*This talk page has been cleaned up in the interest of clarity [[/archive2005|and is archived here]]. If you were having an ongoing discussion please move it back to this page.
*This talk page has been cleaned up in the interest of clarity [[/archive2005|and is archived here]]. If you were having an ongoing discussion please move it back to this page.
= Not sure how to do this =
*I believe that this article should be <b>merged</b> with [[statutory rape]]. The violation of the AoC laws means statutory rape, and I believe that having more than one article about this is redudant.
= The Age of Consent Clean up =
= The Age of Consent Clean up =
Line 261:
Line 258:
* 'A minor may not be mature enough to engage in sexual activities with an adult, as that adult may use their cunning to fool the minor into consent.' This makes the reality assumption that an age gap ispo facto means there is exploitation. Also, that a minor gets "fooled" into having sex is also a dubious proposition, since using drugs, alcohol, or money to procure consent is already forbidden by law.
* 'A minor may not be mature enough to engage in sexual activities with an adult, as that adult may use their cunning to fool the minor into consent.' This makes the reality assumption that an age gap ispo facto means there is exploitation. Also, that a minor gets "fooled" into having sex is also a dubious proposition, since using drugs, alcohol, or money to procure consent is already forbidden by law.
* 'In age of consent laws the minor is the "victim" when a minor is charged with a more serious crime they are the "actor"' I have not seen any age of consent laws define the minor as the victim in Canada and the several US states I have been researching the issue for. This is irrelevant anyway, since the minor is the one making the decision; if their ability to make decisions is called into question by law, then it should be consistent with all other laws. Once again, the arguments I sought to include are <i>not targetted at the AoC laws, but at the close age exceptions which cause the contradictions I described above</i>.'
* 'In age of consent laws the minor is the "victim" when a minor is charged with a more serious crime they are the "actor"' I have not seen any age of consent laws define the minor as the victim in Canada and the several US states I have been researching the issue for. This is irrelevant anyway, since the minor is the one making the decision; if their ability to make decisions is called into question by law, then it should be consistent with all other laws. Once again, the arguments I sought to include are <i>not targetted at the AoC laws, but at the close age exceptions which cause the contradictions I described above</i>.'
Regardless, I think that the best first step to take would be to merge this with statutory rape. After reading that article, I find it superfluous and believe it can be integrated into this one nicely.
* 'Comparing one law to another is non-sequitar' I did not affirm the consequent, deny the antecedent, or make inconsistent claims in my presenting of the argument again the close age exception.
Revisionasof01:57,13June2006
This talk page has been cleaned up in the interest of clarity and is archived here. If you were having an ongoing discussion please move it back to this page.
The Age of Consent Clean up
Referencing
Looking at this article what we really need to do is have, for each country, a reference to the statutes (or, if no statute, other documentation) setting the age of consent. Only then will the article truly be sourced. I'll do some of it... anyone else want to join in? The Land18:42, 27 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Hehe, did I set some kind of standard with my edit of the Australia section? I agree whole heartedly, a lot of AoC information is created from hearsay and doesn't cite actual law. Monotonehell13:35, 28 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I have added a hidden note in each section requesting people to add an authority when they edit. Hopefully people will look up their local statute or similar authority and add the source from now on. Monotonehell17:07, 25 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
How to format the list of statutes/laws?
The list of ages needs to be cleaned up. I would do it, but wanted to seek comment to get the best way to do it since many states have exceptions. I am thinking a chart like the one for the countries and to include the exceptions as footnotes. Or the United States could get their own page Assawyer01:59, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that this information needs to be cleaned up. But I also must stress the need for it to be properly cited (see 'challenge' above). I don't think an extra page for exclusivly the USA is an answer - perhaps a page per continental region if we think that extra pages are required.
The whole page really does need a rethink, the introduction is good however, the following sections meander a bit and should possibly be rewritten to remove the country specific details and make them more universal. Possibly the page should me more focused with either things like marriage and protitution completely removed (put on their own separate pages?) or included as the concensus indicates. It would be good if we can settle on a format and style common to all the list sections that includes relavant information in an easily comparitive way.
