BTW, T-Money, thanks for posting this over there, but can you include the link to this post? Thanks.

Re: Post #164

What's missing? The fact that a fucking adult is legally adjudicated to be able to take responsibility for him or herself and a minor is not. It is that simple.

You missed my point. Let's take two examples: a just-turned-16 year old high school student and a 23 year old coworker. The 16 year old is fairly naive but not unusually so for her age. She is a virgin but hasn't thought much about saving herself for marriage or not. The coworker is emotionally insecure and very vulnerable. If her parents took her to court to get guardianship and found a sympathetic judge they might get it, but that hasn't happened and she's a legal adult. The law says she can consent to sex with any other adult. She's also married. Let's pretend I'm 24. Let's pretend I don't have any moral qualms about premarital sex.

Situation 1: I'm in love with the 16 year old.
Situation 2: I'm in love with the 23 year old.

Morally speaking, what is the difference between lusting after a vulnerable unavailable person who happens to be over an arbitrarily-set age of consent with an equally vulnerable equally unavailable person who happens to be below that age? Or to put it another way, if both people are above the age of consent in one state, there is no difference. Does being in another state where one is below the age of consent create a moral difference where none existed in the first case? Or, if there is a moral difference - either that having sex with a married woman is okay but a 17 year old is not or vice versa - does changing the law change the moral dynamic?

I don't see a difference - they are both off limits. One due to immaturity consistent with being a 16 year old and one due to marriage.

Now, if I were 19, then the dynamic might change but the change in the law would not change the dynamic. The married person would be off limits on moral grounds because of adultery. Morally speaking, the 16 year old would not be off limits, even if in one state I'd have to marry her before I could go to bed with her without going to jail.

On a related topic, laws that say 19 year olds that have sex with 16 year olds are the same as 40 year olds having sex with 16 year olds are the same crime aren't realistic.