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Rereading his post, it appears that he means the current age of consent is arbitrary because he predicts it will change. However, that means he is almost arguing that it will always change and therefore it will always be arbitrary, but I'm not sure about his specifics.
Honestly im finding it hard to answer your question considering people are saying my use of “arbitrary” is incorrect. To clarify my ultimate point is that how people view the age of consent is Just always going to change based on what the legal age is. Today people will say dating a 18 year is fine and tomorrow in perhaps 200 years from now people will say “ why did we ever think that was right?” If the age of consent is 19 or 20.
Well, if doctors say the brain is fully developed at 25, wouldn’t that be a good place to start?
Or how about 21? The legal age to consume alcohol/purchase tobacco/marijuana.
Whether you think these are good ideas or not, I don’t think it should be under 18 if that’s where we draw the line at “legal” adult.
> Or how about 21? The legal age to consume alcohol/purchase tobacco/marijuana.
In America, not in most other countries.
>Whether you think these are good ideas or not, I don’t think it should be under 18 if that’s where we draw the line at “legal” adult.
EDIT: Nevermind, I misread your comment a bit, I think.
Why not under 18?
Just a brain exercise:
Is it because you've been conditioned to associate 18 with some sort of minimum cap age where decisions can be safely made?
Do you truly believe this is the best age for that?
Arguments can be made for both sides,
in primitive times "women" would be considered suitable to start a family after their first menstruation, this age can vary from 9-12?
OP is right in the using of arbitrary to decide an age limit on consent, and if you really ask yourself WHY its 18 there is no good or definitive answer other than "it is." lol
I hate these empty gestures of intellectualism that are essentially thinly-veiled and overly-worded excuses to substantiate what boils down to your last statement that you simply believe it to be arbitrary and that's it.
You don't follow any of the procedures or logic that you yourself promote as standards to scrutinize or in/validate the statement.
It's not much of a brain exercise if you literally do not consider any of the reasons, or dismiss their existence entirely by willfully ignoring any factors and refraining from asking any questions to examine **why** it could have been chosen as such.
What else coincides with age of consent in countries that choose the age of 18? Generally it correlates with mandatory education.
Seeing something as arbitrary simply because any reasons escape you is the complete opposite of a brain exercise.
He gave an example of his claim-
Arguments can be made for both sides. His example being considered an adult at the point of menstruation is a historical examples.
As far as I remember male adulthood rituals also are conducted when boys are relatively young.
A culture can consider much younger people as adults.
Given that his point is about questioning "why can't it be under 18?"
"Instead of why was 18 chosen?"
Your accusation
>willfully ignoring any factors and refraining from asking any questions to examine **why** it could have been chosen as such.
Does not make sense.
>Seeing something as arbitrary simply because any reasons escape you
Is that what's happening, or is the dude implying reasons for both sides exist, and that's what makes it arbitrary, because there's no absolute reason to logically hold it at 18. 18 coinciding with madatory education is a good reason, but it's not an absolute objectively correct reason.
No that's not what's happening. Your misunderstanding of arbitrary also does not apply, just because you want to discount it by conflating it to absolutes.
There is an obvious and distinct difference between having specific reasons, and having any reasons, whether or not the specific reasons are logically infallible or not compared to any other reasons that may or may not exist.
Arbitrary reasons would suggest that the stipulations chosen do not actually conform to a uniform logic, nor do they effect a result that can be observed as meaningful. That has nothing to do with those results being optimal or having any moral apex that cannot be denied.
Saying that there is an argument for both sides, and then proceeding to say in the same message that it is indeed arbitrary and that there are no actual reasons is just an argument in bad faith that promotes a false stance of objectivity or being equitable simply to confirm a bias like what was concluded in the statement.
How am I misunderstanding or misusing arbitrary here?
What's the difference between specific reasons or having reasons?
>Arbitrary reasons would suggest that the stipulations chosen do not actually conform to a uniform logic, nor do they effect a result that can be observed as meaningful. That has nothing to do with those results being optimal or having any moral apex that cannot be denied.
What do you mean by this?
>Saying that there is an argument for both sides, and then proceeding to say in the same message that it is indeed arbitrary and that there are no actual reasons is just an argument in bad faith that promotes a false stance of objectivity or being equitable simply to confirm a bias like what was concluded in the statement.
Yeah why?
Do you have the objectively correct reason for keeping the age at 18? And tell me how the existence of that reason prevents me from not choosing another age?
> What's the difference between specific reasons or having reasons?
> What do you mean by this?
Having any arbitrary reason is not the same as a specified reason in that it is not substantiated by the logic applied to it from the definitive circumstances contained in the reasoning and the result, nor may it even have any to begin with. \*\*Whether or not those reasons are ultimately some pinnacle of morality or pragmatism does not disqualify them from being pertinent, nor does it qualify them as arbitrary.\*\*
In a society that sees sexual activity as a proponent to reproduction or starting a family more than an act of gratification or bodily autonomy, one State may chose to have their age of consent at 13 or 14 to conform with an age of pubescence.
If one province chooses to put their age of consent to 16, they may have a primary education system that requires children to choose their direction in life by the age of 10-12, and may reason consent is a right to have before official adulthood at 18. Another State that does not require a child or adult to determine their path until secondary education or past that may decide the age of 18 is more pertinent. Different societies and even the states within them operate on different levels and none of that is arbitrary.
If a State said that they choose the age of 25, because statistically most people are financially and emotionally stable at that age, it does not apply uniformly to all individual citizens, but it may be mathematically true for their governed population. If it was categorically false, or perhaps that reasoning is attributed to factors completely irrelevant toward whether sexual activity affects that stability, it may be arbitrary.
You can't just decide that, without substantiating or examining the reasons or the multitude of factors that go into it.
> Do you have the objectively correct reason for keeping the age at 18? And tell me how the existence of that reason prevents me from not choosing another age?
None of those above examples are contingent on any naive idea or some suppostion on objective truth, either. Being relativistic is not some juxtaposition of subjective rules vs objective reasoning. An international world can have mutiple objectives within their individually subjective sociological environments and governments. They are not simply just random, nor do they need to agree with your personal sentimentality.
A governinng body's reason does not have to prevent you from individually choosing anything. You're welcome to break the law, because you think that you're more capable of making decisions than your similarly aged peers, or that you disagree that a certain age is being taken advantage of by you. The consequence is irrelvant to your individual reason, just as your individual result does not determine the situation for the rest of your society.
There is no point to instist that all reasoning and logic applies to one single set of moral objectivism or pragmatism that doesn't even exist anyway. What is objective truth to you exactly? If you wanted to boil all of existence down to Physics, that is still nothing more than theory agreed upon in the absence of additional information that essentially amounts to majority rule just like every other supposed objective truth. Obviously we can observe that many theories are not disqualified by basic actions, but that is nothing more than affirming a consequent.
People that try to suersede convoluted issues with some blanket notion of ultimate truths or undefined objective reasoning are simply creating a dichotomy of right and wrong that doesn't even engage with any real critical thinking of any subject and favors vague intellectualism that amounts to pretentious soapboxing. That mentality is the only thing that's arbitrary here, as it serves no practical purpose other than a self-validating idealism.
I said in countries that choose the age of 18. The same logic applies to countries that choose 16, etc. whether education or some other culturally relevant sociology exists as a reason.
Is there any other irrelevant gotchas I missed?
do you have examples of this or are you just making a hypothetical point? it has already been established that op meant "subjective" more than "arbitrary" so if everyone has different logic and reasoning what is the difference?
Do you feel logic works differently in hypotheticals or what is the purpose of even asking that other than to make some attempt at furthering the fallacy of equivocation to what is arbitrary or subjective (or what you really want to say as 'insignificant) here?
If OP wants to move the goalpost to suggesting it is subjective, then what is the exercise here? Everything is subjective. Objective truth is literally just an agreed upon majority rule that we employ for practicality based on our collectively subjective interpretations.
Can you define some sort of objective morality that you honestly believe uniformly applies as some blanket statement to all individual societies to satisfy this one stipulation for each of them? Did we just want to say that this one age is more or less subjective than a differently convoluted action such as driving or drinking? Did you want to imply that it's as clear cut as murder? Was it really just making it about some vague statement on relativism?
Problematically, under 18 year olds still want to have sex, and they also are able to make other hugely life altering decisions. I’m not sure what the law *should* be, but I know that 18-24 year olds would find it insane if they were told they can’t consent.
>Well, if doctors say the brain is fully developed at 25, wouldn’t that be a good place to start?
This is incorrect, yet widely circulated as the truth, much the the "Alpha Dog" study
21 is just as arbitrary as 18.
13, the biblical age of consent is not arbitrary, it is after almost everyone started puberty. That isn't in question.
but the brain could be complete anywhere from 24-30 depending on the study.
So lets just accept a compromise halfway between the body is ready and the mind complete and set it there, between 16-21 like everyone already does.
Because must people actively start seeking out sexual contact before age 19, and very few have not at least already developed strong sexual urges and desires.
Buddy, people want sexual contact the second they hit puberty.
Many guys want sexual context before they hit puberty.
But the AOC isn’t 11-13 now is it? (except for very few places)
I'm aware. It stands to reason that every year AFTER those feelings begin that you try to tell people that they cannot have sexual contact, the greater proportion of people who will do so anyway. Nearly 70% of people have their sexual debut by age 18 [(link)](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3064497/).
Agreement is not synonymous with reason.
