thesefewpresidents:

I don’t think there’s much I can add to what my friend who posted it on facebook said:

Four things: 1) Underage people having sex with underage people being an incarcerable offence is nuts when the age gap is this small. 2) Having only boys held responsible is even nuttier. 3) “Buggery” being a thing in law at all is mental. 4) In this country, actual, real proper consent-violating rapists get lighter sentences than 5 years. In summary… wtf.

Surprisingly, even this is way less fucked up than what we had before. Under the previous laws, as in the laws which were actually in effect when I lost my virginity, I could have been tried for statutory rape as, even though she was older than me, I was of age and she wasn’t.

Also, I had heard rumours that buggary was still on the books, but I didn’t know it was actually true.

Finally, though they may have diddled it a bit since, when the new laws were introduced I remember a big hoo hah about what constituted defilement of a child. If I recall it correctly, if a guy and a girl, both of whom are minors, have penetrative sex, it’s the guy who is legally considered the defiler. However, if it’s merely oral sex, then the girl is the one who will, ahem, go down for it.

Sorry.

Anyway, I mostly remember this because the argument against it was so incredibly fucking stupid. Instead of simply pointing out that that’s a fucking stupid way to view the situation, they argued that it would, in fact, pressure young girls into having sex earlier to avoid jail time for merely “fooling around” with oral sex. Which is so mind blowingly arse backwards it stuck with me for about 8 years now. That’s a level of deviousness that even teenage girls wouldn’t stoop to.