Under Age Sex
Irish courts Strike Down Statutory Rape Law - Child Sex Laws to be Amended
What is the appropriate age for someone to begin having sex? Dutch law says 12 years old, it’s 14 in Hawaii, 16 in Britain, 17 in Ireland and 18 in Florida.
A few different shades of opinion emerging here, clearly. But most countries seem agreed that young people can cope with sexual intercourse before they can be trusted with the really important things such as alcohol. That’s right, you can have sex before you can drink, vote, take out a bank loan and sometimes before you can hold a full driver’s licence.
Odd, don’t you think?
Disagreement on a generally accepted age of consent highlights uncertainty in the minds of legislators about when young adults are mature enough to say yes to sex. Or, indeed, whether we ought to worry about them being all that mature to begin with.
If the lawmakers are unclear, you can bet the population is seriously confused. I’m one of the confused, incidentally – until yesterday I was under the impression that the age of consent was 16 in Ireland, a common mistake according to professionals working in this field. The Supreme Court decision to abolish statutory rape has led to calls for the age of consent to be lowered. Lowered? I’m convinced the age of consent needs jacking up: make it 18 at least. Sex is enough of a minefield in your twenties and thirties – for the rest of your life, really – without trying to get your hormone-addled head around it as a teenager.
Luckily for teenagers I don’t run the country. And even I know we can’t swathe them in bubble-wrap and warn them on no account to touch each other until they reach the age of consent, whatever it happens to be. It’s perfectly clear that teenagers are at it like rabbits – oh, all right, exploring their sexuality – from an early age and neither State nor Church will stop them. How early? Take a walk around any shopping centre and count the schoolgirls pushing prams, or step inside a maternity hospital and see the adolescent faces above swollen bellies. In reality the age of consent doesn’t appear to matter any more, it’s one of those theoretical laws we have in this country that nobody takes a blind bit of notice of, like speeding or drink-driving.
But we should pay attention to what the experts working with children tell us because it’s a sobering message, as well as indicative of further problems down the track. The ISPCC says it’s now taking calls on its Childine service from children as young as 12 talking about sexual activity, whereas five years ago the younger callers would have been 16. Twelve – not even teenagers yet. Speaking of which, an 11-year-old became pregnant in Scotland last year. She’ll be just 12 years and eight months when she holds her baby in her arms next month – the little girl said she didn’t think she could conceive the first time she did it. So a bit of an education gap there. We’re not doing much better on the education front here, since every week in Ireland there are 12 births to under-18s. Presumably some of them thought they were safe enough on a first go too, or because they were doing it standing up, or because they didn’t take all their clothes off.
Sex has never been more pervasive. It is used to flog everything from toys to chocolate bars, from pop songs to TV shows, and the corollary is that children are acquiring a sexual vocabulary, sexual ways of dressing, sexual modes of behaviour, often before they reach puberty. I saw a six-year-old in a T-shirt printed with So Many Boys So Little Time the other week. I felt such a pang for her. Once, parents and schools between them took charge of a child’s sex education – now he or she is getting the low-down from Big Brother. This crude, limited, inadequate version of sex education is not a two-way street. At least there was a chance to ask questions when your mum or dad sat you down and had that mortifying (but enlightening) conversation about the birds and the bees, or in my case the puppies that had just been born to one of our greyhounds.
There is no opportunity to pose questions, address uncertainties or seek assurances when your sex education is courtesy of a reality TV show. You assimilate information, probably more than you know how to process at a young age, but it’s a patchwork quilt of knowledge and holes are inevitable. Such a system leaves children vulnerable. It means we are not equipping them with the tools they ought to have to make informed decisions affecting the rest of their lives.
It’s a matter of common sense for us to engage in a dialogue with young people about sex, rather than leaving them high and dry with the skewed mishmash they glean from popular culture. We’re neglecting them by not explaining issues of self-respect to our teens, or about how actions have consequences. Do they know, for example, that unprotected sex can lead to sexually transmitted diseases? Do they realise it’s acceptable to refuse sexual advances? Do they understand about informed consent?
They seem to be absorbing an intensely sexualised message without any checks and balances and it’s no wonder so many phone-calls, cries for help in some cases, are made to Childline. Last year calls around the issue of pregnancy increased by more than 70pc compared with 2004. Laws about sex exist to protect young people, not rain on their parade. But legislation can’t always be effective in influencing the private lives of citizens. After all, a law’s intentions don’t have much impact on behaviour where people are either unaware of its existence or care nothing for it.
Ultimately legislation isn’t really the solution; it’s a moral framework handed down from parents to children which points the way towards responsible behaviour.
Meanwhile our under-age sex laws need modifying and the Supreme Court decision does make sense, but our politicians must address the legal limbo left in its wake whereby children are at risk from predators. They have to do this before disappearing on their summer recess. Leaving it to the Dail to formulate new legislation doesn’t let the rest of us off the hook, however.
We should ask ourselves if we are being fair to our children in assuming they can handle the kind of world they find themselves operating in. If the answer is yes, we may as well brace ourselves for increased juvenile sexual activity with the consequences we have grown to expect. If no, then it’s time to take a cold, clear look at our blatantly sexualised society.