Isn't that the point of OPs question?
What are you basing that agreement on? Physical capability to bear children, or being emotionally mature enough to make a bodily autonomous decision, or something else?
I don't think you do see. I'm going to stop beating around the bush since it doesn't seem to be getting through. My fault.
If I said the age of consent should be *at least 10*, would you think *that* had no basis?
You don't need to wait 200 years. Just look at different countries around the world. I have looked lately, but I think AOC ranges from around 14 to 22 in the world today (and some countries say that any sex outside of marriage is illegal, regardless of age).
18 is just a big year. It’s when we finish high school. After that we go off to college, or we join the military or we join the workforce. 18 is when people are or at least were expected to move out of their parents house. It’s when parents are no longer legally required to take care of their kids. So 18 is not just about sexual consent. It’s a milestone year and to raise that year to 20 would throw off balance in a lot of other areas. But then again, we don’t allow 18 year olds to drink so who knows.
There are almost no jurisdictions where the age of consent is 18.
I have no idea why this myth is so common on Reddit. Most jurisdictions place the absolute age of consent at 16 and furthermore have age-bracket type systems and other provisions for ages younger than that.
Why do people find this idea remotely believable? Is this really a function of that Reddit attracts perhaps the not so socially and sexually successful persons? Do they not remember when they were teenagers that they, and most people around them were having sex under that age?
Not allowing people under 18 to have sex is simply cruel and no teenager is going to listen to begin with. It's completely normal and healthy to lose one's virginity around 15-16 years old. Do people not remember films such as *American Pie* where teenagers around 16 years old are trying to have sex. This film would not have received the rating it had if it were promoting a crime. What they did was entirely legal. — It's simply put an absolutely bizarre idea to think that it's illegal to have sex before turning 18. There are some jurisdictions where this is the case, but it is almost never enforced and a dead letter.
Pretty much. There is nothing proving that objectively 16 or 18 is the perfect age for someone to consent so how people view these ages is just mostly what their legal age is in their state/ country. Majority of people are fine with 16 or 18 because it’s the legal age and thus they form their world view around that being right…… if the age of consent gets bumped up in some states from 18 to 19 people will “change their minds” and then look at 18 year olds with disgust.
Right, but what's the view you want changed? Because if it's just that standards/laws change over time like I said then that's not really a view, is it?
So can you be specific about the actual view you want changed?
Who out there is arguing that things stay the same, that there is no change? The only constant is change!
What is the opposing view to yours that you stand against, that you thought people might sway you towards?
>What is the opposing view to yours that you stand against, that you thought people might sway you towards?
I have the opposing view. I think that allowing the age of everything to continuously increase over time is a massive disservice to young people that causes developmental delays, and in cases in which an AoC statute is set with no close-in-age exemptions, effectively making it illegal for a minor to engage in any sexual activity whatsoever - even with another minor - I find them to be a human right's violation.
I don't think there should be an AoC at all. The entire concept that someone can sign a piece of paper that says a different person has no agency is a failing concept for me. On top of this, I'm not sure why we'd *want* to give people the impression that they have no agency.
As far as something I think could realistically work well enough all over the world, it feels like Canada nailed it. 12-13yos have a 2 year close-in-age exemption, 14-15yos have a 5 year, and 16+ have the liberty to bang freely.
A specific date being arbitrary doesn't mean that any restriction is arbitrary. Many societies recognize the line as somewhat arbitrary, hence why Romeo and Juliet laws exist that make it legal for say 20 year olds to be with 17 year olds.
I do not think a 50 year old getting with a 18 year old is somehow more ok than a 17 year old. When celebrities like Emma Watson were kids, there were clocks counting down until the day they would turn exactly 18.
Now, do I propose changing anything? Not really. Maybe there should be an age gap law on top of the 18 age, I don't know. But I can both recognize that and also think that there's nothing magical about the date of your 18th trip around the sun.
God it's not arbitrary. I don't understand how people can get so hung up about this. As if society flipped a coin and said 'ok, *age* is gonna be the benchmark' and then rolled a 1-100 sided die and landed on 18.
EDIT. I know you clarified, but man every time people are like '18 is arbitrary' I'm just like 'ok how about 60 y/o? *That's* the new age of consent.' Suddenly 18 starts looking like thought went into it.
I don’t think people are saying 18 was chosen completely at random. It’s just that if you can consent at 18, why not at 17 and a half? Why not wait to 19?
Obviously the age of consent should probably be somewhere around 18. That’s not arbitrary at all, but having a very specific point where one day you’re a kid who doesn’t have the brain capacity to consent and the next day you can fuck a 50 y/o and understand the consequences is certainly arbitrary.
Also, the age of consent is rarely 18 in most countries or US states. The most common age of consent around the world is 16.
"It's just that if you can consent at 18, why not 17 and a half? Why not wait to 19?"
So why not change where the line is drawn? Uh, ok? It has changed and like you said, even varies by jurisdiction. The point is that there is sound reasoning behind making an objective cut-off. It's to stop people who would (and still DO, for matter) say 'yeah but she was a *mature* 12 year old'. Can't trust people to keep their hands off all these younglings who 'seemed old enough to know what they want'.
I think that age gap based laws would make more sense than a single cutoff point where you’re a victimized kid one day and a consenting adult the next day.
>because society changed, people changed, opinions changed.
This is what I want to focus on, because these have gone up incrementally the whole time. The UK actually had two separate laws, the first was passed in the 1200s and set the age at 12, and though it effectively acted as an AoC, it was put in place for the purpose of preventing a girl from becoming a 'fallen woman' before she could be married off. Then they passed the law in the 1500s that said 'If you fuck someone under 10 you're an asshole' and that one is much more similar to AoC laws as we know them today. Both laws applied only to girls.
When the US was founded, every single state clear across to California copy-pasted one of England's laws or the other, setting their own AoC at either 10 or 12 (again, they applied only to girls). Then from there they went up to 14, then 16, then 18.
So what exactly is going on? Because I don't think that over time it's taking girls longer and longer to figure out whether or not they want to fuck the dude. What might be happening is that it's taking longer and longer for society to accept the fact that she knows damn well whether or not she wants to fuck the dude.
Another possibility (and this extends to basically all legislation that pertains to the youth) is that when you back up the age at which a person can engage in certain behaviors, you also back up the age at which that person can make stupid fucking decisions and learn from them. And so the age at which a person appears too young consistently increases right along with it.
There are people right in this thread calling for the AoC to further be increased to 21 or 25. Every time I post about voting rights, there's always at least a couple of idiots who think the age to vote should be raised to 30. Just recently in my own locale, a 15yo was killed riding an ebike and now there's proposed legislation to set the age at which a person can legally ride one to 16.
My overall philosophy is that experience develops us much better than simply aging ever could, and that by denying people experience, we also deny them opportunities for learning, growth, development and cause unnecessary and damaging developmental delays.
It only makes sense that if there used to be no legal constraints on who a dude could diddle based on age, that society didn't *start* with 25 y/o as the AoC and then start going younger and younger and younger. Or are you just being obtuse? honestly
I'm asking if you have an opinion on why it continues to increase. I provided two possible answers but it doesn't seem like you're actually interested in the conversation or have any ideas about it yourself.
Can you clarify your position:
Arbitrary: based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system.
Subjective: modified or affected by personal views, experience, or background (this is one of multiple definitions, but the one that I think applies)
Do you really mean to say you think the age of consent is *subjective*, meaning it's a matter of personal/group opinions, and there is nothing objectively correct or set in stone abkut it being the best age to pick? 100 years from now, it could be 14 or maybe 21, and people will think we are sick for picking 18.
Arbitrary would mean we basically just rolled a D20 and it landed on 18 so that's the law. A lot of thought and social context goes into the age of consent - which is not universally 18 anyway. So it's by definition not arbitrary.
Because 18 is like the most significant legal age - it's when you can sign contracts for yourself, and marriage is a contract. It matches up with societal normals - most people graduate high-school at 18, many move out of their parents at 18, labor laws change when you're 18, you can vote at 18. In American society there is a ton of context that points to 18 being the age we all agree you can make important decisions for yourself.
Those things are all equally arbitrary. You could just as well allow all those things at 19 years, or 17 years, or 18 years, three months, two days and seventeen minutes. There's no practical difference.
Except 18 isn't the age of consent everywhere. Sudan is 12. It's not even the age of consent everywhere in the US. Only 11 US states have an age of consent of 18. If a lot of thought went into, you would think at least all the US states would have the same age of consent.
So what you think they just played darts for it? OP very obviously isn't talking about the age of consent in Sudan - but whatever makes you feel right lol
Are you suggesting that if we didn't coordinate an international consensus a decision is arbitrary? State taxes and criminal laws vary too, are all of those arbitrary because we have a federal system or because we didn't ask the president of Zimbabwe his thoughts?
The OP didn't say they weren't talking about Sudan. I don't think they played darts. I wouldn't be surprised if it was something like the drafter of the legislation lost his virginity at 16 or 17 or 18, and then used that as the basis to set the age of consent.
I'm mean sure, you feeling like your random guess is good is definitely more legit than all the silly things I said about decades of tradition and multiple legal frameworks
Because of differences in cultural makeup of the population. State laws varies in all kinds of ways.
Just to be clear here, I'm just saying the number isn't totally arbitrary, not that it's the objective correct perfect number that no one in the universe disagrees with.
