Talk:Age of consent in the United States

Split article

Article section Ages of consent in North America#United States being too long, it is split into different article. And marked as "Main article" Ages of consent in the United States. Under the table 324 (talk) 11:15, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

You can't just independantly decide that it is too long and create a new article. First off, it duplicates content, and it secondly confuses people and splits the editorship. Please reach a consensus under Ages of consent in North America first. I am redirecting the article there for now. Your contributions so far will remain in the history. This has lead to somebody copycatting you in doing the same thing for Canada, and it could lead to a trend of it happening for every country. This could get excessively cluttered. Before initiating massive reforms like this, it is imperitive to discuss it first. I agree the US is big, and may even support you in moving to have it get its own article, but this is too pushy of a way to go about it. I see there is a topic there so I will post there, please talk there first and reach consensus. Moving is better than duplicating. Tyciol (talk) 06:28, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I went ahead and re-split it. On Wikipedia one can independently decide it's too long as long as nobody else objects. Since I have found additional material discussing the matter I think the length and depth of content made the need to split self-evident. Wikipedia is about WP:BEBOLD. WhisperToMe (talk) 19:30, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

Pennsylvania age of consent

This was discussed at Wikipedia:No_original_research/Noticeboard/Archive_33#WP:No_original_research_talk_page_discussion_of_scientific_sources_as_OR_in_news_articles.

Newspaper sources (Philadelphia Inquirer and Pittsburgh newspapers), including those that discuss and acknowledge the Pennsylvania corruption of minors law, all state that 16 is the age of consent in the state. Even though they state that, there is also a corruption of minors law that may be used to prosecute activity with 16 and 17 year olds. I made sure to note that so even not-so-careful readers learn about this.

A former Pennsylvania prosecutor quoted in an Inquirer article (Archive) explains why this is the case: The state's view is that the 16 or 17 year old is consenting, but that one is still "corrupting" that person's morals, so the state can prosecute. To quote her:

• "JoAnne Epps, dean of academic affairs at Temple University's Beasley School of Law, said that even though a teenager can legally consent to sex, corruption of the morals of a minor gives prosecutors authority to file charges for inappropriate relationships. "They are different crimes," said Epps, a former prosecutor. "Having sex with a 16-year-old may not necessarily be statutory rape, but that's irrelevant in determining whether a person is guilty of corrupting the morals of a minor." "

WhisperToMe (talk) 19:43, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

I wonder if somebody can look up codes of the old Pennsylvania age of consent? This Philadelphia Inquirer article seems to contradict the Pittsburgh one I posted:

• Metz, Andrew. "Ex-swim Coach Gets Jail Sentence." Philadelphia Inquirer. October 9, 1995.
• "In August, Weber, who also coached at the Lansdale Swim Club, pleaded guilty to having had oral sex with the girl, whom he had encouraged to join the Germantown Academy swimming club. According to police, the two also had sexual intercourse. At the time of the incidents, the legal age of consent for intercourse was 14; for oral sex, 16."

There is another article saying that the PA age of consent was 18 but was lowered to 16 in 1995. WhisperToMe (talk) 23:28, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Indiana section now outdated

In July of 2014, Indiana overhauled its criminal code, switching from a four-level felony system (ABCD) to a six-level system (123456) and giving some crimes increased or decreased punishments relative to the old system. The current version of this article list the old ABCD designations, and is now outdated. 199.250.3.81 (talk) 18:18, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

Texas

The age of consent in Texas is 17. The section 43.25 of title 9 is NOT about usual sexual act. Read more carefully: the name of section is SEXUAL PERFORMANCE BY A CHILD. And in definition it says: "Sexual performance" means any performance or part thereof that includes sexual conduct by a child younger than 18 years of age and "Performance" means any play, motion picture, photograph, dance, or other visual representation that can be exhibited before an audience of one or more persons. The mentioned section is in Subchapter named OBSCENITY. Hence, the mentioned Section is about producing child pornography. It is not about usual sexual contact and has nothing general with age of consent law. M.Karelin (talk) 16:07, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

A casual reading of section 43.25 certainly makes it seem that the intent is to establish 18 as the minimum age for participation in commercial sexual activity, such as an exhibition in front of an actual audience or sex for other commercial purpose. However, 43.25(b) makes it a crime to "induce" someone under 18 to engage in sexual conduct (where sexual conduct has more or less its ordinary meaning) without any language clarifying that "induce" means something tantamount to compensation. Texas courts cite later amendments to the law that seem to have been intended to apply to sexual conduct in a non-commercial situation as well, as well as to explicitly increase the applicable age from 17 to 18. See "Dornbusch v. State of Texas" at http://caselaw.findlaw.com/tx-court-of-appeals/1243725.html. Fabrickator (talk) 05:27, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

I see a slight change in the latest edit to the lengthy legal analysis of the situation in Texas, i.e. noting which court has made the interpretation of 43.25 as making 18 the age of consent. I don't have to disagree with that interpretation to accept the fact that that is the current law of the land in Texas. So I'd like to hear pro and con on the idea that (1) the lengthy analysis of Texas law needs to be replaced with a simple observation that there are two statutes (and a person could be prosecuted under either of them), and (2) for the purpose of this page on Wikipedia, the age of consent in Texas is 18, period. If I get no responses, I'm going to interpret this as there being no objection to making said changes. Fabrickator (talk) 19:44, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

With respect to proposal (1), what is the rationale for removing the lengthy analysis? More information is better than less in this situation, right? With respect to proposal (2), I don't understand what you mean. —Granger (talk · contribs) 20:05, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

I'll address your question about what I mean that age of consent is 18 "for the purpose of this page". I'm distinguishing here between some kind of highly technical and/or academic argument about what the age of consent is, and whether there's a bona fide risk that the prosecution would prevail in a criminal complaint of sexual activity with someone under a specific age, that age being the "age of consent" that is of interest here.

 

With regard to this issue, in appealing his conviction in Dornbusch v. State of Texas (1/27/2005) (see http://caselaw.findlaw.com/tx-court-of-appeals/1243725.html), Dornbusch argued that the legislature's intent was that statute 43.25 should apply "only in the context of commercial, pornographic sexual performances". The appeals court stated that he was convicted "for the inducement of sexual conduct by a child in a non-commercial setting", and they upheld the conviction, in the absence of evidence of "money, grades, or favors" as inducement. My inference is that the dictionary definition of inducement applies, to wit, inducement occurs merely by persuading someone. I'm going to suggest that the prosecution will claim, if necessary, that the fact that sexual conduct occurred with the adult is sufficient proof of inducement.

