Consensual age far too young
Consensual age far too young
I just discovered something quite disturbing for our islands. The consensual age for sex is 14! Is this a law something our previous politicians have been OK with? This is not right! We are putting our most vulnerable children at risk.
According to the law, at 14 years old you can consent to sex from a person no more than 5 years older. I’m sure nobody lies about their age? This needs to be addressed as soon as possible.
Linda Bothe, Kalaheo
Aloha Kakou, Aloha Linda,
The age for consensual sex was raised from age 14 to age 16 many years ago.
Considering the varied negative outcomes of sex at 16, perhaps 18 is an age whose time has come for sexual relations.
Pregnancy at 16 or while in high school does not seem to be what is best for a young person, boy or girl.
Even mild STD’s are causing the female reproductive system enough infection and scarring by way of inflammation to permanently hurt the girl so that she would be unable to have a successful pregnancy(s) later in her child bearing years, causing her to very likely never be able to have a child of her own.
By the way, STD’s are Sexually Transmitted Diseases.
Mahalo,
Charles
That is not quite the whole truth, Linda. The age of consent in Hawaii is 16, not 14. However, a close-in-age exemption exists, allowing teens between the ages of 14 and 15 to consent as long as their partners are less than 5 years older. Known as the “Romeo and Juliet law,” it is designed to prevent the prosecution of underage couples who engage in consensual sex when both participants are significantly close to the same age, and when one or both are below the age of consent. Seems reasonable to me.
In many other states the age of consent for sex is 18. In Hawaii, right up to year 2000, the age of consent was 14. Yes, 14 — with no restrictions at all. A bill was passed to increase the age to 16, which is where it is now. It’s perfectly lawful for a 50 year old to have sex with a 16 year old. At the time when the age for unrestricted sex was raised from 14 to 16, some members of the legislature and some Christian ministers serving churches which had numerous members who came to Hawaii from various Pacific Island nations and cultures protested raising the age to 16 because, they said, in those cultures is is normal for 14 year olds to have sex, even with aunties or uncles who are decades older. Remember Margaret Mead’s famous book “Coming of Age in Samoa.” So the compromise in Hawaii was that if someone age 14-15 has sex it’s lawful so long as the partner is no more than 5 years older. Teenagers will be teenagers and we don’t want to make criminals out of kids who are simply doing what comes naturally and is normal in their cultures. And after 16 everyone is fair game, regardless of how large the age disparity might be.
The question which needs to be debated is: how far are we Americans willing to go to accommodate and tolerate the cultural preferences of immigrants, even when we find those preferences nasty or even evil? One example that sometimes comes to public attention nowadays is female genital mutilation, which is done to a majority of girls in Arabic and Muslim countries in the Middle East and Africa. Look it up on Google; I’m not going to explain it here. But mothers do this to their own daughters because religion or family honor requires it. In America we are horrified by this custom. So should we pass laws to prohibit it and protect the civil rights of little girls? Or do we believe in “multiculturalism” and all cultures should be respected and allowed to do whatever is normal in their cultures.
You are partially correct. The age of consent is 16. You point out the close age exception of less than 5 years difference. Thus a 14 year old can have consensual sex with an 18 year old but not a 19 year old unless they are married. The reality in today’s world is that sex starts early and has for many, many years. To ruin lives by criminalizing consensual sex is more damaging than being grounded in the reality of today’s morality. If you don’t want your child to have sex, that’s your parental responsibility, not the governments. We have plenty of other types of crime to worry about instead of trying to dictating morality.
Anywhere it’s to young! Everywhere should raise it to eighteen years old.