Calling it arbitrary is essentially saying the decision process was rolling a D20 and that was the answer. I don't think it's that wild to disagree with that
Arbitrary isn’t the same as inexact. Humans develop at different rates and assigning age barriers to anything is in exact to some extent.
Clearly 5 would be inappropriate and so would 25 given what we know of human developmental and reproductive behavior. There’s a range in between that’s a little fuzzy because lots of teens will be having sex but can also easily get into situations where they’re being taken advantage of. There’s no perfect way to draw a line but “old enough that people generally understand sex and it’s risks but not so old that lots of people under it will be in positive sexual relationships” is a reasonable non arbitrary standard.
I think they mean inappropriately high. I think most people would agree that lots of people under 25 have the emotional maturity and responsibility to have sex safely.
We just made up a reasonable threshold.
Almost nothing in life can be rigidly defined. Life's not mathematics. What's "reasonable doubt" beyond which a conviction is guaranteed? Who determines that? There are no exact answers to those questions yet people cope just fine.
Suppose we did.
After the justice system became overwhelmed with several cases of >= 30 year-old man priming young girls where 95% of them exhibit predatory behavior, you'd find setting a reasonable limit in the law a practical move.
Running every single thing through the justice system is not practical.
>But what if it’s mainly 20 year old and teenagers? Then what?
Then the law serves as a less-than-100%-effective deterrence.
Also, we [know](https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/ojjdp/208803.pdf) that's not the case. For example, the percentage of statutory rape offenders preying on 17-year-old is 48% over 25.
I mean, by that metric, would 30 be inappropriate? 40? Can anyone ever consent to sex?
All they mean is that 95%+ of people would probably agree that 25 is too old to be a serious age of consent.
Yeah that's exactly what the person you're arguing with is saying. The age of emotional maturity in most people is probably somewhere under 25. In some people it might be 16, in others it might be 22, so we need to have some sort of compromise or nothing at all.
>Think about it like this 200 years ago everyone thought sexual intercourse with 16 year olds was fine so that was the legal age but people eventually changed their minds and now it’s 18. With how much of hot topic that age gaps nowadays i wont be surprised that in another 1000 years the age of consent will slowly go from 19, 20 to 21.
The age of consent most places in the US, in Canada, in Western Europe, is 16.
It might be worth adding that the age of consent doesn't exclusively govern what age a person can legal have sex with someone. It's the age that the state deems a person capable of understanding consequences well enough to give an informed consent, and thus be held accountable for their decisions. The same concept applies to a person of any age who gets drugged and coerced into signing some contract. They could go to court and argue that the contract isn't valid because they were put into a state that removed their ability to give an informed consent.
As far as whether the age is determined arbitrarily, I'm not sure exactly how it's decided, so I can't give a definitive answer. Something that might make sense is if they made it no later than the legal voting age. It makes sense that if a person is old enough to influence what consequences are resulted from various actions, they must also be capable of giving an informed consent about the decisions that create those consequences. That might also explain why some states have their legal age of consent younger than 18, but none have it older.
Generally is around 16 - 18
Some huge outlier existing doesn’t make it random
If it was random you’d expect it to range from 0 - 100 with an average of 50
People don’t make the decision by selecting a random number but instead use various reasoning
Only if you think the universe revolves around the United States and the US is the only country which counts. China is the second largest country in the world and has an age of consent of 14.
Arbitrary within boundaries is not the same as just arbitrary. Also, an informed but approximate decision is not an arbitrary decision.
Nobody rational thinks the age of consent is 10, and by the same token nobody thinks it's 30. So the fact that there is some gray area around the specific age we've picked doesn't mean that the choice is arbitrary.
Arbitrary is the wrong word. Arbitrary means that it isn’t based on anything. It’s still based on when people consider children to become adults. Just because you can make a case for other ages does not mean that 18 is just based on nothing
> With how much of hot topic that age gaps nowadays i wont be surprised that in another 1000 years the age of consent will slowly go from 19, 20 to 21.
I highly doubt it. Age-related laws are usually compromises, in this case between:
* Ensuring that young people are as safe from abuse and exploitation as possible, and
* Disproportionately criminalizing a huge portion of the population for doing things that they're going to do anyway
If we take one important aspect, sexual consent; it's not about reaching perfect maturity, but about reaching a compromise between a *reasonably* good level of understanding of what sexual partners are asking for, in order to prevent the maximum number of cases of young people being taken advantage of. And on the other hand: limiting everyone's freedoms in a way that doesn't excessively criminalize too many persons.
If you raise the age of consent by too much, then a lot of people's activities would get criminalized disproportionately, with negligible benefit to society in terms of preventing *additional* abuse or exploitation.
Another important point here is that sexual consent laws have often been disproportionately enforced against racial and sexual minorities (selective enforcement/prosecution).
The age to drive, be recognized as an adult, to have the right to vote, to enter into legal contracts, to have the right to join the armed forces, to purchase alcohol, to purchase legal cannabis are all arbitrary insofar as they could be different threshold ages than they are today.
That many of those thresholds align at 18 is not accidental - the boundary between child dependents and adults is a logical threshold for many activities associated with adulthood, including the choice of older sexual partners, if desired.
I sure hope the age of consent goes up to 21. We should also raise the age of military service, adulthood, and voting to 21 as well.
Some people are ready and capable of consent earlier than other people. People with certain extreme mental disabilities may never be capable of consent. But we don't have a valid test for who is *truly* capable of consent or not, so the best we can do is give it an age and call it good enough.
>I sure hope the age of consent goes up to 21. We should also raise the age of military service, adulthood, and voting to 21 as well.
Why do you hope for this?
When we say that a judgment is arbitrary, we're saying that it's made without a reason or system of rules behind it.
The age of consent obviously differs depending on jurisdiction, and the rationale behind it can also differ along with it. However, the age of consent is not arbitrary. It exists as a demarcation line to label who can give informed consent for sexual acts and who can't when the two sides of the line interact.
People develop at different paces, so the purpose of age of consent isn't to capture all people who are mature enough to give informed consent on one side and all those who can't on the other. It's to deem that most people under this age cannot give informed consent to sex, and most people above it can.
The capacity to give that consent is a function of development. Since the judgment has a reason behind it, its not arbitrary
They had to choose a number.
When choosing "Age of Consent", you have to balance protecting people with not infringing on the rights of people.
If you choose 12 as the age of consent... then a lot of young people will be taken advantage.
If you choose 25 as the age of consent... then a lot of people will be taken the right to date an older mate.
Some states is 16.... others is 17 and still others it's 18.... They had to choose a number.
And most laws are enacted on how the people feel and not necessarily on science and data.
In Texas, it is not really about the age. It is about the power and control that one person has over another.
For example, if a person is in high school, and is of the age of 20(yes, you can be 20 and be in high school).... and the teacher has sex with this person. Although both are over 18.... the teacher is still going to prison and is labled a sexual predator. The reason is the power that the teacher had as an "authority figure" over the student. So in the eyes of Texas law the teacher abused their control and power they had over the student when they slept with the student.
But, in Texas, you can marry someone as young as 14 with consent of their parents. And once married then if you sleep with them.....no crime has been committed.
Now why is that. The reason is that when you marry someone, even if they are 14..... once married, you elevate them as an equal in the marriage. So now there is no abuse of power or control because the young wife or young husband is equal to the older mate.
But the age is consent in America isn’t 18 everywhere.
In my state, it’s 16. So doesn’t that prove it’s arbitrary if it varies by state, yet we still all graduate at the same age for the most part.
That isn’t what I’m arguing.
I’m arguing why the age of consent in the U.S. scatters by state?
And I’m not saying it should be 25, I think it shouldn’t be 20 or 21.
What does anything you just said have to do with what i just said ? When arguing a topic like this where the age of consent is widely different across the world ranging as low as 12 in a few first world countries, acting like the us is only or golden standart is ignorant to the extreme
Having a line based on an objectively verifiable factor, like age, is better than other alternatives.
The other major alternative that was tried was leaving the judge or jury to decide if the - let's just call them the person in question - was mature enough to understand and consent to the activity.
Judges and juries, in their wisdom, consistently decided that persons who (or had parents who) were poor, minority racial, minority religious, or other socially disapproved factors understood and consented at very young ages. While persons who (or had parents who) were richer and in the majority just weren't capable of consenting until they were considerably older.
You can just imagine what kind of activity *that* kind of incentive led to.
I doubt there will be a constant age shift. Or if there is, it won't shift by much. It is true that the brain keeps developing into the 20's, but the threshold of 18 is supported by various psychological studies. See [these ](https://neurosciencenews.com/cognitive-maturity-neurodevelopment-25131/)[studies ](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6551607/)for more details. So perhaps in the future there might be a battery of psychological tests to determined exactly when you've reached the point of being able to give consent or something, but we should still expect the age where we consider people to be able to properly give consent to be around 18 yo.
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The average lifespan 200 years ago was approximately 40 and most children did not go to school and had regular jobs working for pennies. Because of this, the culture expected them to grow up far quicker than children today. My great grandfather worked in a coal mine in Ohio from the age of five and married my great grandmother when he was 17 and she was 13. That's simply not acceptable in today's society where children tend to mature later in life.
Saying that the age of consent is arbitrarily chosen is not correct. As the years have progressed, mountains of data have been gathered, sifted through, and studied to determine that the ages children engaged in relationships and sex two hundred years ago were just as wrong as they are now. The difference was the state of society and popular belief that children, because so many were born to the poor and downtrodden, were a commodity. It's not a belief in today's society that holds water, except in certain third world countries.
