[Red Potato Standing By]

Originally Posted by Iowa_Flames_Fan

Huh? No, I don't think it's okay at 14. Or 15. And yes, someone who has started puberty is still inhabiting a child's body. What's the point of pretending otherwise? Puberty, like maturation, is a gradual process.

If your point is that there's no magic age, I agree. I taught University level English for 10 years; many of the young women (and men) in those classes were, in an emotional sense, still children--in spite of being 18 or 19 years old. But that doesn't erase the difference between a 16 year old child and a 12 year old child. It's significant, and it matters in this case. Again, what's the point of pretending otherwise?

Here's the thing: I don't inhabit some morally relativistic universe where we can judge the rape of a child according to some elastic moral standard where the question of whether she has begun puberty has any relevance whatsoever. A child who has begun puberty isn't suddenly an adult capable of consenting to sex with an older child or an adult. They are just that--a child who has begun puberty.

I really don't want to play the "parent" card here--but some posts in this thread are making it pretty hard not to.

But without ever knowing the full details..how can you condemn said 16 year old child?