Wow I had a whole crisis for creating the 196 on blahaj.zone because I thought it would move traffic away from the raddle. Now I am glad it moved traffic.
Appealing to majority is a bad way to make an argument. The age of consent in America shouldn't be 16 because it is in other countries, like my own, the UK, but because in its own right a human of age 16 is mature enough to make their own decisions about this.
I just looked it up for my country and the law is pretty complex but here's what I gathered
16 is the age of consent for sexual activity
romeo-and-juliet laws for 14 and 15 year olds (up to 5 years their senior, imo this is too much)
16 and 17 year olds cannot consent if there is any power dynamic
18 is the age of consent for pornography
Imo it should probably be that the age of consent is 18, with 14-17 year olds under romeo-and-juliet laws (and maybe like 3 or 4 years their senior). High school is just such a different stage of life, and social acceptance into adulthood is at 18 anyway (though I personally didn't feel like an adult till I was 21)
It is really dumb to make it a hard cutoff in the first place. Colorado uses a system in which someone who is 15 can consent to sex with someone no older than 18. At 16 you can date consent with someone up to age at 19, and at 17 up to age 20. At age 18, people are considered adults and there is no longer an age limit to consent.
It is wholly necessary to protect children from sexual predators using age of consent laws. At the same time, it is a bit ridiculous to pretend that people in their teens don’t have sexual relationships with one another, and the law ought to reflect that. I certainly don’t feel that an 18-year-old should be considered a criminal for dating a 17-year-old, anyway.