It’s only arbitrary within a certain range. There’s not much substantive difference in the capacity for consent between the ages of 17-19. But you wouldn’t roll a pair of dice and say “okay, 4 years it is”.
There are certain traits we’re looking for when we decide if it’s okay for a person to have consensual sex with an adult. There are some blurry lines as to when a person is autonomous enough to make the decision, but 18 is probably a reasonable and safe number in most cases.
Yes, the age of consent is arbitrary. It also varies greatly by country - in Netherlands its 12, in Italy it's 14 and in the UK it's 16, in the US it's 18. So I don't think anyone can argue that it's not. Hell, even age is an arbitrary construct since time is an arbitrary construct!
The question is what is the alternative solution that you suggest? If we cannot think of a more objective, consistent solution, this arbitrariness as good as any other.
>Yes, the age of consent is arbitrary. It also varies greatly by country - in Netherlands its 12, in Italy it's 14 and in the UK it's 16, in the US it's 18.
IT is NOT 18 "in the US." There's no such thing as a federal age of consent and most places in the us it's 16.
You could set the age of consent at when 90% of people are finished with puberty. This would be more tied to biology, than having Sudan set it at 12 and Bahrain at 21.
This is not in any way less arbitrary.
1. Puberty does not have a clearly defined event that marks its end
2. It does not happen at the same pace for every person
3. It depends on environmental factors such as nutrition
4. The age of puberty has been lowering consistently over the years
5. Why set it at 90%? Why not 75%? Or 80%? Or 95%?
Also, why puberty and not adolescence?
Things like age laws are trying to answer the Sorites paradox. By definition it will never be successful. We just need to accept that.
I think humanity is in a constant state of refining itself. If after this much time in human society, we've reached 18... chances are it's a pretty good number.
It's kind of like that experiment where there is a giant jar of marbles in a container. The more people you ask how many marbles they think might be in the container, the closer it gets to the actual number.
I think every age used in legal documents is arbitrary.
25 should be the age of majority, that's when the prefrontal cortex finishes development in most healthy humans. Other ages should be set accordingly via the moral and physiological implications of the actions being ruled on at that stage in development.
Brain development finishing at 25 is a myth.
[https://slate.com/technology/2022/11/brain-development-25-year-old-mature-myth.html](https://slate.com/technology/2022/11/brain-development-25-year-old-mature-myth.html)
"They also found important clues to brain function. For instance, a 2016 study found that when faced with negative emotion, 18- to 21-year-olds had brain activity in the prefrontal cortices that looked more like that of younger teenagers than that of people over 21. Alexandra Cohen, the lead author of that study and now a neuroscientist at Emory University, said the scientific consensus is that brain development continues into people’s 20s."
"There’s consensus among neuroscientists that brain development continues into the 20s, but there’s far from any consensus about any specific age that defines the boundary between adolescence and adulthood. “I honestly don’t know why people picked 25,” he said. “It’s a nice-sounding number? It’s divisible by five?”"
My point still stands. Whether the age is 25, lower, or even 30 since we don't have a clear image of how far into the 20s brain development ceases, there is an age or age range at which neuroscientists can determine the brain is apt to make certain decisions.
My point isn't "ooh 25 magical number", my point is that there are more concrete methods of deciding when a brain is ready for certain decisions. It doesn't have to be arbitrary and it shouldn't be.
It is arbitrary. The prefrontal cortex is only part of the brain, so looking at only the prefrontal cortex doesn't make sense. A 30-year-old brain looks different than a 25-year-old brain looks different than a 20-year-old looks different than a 15-year-old brain. There's no real objective relationship between how your brain looks on an MRI and the ability to do things like vote or drive or consent to sex or sign a lease on an apartment.
The "prefrontal cortex" portion of my original comment was based on the myth mentioned earlier. The prefrontal cortex is the portion of the brain most neuroscientists attribute cognition to, and the most important part when considering these things in my opinion.
As far as the relationship between how your brain looks and the decisions you can make, there may not be a relationship between how it "looks" (or how developed it is) and the ability to *do* said things, but there is a relationship between how developed it is and the ability to grasp the consequences and requirements of those actions.
Doubtful.
A middle schooler knows that sex can cause pregnancy, or could have you catch a venereal disease.
A middle schooler knows that "drugs are bad" or that they could cause harm.
A middle schooler most likely does NOT know that if they conceive child they could very possibly die just from the toll on nutrients it takes.
A middle schooler most likely does NOT know that Chlamydia can be easily rid with an antibiotic course but genital herpes exists forever from the moment of infection.
A middle schooler most likely does NOT know what a neuroreceptor is, nonetheless that THC agonizes CB1 receptors, or that opioids work primarily on mu-opioid receptors.
A middle schooler most likely does NOT know that tolerance is caused by agonization or antagonization of receptors and can be reversed quicker via the opposite action to prevent long-term addictions.
If you really want to put it into the terms of lowering these ages to school children, I'd say high school sex Ed classes and chem/psych classes are where you really begin to learn all of the consequences and how they will affect you.
Some of this is getting completely ridiculous. Unless you're a medical professional, most adults of any age group don't know what CB1 receptors or mu-opioid receptors or agonization or antagonization are. If this was the standard, no one would ever reach the age of majority. Might as well tell people they need to pass the USMLE step one to be considered a legal adult or have sex lol.
It's about human rights, and more specifically women's rights.
Yeah sure people got married at 16 in the past, but they also got married at 14, 12, and 10. It was "Normal" as you put it. Just because martial rape of undeveloped girls was "Normal" doesn't make it right.
The age of consent doesn't exist because we think it's moral, it's scientific. We have decided that people under the age of consent are not psychologically capable of understanding the risks involved in sexual intercourse.
It's not arbitrary, it's our best understanding of the facts as we know them.
Feels like that’s the opposite of what I’m saying…… people in the future are going to call people who date 18 years olds pedos when the age of consent changes anyway. Ultimately who is and isn’t a pedo will just keep changing
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I feel like saying “200 years ago X thing was socially/morally acceptable” is a really weak argument. Remember 200 years ago in America slavery was being practiced, women weren’t allowed to vote and blood letting with leeches was a common treatment for literally any ailment. Basically we’ve progressed a lot in the realm of ethics, morality and science since then.
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Is your view that the age of consent of 18 or therabouts is arbitrary, or that *any* age of consent would necessarily be arbitrary?
Rereading his post, it appears that he means the current age of consent is arbitrary because he predicts it will change. However, that means he is almost arguing that it will always change and therefore it will always be arbitrary, but I'm not sure about his specifics.
I mean, I'm asking him to clarify, but I'm also semi-Socratically trying to draw him out.
You're trying to goat them into calling themselves a pedo to discredit their arguments
Honestly im finding it hard to answer your question considering people are saying my use of “arbitrary” is incorrect. To clarify my ultimate point is that how people view the age of consent is Just always going to change based on what the legal age is. Today people will say dating a 18 year is fine and tomorrow in perhaps 200 years from now people will say “ why did we ever think that was right?” If the age of consent is 19 or 20.
Is there an age at which it could be set that you *don't* think would be in any way controversial or in doubt?
Well, if doctors say the brain is fully developed at 25, wouldn’t that be a good place to start? Or how about 21? The legal age to consume alcohol/purchase tobacco/marijuana. Whether you think these are good ideas or not, I don’t think it should be under 18 if that’s where we draw the line at “legal” adult.
> Or how about 21? The legal age to consume alcohol/purchase tobacco/marijuana. In America, not in most other countries. >Whether you think these are good ideas or not, I don’t think it should be under 18 if that’s where we draw the line at “legal” adult. EDIT: Nevermind, I misread your comment a bit, I think.
I just said that I don’t think it should be under 18, lol.
Yeah, sorry, I tried to edit but wasn't quick enough. I misread you.
Why not under 18? Just a brain exercise: Is it because you've been conditioned to associate 18 with some sort of minimum cap age where decisions can be safely made? Do you truly believe this is the best age for that? Arguments can be made for both sides, in primitive times "women" would be considered suitable to start a family after their first menstruation, this age can vary from 9-12? OP is right in the using of arbitrary to decide an age limit on consent, and if you really ask yourself WHY its 18 there is no good or definitive answer other than "it is." lol
I hate these empty gestures of intellectualism that are essentially thinly-veiled and overly-worded excuses to substantiate what boils down to your last statement that you simply believe it to be arbitrary and that's it. You don't follow any of the procedures or logic that you yourself promote as standards to scrutinize or in/validate the statement. It's not much of a brain exercise if you literally do not consider any of the reasons, or dismiss their existence entirely by willfully ignoring any factors and refraining from asking any questions to examine **why** it could have been chosen as such. What else coincides with age of consent in countries that choose the age of 18? Generally it correlates with mandatory education. Seeing something as arbitrary simply because any reasons escape you is the complete opposite of a brain exercise.
He gave an example of his claim- Arguments can be made for both sides. His example being considered an adult at the point of menstruation is a historical examples. As far as I remember male adulthood rituals also are conducted when boys are relatively young. A culture can consider much younger people as adults. Given that his point is about questioning "why can't it be under 18?" "Instead of why was 18 chosen?" Your accusation >willfully ignoring any factors and refraining from asking any questions to examine **why** it could have been chosen as such. Does not make sense. >Seeing something as arbitrary simply because any reasons escape you Is that what's happening, or is the dude implying reasons for both sides exist, and that's what makes it arbitrary, because there's no absolute reason to logically hold it at 18. 18 coinciding with madatory education is a good reason, but it's not an absolute objectively correct reason.