 

So it comes down to this: In Texas, if an adult, at least 2 years older than the child (being under 18 years of age), has sex with that child, this comes to the attention of authorities, and the D.A.'s office chooses to prosecute the case, and it comes to trial, and the jury is given instructions based on current case law, and the jury finds the facts as described above, then the jury will (or at least should) find the person guilty. Fabrickator (talk) 03:32, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

FYI to all Wikipedians this is the secondary source which discusses the second law: http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-07-14/transformers-rape-joke-gets-even-less-funny - This source does say that some lawyers disagree with the interpretation of the law, but it's important to note that the court of criminal appeals has upheld that law in the conviction of Dornbusch. That's why I changed the section on Texas from saying it's 17 to saying that there is one law saying 17 and another saying it's 18, and this is why Texas is now shaded in gray.

I wonder if someone can go in the State Archives and get news articles about the formation of either or both of these laws, so we know their original intent. WhisperToMe (talk) 14:00, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

The court's opinion in "Dornbusch" already addresses the legislative intent, specifically in regard to subsequent changes to the law. Quoting: "the legislature amended the statute to read 'to engage in sexual conduct or a sexual performance," and stating that the law as amended "criminalizes the inducement of a child's sexual conduct regardless of whether it amounts to a sexual performance". The opinion actually cites earlier cases supporting this view, but I don't see any need to go there, nor to any other source to attempt to determine what may have been the legislative intent, because, after all, this is the opinion of an appellate court with jurisdiction over the entire state of Texas, and furthermore, this is the highest court in Texas to which criminal cases can be appealed. So absent a subsequent decision of this particular court, an overriding decision from the U.S. Supreme Court, or a change to state law, it would seem that even if 100 lawyers were to agree that the court's opinion is in error, this is the law of the land as it stands today. Fabrickator (talk) 21:47, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

An earlier citation is Summers v. State (11-92-057-CR.) (see http://www.leagle.com/decision/19921285845SW2d440_11248/SUMMERS%20v.%20STATE). This ruling is by the Texas Court of Appeals in 1992. At that time, the age limit specified in 43.25 was 17 rather than 18, but that doesn't obviate the point stated in the opinion that the law's wording makes it a crime to induce sexual conduct of an underage person itself (i.e. not within the context of a sexual performance). (talk) 01:04, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

The Texas section is a complete mess. The reference should be reverted back to the other case, as that is the newer/more current/more clear opinion. While the older opinion has value, the newer one makes it very clear that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (the highest court in Texas having jurisdiction over this issue) has no problem persecuting someone for having sex with a 17 year old. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.249.169.63 (talk) 18:06, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

It's a "complete mess" because the press, the newspapers (other than Volokh and Stephen L. Carter), have failed to say that 18 is the age of consent in Texas. Volokh considers it to be a mess, and cites Carter, so we cite Volokh and say it's a mess. The "age of consent" is however the press and the media define it (the state legal codes don't use that term, and legal documents can be difficult to interpret). It's also a mess because, according to one lawyer, "95%" of lawyers in the state had been saying 17 all along. WhisperToMe (talk) 15:36, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

Mess or not, the following footnote is simply erroneous:

Texas has two statutes: chapter 22 of title 5 defines the age of consent as 17, but section 43.25 of title 9 criminalizes causing a minor under 18 to engage in a engage in a sexual performance[22] - See the section about Texas for further information

Section 43.25 of Title 9 (in its current form) criminalizes inducing a minor under 18 to engage in sexual conduct. Some lawyers may have once upon a time believed that the use of this statute for prosecuting statutory rape (possibly objecting to the idea that the "perpetrator" could be the "audience" required for a "sexual performance"), but the "sexual conduct" phrase was added later. This is why I feel that the judge's explanation in Dornbusch, particularly as to the legislative intent, is so compelling.

The Stephen Carter reference is a problem too, in particular, the "don't believe" link is broken. But like I say, I question whether that's a plausible position to take, if the lawyer is familiar with the current law and the judge's logic as explained in Dornbusch. We can argue whether or not citing the Dornbusch opinion is really "OR", but in the end, accuracy is more important, and Ignore All Rules trumps OR.

I'd sort of like to see some "offline" editing on this section ... e.g. on a separate page, where the interested parties can comment and tweak, to obtain a result that properly satisfies all the concerns. I don't know if this is ever done, but it certainly strikes me as being a more sensible approach to obtaining a good result. Fabrickator (talk) 18:24, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

@Fabrickator: Broken links can be fished out with the Wayback Machine much of the time. And so... http://web.archive.org/web/20140720070509/http://www.houstoncriminaldefender.com/2013/11/17-years-old-not-old-enough-to-consent-in-texas/ - http://www.webcitation.org/6eAIfOhkD - I hope this helps!

• "I will be the first to admit that I (along with 95% of the criminal defense bar) have been incorrectly telling people that the age of consent in Texas is 17. Part of that has to do with the fact that this law is seldom enforced or even prosecuted. It is punished as a Second Degree felony in Texas, and I suspect that many prospective jurors would have a hard time convicting an ordinary citizen who may have never been in trouble with the law in his entire life for engaging in consensual sex (deviate or otherwise) with a 17-yr old girl." (I bolded the relevant parts!!!!)

I think that people should contact the Houston Chronicle, Dallas Morning News, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Austin American-Statesman, San Antonio Express-News etc. and tell them that they ought to say the AOC in Texas is 18, and show them the legal opinions that define it as such. Then once they start saying such in their newspaper articles (and possibly cite the legal opinions while doing so) it will be easier to write the Wikipedia article accordingly.

Re: "Ignore all rules" - Wikipedia:No original research is a policy and is the highest level of Wikipedia "rules". Wikipedia:What_"Ignore_all_rules"_means#Use_common_sense does say that " it is acceptable to use common sense as you go about editing. Being too wrapped up in rules can cause loss of perspective, so there are times when it is better to ignore a rule." - So people should not really do something "because the rules say something"

The reason I wanted to write the content close to what Volokh et al say is to protect the content from being meddled with further, to prevent it from being challenged by people who read that "the age of consent is 17 in" in a newspaper and then wipe away the content, believing that it's not true/the primary source legal document is being taken out of context/etc. By showing what Volokh and Smith say, it becomes pretty clear that the Sexual Performance Act is being used against people who do sexual activity with 17 year olds.

WhisperToMe (talk) 15:41, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

The Carter article is problematic. While it correctly states that 43.25 "prohibits causing a minor to engage in a sexual performance", it fails to explicitly make the point that the same law prohibits (the inducement of) "sexual conduct" with a minor. Given that the Carter article is problematic, then the Volokh article is also problematic.