I supose what we need do is think about all the issues needed to be discussed in the introduction and following sections then settle on a usefull format for the frequency chart and list of local laws below? Monotonehell05:50, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds good, I will go through using LexisNexis and check out the U.S. states to verify their accuracy and add legal citations. I will be using the following link to do so User:Assawyer/AOC. Feel free to contribute. I'm using a table for now to keep things organized.Assawyer07:06, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Very good, however you may find yourself in trouble trying to fit the diferences in law between states into a table format. You'll end up with more footnotes than table (lol). Monotonehell10:36, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm unsure whether it's due to our requests for more statutes or just coincidence but a lot of wonderful editors have been adding citations for law in verious countries. This is great. Soon we can look at moving the countries to subpages. The question still remains as to how to order them. Recently someone boldly reordered the listing so that it's no longer in order of continent. Should the sub pages be grouped by continent(how it was) by alpha(as it is now) or some other grouping. The target should be to get roughly the same amount of text on each subpage while grouping them in a sensible manner. -- Monotonehell15:51, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete and start again?
It seems likely the entire section should be deleted pending reintroduction of entries for the various countries once they can be referenced. Tomyumgoong01:02, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting idea, however I think that would take a very long time to get all the referenced sources in place. We seem to be getting one every few days now. Perhaps it would be an idea to open a new section that is intended to replace the current section and move the referenced parts to there as they get added? Monotonehell07:38, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps. I understand that it is difficult to replace all of these countries with referenced facts, but might it not be better to provide no information than incorrect information? It seems most of this is just lifted from the popular internet guides to age of consent, most of which are out of date and flawed. Tomyumgoong17:44, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Okay I do agree with you in theory but am not bold enough to delete a whole section just like that LOL. Perhaps we could move the entire section out to a linked temporary archived page with a caveat letting people know that most of the information is unreliable at worst as it is unverified. THEN add a new section on the main page stating that ONLY properly referenced information is to be contained there.
But only once we've settled on a concensus for the format and content and written a style guide for it.
I will not have a problem being bold enough to nuke any information that does not meet the referencing standard (including what I added regarding Brazil) that's agreed to. I would be in favor of requiring that specific statutes be cited in each case, although this will be very cumbersome (considering the language barrier) for many countries. Perhaps there is another compilation or resource we are comfortable lifting information from (Interpol has such a website I believe). Tomyumgoong01:54, 7 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've looked at Interpol's site a number of times and found it out of date unfortunatly. Not a reliable source. I think you've talked me into the wholesale deletetion of bad information. With that indicitive chart at the top we need not have specific bad information below. I think the chart is enough and then have the relavent legal citations and discussions as per the Australia section on sub pages with links from this page. This I believe would balance the article being too large with the need for specific information. What's other people's opinions here? Monotonehell03:33, 7 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yes enough discussion, I've left this open for awhile. I guess everyone has put forward their views now - time for action. This will take me awhile so I think I'll put a template on the page while I'm bastardising it. I need to do a little more research and think a bit first but I should have this done this weekend. --Monotonehell12:18, 4 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Talk page itself need(ed) cleaning
Also this talk page could do with an archiving. Done. Monotonehell 13:05, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
Now I've began to organise the talk page as it was already becoming hard to follow, or maybe it was just me? Monotonehell03:33, 7 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Nice work! That would have taken a bit for formating. But (here's the bit where I attack all your hard work lol) as I suspected this kind of information is not something that is easily conveyed in a table. A question: The Age differentials you quote, how many are defences at court and how many are exemptions to the law?