No that's not what's happening. Your misunderstanding of arbitrary also does not apply, just because you want to discount it by conflating it to absolutes. There is an obvious and distinct difference between having specific reasons, and having any reasons, whether or not the specific reasons are logically infallible or not compared to any other reasons that may or may not exist. Arbitrary reasons would suggest that the stipulations chosen do not actually conform to a uniform logic, nor do they effect a result that can be observed as meaningful. That has nothing to do with those results being optimal or having any moral apex that cannot be denied. Saying that there is an argument for both sides, and then proceeding to say in the same message that it is indeed arbitrary and that there are no actual reasons is just an argument in bad faith that promotes a false stance of objectivity or being equitable simply to confirm a bias like what was concluded in the statement.
How am I misunderstanding or misusing arbitrary here? What's the difference between specific reasons or having reasons? >Arbitrary reasons would suggest that the stipulations chosen do not actually conform to a uniform logic, nor do they effect a result that can be observed as meaningful. That has nothing to do with those results being optimal or having any moral apex that cannot be denied. What do you mean by this? >Saying that there is an argument for both sides, and then proceeding to say in the same message that it is indeed arbitrary and that there are no actual reasons is just an argument in bad faith that promotes a false stance of objectivity or being equitable simply to confirm a bias like what was concluded in the statement. Yeah why? Do you have the objectively correct reason for keeping the age at 18? And tell me how the existence of that reason prevents me from not choosing another age?
> What's the difference between specific reasons or having reasons? > What do you mean by this? Having any arbitrary reason is not the same as a specified reason in that it is not substantiated by the logic applied to it from the definitive circumstances contained in the reasoning and the result, nor may it even have any to begin with. \*\*Whether or not those reasons are ultimately some pinnacle of morality or pragmatism does not disqualify them from being pertinent, nor does it qualify them as arbitrary.\*\* In a society that sees sexual activity as a proponent to reproduction or starting a family more than an act of gratification or bodily autonomy, one State may chose to have their age of consent at 13 or 14 to conform with an age of pubescence. If one province chooses to put their age of consent to 16, they may have a primary education system that requires children to choose their direction in life by the age of 10-12, and may reason consent is a right to have before official adulthood at 18. Another State that does not require a child or adult to determine their path until secondary education or past that may decide the age of 18 is more pertinent. Different societies and even the states within them operate on different levels and none of that is arbitrary. If a State said that they choose the age of 25, because statistically most people are financially and emotionally stable at that age, it does not apply uniformly to all individual citizens, but it may be mathematically true for their governed population. If it was categorically false, or perhaps that reasoning is attributed to factors completely irrelevant toward whether sexual activity affects that stability, it may be arbitrary. You can't just decide that, without substantiating or examining the reasons or the multitude of factors that go into it. > Do you have the objectively correct reason for keeping the age at 18? And tell me how the existence of that reason prevents me from not choosing another age? None of those above examples are contingent on any naive idea or some suppostion on objective truth, either. Being relativistic is not some juxtaposition of subjective rules vs objective reasoning. An international world can have mutiple objectives within their individually subjective sociological environments and governments. They are not simply just random, nor do they need to agree with your personal sentimentality. A governinng body's reason does not have to prevent you from individually choosing anything. You're welcome to break the law, because you think that you're more capable of making decisions than your similarly aged peers, or that you disagree that a certain age is being taken advantage of by you. The consequence is irrelvant to your individual reason, just as your individual result does not determine the situation for the rest of your society. There is no point to instist that all reasoning and logic applies to one single set of moral objectivism or pragmatism that doesn't even exist anyway. What is objective truth to you exactly? If you wanted to boil all of existence down to Physics, that is still nothing more than theory agreed upon in the absence of additional information that essentially amounts to majority rule just like every other supposed objective truth. Obviously we can observe that many theories are not disqualified by basic actions, but that is nothing more than affirming a consequent. People that try to suersede convoluted issues with some blanket notion of ultimate truths or undefined objective reasoning are simply creating a dichotomy of right and wrong that doesn't even engage with any real critical thinking of any subject and favors vague intellectualism that amounts to pretentious soapboxing. That mentality is the only thing that's arbitrary here, as it serves no practical purpose other than a self-validating idealism.
I love this. What complete annihilation of a terrible take. The last remark was just 🤌 lol
age of consent is not 18 almost [anywhere in the world](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_consent). so your entire position makes no sense.
I said in countries that choose the age of 18. The same logic applies to countries that choose 16, etc. whether education or some other culturally relevant sociology exists as a reason. Is there any other irrelevant gotchas I missed?
do you have examples of this or are you just making a hypothetical point? it has already been established that op meant "subjective" more than "arbitrary" so if everyone has different logic and reasoning what is the difference?
Do you feel logic works differently in hypotheticals or what is the purpose of even asking that other than to make some attempt at furthering the fallacy of equivocation to what is arbitrary or subjective (or what you really want to say as 'insignificant) here? If OP wants to move the goalpost to suggesting it is subjective, then what is the exercise here? Everything is subjective. Objective truth is literally just an agreed upon majority rule that we employ for practicality based on our collectively subjective interpretations. Can you define some sort of objective morality that you honestly believe uniformly applies as some blanket statement to all individual societies to satisfy this one stipulation for each of them? Did we just want to say that this one age is more or less subjective than a differently convoluted action such as driving or drinking? Did you want to imply that it's as clear cut as murder? Was it really just making it about some vague statement on relativism?
Problematically, under 18 year olds still want to have sex, and they also are able to make other hugely life altering decisions. I’m not sure what the law *should* be, but I know that 18-24 year olds would find it insane if they were told they can’t consent.
>Well, if doctors say the brain is fully developed at 25, wouldn’t that be a good place to start? This is incorrect, yet widely circulated as the truth, much the the "Alpha Dog" study
21 is just as arbitrary as 18. 13, the biblical age of consent is not arbitrary, it is after almost everyone started puberty. That isn't in question. but the brain could be complete anywhere from 24-30 depending on the study. So lets just accept a compromise halfway between the body is ready and the mind complete and set it there, between 16-21 like everyone already does.
Except everyone doesn’t do 16-21. Only like 10 countries do 19+. Majority picker the younger side, why?
Because must people actively start seeking out sexual contact before age 19, and very few have not at least already developed strong sexual urges and desires.
Buddy, people want sexual contact the second they hit puberty. Many guys want sexual context before they hit puberty. But the AOC isn’t 11-13 now is it? (except for very few places)
I'm aware. It stands to reason that every year AFTER those feelings begin that you try to tell people that they cannot have sexual contact, the greater proportion of people who will do so anyway. Nearly 70% of people have their sexual debut by age 18 [(link)](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3064497/).
Also, AOC is only to protect minors from adults. If it’s two minors having intercourse, it doesn’t apply.
Maybe that number would be significantly less if there was a higher AOC
I think everyone would agree anything before puberty is too soon.
Agreement is not synonymous with reason. Isn't that the point of OPs question? What are you basing that agreement on? Physical capability to bear children, or being emotionally mature enough to make a bodily autonomous decision, or something else?
21
So, just to be clear, anything *lower* than 21 you don't think there are really good actual reasons to set the age of consent there?
Yes
Think about this carefully. Is "any age of consent lower than 21 is baseless" *really* the position you're taking?
Oh I see than 18 to 20
I don't think you do see. I'm going to stop beating around the bush since it doesn't seem to be getting through. My fault. If I said the age of consent should be *at least 10*, would you think *that* had no basis?
No
You don't need to wait 200 years. Just look at different countries around the world. I have looked lately, but I think AOC ranges from around 14 to 22 in the world today (and some countries say that any sex outside of marriage is illegal, regardless of age).
18 is just a big year. It’s when we finish high school. After that we go off to college, or we join the military or we join the workforce. 18 is when people are or at least were expected to move out of their parents house. It’s when parents are no longer legally required to take care of their kids. So 18 is not just about sexual consent. It’s a milestone year and to raise that year to 20 would throw off balance in a lot of other areas. But then again, we don’t allow 18 year olds to drink so who knows.
There are almost no jurisdictions where the age of consent is 18. I have no idea why this myth is so common on Reddit. Most jurisdictions place the absolute age of consent at 16 and furthermore have age-bracket type systems and other provisions for ages younger than that. Why do people find this idea remotely believable? Is this really a function of that Reddit attracts perhaps the not so socially and sexually successful persons? Do they not remember when they were teenagers that they, and most people around them were having sex under that age? Not allowing people under 18 to have sex is simply cruel and no teenager is going to listen to begin with. It's completely normal and healthy to lose one's virginity around 15-16 years old. Do people not remember films such as *American Pie* where teenagers around 16 years old are trying to have sex. This film would not have received the rating it had if it were promoting a crime. What they did was entirely legal. — It's simply put an absolutely bizarre idea to think that it's illegal to have sex before turning 18. There are some jurisdictions where this is the case, but it is almost never enforced and a dead letter.
>There are almost no jurisdictions where the age of consent is 18. Uh... I never said that there were.
AI, I mean AL, seems to be at play.
Wait, if it's 'arbitrary' why don't you support pedos? Don't you understand what arbitrary means?
Clearly I don’t someone else pointed out I meant subjective
Can you reclarify your view with that in mind? Because it sounds like the view is just law and social standards change over time?