In contrast to these articles, the Dornbusch opinion is clear and compelling. The opinion makes clear that this is not a "quirk" of the law or the decision of some dunderhead judge, possibly suggesting that the Appeals court's ruling is just waiting to be overturned by a skilled lawyer who can provide a sufficiently convincing argument. The opinion makes clear that the Court's interpretation is supported by both the legislative history and the plain language of the statute.

NOR actually allows for citing the judge's opinion, especially in the absence of a bona fide dispute about what the law actually is. Nevertheless, NOR can still be superceded by the "common sense" mandate of IAR.

You're concerned people will challenge the claim that AOC is 18. If this is a problem, I suggest it's better handled by restricting edits of the page. Fabrickator (talk) 09:24, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

@Fabrickator: The Carter article does say that the law makes the age of consent at 18: "Under that section, the age of consent is 18, and the relevant Romeo and Juliet law is a defense only when the age difference between victim and accused is two years or less. Although section 43.25 is no masterpiece of drafting, and some Texas criminal defense lawyers don't believe that it has anything to do with statutory rape, the state's courts have upheld multiple convictions under the provision." and it says "Under Texas law, then, Shane is indeed guilty of statutory rape. And the filmmakers' offensive little joke is even worse than we thought." - In other words it's saying that a person who has sex with a 17 year old is committing statutory rape in Texas.

It's a "plain language" article written for a general audience so it doesn't have to go into the technicalities. It does not have to "explicitly make the point that the same law prohibits (the inducement of) "sexual conduct" with a minor" because it does explicitly say the AOC is 18. This is what I wanted, and this fulfills the demand against WP:OR. (the Carter article cites both Dornbusch and Todd William Baker as proof of the "multiple convictions")

• It is true that people should also have access to the actual legal opinions, what the judge says, etc. However legal matters are often written in obtuse language, and even though WP:OR technically does "allows for citing the judge's opinion, especially in the absence of a bona fide dispute about what the law actually is" - it can only be done de facto is the language is written clearly and explicitly supporting the cited statements. Without that, it's necessary to have a secondary source to interpret what the primary source says.

Restricting edits may backfire, especially if people accuse others of censorship and the like (it can even cause a media kerfluffle). It's better to write the content so it is "unassailable" from a WP:OR standpoint: explicitly stated by secondary sources, and backed up by relevant primary sources.

Even though we have the "common sense" mandate of IAR plenty of editors feel wildly uncomfortable with "allowing original research" as it could cause chaos in other editing disputes (there's a reason why OR isn't allowed). It's better to stick to what the sources explicitly say and avoid the problem of "can IAR override OR?" - It is best to have both, both the actual legal opinions and the "plain language" interpretations for the average Joe and Jane.

WhisperToMe (talk) 03:13, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

@WhisperToMe: Here is a solid secondary source for 43.25(b): Texas Jurisprudence, Third Edition June 2017 Update (Thomson Reuters a.k.a. West Publishing): "The language of this provision [Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 43.25(b)] criminalizes the inducement of a child's sexual conduct regardless of whether it amounts to a sexual performance, and it applies to nonpornographic, noncommercial sexual conduct by children." Unlike the Dornbusch opinion, I don't think you can find this source online, except as a subscriber to their service. Anyway, it is time to eliminate the confusing mess that is this section. It's true that prosecutors can charge under different laws, but it's no defense for the person charged that there's some other law that wasn't violated. Fabrickator (talk) 18:08, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

@Fabrickator: Do you mind sending me a copy of that source? I want to see if it explicitly says "the state age of consent is in fact 18"? WhisperToMe (talk) 23:38, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

@WhisperToMe: There's no point sending the source to you if you are going to be hung up on the literal phrase "age of consent" (or similar) being present, whether it's in a statute or in some other article. It is certainly the case that many (if not most) states do not define an "age of consent" as such; in most cases, they define the situations when sexual activity, though actually consensual, is a crime, based on the ages of the participants. But if we were to go by your standard, we should have to replace the information for those states with an explanation that the law of this state does not actually define an age of consent. Fabrickator (talk) 00:36, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

@Fabrickator: Actually because the states don't use those wordings, it forces editors to get "hung up" on wordings and interpretations from media sources to avoid original research and misinterpretations of sources (explained above). I'm afraid it may be best to take this to Wikipedia:OR noticeboard as I'm probably not the only one who is afraid of original research issues. P.S. usually when somebody asks to see a source it's best to just send it. Thanks WhisperToMe (talk) 22:31, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

@WhisperToMe: The source I have is copyrighted, you can order the source here: http://legalsolutions.thomsonreuters.com/law-products/Legal-Encyclopedias/Texas-Jurisprudencereg-3d/p/100006910 ... The portion of interest is the section titled "20 Tex. Jur. 3d Criminal Law: Offenses Against Public Order." I think it would be "fair use" to provide a short excerpt, but you might object that the excerpt is not sufficient. Fabrickator (talk) 03:49, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

@Fabrickator: I'll find a way of getting it. In the meantime I thought of something. The author of the article that argued that Texas AOC was 18 (one that Eugene Volokh read, but one that Volokh hadn't determined whether it was true or not) was Stephen L. Carter. What we could do is say something along the lines of "Yale University law professor Stephen L. Carter cited the Dornbusch and Todd William Baker cases and argued that the age of consent in Texas should be 18, not 17. Volokh read Carter's article and stated he was unsure whether the state age of consent was 17 or 18." - That presents the argument that the AOC is really 18 from a major authority and it avoids the possibility of original research. Also you could directly quote the statement from the source you found and put that after Volokh's commentary on Carter's intepretation of Texas law. WhisperToMe (talk) 03:42, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

@WhisperToMe: I have a few points to make, so please bear with me. Point 1: You propose to provide an ambiguous statement about the age of consent. Now if the issue were that we couldn't quite decide what "age of consent" ought to mean, that would be one thing. But if the issue is that we're not quite sure what the law is, that's a terrible idea, unless there actually is ambiguity about what the law is. And there isn't. Point 2: The various couple of articles that you proffer as providing a "reliable source" of information never seem to extricate themselves from applying to a "performance". That is, for the person who's reluctant about accepting the idea that one can be prosecuted in Texas for having consensual sex with a 17-year-old, they will reasonably note that each of these articles seems to be in the context of a performance, and surely, that's what 43.25(b) is about, right? (Wrong!) Point 3: One "critic" of accepting the Dornbusch ruling wanted a secondary source, suggesting this would be published in a textbook. Instead, it's published in "Texas Jur III". It might have been argued that, notwithstanding the Dornbusch opinion, we were in need of some authority that the Dornbusch opinion is not just some judge's opinion, but is actually applicable law. That is what publication of the following statement in "Texas Jur III" does: The language of this provision criminalizes the inducement of a child's sexual conduct regardless of whether it amounts to a sexual performance, and it applies to nonpornographic, noncommercial sexual conduct by children. (I will note that this statement is "called out", rather than being buried in the middle of the judge's opinion, helping to make clear that this statement stands on its own, and is not merely applicable in the context of the rest of the opinion.) Fabrickator (talk) 07:58, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

