It may be cute to jerk off fantasizing about your 11 year old screwing his teacher - as long as the teacher is a woman, I suppose. I wonder if you'd smile thinking about a male teacher TEACHING your son about oral and anal sex...

I don't think so...

If we're going to have statutory rape laws, then clearly they should apply equally to both sexes. But do we need those laws at all?

The whole concept of statutory rape laws is that, below a certain age, the person is presumed to be too immature to give informed consent to sex. Therefore, the state, when prosecuting the other person, does not need to introduce evidence of lack of consent. It only needs to prove the ages of the participants and that intercourse occurred.

This leads to some silly situations. When I was 18 and my girlfriend was 17, we had sex. Despite the fact that she was more emotionally mature than I was, I committed a felony and she did nothing wrong. I was an "adult" in the eyes of the law. Fortunately, we never got caught, but that doesn't make the law any more reasonable.

It's perfectly possible to pass laws that remove the artificial age boundary and just ask juries to decide if both parties to intercourse consented to it. That's no more difficult than what they do in rape cases anyway.

I think most people will agree that having sex with a three-year old is unacceptable.

I think most people will agree that having sex with a consenting thirty-year-old is acceptable.

I think people will agree that having sex with an eight-year-old is unacceptable.

I think people will agree that having sex with an eighteen-year-old is ok.

I think most people agree that two five-year-olds playing "doctor" or "you show me yours, I'll show you mine" is ok.

I think most people agree that a five-year-old and a fifty-year old doing the same is rather gross.

Clearly, there is a need for age-of-consent laws.

The problem is, there's a gray area of puberty. Some people develop at the age of 9 or 10. Some people don't develop until High School. It isn't like there is a magical number that people hit, where suddenly they wake up and they are mature. Some 15-year-olds are still children. Some are not. Unless we find a way of determining everyone's adulthood on a case-by-case basis, we are going to have to make do with imperfect generalizations. Generally, by the time someone is 18, they are old enough to make these choices. 18 is a nice, safe number.

I was under the impression that some states had different laws for two teenagers fooling around, than for a teenager and adult fooling around, but if they don't, they should. There's a big difference between a fourteen year old fooling around with another fourteen year old, and fooling around with a seventeen year old, a twenty four year old, a forty year old, and a four-year old.

I came late to this post and did not read through all 17 pages of comments. Forgive me if I am repeating anything anyone has already said.

The question, "Is a sexual relationship between an adult and a teenager always inherently abusive?", is an interesting one. But in this case, it completely misses the point.

In a teacher–student relationship, it isn't just the ages that are disparate. The teacher–student relationship, like the patient–doctor relationship or therapist–client relationship, is a relationship in which one person has authority over, or more power than, the other. How can you have true consent in a relationship that involves that kind of power inequality?

It's not a question of age and maturity (though, when I was in therapy dealing with the "relationship" I'd had with a 29-year-old teacher of mine, I was told that a 15-year-old's brain is actually not as cognitively developed as an adult's, and can't make the same connections between action and long-term consequence). It's a question of power. A question of trust, and whether that trust is being abused. A student should always be able to trust a teacher not to put his or her interest ahead of the student's. A student should be able to trust that no matter what, a teacher will not make sexual advances, wanted or unwanted.

Therefore, I don't care how emotionally mature the student is, or what gender. If a teacher begins, pursues, or continues a relationship with a student, that teacher is completely, 100% in the wrong. Period.

I am glad the New York Times was courageous enough to print a story about this. I doubt we will hear politicians talking about changing the age of consent anytime soon.

First, set aside the teacher/student relationship. That should be a separate issue. Many businesses, universities, etc. have policies restricting dating between professors & students, managers & employees. Sex between family members is also not good. It doesn't matter the ages of the people involved.

The issue is how we, as a society, feel about underage sex and why we, as a society, feel that way. Does it cause irreparable harm? What data supports this? Other countries have low consent ages(Canada), even within the US there are states with low consent ages(Hawaii, South Carolina). What does the data support? Is it that society doesn't place enough trust in the youth to handle such a "monumental" decision? Yet we'll allow military recruiters to commit youth to years of military service by signing them up before they turn 18. We will try children as adults in murders because they should know the difference between right and wrong. Being schmoozed by recruiters into signing up, committing murders, these are usually emotionally based decisions by young people. Why is this exploited by some, condemned in certain situations(maybe that "child" was two months shy of his 18th birthday, good enough to try him as an adult for murder), but then used as a reason not to allow young adults to make a decision about sex. Has no one, in their adult life, slept with someone and regretted it? Did it cause you harm? Has no one, in their adult life, been hurt by a relationship or discovered they were manipulated and lied to? Did it cause you harm? If it did, how is that harm different than it would have been if you were in your teens? Is the fear that they will be manipulated or used?

We have double standards on our youth concerning what we feel they are mature enough to handle. Nobody wants to discuss this because they will be labeled a pedophile and extreme situations will be presented and scare the populace into outrage.

Most people don't want to see a 7 year old having sex with a 35 year old. How about a 17 and 19 year old? The hardest part of this issue is finding the fine line between protectionism and extremism.