NationStates Jolt Archive

For those that don’t know, the three year rule is a law in Texas which says that at the age of seventeen, one can only have legally consensual sex with someone within three years of their age.
This doesn’t make sense at all.
The purpose of consent laws is the assumption that minors often lack the ability to make good judgments. Fine. I get that. It makes sense and is backed by science (see pre-frontal lobe).
What I fail to understand is, if a person does not posses the ability to determine if they should or should not have sex with a 31 year old, what enables them to make the same decision with a nineteen year old? Nothing.
This is just further proof that the government had the ability to turn what appears to be a good law into a sick, nonsensical restriction on our liberty. I bet they laugh about it behind our backs. The bastards.

Did someone get charged with statutory rape?

huh! i always picture Texas as being pretty open-minded and anything goes. what a silly law!

On one hand that is a very stupid law. On the other hand is it really that hard to wait one more year?? Or are you some sex crazed person who has a fetish for much older human beings?

Did someone get charged with statutory rape?

:eek:

Vegetarianistica']huh! i always picture Texas as being pretty open-minded and anything goes.
What the fuck are you on?

I don't know--I think it's a good law in that it keeps angry parents from using the threat of statutory rape against a boyfriend they don't like. And I say this as a father of a 15 year old girl.

Did someone get charged with statutory rape?
Lol, good call.

Seems stupid. Here it's just 16 and away you go.

For those that don’t know, the three year rule is a law in Texas which says that at the age of seventeen, one can only have legally consensual sex with someone within three years of their age.
This doesn’t make sense at all.
The purpose of consent laws is the assumption that minors often lack the ability to make good judgments. Fine. I get that. It makes sense and is backed by science (see pre-frontal lobe).
What I fail to understand is, if a person does not posses the ability to determine if they should or should not have sex with a 31 year old, what enables them to make the same decision with a nineteen year old? Nothing.
This is just further proof that the government had the ability to turn what appears to be a good law into a sick, nonsensical restriction on our liberty. I bet they laugh about it behind our backs. The bastards.

your anger gives you focus

What the fuck are you on?

It was sarcasm.

nvm

Eh, I dunno, maybe so for a girl and a guy both aged 16 having legally consensual sex, it doesn't suddenly become illegal when one turns 17.....or maybe so that 17 year old don't become pedophiles or registered sex offenders with a 16 year old....or maybe because one size does not fit all with age of consent laws and they need a bit of flexibility....I'm just spouting random ideas, but it seems like a good thing to me. Personally, I'm 13, but I still think I could make an informed disecion, but I can tell most of the other kids my age couldn't, so I'm down with them, wether or not I really could.

It was sarcasm.
Sorry, I missed the exclamation point after the "huh".

your anger gives you focus





:D

For those that don’t know, the three year rule is a law in Texas which says that at the age of seventeen, one can only have legally consensual sex with someone within three years of their age.
This doesn’t make sense at all.
The purpose of consent laws is the assumption that minors often lack the ability to make good judgments. Fine. I get that. It makes sense and is backed by science (see pre-frontal lobe).
What I fail to understand is, if a person does not posses the ability to determine if they should or should not have sex with a 31 year old, what enables them to make the same decision with a nineteen year old? Nothing.
This is just further proof that the government had the ability to turn what appears to be a good law into a sick, nonsensical restriction on our liberty. I bet they laugh about it behind our backs. The bastards.

I think it has to do with the posibility of a much older person exploiting the 17 year old. The 17 year old wouldn't have the life experiences and mental maturity to fully understand what was being done to him/her. Where as two 17 year olds (or within that general age range) would just be experimenting/having fun. One wouldn't be in as much of a position to emotionally/financially dominate the other.

That is a sweeping generalization, of course. But that is the thinking behind such laws. It is not so much a law aginst the 17 year old, but against the 31 year old to protect the 17 year old.

I think the point of it is to go easy on the older person, although that'd make more sense if they were only a year or so apart, because they might be in a relationship, and then one has a birthday, and suddenly, getting older has turned them from being a boyfriend to a rapist.

I think it's to keep 18 year olds from getting in shit for having sex with their 17 year old girlfriends...

For those that don’t know, the three year rule is a law in Texas which says that at the age of seventeen, one can only have legally consensual sex with someone within three years of their age.
This doesn’t make sense at all.
The purpose of consent laws is the assumption that minors often lack the ability to make good judgments. Fine. I get that. It makes sense and is backed by science (see pre-frontal lobe).
What I fail to understand is, if a person does not posses the ability to determine if they should or should not have sex with a 31 year old, what enables them to make the same decision with a nineteen year old? Nothing.
This is just further proof that the government had the ability to turn what appears to be a good law into a sick, nonsensical restriction on our liberty. I bet they laugh about it behind our backs. The bastards.


I thought the 3-year rule was only an exception to the statutory rape law that says that if you have sex with a minor it isn't statutory rape unless there is more than a 3-year difference. So a 18 year old can have sex with a 90 year old, but a 17 year old can't have sex with a 21 year old.

Far be it from me to say anything laudatory of Texas law, but this sounds reasonable to me. If a highschool senior enters into a sexual relationship with a freshman, how much sense does it make to send him to jail next year when the older one is an adult and the younger one is still a juvinile, but they've been having sex for a year already?

I suppose the 3-year rule is a bit arbitrary, but you have to draw the line somewhere, and if judges continue to loose authority at the rate that they are then we're going to need it in print somewhere that exceptions need to be made.