@Fabrickator: I am aware of the legal argument that was made regarding Dornbusch and the others. However as stated before, as long as the Texas state media continues to say the age of consent is 17, and as long as the state government doesn't make an unambiguous announcement on the matter, "ambiguous" is the best we can hope for. Wikipedia:Verifiability, not truth states this clearly:

• "The Verifiability policy was later re-written in 2012 to clarify these points, stating that Wikipedia's "content is determined by previously published information rather than the beliefs or experiences of its editors. Even if you're sure something is true, it must be verifiable before you can add it". That we have rules for the inclusion of material does not mean Wikipedians have no respect for truth and accuracy, just as a court's reliance on rules of evidence does not mean the court does not respect truth. Wikipedia values accuracy, but it requires verifiability. Unlike some encyclopedias, Wikipedia does not try to impose "the truth" on its readers, and does not ask that they trust something just because they read it in Wikipedia. We empower our readers. We don't ask for their blind trust."

While medicine-related articles do have the restriction against using average newspapers for sourcing, no such restriction is on law-related articles. In humanities and social sciences people generally do defer to what newspapers say.

It's clear you want the accurate truth in the articles and that's completely understandable. Unfortunately this cannot be done as long as legal opinion in the mainstream everyday media that the average Joe reads does not reflect "18". As long as these major newspapers keep saying "the age of consent is 17" there clearly is ambiguity in the law! The average Joe is not going to read legal opinions, and I don't think too many of them even read this article, sadly. (It would be good to read Wikipedia:Verifiability,_not_truth#"But I know the truth!" which talks about this issue!)

I would suggest that you write an open letter to: A. The Governor of Texas and B. The major newspapers such as the Austin American-Statesmen (this one's important), Dallas Morning News, Houston Chronicle, San Antonio Express-News, etc. Have this be a letter to the editor for all of them. Tell the governor that the Texas Attorney General needs to unambiguously announce that "18 is the age of consent in the state, not 17," citing Dornbusch and others. Tell the newspapers to change their reporting to make it clear that 18, not 17, is the AOC. If/when this happens we can safely move Texas from the "ambiguous" category.

WhisperToMe (talk) 13:38, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

@WhisperToMe: I find your notion that we should pester state officials or the local media to publish something about the age of consent in order to meet Wikipedia's requirement rather peculiar. It's very possible that state officials are purposefully not disseminating this information, because they don't really need to be locking up more people who arguably aren't harming anyone, nor do they need more parents complaining to them about the fact that the sexual promiscuity of their 17-year-old daughter requires her 19 1/2 year old boyfriend to be prosecuted. Then again, maybe the current misinformation about the law enables them to apply the law in a discriminatory manner, and they want to preserve that. But Wikipedia is not an "activist" site to apply pressure for strict enforcement of "statutory rape" laws, and that is the effect of advocating for people to do this.

You have proposed that modifying the article to cite the applicable references to 43.25(b) as actually being accurate with regard to the "age of consent" in Texas be referred to WP:OR noticeboard, based on your assertion that references must come from mainstream media read by the average Joe and Jane. My response to this is "no basis". As per WP:Verifiability#Original_research and WP:OR, the policy is that references must be published and reliable. You haven't raised either of these issues, so what you're really proposing is to change the policy to be to your liking. That is obviously outside the scope of determining what is compliant with the existing policy. So as I say: If you're objecting based on OR, what's your basis? Fabrickator (talk) 17:20, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

@Fabrickator: Government officials often say "ignorance of the law is no excuse for breaking it" so I will say that if they don't want to be "pestered" by inquiries about what the law is, they should kindly resign as they are clearly in the wrong line of work. I will tell you this now: Please do not hesitate to pester government officials about the law. It's your right as a citizen to do it, and it's their obligation as public servants to accept and be submissive to said pestering. Anyway...

Since Wikipedia is not an "activist" publication, then it's simply going to report things largely based on what secondary sources say.

And it's all about OR. You could take a long, complicated explanation, and some other guy may come up with some other convoluted explanation on why oh it's not the case. The law is a tricky dick, weaselly thing. Having said that I will open a line of inquiry about this matter at the Wikipedia:OR noticeboard as I do think we need some 3rd and 4th opinions.

WhisperToMe (talk) 08:12, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Kindly see Wikipedia:No_original_research/Noticeboard#What_is_Texas.27s_age_of_consent.3F WhisperToMe (talk) 08:37, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

(resuming from the discussion on WP:OR Noticeboard, copied to #Texas age of consent: discussion from WP:OR noticeboard )

@WhisperToMe: Somehow, I just completely missed your comment regarding the ages of consent stated for Ohio and Pennsylvania, suggesting that the age of consent supplied for those states is based on some notion that, regardless of all relevant statutes that may in fact define conditions under which one may be prosecuted for having sex with someone under a certain age, each state (presumably) has a well-defined "age of consent" statute which specifies "the" age of consent for that state. Without addressing why such a definition might be particularly problematic, I'll just point out that such a definition would be contrary to the directive (from the "age of consent discussion header" template) to highlight the "unfettered" age of consent (which presumably would be the per se age of consent for the purpose of this article). Fabrickator (talk) 08:40, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

I thought about this for awhile but hadn't had time to do a lot of research on this. What may help is to consult specialist dictionaries (legal dictionaries) which may have their own definitions of "age of consent", and the directive can be based off of those definitions. I would imagine that the writers of the dictionaries would be aware of cases like Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas; in the former two the minor would be "consenting" but the adult would be punished on the grounds of corrupting the consenting minor's morals. WhisperToMe (talk) 21:52, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

@WhisperToMe: At the risk of being repetitive, I'm going to go back to basics here. Once upon a time, there was a common law crime called "rape". This was the act of having sex with somebody without their consent. To establish a minimum age for sex, the legislatures of various jurisdictions created a legal fiction, specifying by statute that persons below a certain age could not give effective consent, thus any sex with someone under that age was rape notwithstanding consent, hence "statutory rape".

The legal fiction of there being an "age of consent" has generally fallen by the wayside, as legislatures enacted separate crimes for sex involving an underaged person, and particularly as these crimes specified different ages for various situations. The term "age of consent" remains as a colloquialism without any specific legal meaning outside of those jurisdictions which retain statutes specifying this "legal fiction" (if any exist).

