Okay, well this IMO is another one of those laws for certain people that kind of have to include the rest of them to enforce it. For instance, yes there are some teen couples (like 16 and 19 or whatever) that are really in love and even though they're not that close in age, they just want to be together and when the dad gets angry, he ruins the guy's life forever by marking him as a child sex offender. That's horrible. But that law exists for a reason, and I can tell you a personal story as to why. This should really matter to those of you who have daughters.
I had a friend once who was 15 when I was around that age, maybe I was 16 I don't know, and there came around this guy. We met him through another friend of ours, an older friend. He was 19, she was 15. We were in school, had to listen to our parents, get rides where we wanted to go, ask for money to go to the movies, and hey everything else a 15 year old has to do at such a young age. This GUY however was 19, he had a car, a job, money to take her out, could do whatever he wanted, and had his own place and everything. Now I ask you, if you were in her shoes, when this guy showed interest in YOU, wouldn't you be just blown away? Any 15 year old would want to be with that. It's exciting, it's liberating, it's cool. Romantic! Everything you could ask for. I told her it wasn't a good idea, but what can I say? I didn't want to be mean, I wanted her to be happy. And hey, if it were me... how could I resist either? I mean how cool is that?
The thing is with her, her parents didn't care. They were cool with whatever. I'd also like to mention this girl was a virgin. So they hang out a lot for a few months, and she tells me eventually about how they had sex and whatnot. She gave her virginity to this guy because she was so enthralled with him. They sleep together a few times, I'm sure a lot actually. But pretty soon he starts blowing her off, and not answering her calls very often. Then finally someone tells my friend this guy has a girlfriend, and one he's had for a long time even. She confronted him about it, it was true. And he had no intentions on leaving her. He said he didn't know why he was hanging out with my friend, and that he didn't want to anymore, basically breaking up with her. I'm sure I don't have to tell you how broken she was over this.
Later on quite a few people told us that this guy just wanted to get a girls virginity, simple as that. He wanted her virginity. A bunch of his friends at work were telling him it would be cool and he should do it, so he found someone he knew he could take advantage of to do it with (a 15 year old). What guy doesn't want to sleep with a virgin at least once? It was obviously a cool idea to him at the time. He wasn't romantically interested in her really, his girlfriend was his age he only went for a young girl for the virginity. And when he got the chance, he dropped her. As soon as he got what he wanted she didn't matter anymore. And then he bragged about it at work like crazy, and apparantly those people were mostly joking, so they found it actually pretty bad and disgusting (like it was) and started telling people so it got around to her. (I think it was that she was so young, just 15, but who knows why they told on him. Maybe guilt.)
Now, that's disgusting. Tell me you don't think that guy should be a sex offender. Tell me you don't think he should be marked forever. Maybe it's just me, but if that were my daughter... Anyway, that I believe is why "consentual teen sex" at far apart ages is against the law. It might be harmless, but it might not. It's another one of those laws that's not fair in that it can't pick and choose which situations are right or wrong, but let me tell you I'm glad it exists and I wouldn't want them to be more lenient. People know the law, teens know the law. When I was in school they actual had people come to our school to describe the laws to us. So no excuses for these kids. I know this guy knew about them too, because he was always talking about her being "jailbait" or whatever. He knew. He didn't care. He should have been punished and I would've been glad if he was, but my friend didn't want her parents to do anything, and since she didn't, they didn't.
So yeah. That's just me, but you know.
