be natural to see Americans as having longer juvenile periods of their lives than elsewhere on earth (or compared to the majority of human civilization) because we remain functionally useless longer than most and are rarely challenged to mature at an appropriate rate.