Too Young Teen

Too Young Teen
IN 1275 an English judge condemned a man for “ravishing” a girl aged under 12, the legal minimum for marriage at the time. Three centuries later the rape of a ten-year-old prodded another judge to ban mitigation pleas for the “benefit of clergy”, which had allowed defendants who could read a few words of scripture to escape the death penalty for capital crimes. By the 1880s most countries had set an age, usually between ten and 13, below which children were presumed too young to consent, making intercourse with them a crime. In the following decades, pushed by campaigns to protect children from sexual exploitation, many countries raised their threshold to between 16 and 18.
Now, attempts to balance child protection and teenage freedoms are seeing those clear lines blur. Instead of a single answer to the question, “How young is too young?” many countries are shifting to a “patchwork system of rules and exceptions”, says Kaye Wellings, a sexual-health researcher at London University. How serious an offence is, or even whether one has been committed, can depend on the age gap between the parties, as well as more subjective factors such as emotional maturity and the evidence of harm done.
German prosecutors consider whether a 15-year-old was capable of “sexual self-determination” when deciding whether to prosecute a sexual partner. In 2003 England created a lesser offence for sex between a 16- to 18-year-old and an under-16-year-old—and barred anyone charged with sex with someone aged under 13 from pleading mitigation. “Romeo and Juliet” laws in several American states exempt close-in-age couplings from prosecution. (Shakespeare’s Juliet was around 13, Romeo probably older.)
One reason for the shift is an acknowledgment that adults’ rules have limited influence on what teenagers get up to in private. Surveys show that a quarter of teenagers in Britain, for example, are sexually active below its threshold of 16. But strict laws when the age gap is wide, or the child very young, make prosecuting hardened child-abusers easier—as highlighted by the recent convictions in Britain of several celebrities for under-age sex in the 1970s and 1980s.
The new approach is in the spirit of 19th-century campaigns, says Stephen Robertson, an American academic who studies the history of sex and the courts, in seeking to protect the young from abuse and to limit predation rather than fornication. In 1887, as part of a drive to have rape treated more seriously, America’s Christian Temperance Union cited the “frightful indignities to which even little girls are subject”. Many states raised their thresholds from ten to 14 or 15. Around the same time, London’s Pall Mall Gazette detailed the lives of child prostitutes and greedy procuresses in a series billed as “abominable, unutterable, and worse than fables yet have feigned, or fear conceived”. England’s age of consent went from 13 to 16 as a result.
That distinction between protection and proscription, together with a growing acceptance of homosexuality, has seen most rich countries bring their rules for gay sex in line with those for heterosexuals. In 2002 Austria, one of the last European holdouts, lost a long battle with the European Court of Human Rights to keep its thresholds at 18 for gays and 14 for heterosexuals. Canada raised its heterosexual age of consent from 14 to 16 in 2008, but retained 18 as the minimum age for anal intercourse outside marriage. Legal challenges rumble on in provincial courts.
Sometimes, though, a change to the age of consent may be influenced by baser considerations. After a gang-rape and murder in Delhi in 2012 that sparked an outcry about the abuse of women and the legality of rape within marriage, Indian legislators raised the age of consent for non-marital sex from 16 to 18. That was a politically motivated attempt to change the subject—and not only because the victim was 23.
This article appeared in the International section of the print edition under the headline "How young is too young?"
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Published since September 1843 to take part in “a severe contest between intelligence, which presses forward, and an unworthy, timid ignorance obstructing our progress.”
Copyright © The Economist Newspaper Limited 2022 . All rights reserved.