I realize you are "laser focused" on trying to find some Wikipedia rule that can resolve the issue. But the "age of consent" pages are, to use a Latin phrase, sui generis, meaning these pages have their own rules, because they are unique within Wikipedia. The evidence of this is the Template:Age_of_consent_pages_discussion_header, creating special rules for references and providing a meaning for the "age of consent", with this definition acting as its own reference. So whatever other source you may find for a definition of "age of consent", it is without relevance to these pages. Fabrickator (talk) 23:41, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

@Fabrickator: The "Age_of_consent_pages_discussion_header" will need to be based on definitions from written sources in order to be compliant with the Original research policy - there have been pages of various scientific and non-scientific topics where exact definitions have been furiously debated. Getting definitions from legal dictionaries (not the statutes because, as you say, the statutes don't say "age of consent") will be crucial in protecting the Template:Age_of_consent_pages_discussion_header page. The people writing specialist legal dictionaries ought to be aware of everything you stated, so they would take this into account in their definitions (something that a general dictionary author may not realize).

I said this before, but the Pennsylvania and Ohio corruption of minors statutes aren't counted as rape and don't seem to originate from the body of age of consent laws (Pennsylvania prosecutor said that the question of consent is entirely different from the question of whether you're corrupting their morals, and Ohio's law against "unruliness" is not a sexual offense, nor is "interfering with custody")

WhisperToMe (talk) 19:52, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

@WhisperToMe: For this comment, I'm going to limit myself to your statement addressing the issue of the ages of consent stated in the article for Ohio and Pennsylvania. If we were to agree that there is a particular age that is the correct age of consent to be stated for a particular state, and the page specified a certain age, that doesn't prove that this is actually the correct age. There is no "supreme court justice" reviewing each edit and writing an opinion ruling whether the change is correct and why, what we have is some number of people who look these over, many may accept the change as being in good faith, others may feel that it's a least a "plausible" answer, but even for those who might be very confident that the age stated is incorrect, they may just simply not feel like they can be bothered to engage in a lengthy and frustrating discussion. However, I will suggest that some people may have a vested interest in ignoring the truth. Some may just feel that they "know" the correct answer, others may actually be personally involved in a relationship (or contemplating such a relationship), and they want the Wikpedia page to constitute evidence (if not to the court, perhaps to their partner) that the relationship is or would be legal. To reiterate, my point isn't whether or not the ages for Ohio and Pennsylvania are correct, but that you cannot reasonably infer what the "proper" definition is (a somewhat risky proposition to begin with), based on a stated "age of consent" which hasn't been subject to a rigorous process to review its correctness. Fabrickator (talk) 00:56, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

@WhisperToMe: It just occurred to me, given that the discussion is now limited to how the term "age of consent" shall be interpreted on the "Age of Consent" pages, that it might be helpful to look at Wikipedia's own page on this term: Age of Consent ... not to suggest that this is controlling, but for however it may add light to this discussion. Fabrickator (talk) 22:05, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

@Fabrickator: It's a great idea to bring it up! I'm interested in knowing how the definition in the article was determined. From my experience if there are concepts/terms that are nebulous or difficult to define, people gather various definitions from reliable sources and try to simplify them for the lead and/or write a definition that encompasses the ORs. In addition to legal journals and/or law dictionaries it may be also be good to consult books like The Age of Consent: Young People, Sexuality and Citizenship (that book discusses the UK specifically and is unlikely to discuss nuances in US state laws). Unfortunately that book has no preview on Google Books or otherwise I would have been able to find a page. :( I'd like to see if any of these sources do refer to unfettered age of consent and how they define/dissect the term. Remember to get exact page numbers and keep scans of the book if you can't get a Google Books view. WhisperToMe (talk) 22:28, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

The standard legal dictionary in the United States is Black's Law Dictionary (10th ed. 2014). Here's its definition of "age of consent": "The age, usu. defined by statute as 16 years, at which a person is legally capable of agreeing to marriage (without parental consent) or to sexual intercourse. • If a person over the age of consent has sexual intercourse with a person under the age of consent, the older person may be prosecuted for statutory rape regardless of whether the younger person consented to the act. See statutory rape under RAPE (2); JAILBAIT." In other words, "age of consent" traditionally is closely associated with statutory rape (or ability to contract marriage, but that is not what is being discussed here).

The problem is that people don't really care all that much whether engaging in sex with someone under a certain age will result in prosecution for statutory rape, as opposed to prosecution for some other felony; if it's a serious crime, it's a serious crime. Our articles probably should clarify this in some standardized way, although that seems like it would be a substantial job. John M Baker (talk) 22:58, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

Texas age of consent: discussion from WP:OR noticeboard

This discussion was originally held at WP:OR noticeboard. Further discussion of this subject should be held at #Texas.

This is actually a question that's been discussed for some time at: Talk:Ages_of_consent_in_the_United_States#Texas (under "Indiana section now outdated"). It's a tough subject because Texas has two laws that may affect the age of consent:

• section 21.11 of title 5: "Sec. 21.11. INDECENCY WITH A CHILD. (a) A person commits an offense if, with a child younger than 17 years of age, whether the child is of the same or opposite sex, the person:[...]"
• section 43.25(b): "Sec. 43.25. SEXUAL PERFORMANCE BY A CHILD. (a) In this section: (1) "Sexual performance" means any performance or part thereof that includes sexual conduct by a child younger than 18 years of age." inducement of sexual conduct and for sexual activity involving "visual representation or employment" at 18

There had been two convictions under 43.25 John Perry Dornbusch and Todd William Baker which did not involve commercial performances nor visual representation, with only incitement to do a sexual act.

Situation from published reliable sources:

• Texas newspapers say that the age of consent is 17 (I haven't seen an article from a Texas newspaper citing Dornbusch or stating that it's in fact 18)
  • Houston Chronicle: "The case illustrates the gray area of criminal responsibility for teens having sex before they are legally able to consent at the age of 17."
  • Dallas Morning News: "The age of consent in Texas is 17."
• Stephen L. Carter (Yale University professor) argued on the basis of John Perry Dornbusch and Todd William Baker that in fact the AOC is 18 even though some defense lawyers didn't believe so (one example of a defense lawyer that he cited)
• Eugene Volokh of the Washington Post considered Stephen Carter's arguments: "As best I can tell, 30 states set the general age of consent at sixteen; 8 set it at seventeen; and 12 set it at eighteen (though it’s possible that the last there are actually 7 at seventeen and 13 at eighteen, because of an odd twist with Texas law). [...] Over 60 percent of the population lives in the states that set the age of consent at 16 or 17, regardless of how one counts Texas." - He didn't definitely decide whether Texas AOC should be set at 17 or 18

Currently on the U.S. age of consent map Texas is colored gray for other/unknown instead of a specified age

User:Fabrickator argued that because the Texas Jurisprudence®, 3d (this requires a payment to view) recently published a statement in the section "20 Tex. Jur. 3d Criminal Law: Offenses Against Public Order" saying: "The language of this provision [Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 43.25(b)] criminalizes the inducement of a child's sexual conduct regardless of whether it amounts to a sexual performance, and it applies to nonpornographic, noncommercial sexual conduct by children." (and because of other explanations in Talk:Ages_of_consent_in_the_United_States#Texas in regards to how incitement of sexual conduct was criminalized), Wikipedia ought to say that 18 is definitely the age of consent in Texas, arguing that any statements saying that the age of consent are 17 are not true.

