L aw professor John Spencer of Cambridge University has created a huge controversy by suggesting a reduction in the current age of consent of Much of the criticism has been sensationalist and has misrepresented the case for a lower age of consent.
Like Spencer, I believe the time has come for a calm, rational reassessment of the age at which young people should be lawfully entitled to have sex. We need this debate because the current age of consent of 16 ignores reality. Whether we like it or not, underage young people are having sex with each other. More than half of all teenagers have their first sexual experience by the age of 14, according to the National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles.
All these sexually active young teens are branded by the law as criminals and sex offenders, lumped together with paedophiles. How can this be right? An age of consent of 14 might be more realistic and reasonable than If sex at 14 is consensual, and no one is hurt or complains, is criminalisation in the public interest?
Is it in the year-old's interest? It is fair? Having a single, inflexible age of consent is problematic, since different young people mature at different ages. One alternative option might be to introduce a tiered age of consent, where sex involving unders would cease to be prosecuted, providing both partners consent and there is no more than two or three years' difference in their ages.
I suspect that many parents will oppose any change. They do not want their children to have sex at an early age. I sympathise with their concerns. But if their children do have sex before the age of 16, surely most loving, responsible parents would not want them to be dragged to court, given a criminal conviction and put on the sex offender's register, alongside child sex abusers. This is what can, and sometimes does, happen under the present law.