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I watch my daughter walk into the room with her long, straight chestnut hair swaying side to side. I love watching her enter our kitchen each morning.
At ten, her sense of self is strong. She knows how to put together an outfit and creates just the right hairstyle to go with it. I am always impressed with her ability to match her older sister’s fur vest with a pair of leopard leggings or a jean jacket with a plaid skirt meant for the holidays. She does not get this trait from her style-challenged mother, who has worn her hair the same way for nearly two decades.
Her greatest accessory, however, is the confidence that exudes out of her tiny frame. She walks with her head held high as her voice booms against the walls of our home. She is a force.
I see her from behind as she bends over to pull out a waffle from the bottom of our freezer. When she stands up, I notice her shorts don’t move much. They lay perfectly still, roughly one inch under her buttocks. I think to myself that J-Lo would be envious of that perfect bum.
But then I remember that she is in fourth grade and not on a tour with backup dancers.
“I think you put on an old pair of shorts, the ones from last year. They are too small, but I bought some new ones the other day. They are in the guest room, I think,” I say this off-handedly as I pour a cup of coffee.
“Awwww,” she whines. “But these are my favorite pair. They are so comfortable.”
“Honey, they are too small!” I say more forcefully. “You have to change.”
“But why? They don’t feel too small to me.”
I know the reason, but I don’t say it. I don’t want to be the person who makes her uncomfortable with her body. I don’t want to be the first woman to judge her appearance. I don’t want to be the mom who doesn’t respect her for who she is.
So I simply say, “Please. Change your shorts. It’s not a big deal. You’ve outgrown them.”
And I sigh with relief as she turns and stomps slowly up the stairs. I hope she is more annoyed with the time it takes to change then with her mother’s clothing rules.
The truth is, it’s my issue. I don’t want my daughter viewed in an overtly sexualized way. I already notice the curves appearing on her slight frame and her legs lengthening by the minute. Her dark, thick eyelashes often cause people to ask if she is wearing makeup and I see puberty just around the corner.
I am not ready for the painful conversations forthcoming, the ones where I inform her that clothing (or lack thereof) can lead to unwanted and inappropriate responses from men, even though it shouldn’t be that way.
I am not prepared to tell her that big brands are preying on young girls’ insecurities and their desire to feel “grown up.”
I do not want to address that what she puts on her body, whether it is shorty shorts or a t-shirt with demeaning language or even a simple logo, matters.
But I will. Because I know that all the stimulation from video games and social media and fashion magazines makes it difficult for her to hear me. All that titillation affects our children who are already battling hormones earlier and with more intensity.
I will shout above all the noise to ensure she knows that she is enough, exactly as she is, in every moment. I will tell her that while it feels good to fit in and it feels good to be liked, she will find that being accepted only when you are pretending to be something you’re not is an exhausting, unfulfilling experience.
And I will try to convince her that growing up takes courage. It takes courage to try something new, but even more courage to decide you are not ready for something — like clothing that leaves little to the imagination.
I hear her bound down the stairs and watch as she slides across the wooden floor in her favorite kitten socks. She changed her an entire outfit — including her hair — and I see a little girl again, if only for a moment.
I know these days are fleeting, and tomorrow’s conflict may be more complicated, but I am thankful that today she is protected under the bubble of childhood, so she can play and grow as she should.
I am thankful that I won this battle. I just wish the war wasn’t so damn long.
Whitney is a mom of three teen daughters, a freelance writer, and co-partner of the site parentingteensandtweens.com You can find her on Facebook at WhitneyFlemingWrites .
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Yesterday. You started kindergarten yesterday. You walked into those doors a baby, your hand clinging to mine, my heart clinging to the knowledge that this is the first step in a long process of letting go. Letting you go. Giving you wings and space and freedom. And I pray I’m also giving you roots. I look at you, and I wonder if I’ve done enough, said enough, prayed enough, loved enough. It’s only kinder, they say. But I know better; these last five years . . . they were just a blink. The next will be too. Then you’re 10,...

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People often use the "half-your-age-plus-7 rule" to determine the minimum socially acceptable age they can date — but this doesn't always work.
In some cases, the results of the "half-your-age-plus-7 rule" doesn't reflect scientific evidence for age preferences.
Men prefer a minimum age that's higher than the "half-your-age-plus-7 rule" would say is okay.

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