The reason I presented the Australian section the way I did was due to the small but important differences in Laws between the states. I suspect that a reader will go to only the sections in which they are interested and read that text. The table format doesn't lend itself well to the idiocies of law and makes it a chore to extract any information. People need things explained to them in a straightforward way. However (here's where I undermine my position) doing it in this way will lead to a huge body of text (note it is already above the 31Kb sugested limit). Perhaps several regional subpages need to be created? I throw it open to discussion. Monotonehell15:02, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I believe all are devised from the statutes, I merely copied their table. The trouble is many states don't have a bright-line age and many states have a buffer age depending on the victim and actor. In the article I provide the link to, it goes over each states laws. I plan on reading the sections to pull the nessceary citations for the laws regarding statutory rape. As for the table, it could be placed in a separate article like "List of Ages of Consent in the United States" Assawyer15:05, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Interpol - member state age of consent laws
I added this very useful link that should be used to reference most of the ages listed on this page. I just looked up Mexico and it appears that 18 is the AoC, not 12 as shown here. My Spanish isn't very good, but this sounds like a prison sentance to me:『Al que tenga cópula con persona mayor de doce años y menor de dieciocho, obteniendo su consentimiento por medio de engaño, se le aplicará de tres meses a cuatro años de prisión.』-Gavin15:40, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Your right, your Spanish isn't very good. The AoC in Mexico is indeed 12. What Article 262 actually says is if you have consensual sex with a person older than 12 but less than 18 and obtain their consent by means of deceit, you can expect to spend between three months and four years in prison. --Pascal66603:06, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Monotonehell is right. The source cannot be relied on. Just checked the subject Russia--it states that there is NO legal concept of AOC there. This was true before 1997 (Soviet laws were often intentionally vague to provide for arbitrary interpretation), but since then the situation changed twice! --Goldminer16:20, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
But wouldn't logic say to use the data that's provided rather than make up something arbitrarily? I mean if Interpol is the only thing you have to work with, then it should just be that. From everything I've heard, it's still 12 in Mexico. (Homosexuality is outlawed) --Rookiee Revolyob09:55, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It would be a very strange logic that suggests we should copy a source we know is wrong, when we have verifiable sources giving the right information. Did anyone suggest making up something arbitrarily? I missed it if they did. -- Avenue10:53, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The point is exactly the opposite. We keep the unverified information out of the article until such time as it can be verified. Much of the information on Interpol is out of date (with the exception of one or two pages that have recent upadates - Japan comes to mind). What Goldminer was refering to was pre 1997 Russia's laws were so vague that the courts could interperet them on a case by case (abitary) basis. Goldminer wasn't refering to the article here.
We need both the federal and regional laws for mexico as in Mexico the federal law varies according to the age gap between partners and is often overruled by regional laws. The entries on Interpol are not specific enough to make that information verifyable. Only then can we safely move the mexico entry back to the N.America page. Oh and I've not found any references to homosexuality. If you could find any such sources that would be wonderful! --Monotonehell12:39, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Bookmastaflex, I think the reason your edit was reverted was because you only edited the table and left the discusion below as it stands. The table is a summary of the discusion so inorder to complete your edit you'd need to do three things.
1- Find the revelent legislation after it passes through the (Canadian) House of review (I forget how the Candian legislature works - Senate, Upper House?).
2- Edit the discussion to reflect the change in the law, add a citation to the legislation as a link or footnote.
3- Move Canada's entry in the summary table.
Any entries in the discussion that are not referenced are going to be removed soon when we finalise the page cleanup so if someone doesn't update Canada then it will be removed. --Monotonehell14:02, 1 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
How could Harper change Canadian laws when the House hasn't even sat yet? There's a good chance the age will change, but not until there's a vote.
Update dates
Joey Q. McCartney makes an good point that the legal discussion should include dates. He's kindly placed one on the New Zealand entry and I believe this is another requirement that should be incorporated into the rewrite. --Monotonehell12:11, 4 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Restructure underway
No one has made much comment in the past few days so I took that as a consesus of sorts and began the restructure. I'm probably halfway through now and it's very late. What I've done is laid out a structure with the information we currently have organised and rewritten as needed. Some areas need fleshing out still. Lots more work to do. The various countries are now on separate pages (well they aren't quite finsihed yet) in order to reduce thepage size. As per the discussion here I'm not including any countries/states that do not have at least a simple citation to the law. Those subpages will also need fleshing out. I'm going to bed now been doing this for 4 hours lol. I'm leaving the work in progress template up until Sunday 5th so I can get the bare bones work done before people start messing with the details. Finish it Sunday. --Monotonehell18:05, 4 March 2006 (UTC) (Ships! it's Sunday already here)[reply]
Okay my general work is done. It's still a bit rough I'll continue to edit but I also invite others to come in and clean up my work and add decently referenced material to the sub pages. I'm thinking of reducing the size of the headings somewhat. It currently looks like there's too many headings but my vision is to have the sections expanded with content. Any comments? --Monotonehell07:43, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think there's any real need to move specific age of cosnent information to subpages indefinitely, but it was a good way to get rid of all of the unsourced garbage that plagued the article. Perhaps it can be merged back once it is more complete. The chart remains, however... Does it not require extensive sourcing also? Tomyumgoong20:48, 16 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The subpages were created as the main article was well over the recommended size limit as it stood. But of course now that we've removed all the unsourced hearsay it would be much smaller; I was thinking of the future when there will be an entry for every country! (lol) The chart should eventually be informed from the subpages. But as the disclaimer says it's there for indicaion of the 'norm' only. I think it is a good thing for an overview (which the main article is).
