Determining the statutory age of consent can be an extremely controversial topic for lawmakers here in the United States. More often than not special-interests groups will put pressure on them to raise the statutory age of consent to as high as they can in each state jurisdiction regardless of what the consequences will be to the general public.
Even though the question of whether or not a teenager that is too young to vote can consent to sexual relations with an adult is really a legal argument, certain special-interest groups have turned it into a psychological one. The fact of the matter is that teenagers are going to consent regardless of whether or not they can or cannot; and if they're having sex with their own peers, there will be those seeking sexual relations with older partners.
Below is a video in which Norman Michael Achin elaborates on the topic of consent pertaining to teenage sex. After watching his video, many of you will begin to question the integrity of American statutory-rape laws as well.
Norman Michael Achin Describes A Situation Involving A 16-Year-Old Runaway
In the comments section to the video above, a YouTuber who goes by the user name of @FelineDesperado posted:
Totally consented.... but it's a shame that the bf was arrested, even though it wasn't for kidnapping, it just looks that way. Some people in other videos argued he's 18, so he deserved it as an adult..... the stupidity around the arbitrary age of 18 is just insane. A 2 year age difference is practically nothing, but I'm sure you already know that.
So many years ago on a soap opera named The Bold And The Beautiful that is supposed to have a setting in Los Angeles, there was a scenario in which a 20-year-old college student was on trial for having sex with his 17-year-old girlfriend in his college dorm. I used to live in Los Angeles, and I can be certain that a district attorney would never waste his or her time on such a frivolous matter. On the other hand, I've heard that Florida is tough on such trivial matters.
I once chatted with this one woman on a website for locals in my county and neighboring counties, and this woman was dead set on supporting criminal cases that are brought against young men slightly above the age of majority for having sex with underage girls only 2 or 3 years younger than them. In other words, she had no use for Romeo-and-Juliet laws that served as a defense in statutory-rape cases in which both parties are almost the same age.
Nonetheless, this topic is not as black and white as the press and the media have fooled the public into believing. There are extenuating circumstances that make it ludicrous that statutory-rape laws be applied to them, and I'm going to give you a really good example of such a situation herein.
Back in 2010, a married couple, Michael Barnett and Kristine Barnett, adopted a 6-year-old Ukrainian girl. Her name was Natalia Grace.
Natalia Grace was a dwarf and had physical problems with her. After her adoptive parents realized that she was what they perceived to be too much of a burden for them to take care of, they talked a judge into changing the girl's legal age from 8 years old to 22 years old in 2012 shortly before she was to turn 9 years old.
Yes, you heard it. Michael and Kristine Barnett successfully convinced a judge to change Natalia Grace's year of birth from 2003 to 1989. They did so, so that they could leave her alone in an apartment in Indiana and move to Canada without her. They wanted to find a loophole to circumvent the child neglect laws. That judge should have been impeached from the bench and locked up in the Big House.
Seven years later Natalia Grace Barnett interviewed with Dr. Phil McGraw on Dr. Phil. She insisted that she was only 16 years old, even though her adoptive parents were insisting that she was 30 years old at that point in time. After the interview, Dr. Phil had a conversation with Jenny McCarthy, and he told her that he knew that there was no way that Natalia Grace could have been in her thirties.
So many years later, Natalia Grace obtained medical proof that she was the age that she believed herself to be. She cried tears of joy that she had gotten that proof. If you want to know the full story about it, you can read the articles titled "An Asperger's Syndrome Fairy Tale Turns Into A Nightmare" and "Michael And Kristine Barnett Ruined Natalia Grace Barnett's Childhood" by Jason B Truth.
Now, merely because Natalia Grace is a dwarf doesn't mean that she has never had romantic interests in her life. If we go back to 2019 when she interviewed with Dr. Phil and she was actually 16 years old, let's say that she had met a 15- or 16-year-old boy and fell in love with him insofar as they became intimate with each other. It would be a no-win situation for her, because a court order belied her age as being 30 years old.
That is, Natalia Grace could have been wrongfully charged with statutory rape in that event in spite of being the same age as the boy. Now, let's just say that she had met a 30-year-old man back then instead and became involved with him under the belief that the erroneous date of birth that appeared on that court order was the correct one. Once the truth was to come out about her actual age, that 30-year-old man could have been arrested for statutory rape.
Of course, Natalia Grace could have come back and argued that the stupid judge that changed her date of birth legally from 2003 to 1989 legalized her sexual relations with any adult man after she became legally above the statutory age of consent.
It would be a major mess for the court system to have to clean up, because in many state jurisdictions, ignorance of age is no defense for statutory rape. As you can see, having a high statutory age of consent throughout the United States causes needless legal problems of this same nature.
From the time that she began noticing the opposite sex, Natalia Grace had equally as much rights to have a love life as any other girl here in the United States. Of course, why would the authorities have cared? They failed Natalia Grace in every way possible at the outset of her ordeal with Michael and Kristine Barnett.
So many years ago a 16-year-old boy named Dylan Schumaker murdered a toddler that belonged to his 19-year-old girlfriend, Ashley Smith. Before this tragedy took place, Dylan had threatened his older girlfriend that he was going to press statutory-rape charges against her if she didn't give him his own way about something.
I don't think a baby murderer has the right to call himself a statutory-rape victim or a victim of any kind of underage sex that is considered to be criminal in nature, but that's just how I feel. If you wish to know the full story about Dylan Schumaker, watch the video below.
A 16-Year-Old Boy Murders A 23-Month-Old Boy Out Of Uncontrollable Rage
Mr. Schumaker was definitely never parental material. Then again, he was 16 years old when he committed this unspeakable crime against a little boy. Of course, it is no excuse for his violent crimes.
Mr. Schumaker was not an innocent little boy when he was 16 years old, and he never deserved leniency at his criminal trial. Strangely enough, in New York, the age of adult responsibility for purposes of criminal prosecution is automatically 16 years old. The statutory age of consent there is 17 years old. However, one cannot legally get married there under any circumstances until 18 years old.
Stereotypes and tunnel vision are what are clouding the judgment of way too many Americans when it comes to juvenile-justice-related matters, and the enforcement of the American statutory-rape laws is no exception to that same rule.
The situations that sex laws pertaining to minors across the United States address are much more nuanced than lawmakers wish to admit. Many of them delve into shades of gray. Unfortunately, our lawmakers are failing to recognize this problem. The results of these sex laws' enforcement seldom ever coincide with legislative intent. As Americans, we all simply need to vote out elected officials who neglect to see the bigger picture at hand.
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