I mean, we made it (basically) illegal to marry underage girls after the Puritans and with that came some sex laws. I know those were in place to protect kids from scary old men with candy in their pockets (or scary older teens with ecstasy in their pockets) but why isn’t leeway given for kids that are within a few years of each other? Or in this case, literally a few months of each other.

This kind of stuff is just baffling. Next thing you know, it’ll be illegal to wear monocles or something silly.

And more generally, the “sex offender” lists are full of people who were just horny teenagers who were caught having consensual sex.

I understand the desire to create legal definitions and harsh punishments for sexual offenses, but I think the law needs to allow for sensible exceptions.

Here in Atlanta, there’s been a case going on about a high school football player who went to jail for a couple of years as a sex offender. His offense was that an underage girl gave him a blowjob at a party. He didn’t attack her or anything, there was no coercion. And by all accounts, he was a good kid who did well in school, was respected by his peers, and didn’t get into trouble. But he was 17 and she was 14, and the law was clear, so off to jail he went, branded as sex offender.

I think that they did alter part of the law here after all the hullabaloo over that case, but the idiot legislature still didn’t grandfather that kid’s case.