We also need to flesh out the main article. Most of the sections are mere placeholders. Remembering to alter the introduction to reflect the altered body as we go. --Monotonehell06:12, 17 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The picture
People seem to not understand the purpose of the picture of the youth jumping off some hay stacks. It has a two fold purpose - Firstly it dresses the page from a design point of view, making it more visually interesting. Secondly it has a metaphorical meaning; the youth is making a leap, experimenting and as such is a metaphor for sexual exploration.
I would differ there. Five edits in 24 hours? That is a big 3RR break. Just letting you know about that right now. But care to tell me why you think my image has failed to improve the article while the other image does? --OrbitOne21:21, 20 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You did see the topic, didn't you? and you've started adding new pic. w/o any discussion. So, now you're claiming that i'm breacking rules. :-\ --tasc21:29, 20 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I am pulling my hat out of this one. But to be clear, you did break the 3RR rule and I hope you wind up with no more than a simple warning. Reverts are not answers to disputes. --OrbitOne21:55, 20 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Visualy uninteresting page it is then. I asked for comments/opinions not an edit war. *lol* Oh well, picture in, picture out, picture in, picture out, picture in, picture out, picture in, picture out... I hope we are all above the age of consent cos that's the closest thing to sex I've had in a while. >.>' TMI?.. The background to the picture is this this; I was searching wikicommons for a suitable picture of a group of youths that would dress the page a little in order to improve its visual interest. However nothing suitable could be found. Then I browsed the children section in hope that something had been placed there mistakenly and happened upon the boy jumping picture which shouted "youthful exurberent experimentation" and my visual communications background alarm bell rang. So it wasn't simply a picture with no point, it has visual metaphoric meaning.
But I'm happy to leave it out if a few people disagree with, it's just that the first two edits seemed like vandalism. I guess it's a reminder to us all to use the reason field properly and take things to the talk page when we do something that doesn't have an obvious reason. *takes note of own suggestion*
Cheers to all - I hope you all stick around and make many more content contributions to this page instead of just cosmetic changes. We still need good researched information for the place holder subsections as well as referneced legal discussions for the sub pages. I know Tomyumgoong is working on a summary of the social/legal debate and I'm looking at expanding the marriage as a defence subject. -- Monotonehell11:09, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Would it be useful to include Great Britain instead of the United Kingdom in the age 16 column? The age of consent here in Northern Ireland (as noted) is 17, quite different legally to the rest of the UK Alastairward 09:30, 22 March 2006 (GMT)
If we did that then we'd also have an entry for every state in the US and every state in Australia and so on. The decision was taken awhile ago to only enter the 'average' age for each country/union. Although this opens up the question what should be done with member states of the EU...
I don't have cites to hand but laws in the UK can be specific to England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, its a bit of a pain and adds time to the drafting of legislation. This may be covered in depth in another Wikipedia article. I couldn't find a government related cite, but the BBC does list the age of consent (hetero- and homosexual) as 17; [[1]]
I added this note to the talk page for Age_of_consent_in_Europe, I couldn't find the stipulated government related cite as requested on the page.
As to the EU, its not a fully pan-European government, so its probably better to have seperate European listings -- Alastairward 24 March 2006
This conversation carried over onto the Euro talk page Please visit it as we need help regarding UK law...
I think we should just expand this article and live with the size instead of getting hot and bothered over what we should do about states, the EU and if we should average it or not. Just let the information get sharper and sharper the more people add to it. --OrbitOnetalk17:10, 26 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I don't fully understand what/which article you mean. The size issue refered to is regarding the table not the article (is this what you mean?) The Subpages will be as big as needed to include details of all jurisdictions. I never really thought a table would be of much use, just look at the problems ageofconsent.com and avert.org are having representing the data in a table. --Monotonehell00:34, 27 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Marriage section
I've just edited an addition that was a bit PoVy to try to ballance it a bit. But I'm not sure that I've suceeded. I've tried to state it as an opionion instead of a fact. Any opinions on it? --Monotonehell05:15, 6 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The table
This table keeps causing headaches. People alter it or add to it without citeing their sources or adding to the subpages, it's the main target for drive-by vandals, it's difficult to maintain and it misrepresents some information as it's fairly close to impossible to properly convey the info without 400 footnotes.
