posted
A very strange state of affairs is prominent at the moment in Britain at the moment. The age of consent for both heterosexual and homosexual relations is 16. However, the age at which you can buy pornagraphy is 18. Very strange that at an age you are considered responsible enough to decide your sexual activities you are not considered old enough to decide whether to indulge in sexual reading.
The fairly small but mainstream "Liberal Democrat" party wishes to redress this imbalance in the laws and allow the mininmum age to buy pornography to be 16. Presumably this will also have knock on effects of allowing 16 year olds into Adult Shops. I believe these often provide safer sex supplies as well as reading material (I would not know, I have never been in one). Overall, I would describe this as a good thing. What do you lot think?
------------------ 'An Anarchist is a Liberal with a bomb' Trotsky
Posts: 711 | From: England | Registered: Nov 2000
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posted
I'm all for it! If you're old enough to consent to sex, you're certainly old enough to buy porn/erotica and other toys (this is a little pet cause of mine because there are oh so many things I want, but have to wait another 3 years to buy).
I've got to say, it really doesn't make sense to me having the age of consent law differ from the youre-old-enough-to-buy-porn law (well, you know what I mean...).
Brittany
Posts: 1339 | From: Las Vegas, NV, USA | Registered: Jul 2000
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posted
Hey, I know you can pose topless in the UK at sixteen (or at least you could in the 'eighties), but I'm not sure if this applies to posing for porn too. It's always seemed weird how the ago of consent/ago of porn viewing thing never really lined up.
Posts: 5122 | From: I *came* from the land of ice and snow | Registered: Aug 2000
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posted
The AOC is 17 where I live, and I'm 17. So I can have sex legally, but I can't legally look at other people having sex. Weird, weird, weird. Lowering the age to 16 where you are sounds like a good idea to me.
------------------ *Limes Are Sublime*
Posts: 1101 | From: San Francisco | Registered: Jun 2000
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posted
I think this is a good thing. It can help people have safer or more ejoyable sex, and if you're old enough to have sex, i think you should be old enough for that also.
posted
My understanding of the AOC was that it was mostly applied to situations where a much older person had sex with a teenager. I'm aware that in some states, perhaps not all, the AOC is contingent upon the age difference of the two people. So if you're 14 and your girlfriend is 15 then you can boink all you want from a legal standpoint. But if you're 14 and your girlfriend or boyfriend is 25 then someones going to be doing time should the police find out. Are there states where two consenting teens would be prosecuted for committing a "sex crime?" The very idea of that is so insane and angers me so much that I'm almost convinced that someplace in this great land of ours someone in a position of authority who has a hair up their *** is doing just that.
Lee
Posts: 175 | From: Tempe, AZ USA | Registered: Jul 2000
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posted
I think it's absolutely fantastic lol, I live in Australia, specifically in Western Australia (which is, you guessed it, on the went side of the continent! (dryly) very imaginative lot we are.) The laws here in Australia are rather strange, and vary from state to state, but as a rule, yes, you can have sex here before you can go into a sex shop and buy something like a vibrator, which is totally nuts.
I also thought I'd add a "yay, things are changing!" bit about what's going on WA Australia. Homosexuality wasn't legal in WA until 1989. The laws that were repealed then were anti-sodomy laws, so I'm not sure where we lesbians stood in that. Anyway, as the law stands the age of consent is 16 for lesbians and heterosexuals, 21 for gay men (worse laws in the world aside from Romania I think that still outlaws it?), anyway the Labor govt got into power recently and is not only introducing stuff about fully equal consent, but also about anti-harrasment stuff, Just thought I'd share the good news
Posts: 66 | From: Perth, Australia | Registered: May 2001
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