How bemused he would be if his 15 year old son were carrying on with his football coach?

A 30 year old female HS teacher with a male HS student is a "fantasy".

A 30 year old male HS teacher with a female HS student is a "statutory rapist".

A 30 year old male HS teacher with a male HS student is a "molester"

A 30 year old female HS teacher with a female HS student is probably on PPV somewhere right now.

I don't think this country is mature enough to consent to this debate yet. Keep the laws as they are. They may seem odd at times, but at least they're consistent.

I have several thoughts on this topic:

First, an adult who has sex with a post-pubescent teenager who happens to be under the age of consent is not the same as one who has sex with a pre-pubescent child. The latter is fixated on a wholly inappropriate sex object; the former is attracted to a physically appropriate object of desire, in violation, however, of social and legal norms. Actual child molestation (of young children) can reasonably be presumed to be harmful to the child in all or virtually all cases. On the other hand, adult-adolescent sex, like all sexual relationships, has serious risks, but I do not think it is intrinsically harmful to the adolescent partner. This is, of course, the argument that the Catholic hierarchy has been using, generally unsuccessfully, to mitigate its guilt in the "sex abuse" scandal.

Second, there is, of course, a biological basis for treating "statutory rape" of girls more severely than "statutory rape" of boys. Girls can get pregnant, and motherhood is a more significant physical, psychological, social, and economic burden than fatherhood. However, our society is committed to legal equality between the sexes and I don't think that this difference justifies making an exception to the principle of sexual equality when it comes to the age of consent.

Finally, school teachers,like other professions entrusted with important responsibilities, are a special case. Teachers are not hired for the purpose of having sex with their students, and school boards and parents can reasonably expect that teachers will keep their hands off the merchandise, whether the student is under or over the age of consent. This is, I think, a separate issue from the age of consent.

in this situation are being sacrificed to politics. It is unacceptable to treat boys and girls differently and unacceptable to allow this for everyone so females can be jailed and boys subjected to reeducation, I mean therapy, when no one harmed anyone, solely to create social conditions supposedly beneficial to completely uninvolved third parties. This sort of thing should be carefully scrutinized, not casually tossed off to satify prudery or the desire of some women to keep men in line.

I travelled in America for about 8 months on my "gap year" - a year between school and university.

It was about 10 years later that an American friend told me that the age of consent (i.e. the age below which sleeping with constitutes statutory rape) was 18 in the US.

Now I don't know if that limit was specific to his state, or if it's been changed - but I was thinking how easily I could have gotten into quite a lot of trouble if it was true...

Is this the case? Are 19-year-olds slapped in jail for sleeping with 17-year-olds?

19 year olds are not arrested for sex with 17 year olds. While the age span for statutory rape depends on the state, the majority have a four year spread between the parties during which is sex is considered consensual. Thus, unlike many implications in this chain of e-mail, a 19 year old will not be prosecuted for having sex with a 17 year old. Most states consider statutory rape to have occurred when the sex is between a person eighteen years or older and a person below the age of 18 AND the minor is four years or younger than the party that has attained the age of majority. Therefore, If a seventeen year old high school senior is dating a fifteen year old sophomore, the relationship does not become illegal on the senior's 18th birthday because the sophomore is only three years younger. 18 and 14, however, would be bad news for the 18 year old.

Now this may come as a shock to the other readers but all the teenage girls I knew in school wanted to have sex. Since most teenage boys were not very attractive prospects most of us were interested in older men. Most of us were also capable of seperating sex and love. This notion that all women and girls only want sex with people they love is absurd and infantalizing. Teenage girls get just as horney as teenage boys. For everyone who thinks it child abuse, there is a huge difference between a 15 year old who went through puberty years ago and a 10 year old. One is clearly child abuse the other is not. Of course people in positions of power such as teachers shouldn't use that to thier advantage but there is nothing wrong with a 15 year old having consensual sex with someone 20 or older. Frankly I find parents (usually fathers) who try to control thier daughters sexuality as very deeply creepy.

Also it should be noted that adolescence is a very recent concept. Not that long ago a 15 or 16 year old girl would be a potential wife. My grandmother got married when she was 17. The whole concept of statutory rape was intorduced to prevent virgin daugthers from losing thier market value.In several states the age of consent for girls is still higher than that for boys, which is of course incredibly sexist.

I'm betting some of these guys who are all for teacher-boy relations wouldn't be so enthused if the recent offenders in question weren't so attractive. If some fat, ugly troll teacher got it on w/ a 14 year old in the back of her minivan you'd all be crying "abuse"!

The only real double standard being addressed here is beauty vs. ugly.