I have been reading quite a lot on this topic as discussions approach about the UK changing its age of consent from 16 to 14. This topic got me thinking about the age of consent in other countries and how laws may differ worldwide.
I found the website http://www.avert.org/age-of-consent.htm very helpful in my search for worldwide age of consent laws as it literally listed basically every country, their age of consent or if they did not have one. I found that the age of consent worldwide ranges from 12 to 21. This is a difference of nine years which in itself seems rather huge; however, when you consider the massive changes which occur to a person within these nine years the gap seems even larger.
Now, in terms of these ages I think that 12 is an absolutely shocking age to be having sex at. I mean, seriously, people having sex at 12!? I didn’t even so much as kiss a boy until I was 14 and even that was a fucking dare and lasted about a millisecond! It cannot possibly be healthy in any way to begin having sex at 12, I mean, I wasn’t even trusted to go out past about 7 so how on earth could I be trusted to make such an important decision as loosing my virginity. I genuinely think that at 12 you are a child and cannot at all comprehend and understand how to make this kind of decision. Also, at 12 you will not realistically have any strong and lasting feelings for someone you are going to have sex with and sleeping with people you don’t see yourself being with is a much more grown up and complicated issue than something you can deal with at the age of 12!
Whilst on the subject of this ridiculously low age of consent I would also like to make the comment that in Columbia the age of consent is 12 only for girls, yet boys can only have sex at 14. What does this mean? Who would these 12 year old girls be having sex with, boys at least two years older than them (which at that age is a huge age gap)? is it suggesting that girls are more responsible? I really don’t know what to make of this. The only conclusion I can really come to is that in many underdeveloped countries (such as Guatemala and Indonesia- which both also have different ages of consent for boys and girls [Guatemala: 14 for girls and 16 for boys. Indonesia: 16 for girls and 19 for boys], girls are typically expected to get married very early and to an older man who can help provide for her family. Either way, I am completely dumbfounded by this discovery.
On another note, I leant that in some countries the age of consent is only valid if you are married, an example of this is Bahrain which has its age of consent at 15 or the time of marriage. 15, to me personally, also seems to be a very low age to loose ones virginity. Also, the implication that it can be earlier if you marry earlier seems rather scary and filled with images of young girls being married of older men.
However, although I am, to an extent, stating that these ages of consent seem far too low I also discovered some rather unrealistic ideals. For example, may countries state that they simply do not allow sex before marriage, for example: Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Now, whilst I am not going to be a virgin when I get married this does seem to be a lovely idea and I think that if it was upheld by personal desires rather than religious stigma it would be an amazing thing to do. Nevertheless, although these countries are obviously rich in religious views it does seem to be rather idealistic and unrealistic to expect only the married to have sex. I also think it is rather ridiculous to punish consenting adults for having sex simply because they are not married. Personally, in the words of Samantha Jones (‘Sex and the City’ and yes, I know this isn’t exactly the intellectual quote I should be putting in this post): “Before you buy the car, you take it for a test drive!” This, I believe is completely true, both with sex and with living together!
Additionally, countries with the age of consent at the high age of 21, such as Cameroon, also seem rather unfathomable. I mean, yes, I agree that people should wait but I also think that if the age of consent is unrealistically high people will simply ignore it as ‘just one of those laws’, you know, the ones that are there but no one really listens to.
In conclusion, I believe that the age of consent is definitely a very difficult thing to determine: set too low it gives the impression that children having sex is promoted (‘Brave New World’ anyone?), set it too high and it will not be something that people even try to aspire to. The thing is, I do think that essentially it is not the age that a person has sex at that really matters, it’s the reasons why they are having sex. Of course, this does not mean that 12 year olds ‘in love’ should be having sex, I just simply mean that I think that some people mature earlier than others and for some sex at 16 will be the right thing whereas for others the right thing to do will be to wait until 20, 25 or even marriage. At the end of the day, to each is own (apart from 12 year old’s ‘in love’).
Personally, I think that below 16 is a ridiculous age to have sex but that waiting till after marriage is not going to do you any favors as sex is a large part of your relationship with someone.
I would genuinely love any input that anyone has on this matter whatever your views may be.
Grace x
The Overthinking Grace Port 
Hey, great post!
A few years ago I discovered that Japan’s age of consent is 13, and it freaked me out. I certainly hadn’t heard that the UK was lowering its age of consent – to me it seems like an incredibly backward thing to do. The increase of the age of consent usually indicates the progression of a society, and shows that it places a higher degree of importance on women’s health/independence. Do you have any links that say why the UK is doing this?
The thing is, a lower age of consent usually only affects grown men who are sleeping with teenagers. Most countries won’t prosecute teenagers having sex with each other (and in my state, even though the age of consent is 16, if you are aged between 11 and 15 you can have consensual sex with someone within 2 years of your age), so a lower age of consent only makes it harder to prove that men are raping teenage girls. (statutory rape vs having to prove a lack of consent beyond reasonable doubt).
😦
It’s not a definite thing that the UK are changing the law but it is said to be one of the prime topics to be discussed at the next meeting as many are calling for a the age of consent to be 14; I shall try to find the article again and send it to you. Basically, it was said that the ideology behind it was that 16 seems like an unrealistic age of consent in this day (I have no idea why), the obvious things were mentioned: television, children having sex younger etc. Essentially they said that they wanted to make the law more realistic than it is now- this slightly confuses me though as I do not think that waiting till 16 is at all unrealistic and should not be branded so!
I think your point about how increasing the age of consent demonstrates a developing society is very interesting and very well put.
In terms of the point you make about teenagers having sex it is pretty much the same here and sex with people within two years of each other will only be looked at in severe and isolated cases.
It is in fact true that this will affect those who are seeking to have sex with younger children and I think you portray this as the key issue which I think is completely right. However, I also think that the lowering of the age of consent implies that it is ‘normal’, ‘acceptable’ and ‘okay’ to be having sex at 14 which I personally do not believe it is.
Thank you so much for your thoughtful and thought-provoking comment; it is much appreciated 🙂
I think the age of consent in Spain is 13, however the average age that people lose their virginity is 19, in contrast to UK where the age of consent is 16 and the average age is 16. I really think it depends from person to person as well, but personally I think 13 is far too young, and 16 is quite a good age to set as a legal age of consent (although I personally had sex aged 15 and a half). I enjoyed this post, it was very interesting to see how the statistics vary around the world! xx
The thing about Spain is really interesting but apparently now the UK average age is between 12-14! Of course it depends from person to person but when you’re 12 or 13 that is just ridiculous! I was 16 and exactly 1 month haha but my boyfriend was only 15 and a month (yes, he was in the year below and yes we basically had the same birthday haha).
Thanks very much 😀 Yeah, I quite enjoyed scowling down and seeing the various ages and the differences in laws across the world and seeing that there was a huge amount of countries with no laws in terms of the age of consent!
Thanks for commenting 😀