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In the underage voting article, I got into a
discussion about age of consent. The question is this: Should all activities requiring consent have a single age of consent? I don't think so, and caught low ratings from several different people for saying it. Now, I don't really care about the ratings, but do a lot of people really disagree with me?
Imagine that you are a parent with a lot of kids, say, 12. With so many kids, you feel that standards are very important, so you give each kid a book telling them what they're allowed to do and when. In this book, you tell your children at what age you'll allow them to view pornography, have sex, get married, own guns, smoke cigarettes, etc. Let's say that, at first, you set them all to 18. After your first 2 children get past 18, you sit back and reflect.
You caught both children with pornography before they turned 18. This didn't seem to harm them, and on reflection, you don't see why they should have had to wait that long. Also, one of the two got really drunk last night (he's 19), and decided to drive home. He got into an accident. Thus, your opinion becomes that, probably, you should let the rest of your children see pornography at age 16, but that they shouldn't be allowed to drink until they're 20.
In this example, if there is required to be a single age of consent, you cannot function well as a parent; you must choose between allowing your children the freedom they deserve and protecting them from something proven to be harmful. This is why I feel that there should not be a requirement of a single age of consent - it prevents you from doing possibly beneficial things but it brings you no benefit.
Am I wrong here?
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