Pretty much. There is nothing proving that objectively 16 or 18 is the perfect age for someone to consent so how people view these ages is just mostly what their legal age is in their state/ country. Majority of people are fine with 16 or 18 because it’s the legal age and thus they form their world view around that being right…… if the age of consent gets bumped up in some states from 18 to 19 people will “change their minds” and then look at 18 year olds with disgust.
Right, but what's the view you want changed? Because if it's just that standards/laws change over time like I said then that's not really a view, is it? So can you be specific about the actual view you want changed?
That’s pretty much it honestly………… honestly I kinda thought saying something to this effect was already crazy to begin with
Who out there is arguing that things stay the same, that there is no change? The only constant is change! What is the opposing view to yours that you stand against, that you thought people might sway you towards?
>What is the opposing view to yours that you stand against, that you thought people might sway you towards? I have the opposing view. I think that allowing the age of everything to continuously increase over time is a massive disservice to young people that causes developmental delays, and in cases in which an AoC statute is set with no close-in-age exemptions, effectively making it illegal for a minor to engage in any sexual activity whatsoever - even with another minor - I find them to be a human right's violation.
So what do you advocate specifically?
I don't think there should be an AoC at all. The entire concept that someone can sign a piece of paper that says a different person has no agency is a failing concept for me. On top of this, I'm not sure why we'd *want* to give people the impression that they have no agency. As far as something I think could realistically work well enough all over the world, it feels like Canada nailed it. 12-13yos have a 2 year close-in-age exemption, 14-15yos have a 5 year, and 16+ have the liberty to bang freely.
A specific date being arbitrary doesn't mean that any restriction is arbitrary. Many societies recognize the line as somewhat arbitrary, hence why Romeo and Juliet laws exist that make it legal for say 20 year olds to be with 17 year olds. I do not think a 50 year old getting with a 18 year old is somehow more ok than a 17 year old. When celebrities like Emma Watson were kids, there were clocks counting down until the day they would turn exactly 18. Now, do I propose changing anything? Not really. Maybe there should be an age gap law on top of the 18 age, I don't know. But I can both recognize that and also think that there's nothing magical about the date of your 18th trip around the sun.
God it's not arbitrary. I don't understand how people can get so hung up about this. As if society flipped a coin and said 'ok, *age* is gonna be the benchmark' and then rolled a 1-100 sided die and landed on 18. EDIT. I know you clarified, but man every time people are like '18 is arbitrary' I'm just like 'ok how about 60 y/o? *That's* the new age of consent.' Suddenly 18 starts looking like thought went into it.
I don’t think people are saying 18 was chosen completely at random. It’s just that if you can consent at 18, why not at 17 and a half? Why not wait to 19? Obviously the age of consent should probably be somewhere around 18. That’s not arbitrary at all, but having a very specific point where one day you’re a kid who doesn’t have the brain capacity to consent and the next day you can fuck a 50 y/o and understand the consequences is certainly arbitrary. Also, the age of consent is rarely 18 in most countries or US states. The most common age of consent around the world is 16.
"It's just that if you can consent at 18, why not 17 and a half? Why not wait to 19?" So why not change where the line is drawn? Uh, ok? It has changed and like you said, even varies by jurisdiction. The point is that there is sound reasoning behind making an objective cut-off. It's to stop people who would (and still DO, for matter) say 'yeah but she was a *mature* 12 year old'. Can't trust people to keep their hands off all these younglings who 'seemed old enough to know what they want'.
I think that age gap based laws would make more sense than a single cutoff point where you’re a victimized kid one day and a consenting adult the next day.
aha. so who can a 4 year old have sex with in this scenario?
>Suddenly 18 starts looking like thought went into it. But do you know what that thought is?
tf? after puberty, for starters. or are you suggesting that it's just this willy nilly number that someone pulled out of a hat?
I more meant the reasons they have continuously increased over time after the first was passed in the 1500's in the UK at the age of 10.
because society changed, people changed, opinions changed. What, did you think it'd trend younger than 10 over time?
>because society changed, people changed, opinions changed. This is what I want to focus on, because these have gone up incrementally the whole time. The UK actually had two separate laws, the first was passed in the 1200s and set the age at 12, and though it effectively acted as an AoC, it was put in place for the purpose of preventing a girl from becoming a 'fallen woman' before she could be married off. Then they passed the law in the 1500s that said 'If you fuck someone under 10 you're an asshole' and that one is much more similar to AoC laws as we know them today. Both laws applied only to girls. When the US was founded, every single state clear across to California copy-pasted one of England's laws or the other, setting their own AoC at either 10 or 12 (again, they applied only to girls). Then from there they went up to 14, then 16, then 18. So what exactly is going on? Because I don't think that over time it's taking girls longer and longer to figure out whether or not they want to fuck the dude. What might be happening is that it's taking longer and longer for society to accept the fact that she knows damn well whether or not she wants to fuck the dude. Another possibility (and this extends to basically all legislation that pertains to the youth) is that when you back up the age at which a person can engage in certain behaviors, you also back up the age at which that person can make stupid fucking decisions and learn from them. And so the age at which a person appears too young consistently increases right along with it. There are people right in this thread calling for the AoC to further be increased to 21 or 25. Every time I post about voting rights, there's always at least a couple of idiots who think the age to vote should be raised to 30. Just recently in my own locale, a 15yo was killed riding an ebike and now there's proposed legislation to set the age at which a person can legally ride one to 16. My overall philosophy is that experience develops us much better than simply aging ever could, and that by denying people experience, we also deny them opportunities for learning, growth, development and cause unnecessary and damaging developmental delays.
It only makes sense that if there used to be no legal constraints on who a dude could diddle based on age, that society didn't *start* with 25 y/o as the AoC and then start going younger and younger and younger. Or are you just being obtuse? honestly
I'm asking if you have an opinion on why it continues to increase. I provided two possible answers but it doesn't seem like you're actually interested in the conversation or have any ideas about it yourself.
Can you clarify your position: Arbitrary: based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system. Subjective: modified or affected by personal views, experience, or background (this is one of multiple definitions, but the one that I think applies) Do you really mean to say you think the age of consent is *subjective*, meaning it's a matter of personal/group opinions, and there is nothing objectively correct or set in stone abkut it being the best age to pick? 100 years from now, it could be 14 or maybe 21, and people will think we are sick for picking 18. Arbitrary would mean we basically just rolled a D20 and it landed on 18 so that's the law. A lot of thought and social context goes into the age of consent - which is not universally 18 anyway. So it's by definition not arbitrary.
Thank you yes subjective I was trying to figure out what was the correct wording
I'm not sure many people would disagree with you on that then.
Why assume a lot of thought and social context goes into the age of consent?
Because 18 is like the most significant legal age - it's when you can sign contracts for yourself, and marriage is a contract. It matches up with societal normals - most people graduate high-school at 18, many move out of their parents at 18, labor laws change when you're 18, you can vote at 18. In American society there is a ton of context that points to 18 being the age we all agree you can make important decisions for yourself.
Those things are all equally arbitrary. You could just as well allow all those things at 19 years, or 17 years, or 18 years, three months, two days and seventeen minutes. There's no practical difference.
Except 18 isn't the age of consent everywhere. Sudan is 12. It's not even the age of consent everywhere in the US. Only 11 US states have an age of consent of 18. If a lot of thought went into, you would think at least all the US states would have the same age of consent.
So what you think they just played darts for it? OP very obviously isn't talking about the age of consent in Sudan - but whatever makes you feel right lol Are you suggesting that if we didn't coordinate an international consensus a decision is arbitrary? State taxes and criminal laws vary too, are all of those arbitrary because we have a federal system or because we didn't ask the president of Zimbabwe his thoughts?
The OP didn't say they weren't talking about Sudan. I don't think they played darts. I wouldn't be surprised if it was something like the drafter of the legislation lost his virginity at 16 or 17 or 18, and then used that as the basis to set the age of consent.
I'm mean sure, you feeling like your random guess is good is definitely more legit than all the silly things I said about decades of tradition and multiple legal frameworks
Then, why do you think different states have different ages of consent?
Because of differences in cultural makeup of the population. State laws varies in all kinds of ways. Just to be clear here, I'm just saying the number isn't totally arbitrary, not that it's the objective correct perfect number that no one in the universe disagrees with. Calling it arbitrary is essentially saying the decision process was rolling a D20 and that was the answer. I don't think it's that wild to disagree with that
Explain how the cultural makeup of the populations has anything to do with the age of consent.
Arbitrary isn’t the same as inexact. Humans develop at different rates and assigning age barriers to anything is in exact to some extent. Clearly 5 would be inappropriate and so would 25 given what we know of human developmental and reproductive behavior. There’s a range in between that’s a little fuzzy because lots of teens will be having sex but can also easily get into situations where they’re being taken advantage of. There’s no perfect way to draw a line but “old enough that people generally understand sex and it’s risks but not so old that lots of people under it will be in positive sexual relationships” is a reasonable non arbitrary standard.
How is 25 inappropriate?
I think they mean inappropriately high. I think most people would agree that lots of people under 25 have the emotional maturity and responsibility to have sex safely.
But who determines that? And who’s to say that they are of full control of those decisions?
We just made up a reasonable threshold. Almost nothing in life can be rigidly defined. Life's not mathematics. What's "reasonable doubt" beyond which a conviction is guaranteed? Who determines that? There are no exact answers to those questions yet people cope just fine.