I'm sugesting we delete it and just stick with the subpages for specific information. Also trying to keep the main page general and non-jurisdiction specific. Opinions? --Monotonehell05:29, 6 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
What about adding a disclamer? Also state that it is a general guide and that the laws are too complex to all be summarised by a table. Kalmia04:47, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Have a look at the history that was all included in many and various forms, including editor's notes in the html code. But people constantly ignored these pleas and edited away (this is wikipedia after all) --Monotonehell07:21, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Removed passage
I've been looking at this passage for some time now and have tried to reword it several times...
"In countries where "protection" of youth in terms of sexual behavior has reached its zenith (e.g. the United States), there has been a growing tendency to charge minors as adults for some major crimes. This leads some to consider why it is that a 15 year old could be too immature to agree to sexual relations, yet be mature enough to be tried as an adult for committing a crime and sent to prison, possibly for life.1"
...I realised that I was labouring under a fallacy. The AoC laws are intended as a protection for children as victims, whereas a murder charge is about protecting the murder victim. I can see why this passage was added, but the argument is non sequitur and a tad irrelevent so I've zapped it. --Monotonehell19:34, 16 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
New material
I would like to highlight the excelent work that is being added to the European and Oceanic sub pages by several Wikipedians. They have added a LOT of well referenced information in the past week and are helping make this article what it should be. Cheers! --Monotonehell03:59, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree with the fragmentation of this article, and after some period of contribution useful information should be merged with the original subject. It's great that people are doing seemingly good work to properly document this matter. Tomyumgoong09:36, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Are you sure? That would mean a VERY large article once all Jurisdictions are accounted for. People are starting to add historical information regarding law changes and so on. The Oceania page is already 5 screens long and Europe 8.
The version previous to the restructure was listed on longpages and as per the style guide was broken up into subtopics. The subpage format allows a general discussion of the matters on the main AoC page in a fairly International manner. And in depth analysis of the individual laws in each jurisdiction. This way there would be no "useful information" on the subpages that would belong in the main article. But some of it may inspire new topics in the main article. Why do you disagree with this approach? --Monotonehell15:00, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Need verifiable, reliable sourced content
The content of this article needs to be based on verifiable reliable sources. Parts of it look like an essay instead of an encyclopedia article. FloNighttalk13:47, 23 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I agree - the current form is more of a template for others to add information to, "Suggested topics". I've added a call for references template to the top. --Monotonehell07:39, 24 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Urban Legend about Japan
There it is again. The urban legend that the age of consent in Japan is 13. I cannot count the number of times a gullible American G.I. stationed here made the front page because he fell for this story.
Beware. The age of consent in Japan is 18. The urban legend derives from the fact that sex with minors under under the age of 13 is a federal offence, while sex with minors 13 thru 17 will throw you in jail on local laws. There once was a time when the age of consent was different for each prefecture. The district of Tokyo was the last holdout, the age of consent there remained 16 up until the mid '80s. After circa 1986, the age of consent in Japan has been 18 in every prefecture. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 219.163.12.72 (talk • contribs) .
Ah I see - this was added for colour, but removed some time ago then readded because no one could remember why it was removed. I'll see what can be done about it. Thank you. (hey everyone maybe I'll put the madboy.jpg back? what do you say - LOL)--Monotonehell08:53, 24 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've edited the map and updated it with the information that we've gathered on the subpages. I'll add to it as people add to the pages. --Monotonehell15:25, 24 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Japan unknown?
Why is Japan marked as unknown on the map. I'm certain I remember reading either: They didn't have one but made it 12 or it was 12 and they made it 14--82.133.115.5511:24, 7 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Until last week there wasn't a referenced entry for Japan, but as it stands it may have to be put on the map as 'varies by state'. The national standard is 13, however there are some complex prefecture laws which don't actualy set an AoC exactly but refer to 'immoral sexual acts' and in effect set the AoC 'without sincere love' sometimes to 18. see Japan's entry here It's complex and the article hasn't been fully fleshed out. If you can find some real, verifible references that you can cite feel free to update the text yourself.