I argue that because at this time secondary sources (newspapers, magazines, etc.) haven't come to a consensus that 18 should be considered the age of consent, and the Texas state government and major newspapers have never made an announcement (in a medium read by the "ordinary Joe") explicitly clarifying that 18 and not 17 is the age of consent on the basis of Dornbusch and Baker, the article should not definitely state which age is Texas's age of consent and instead summarize the various views by columnists and present the exact quote from the source Fabrickator found.

Lastly I will say that in regards to my proposal to ask the Texas state government and/or major newspapers to make a public announcement to clarify what the "age of consent" is in the state (my suggestion to Fabrickator to get this matter cleared up), this is a perfectly reasonable request on the grounds of:

• Prosecutors do prosecute on the grounds of "ignorance of the law is not an excuse", so clarity on the law is warranted
• It is the job of government officials to explain the laws they write, interpret, and enforce
• The vast majority of ordinary people don't even think of reading Texas Jurisprudence®, 3d, let alone paying for it, nor will they think of searching for legal cases that get scant coverage in the media (I don't think any Texas outlets have ever published any articles saying that Dornbusch and Baker have changed/affected the state age of consent - such articles would be warranted!) - therefore government officials should publish "plain speech" and/or "TL/DR" summaries of the realities/interpretations of such laws.

@Fabrickator: WhisperToMe (talk) 08:37, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Please clarify: What part in all of this relates to the issue of Original Research? Blueboar (talk) 11:04, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

@Blueboar: I fear that if one, based on the above presented, says the age of consent is certainly 18, it may be counted as original research due to ambiguities over the wording "inducement of a child's sexual conduct" (what forms of inducement? what does that mean?) in the 18+ law, as well as due to the lack of agreement between the secondary sources (note that while "Texas newspapers say that" lists two examples, there are many other newspaper articles which say the age of consent is 17). WhisperToMe (talk) 11:57, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

OK... here is my take: we have one statute that says 17, and another that says 18... thus Wikipedia can not say that one or the other is the definitive age of consent. Instead we need to note both ages, and the statutes that apply. Don't interpret the statutes ... just neutrally present what they say. Blueboar (talk) 12:54, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

I agree with this. Above I suggested not definitely stating an age of consent. I don't see a problem including interpretations from other secondary sources as long as they're presented as such, such as Stephen Carter's, etc. WhisperToMe (talk) 13:20, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

From Wikipedia:No_original_research/Noticeboard#What_is_Texas.27s_age_of_consent.3F a user e-mailed me the Texas Jurisprudence article. He read the Baker v. Texas link which stated "the plain language of section 43.25(b) authorizes the prosecution of those who induce persons younger than eighteen years old to, among other things, have sexual intercourse." and based on that believes the age of consent is unambiguously 18; the Wikipedian believes that (his words): "It scarcely matters that there is also a different criminal provision with a minimum age of 17." WhisperToMe (talk) 17:05, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

I'm the editor just quoted. I didn't realize that this was about an OR issue.

The OR issues here are a bit tricky. None of the secondary sources cited above are reliable sources: lay newspapers are not RS for legal conclusions, and neither are unedited blog posts. So can we simply say that the Texas age of consent is 18, or is that WP:SYN? I think this is a fairly close issue on the WP:SYN issue, but what carries the day for me is that a Texas court, in the course of discussing these two statutes, actually said that the Texas age of consent is 17. Ex parte Fujisaka, 472 S.W.3d 792, 800, 801 (Tex. Ct. App. 2015).

On the other hand, we can't just say that the age of consent is 17, either. The Texas Department of Public Safety has taken the position that the Texas age of consent is 18. Appellant's Brief, Texas Department of Public Safety v. Garcia, 2010 WL 1366961, at 8 (Tex. Ct. App. filed Feb. 1, 2010). And this is clearly a reasonable position for the department to take. So for us to choose one age over the other would be WP:SYN. We need to say that there are two different statutes that have been characterized as age of consent statutes in Texas, with two different ages (17 and 18), with perhaps a brief discussion of each.

If anyone wants a copy of any of the documents I've cited, email me and I can reply with a PDF. The Fujisaka case may be available on the web, I haven't checked. John M Baker (talk) 20:56, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for your research! It's really helpful and answers a lot of questions.

As for lay newspapers being unreliable sources for law, it may help to put that in Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (law) if there's a consensus for that position among Wikipedia:WikiProject Law editors. However "Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (law)" is currently just an essay.

WhisperToMe (talk) 22:33, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

To switch gears a bit, would anybody care to speculate why Template:Age_of_consent_pages_discussion_header (click on the "show" link) defines special rules pertaining to the quality of the "age of consent" pages? Fabrickator (talk) 06:07, 5 August 2017 (UTC)

@Fabrickator: Thanks for bringing that up! Do you remember where the discussions which determined this discussion header are located? I am aware that there is a general principle on WP that a small group of editors in a particular place can come up with a consensus, but that a larger consensus determined by the whole community can override that. WhisperToMe (talk) 13:21, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

@WhisperToMe: I think we can reasonably assume that the guidance provided in the "discussion header" came about from challenges encountered as the "age of consent" pages evolved, and (I presume) particularly as different "reliable sources" provided conflicting information. My recollection, when I previously raised the issue of the special rules that apply to the "age of consent" pages, was that somebody had determined that the discussion was "misplaced" and was moved to a different article. I have been unable to locate that discussion.

I am unaware of other pages that have a similar set of special rules. The editors involved felt strongly that these rules were needed, which suggests to me that we should not dismiss them lightly. I'd also point out that in addition to the issue about appropriate references, the "discussion header" calls for highlighting a specifically-defined age of consent. I would advocate that we think carefully before ignoring this advice. Fabrickator (talk) 06:23, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

@Blueboar: @John M Baker: @WhisperToMe: I am not sure this is the proper forum for this discussion, but as long as we're here ...