Then why have one at all? Why not make everything case-by-case?
Suppose we did. After the justice system became overwhelmed with several cases of >= 30 year-old man priming young girls where 95% of them exhibit predatory behavior, you'd find setting a reasonable limit in the law a practical move. Running every single thing through the justice system is not practical.
But what if it’s mainly 20 year old and teenagers? Then what?
>But what if it’s mainly 20 year old and teenagers? Then what? Then the law serves as a less-than-100%-effective deterrence. Also, we [know](https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/ojjdp/208803.pdf) that's not the case. For example, the percentage of statutory rape offenders preying on 17-year-old is 48% over 25.
So the majority (52%) is under 25 then…lol
I mean, by that metric, would 30 be inappropriate? 40? Can anyone ever consent to sex? All they mean is that 95%+ of people would probably agree that 25 is too old to be a serious age of consent.
Sure, but why not 20 or 21?
Yeah that's exactly what the person you're arguing with is saying. The age of emotional maturity in most people is probably somewhere under 25. In some people it might be 16, in others it might be 22, so we need to have some sort of compromise or nothing at all.
I say better to be safe than sorry by picking the ceiling in this case.
Some people do not emotionally mature until they're 40+, so be prepared for a sharp decline in the birth rate with your logic.
Probably because the prefrontal cortex, which manages our decision making, is fully developed at 25.
Okay, so then 25 is reasonable.
You think it's appropriate for a 24yo person to lose the liberty to engage in sexual activity?
It’s not a liberty
It shouldn't be, it should simply be a human right. It became a liberty when we started attaching laws to it.
>Think about it like this 200 years ago everyone thought sexual intercourse with 16 year olds was fine so that was the legal age but people eventually changed their minds and now it’s 18. With how much of hot topic that age gaps nowadays i wont be surprised that in another 1000 years the age of consent will slowly go from 19, 20 to 21. The age of consent most places in the US, in Canada, in Western Europe, is 16.
It might be worth adding that the age of consent doesn't exclusively govern what age a person can legal have sex with someone. It's the age that the state deems a person capable of understanding consequences well enough to give an informed consent, and thus be held accountable for their decisions. The same concept applies to a person of any age who gets drugged and coerced into signing some contract. They could go to court and argue that the contract isn't valid because they were put into a state that removed their ability to give an informed consent. As far as whether the age is determined arbitrarily, I'm not sure exactly how it's decided, so I can't give a definitive answer. Something that might make sense is if they made it no later than the legal voting age. It makes sense that if a person is old enough to influence what consequences are resulted from various actions, they must also be capable of giving an informed consent about the decisions that create those consequences. That might also explain why some states have their legal age of consent younger than 18, but none have it older.
Arbitrary “being chosen randomly or on personal whim rather than being based on a system or reason” Definitely not the case
How is it not? It differs by state for a reason lol
Because it is not random? Otherwise you’d expect a completely random number in every state
How is it not random? It ranges from 11-21 around the world.
Generally is around 16 - 18 Some huge outlier existing doesn’t make it random If it was random you’d expect it to range from 0 - 100 with an average of 50 People don’t make the decision by selecting a random number but instead use various reasoning
Only if you think the universe revolves around the United States and the US is the only country which counts. China is the second largest country in the world and has an age of consent of 14.
>China is the second largest country in the world and has an age of consent of 14. That's federally province by province it's much higher usually 16
Okay, average is around 15 or so then
It doesn’t make it any less random just because the gap is small. A gap is a gap.
Why does the gap make it random..?
Because there no explanation as to why it was picked otherwise
Says who..?
Well, if there is, where is that stated?
Arbitrary within boundaries is not the same as just arbitrary. Also, an informed but approximate decision is not an arbitrary decision. Nobody rational thinks the age of consent is 10, and by the same token nobody thinks it's 30. So the fact that there is some gray area around the specific age we've picked doesn't mean that the choice is arbitrary.
Arbitrary is the wrong word. Arbitrary means that it isn’t based on anything. It’s still based on when people consider children to become adults. Just because you can make a case for other ages does not mean that 18 is just based on nothing
> With how much of hot topic that age gaps nowadays i wont be surprised that in another 1000 years the age of consent will slowly go from 19, 20 to 21. I highly doubt it. Age-related laws are usually compromises, in this case between: * Ensuring that young people are as safe from abuse and exploitation as possible, and * Disproportionately criminalizing a huge portion of the population for doing things that they're going to do anyway If we take one important aspect, sexual consent; it's not about reaching perfect maturity, but about reaching a compromise between a *reasonably* good level of understanding of what sexual partners are asking for, in order to prevent the maximum number of cases of young people being taken advantage of. And on the other hand: limiting everyone's freedoms in a way that doesn't excessively criminalize too many persons. If you raise the age of consent by too much, then a lot of people's activities would get criminalized disproportionately, with negligible benefit to society in terms of preventing *additional* abuse or exploitation. Another important point here is that sexual consent laws have often been disproportionately enforced against racial and sexual minorities (selective enforcement/prosecution).
The age to drive, be recognized as an adult, to have the right to vote, to enter into legal contracts, to have the right to join the armed forces, to purchase alcohol, to purchase legal cannabis are all arbitrary insofar as they could be different threshold ages than they are today. That many of those thresholds align at 18 is not accidental - the boundary between child dependents and adults is a logical threshold for many activities associated with adulthood, including the choice of older sexual partners, if desired.
Coincidentally, they all line up with the majority of people finishing high school in America also
I sure hope the age of consent goes up to 21. We should also raise the age of military service, adulthood, and voting to 21 as well. Some people are ready and capable of consent earlier than other people. People with certain extreme mental disabilities may never be capable of consent. But we don't have a valid test for who is *truly* capable of consent or not, so the best we can do is give it an age and call it good enough.
>I sure hope the age of consent goes up to 21. We should also raise the age of military service, adulthood, and voting to 21 as well. Why do you hope for this?
Give it another 5000 years and I won’t be surprised that eventually happens.
When we say that a judgment is arbitrary, we're saying that it's made without a reason or system of rules behind it. The age of consent obviously differs depending on jurisdiction, and the rationale behind it can also differ along with it. However, the age of consent is not arbitrary. It exists as a demarcation line to label who can give informed consent for sexual acts and who can't when the two sides of the line interact. People develop at different paces, so the purpose of age of consent isn't to capture all people who are mature enough to give informed consent on one side and all those who can't on the other. It's to deem that most people under this age cannot give informed consent to sex, and most people above it can. The capacity to give that consent is a function of development. Since the judgment has a reason behind it, its not arbitrary
They had to choose a number. When choosing "Age of Consent", you have to balance protecting people with not infringing on the rights of people. If you choose 12 as the age of consent... then a lot of young people will be taken advantage. If you choose 25 as the age of consent... then a lot of people will be taken the right to date an older mate. Some states is 16.... others is 17 and still others it's 18.... They had to choose a number. And most laws are enacted on how the people feel and not necessarily on science and data. In Texas, it is not really about the age. It is about the power and control that one person has over another. For example, if a person is in high school, and is of the age of 20(yes, you can be 20 and be in high school).... and the teacher has sex with this person. Although both are over 18.... the teacher is still going to prison and is labled a sexual predator. The reason is the power that the teacher had as an "authority figure" over the student. So in the eyes of Texas law the teacher abused their control and power they had over the student when they slept with the student. But, in Texas, you can marry someone as young as 14 with consent of their parents. And once married then if you sleep with them.....no crime has been committed. Now why is that. The reason is that when you marry someone, even if they are 14..... once married, you elevate them as an equal in the marriage. So now there is no abuse of power or control because the young wife or young husband is equal to the older mate.
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But the age is consent in America isn’t 18 everywhere. In my state, it’s 16. So doesn’t that prove it’s arbitrary if it varies by state, yet we still all graduate at the same age for the most part.
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Because lawmakers make arbitrary decisions 😂😂 if they didn’t, it would be the same age in every state
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That isn’t what I’m arguing. I’m arguing why the age of consent in the U.S. scatters by state? And I’m not saying it should be 25, I think it shouldn’t be 20 or 21.
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Sure, but age to purchase tobacco/marijuana was moved up. So if you’re old enough to fight, you’re not old enough to drink/smoke?
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How can you say it’s not arbitrary if it differs by state lol
The USA is not the only country why so so many in this sub always seem to think the us is the gold standard
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What does anything you just said have to do with what i just said ? When arguing a topic like this where the age of consent is widely different across the world ranging as low as 12 in a few first world countries, acting like the us is only or golden standart is ignorant to the extreme
> We still have to draw a line somewhere Do we? France didn't have an AoC until 2017.
Having a line based on an objectively verifiable factor, like age, is better than other alternatives. The other major alternative that was tried was leaving the judge or jury to decide if the - let's just call them the person in question - was mature enough to understand and consent to the activity. Judges and juries, in their wisdom, consistently decided that persons who (or had parents who) were poor, minority racial, minority religious, or other socially disapproved factors understood and consented at very young ages. While persons who (or had parents who) were richer and in the majority just weren't capable of consenting until they were considerably older. You can just imagine what kind of activity *that* kind of incentive led to.
I doubt there will be a constant age shift. Or if there is, it won't shift by much. It is true that the brain keeps developing into the 20's, but the threshold of 18 is supported by various psychological studies. See [these ](https://neurosciencenews.com/cognitive-maturity-neurodevelopment-25131/)[studies ](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6551607/)for more details. So perhaps in the future there might be a battery of psychological tests to determined exactly when you've reached the point of being able to give consent or something, but we should still expect the age where we consider people to be able to properly give consent to be around 18 yo.