Also the map is only updated on occasion when a few entries have been updated and verified. It's a bit of a task to make lots of little changes all the time ;) The map is based on the referenced information on the Wikipedia pages only and as such there's a lot of grey areas right now. --Monotonehell15:49, 7 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Please fully read and comprehend what it is you are looking at before making wholesale changes to articles. You have caused a lot of work for others with your disruption of these pages. You are very welcome to contribute to these articles once you have read and understood the Wikipedia policies, guidlines and protocols.
From the lead paragraph of this article...
"In criminal law, the age of consent (AoC) is the age at which a person is considered to be capable of legally giving informed consent to any legal contract or behaviour regulated by law with another person. This article refers specifically to the AoC Laws regulating sexual acts, not to be confused with the age of majority or age of criminal responsibility, and in some jurisdictions, the marriageable age." --Monotonehell12:01, 9 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I believe "wrong" is too strong a word, since "age of consent" is generally understood to refer to sex unless otherwise stated. But it could be clarified, e.g. "Age of consent for sex", "Age of consent for sex in North America". Please do not call them "Age of consent in North America for sex", etc - that sounds terrible. -- Avenue04:45, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This group of pages has seen several distractions from its primary concern recently, mostly regarding the naming of the subpages in relation to the content therein. Can we bring all the concerns here and have a civil, productive argument and hopefully come to some kind of consensus (and possibly teach me to spell?)?
Some rules I think will help the discussion (but might sound a bit condesending - sorry);
No normative statements. Example; "It should be this way" without any supporting evidence doesn't further your point. If you have a point of view, that's great!, but tell everyone why you think it should be that way. Cite WP:policy, dictionary definitions and other authoritive sources.
No outright snubs. Let's give any reasoned point of view equal consideration. Just because it's always been this way doesn't make it right.
Let's keep it civil and try not to lose our cool.
I'll start by dragging this from the N.American talk page to get the ball rolling. If others have more points of concern please feel free to add them here.
---
This should be at ages. While yes, "age of consent" is a common name, this is a list of ages of consent around North America, not just one term. Having it at ages of consent in North America doesn't even violate WP:NC(CN), as it still USES the common term, just makes it correct. If there was one age of consent in North America, then that would be where the article was, but there are many! Nobody would use age of consent in North America when it clearly refers to more than one age, and so "ages" is clearly more common. --Rory09606:32, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
LOL This argument could go on for ages with semantics and normative statements. :) The page is in fact a list of Laws regarding the Age of consent (for sex? lol) in many jurisdictions. So which word to pluralise?
Ages of consent
Age of consents
Age of consent laws
There's been a lot of page moves going on recently, I'm not against a civil discusion regarding a name change. As long as once a consenus is reached, all 7 pages in this group have a consistent and logical page structure. Perhaps we should move this entire debate to the main page and address all the concerns people have instead of all these edit wars? --Monotonehell10:48, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The article's focus is on the variance between the Ages that can consent to particular acts. The variable that differs from article to article is not what is consented to, but the difference in ages from state to state. Thus, the proper term for this article is "Ages of consent". BorgHunter is correct. Daniel Davis12:51, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It seems only a couple of people had an opinion about this. I can think of arguments for both cases, so I went with the one that made the most noise. Even though I think that "age-singular" would be the more common search term I think if we keep the main page "Age of consent" the sub pages can be the plural. I've also edited the disambig page and added a header paragraph to all the sub pages to let people know that they are solely about AoC for sexual activity. Let's hope that clears up any furure confusion. --Monotonehell08:01, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Stuff...