It has been stated that there is one statute saying the age of consent is 17 and another saying it's 18, but this is not really accurate. Neither of these laws authorizes consensual sex with a person over a stated age. Rather, each of these criminalizes consensual sex (under specified conditions) with a person under a stated age.

Arguably, there may be some ambiguity about what these "conditions" are, but more plausibly, the D.A.'s office determines there is a crime to be prosecuted, and then based on what they feel they can prove, they decide what statutes to charge.

Last but not least, if there's some kind of vague condition, the intention of having a "highlighted" age of consent is to indicate the age of consent that doesn't require further explanation (i.e. an approximation to an "unfettered" age of consent). So what I mean by this is, if I tell you that the age of consent is thus and such, then a person should not be subject to prosecution, if the other party is of the specified age. Maybe there are conditions when sex with someone under that age may not be subject to prosecution, but that's going to require further clarification. Our focus needs to be on the age that doesn't need this further clarification. Fabrickator (talk) 06:48, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

Fabrickator, that's not really what an age of consent statute does; it's pretty rare for a statute affirmatively to state that a person over a specified age is authorized to consent to sex. Instead, rape and other statutes provide that a person under a certain age is deemed unable to consent to sex. The intro to Age of consent explains this pretty well. John M Baker (talk) 21:17, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

@John M Baker: But of course. The point, however, is that these two laws do not contradict each other, they apply concurrently, and this distinction is important, because to say there are two different age of consent statutes would mislead the casual reader.

Our only concern is determining how old the other person has to be, so that an actor having consensual sex with that person is not thereby committing a criminal act, without making any assumptions about the actor's age. There cannot be two answers, because there's only one set of factual circumstances (granting, notwithstanding, the additional condition of 43.25(b), and that there could, in principle, be different ages of consent for different sexual acts).

Setting aside specific limitations or exceptions to the statute is how we arrive at this notion of the "unfettered" age of consent. This saves us from confusing the issue, for instance, by saying that as long as you don't induce the person, sex with a 17-year-old is legal, leaving the reader to erroneously infer that inducement means providing compensation. There's one set of factual circumstances, there can only be one "bold" age of consent for Texas, and there's no reason to make it appear that there's some ambiguity about this. Fabrickator (talk) 22:04, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

Well, I actually do think that that's the right answer. I've spelled out the factual situation above, so I'll let others decide whether that's an OR problem. John M Baker (talk) 22:12, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

@John M Baker: To be clear, I am continuing to advocate that the "unfettered" age of consent for Texas is 18. I am not sure what your statement about "factual situation" means. To clarify, I'll offer the following as an example set of "factual circumstances":

A 72-year-old retired person comes into contact with a high school senior. They talk briefly and decide to grab some food. While eating, they have a discussion about some things of common interest, e.g. sex. The adult suggests to the student that he has a "library" that may be of interest to the student. So they go back to his place, one thing leads to another, and they have consensual oral, vaginal, and anal sex. The adult has not previously been convicted of any crime, there was no promise of payment for sex, no pictures were taken, no other parties were present, nor was there anything that constituted a "performance".

Based on these factual circumstances, how old would the student have to be such that the 72-year-old did not commit a crime under the applicable statutes? Considering "factual circumstances" such as this one should inform us as to the appropriate "unfettered" age of consent for Texas. Fabrickator (talk) 00:51, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

The student would have to be 18 for there to be no crime. This is not a point on which there is ambiguity. The ambiguity, if there is any, derives from the meaning of "age of consent." Under the definition in our age of consent article, the age of consent in Texas is 18. However, "age of consent" is often taken as the age at which consent can be given to intercourse under a rape statute, and for this purpose the age of consent in Texas is 17. John M Baker (talk) 03:35, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

And I believe that's why the ages of consent of Ohio and Pennsylvania are defined as "16" even though someone may still be prosecuted for corruption of a minor until the younger party is 18 (the respective "corruption of minor statutes" are classified differently. WhisperToMe (talk) 04:21, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

Serious mistake in New Mexico age of consent section

Age of consent in New Mexico is 16, but NOT 17 (as it written in the article). Lets learn the law of NM: Criminal sexual penetration in the fourth degree consists of all criminal sexual penetration 1) not defined in Subsections C through E of this section perpetrated on a child thirteen to sixteen years of age when the perpetrator is at least eighteen years of age and is at least four years older than the child and not the spouse of that child, or 2) perpetrated on a child thirteen to eighteen years of age when the perpetrator, who is a licensed school employee, an unlicensed school employee, a school contract employee, a school health service provider or a school volunteer, and who is at least eighteen years of age and is at least four years older than the child and not the spouse of that child, learns while performing services in or for a school that the child is a student in a school. So, the second section is refer ONLY and ONLY to school employees !! And according to first section, the victim can be a child, who is thirteen to sixteen years of age. So, please explain me, why it is written is article, that age of consent of NM is 17?? Why?? M.Karelin (talk) 07:18, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

• Look at this additional source - [1]. Type and find "New Mexico" - it says age of consent in NM is 16 (page 16). So what would you say?? M.Karelin (talk) 16:27, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
• Also, pay attention to this article - [2] - Child solicitation by electronic communication device consists of a person knowingly and intentionally soliciting a child under sixteen years of age, ..... So I guess age of consent in NM is 16. M.Karelin (talk) 21:18, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
  • This law specifically prohibits electronic communication to solicit a child under 16, you assume therefore that it's okay to use electronic communication to solicit a child who's at least age 16. This is a tricky inference. You might as well say it's okay to solicit a 15-year-old then, as long as you avoid using electronic communication to do so. Now I haven't checked whether it's generally illegal in NM to solicit a child if an act with that child would itself be illegal, but I would assume that the intention of this law was to make something illegal which would otherwise be legal. So if there's someone who can legally solicit a 15-year-old, this would make it illegal if the solicitation were done by electronic communication. To make it clear, I reject your claim that this law implies that the age of consent is 16. Fabrickator (talk) 08:44, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
    • You did not read my opinion carefully. OK, lets forget about minor solicitation law. But what about this source - [3]. It says that age of consent in NM is 16 (see page 16). Besides, read the law more carefully - perpetrated on a child thirteen to sixteen years of age. It does not said 16 including. What would be your comment about those two arguments ?? M.Karelin (talk) 09:22, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
    • Besides, see this source too - [4]. M.Karelin (talk) 16:51, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
• Fabrickator, WhisperToMe, Mr. Granger Dear colleagues, please pay attention to this section. Thanks in advance. M.Karelin (talk) 05:07, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