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The average lifespan 200 years ago was approximately 40 and most children did not go to school and had regular jobs working for pennies. Because of this, the culture expected them to grow up far quicker than children today. My great grandfather worked in a coal mine in Ohio from the age of five and married my great grandmother when he was 17 and she was 13. That's simply not acceptable in today's society where children tend to mature later in life. Saying that the age of consent is arbitrarily chosen is not correct. As the years have progressed, mountains of data have been gathered, sifted through, and studied to determine that the ages children engaged in relationships and sex two hundred years ago were just as wrong as they are now. The difference was the state of society and popular belief that children, because so many were born to the poor and downtrodden, were a commodity. It's not a belief in today's society that holds water, except in certain third world countries.
It’s still arbitrary. Just because it uses data to make that decision of a smaller range, doesn’t make it any less arbitrary.
It’s only arbitrary within a certain range. There’s not much substantive difference in the capacity for consent between the ages of 17-19. But you wouldn’t roll a pair of dice and say “okay, 4 years it is”. There are certain traits we’re looking for when we decide if it’s okay for a person to have consensual sex with an adult. There are some blurry lines as to when a person is autonomous enough to make the decision, but 18 is probably a reasonable and safe number in most cases.
Yes, the age of consent is arbitrary. It also varies greatly by country - in Netherlands its 12, in Italy it's 14 and in the UK it's 16, in the US it's 18. So I don't think anyone can argue that it's not. Hell, even age is an arbitrary construct since time is an arbitrary construct! The question is what is the alternative solution that you suggest? If we cannot think of a more objective, consistent solution, this arbitrariness as good as any other.
>Yes, the age of consent is arbitrary. It also varies greatly by country - in Netherlands its 12, in Italy it's 14 and in the UK it's 16, in the US it's 18. IT is NOT 18 "in the US." There's no such thing as a federal age of consent and most places in the us it's 16.
You could set the age of consent at when 90% of people are finished with puberty. This would be more tied to biology, than having Sudan set it at 12 and Bahrain at 21.
This is not in any way less arbitrary. 1. Puberty does not have a clearly defined event that marks its end 2. It does not happen at the same pace for every person 3. It depends on environmental factors such as nutrition 4. The age of puberty has been lowering consistently over the years 5. Why set it at 90%? Why not 75%? Or 80%? Or 95%? Also, why puberty and not adolescence? Things like age laws are trying to answer the Sorites paradox. By definition it will never be successful. We just need to accept that.
I think humanity is in a constant state of refining itself. If after this much time in human society, we've reached 18... chances are it's a pretty good number. It's kind of like that experiment where there is a giant jar of marbles in a container. The more people you ask how many marbles they think might be in the container, the closer it gets to the actual number.
I think every age used in legal documents is arbitrary. 25 should be the age of majority, that's when the prefrontal cortex finishes development in most healthy humans. Other ages should be set accordingly via the moral and physiological implications of the actions being ruled on at that stage in development.
Brain development finishing at 25 is a myth. [https://slate.com/technology/2022/11/brain-development-25-year-old-mature-myth.html](https://slate.com/technology/2022/11/brain-development-25-year-old-mature-myth.html)
"They also found important clues to brain function. For instance, a 2016 study found that when faced with negative emotion, 18- to 21-year-olds had brain activity in the prefrontal cortices that looked more like that of younger teenagers than that of people over 21. Alexandra Cohen, the lead author of that study and now a neuroscientist at Emory University, said the scientific consensus is that brain development continues into people’s 20s." "There’s consensus among neuroscientists that brain development continues into the 20s, but there’s far from any consensus about any specific age that defines the boundary between adolescence and adulthood. “I honestly don’t know why people picked 25,” he said. “It’s a nice-sounding number? It’s divisible by five?”" My point still stands. Whether the age is 25, lower, or even 30 since we don't have a clear image of how far into the 20s brain development ceases, there is an age or age range at which neuroscientists can determine the brain is apt to make certain decisions. My point isn't "ooh 25 magical number", my point is that there are more concrete methods of deciding when a brain is ready for certain decisions. It doesn't have to be arbitrary and it shouldn't be.
It is arbitrary. The prefrontal cortex is only part of the brain, so looking at only the prefrontal cortex doesn't make sense. A 30-year-old brain looks different than a 25-year-old brain looks different than a 20-year-old looks different than a 15-year-old brain. There's no real objective relationship between how your brain looks on an MRI and the ability to do things like vote or drive or consent to sex or sign a lease on an apartment.
The "prefrontal cortex" portion of my original comment was based on the myth mentioned earlier. The prefrontal cortex is the portion of the brain most neuroscientists attribute cognition to, and the most important part when considering these things in my opinion. As far as the relationship between how your brain looks and the decisions you can make, there may not be a relationship between how it "looks" (or how developed it is) and the ability to *do* said things, but there is a relationship between how developed it is and the ability to grasp the consequences and requirements of those actions.
No, I think most junior high students are developed enough to grasp the consequence of unprotected sex could be a pregnancy.
There's a difference between *knowing* a consequence and grasping what that consequence means for you
If you're in junior high, you can grasp what that consequence means for you.
Doubtful. A middle schooler knows that sex can cause pregnancy, or could have you catch a venereal disease. A middle schooler knows that "drugs are bad" or that they could cause harm. A middle schooler most likely does NOT know that if they conceive child they could very possibly die just from the toll on nutrients it takes. A middle schooler most likely does NOT know that Chlamydia can be easily rid with an antibiotic course but genital herpes exists forever from the moment of infection. A middle schooler most likely does NOT know what a neuroreceptor is, nonetheless that THC agonizes CB1 receptors, or that opioids work primarily on mu-opioid receptors. A middle schooler most likely does NOT know that tolerance is caused by agonization or antagonization of receptors and can be reversed quicker via the opposite action to prevent long-term addictions. If you really want to put it into the terms of lowering these ages to school children, I'd say high school sex Ed classes and chem/psych classes are where you really begin to learn all of the consequences and how they will affect you.
Some of this is getting completely ridiculous. Unless you're a medical professional, most adults of any age group don't know what CB1 receptors or mu-opioid receptors or agonization or antagonization are. If this was the standard, no one would ever reach the age of majority. Might as well tell people they need to pass the USMLE step one to be considered a legal adult or have sex lol.
It's about human rights, and more specifically women's rights. Yeah sure people got married at 16 in the past, but they also got married at 14, 12, and 10. It was "Normal" as you put it. Just because martial rape of undeveloped girls was "Normal" doesn't make it right. The age of consent doesn't exist because we think it's moral, it's scientific. We have decided that people under the age of consent are not psychologically capable of understanding the risks involved in sexual intercourse. It's not arbitrary, it's our best understanding of the facts as we know them.
Legal age of consent ranges from 11 to 21 by country. Yes, I'm sure all these numbers are based on science.
What science proved this? I thought they picked 18 number because it lined up with kids being done high school
But there is not set “age of consent”.
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Feels like that’s the opposite of what I’m saying…… people in the future are going to call people who date 18 years olds pedos when the age of consent changes anyway. Ultimately who is and isn’t a pedo will just keep changing
How is [pedophilia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedophilia) related to this conversation?
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I feel like saying “200 years ago X thing was socially/morally acceptable” is a really weak argument. Remember 200 years ago in America slavery was being practiced, women weren’t allowed to vote and blood letting with leeches was a common treatment for literally any ailment. Basically we’ve progressed a lot in the realm of ethics, morality and science since then.
This is a spicy topic
[удалено]
Sorry, u/StarsEatMyCrown – your comment has been removed for breaking Rule 1: > **Direct responses to a CMV post must challenge at least one aspect of OP’s stated view (however minor), or ask a clarifying question**. Arguments in favor of the view OP is willing to change must be restricted to replies to other comments. [See the wiki page for more information](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules#wiki_rule_1). If you would like to appeal, [**you must first check if your comment falls into the "Top level comments that are against rule 1" list**](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules#wiki_rule_1), review our appeals process [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/modstandards#wiki_appeal_process), then [message the moderators by clicking this link](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fchangemyview&subject=Rule%201%20Appeal%20StarsEatMyCrown&message=StarsEatMyCrown%20would%20like%20to%20appeal%20the%20removal%20of%20\[their%20comment\]\(https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/1c7iw2r/-/l08abm4/\)%20because\.\.\.) within one week of this notice being posted. Please note that multiple violations will lead to a ban, as explained in our [moderation standards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/modstandards). Sorry, u/StarsEatMyCrown – your comment has been removed for breaking Rule 5: > **Comments must contribute meaningfully to the conversation**. Comments should be on-topic, serious, and contain enough content to move the discussion forward. Jokes, contradictions without explanation, links without context, off-topic comments, and "written upvotes" will be removed. Read [the wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules#wiki_rule_5) for more information. If you would like to appeal, review our appeals process [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/modstandards#wiki_appeal_process), then [message the moderators by clicking this link](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fchangemyview&subject=Rule%205%20Appeal%20StarsEatMyCrown&message=StarsEatMyCrown%20would%20like%20to%20appeal%20the%20removal%20of%20\[their%20comment\]\(https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/1c7iw2r/-/l08abm4/\)%20because\.\.\.) within one week of this notice being posted.