I've been hacking at pretty much all the AoC pages as well as some of the linked pages and disambig page. Just general cleanup and checking links/facts etc. Still not finished. I've also posted a note on the African note board calling for edits on the Africa sub page. So hopefully we get some more entries on there. Tired now. X.X --Monotonehell18:35, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Moral philosophy
The general moral philosophy behind AoC laws is the assumed need for the protection of minors. It is a common belief in most societies that minors below a certain age lack the maturity and experience to fully understand the ramifications of engaging in sexual acts. These fears may include but are not limited to resulting pregnancies and psychological or physical damage. There is an ongoing debate in some Western cultures regarding child sexuality as it relates to age of consent. It is these debates that have informed the various laws in different jurisdictions and account for their disparity. Some cultures regard minors engaging in sexual activity as normal whereas other cultures regard it as deviant behavior in need of correction. There are problems with the moral argument of laws for consent, however, if the laws include close-age exceptions, as then the laws would then seemingly contradict themselves.
The above is lifted from the article. I've temp removed the last part (emphasis added) as it makes no sense and is not referenced. Can we work something out for this?
What exactly is the position of this argument? (Clarify)
I fail to understand the point. Close in age laws make sense as they allow sexual contact between consenting younger persons with their peers, while disallowing "predator" adults sexual contact with younger persons. -- That's if you agree with this particular moral philosophy (personal opinions aside WP:NPOV). It may suprise people what my personal opinions are considering some of the subject matter I've altered in the past due to WP policy. --Monotonehell12:50, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Additon to Moral Philosphy Explained
That was my contribution. I guess I could have done a better job with the NPOV of that argument. Canada is currently undergoing a debate about the age of consent, and that's one issue that has been brought up in the media.
The argument is simple: that minors below a certain age lack the maturity and experience to fully understand the ramifications of engaging in sexual acts. So if they are unable to consent due to immaturity, then what does it matter that the other person is "close in age"? That's the contradiction. If you reply "because they don't know any better", more hypocricies emerge as teenagers can go to jail for years or even tried as adults at their particular ages for certain crimes, yet cannot consent to sexual activity.
I'm currently trying to formulate a way to insert this critical argument in the article while maitaining the structural integrity. As for referencing it, I don't believe it's necessary (especially given current (not idealized) Wikipedia standards), and the argument is important enough to include.
It would be nice if we could reference something on this article, it suffers dearly from not being cited virtually at all. -- The arguments you put forward have come up before. There's counter arguments for both;
if they are unable to consent due to immaturity, then what does it matter that the other person is "close in age"? -- the counter argument goes; The law is intended to protect the minor. A minor may not be mature enough to engage in sexual activities with an adult, as that adult may use their cunning to fool the minor into consent. Two minors should be of a similar maturity and so any consent between them will be on equal footing. Or something to that effect.
more hypocricies emerge as teenagers can go to jail for years or even tried as adults at their particular ages for certain crimes, yet cannot consent to sexual activity; again the counter; In age of consent laws the minor is the "victim" when a minor is charged with a more serious crime they are the "actor". The former is to protect the child (the victim) the later is to protect that who the crime is commited against (in this case the victim is not the minor)
I seem to remember someone else putting in a similar paragraph. But eventually it was removed for POV. You'd need to walk the fine line of balance and show both sides of any argument. I think that this is an important issue that should be included but so far I haven't seen anyone manage to present it well. But if you want to have a go - be bold! And if you can find some scholarly references regarding this discussion that would be GREAT!.
Comments on what you've written so far:
"(literally: rape because the law defines it as such)" Not literally rape. The law defines it as rape, when it's possibly not. Pehaps remove "literally".
Comparing one law to another is non-sequitar. As demonstrated above.
You need to address the counter arguments as your language is dangerously POV still.
Indeed there still is work to be done, NPOV is not something easily achieved.
'A minor may not be mature enough to engage in sexual activities with an adult, as that adult may use their cunning to fool the minor into consent.' This makes the reality assumption that an age gap ispo facto means there is exploitation. Also, that a minor gets "fooled" into having sex is also a dubious proposition, since using drugs, alcohol, or money to procure consent is already forbidden by law.
'In age of consent laws the minor is the "victim" when a minor is charged with a more serious crime they are the "actor"' I have not seen any age of consent laws define the minor as the victim in Canada and the several US states I have been researching the issue for. This is irrelevant anyway, since the minor is the one making the decision; if their ability to make decisions is called into question by law, then it should be consistent with all other laws. Once again, the arguments I sought to include are not targetted at the AoC laws, but at the close age exceptions which cause the contradictions I described above.'
Regardless, I think that the best first step to take would be to merge this with statutory rape. After reading that article, I find it superfluous and believe it can be integrated into this one nicely.