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Texas

Texas must be colored on the map. It can't stay gray forever. There have been discussions on whether the age of consent is 17 or 18, but a consensus must be reached and the map fixed. It's very unencyclopedic and uncomfortable for the reader to see the map like that. 2A02:2F01:501F:FFFF:0:0:BC19:ADEC (talk) 12:34, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

I fully agree. At the very least, remove the wording "no data available/ other", which sounds ridiculous, especially as it is the only territory not coloured. Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia (talk) 23:49, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

Fixing the map is putting lipstick on a pig. We seem unable to incorporate accurate information, based on certain editors threatening to get you banished for doing the right thing (my perspective, obviously). I'm frustrated and disgusted with the way this place works. People essentially want to make up their own rules (or alternatively, inappropriately apply existing rules) to prohibit having accurate information. Yeah, the map IS stupid, but don't worry about the stupid map, because we seem to be unable to actually correct information that's known to be wrong. What's the point? Fabrickator (talk) 06:43, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

secondary source requirement

In a revision comment dated 2 February 2016, WhisperToMe defends his edit, stating:

No newspapers and media from Pennsylvania define the age of consent as 18, while Texas has Carter who says the AOC is 18 (with Volokh reporting on it) - in order to say the AOC is defined as 18 in PA you need a media source saying so.

The "secondary source" requirement, as occasionally raised in connection with this page, is quite contentious. Attempting to strictly abide by this rule can easily create a problematic situation, whereby the page may contain dated or otherwise inaccurate information as to the AOC in a particular state, and even though there may be editors who aware of the inaccuracy and would be willing to correct it, they are prohibited from providing accurate information, due to reference to various Wikipedia rules such as the one that WhisperToMe cites.

The fact is that only a handful of states even define AOC in the law. Instead, most states define various conditions whereby consensual sexual contact creates criminal liability for one or both parties involved.

The notion of a single "age of consent", when not specified in the law, is a fiction of convenience used on this page to ultimately help the page serve its purpose, i.e. to enable lay persons to understand the potential legal consequences of sexual contact with another person.

As stated in the revision comment above, information may be provided here only if there's a "media source" saying what the AOC is. But given that most states do not define AOC as such, sources claiming that there's an AOC (aside from those few states which define one) are wrong. Surely, it can't be the case that it's okay to rely on a cited source when it's known that the source is providing incorrect information.

Even when media citations are accurate and support the AOC claims, reliance on media citations is problematic, because the law can change, and suitable media citations may not be available. Thus we are required, under this interpretation of Wikipedia rules, to knowingly maintain false information (or alternatively, delete the information ... actually, this would seem to be the lesser evil).

I presume that many people refer to the Wikipedia AOC pages, but if Wikipedia rules operate to require that inaccurate information remains even after the inaccuracy has been noted, then these pages will not only be a disservice to that portion of the public that refers to these pages, but will risk affecting the reputation of Wikipedia itself.

I'm not really sure what to make of the "secondary source" requirement in light of the "page discussion header" (Template:Age_of_consent_pages_discussion_header) which seems to suggest that primary sources (i.e. legal statutes and other authoritative sources) are acceptable. For that matter, Age of Consent seems to suggest that "corruption of a minor" laws may well be the basis for an age of consent assertion, which is the issue at hand with regard to the dispute over AOC in Pennsylvania.

Of course, all of this is to elicit helpful suggestions as to how this page (and other AOC pages) may remain useful, notwithstanding claims that seemingly worthy edits are prohibited by Wikipedia rules. Fabrickator (talk) 07:08, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

@Fabrickator: I understand that you are uncomfortable with being unable to print what is supposed to be "the truth" but editors are adamant in preventing original research for a reason. Please have a read of this page: Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_192#Single_Asian_Female_and_the_accusations_of_racism_that_are_not_covered_in_reliable_sources - I am frustrated with the article I started, Single Asian Female, because I cannot write about allegations of racism surrounding the comic. Plenty of websites report on them, but they never show up in Wikipedia-defined reliable sources, and hence are original research and must not be included. I'll post the words of one editor who wrote about it.

• "Our position is simply this: If a fact is important enough to be in Wikipedia, it's important enough to have been discussed in reliable sources. The fact that there is some popular belief that a fact exists isn't enough to include it because we would be promoting that fact and Wikipedia is not a soapbox. Finally, verifiability (V), the source of our requirement for reliable sources, is the filter which we use because unlike print encyclopedias we don't have paid, professional editors who have the right to decide what's important enough to be here. Instead we have to have a self-actuating filter and V is it. If we diverge from it and start including stuff because someone just thinks that it's important, that's an invitation to chaos." (my emphasis)

IMO the problem is with the press and newspapers in the state, and with the state itself for not adequately making its own laws clear. Please write to the media and the state government and ask them to correct their errors and clarify the laws. Once they do so, Wikipedia will use the corrected articles and update itself accordingly.

Re: "because the law can change, and suitable media citations may not be available" - If laws change the press will report on it, and so media citations should be available

WhisperToMe (talk) 07:50, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

@WhisperToMe: Please address how the policy as stated in Template:Age_of_consent_pages_discussion_header, which seems to indicate that, due to the particular need for accuracy and quality on the "age of consent" pages, verification is required to be provided by statutes, case law and "other authorities", is affected by the "reliable sources" policy (or vice versa). Fabrickator (talk) 04:27, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

@Fabrickator: The first thing is that the template's link to the page where the consensus was decided is dead and I'm having trouble finding where it was decided. If the link can be fixed that would be great. Secondly Wikipedia:No original research is a policy, not a mere guideline. To decide whether age of consent issues can actually "allow original research" it's going to need input from the entire community. Remember that a primary source doesn't count as original research only if it explicitly says "the age of consent in this state is XXXX" but from my understanding the laws and court decisions never say that, which is why it's necessary to have media sources interpret what a state's age of consent is. WhisperToMe (talk) 06:04, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

After a careful look at edit histories, I figured out that the discussion was improperly archived back in 2007. I've fixed the archiving and updated the link in the template. (Amazing that it's taken nine years for anyone to notice...) —Granger (talk · contribs) 12:23, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

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California Civil Court Rulings

In History of California Laws, the statement that "civil court rulings [state] that minors under 18 may consent to sexual activity" is seriously confusing. To a casual reader, this suggests that civil courts have somehow overruled criminal courts. Of course, this is not the case. It is simply a ruling that there's not necessarily "civil liability" to the victim in a case of consensual, albeit illegal, sexual contact.

However interesting this may be, it is not relevant to this article, because it has no effect whatsoever on the age of consent. I suggest that the statement be removed. Fabrickator (talk) 21:37, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

The full quote had stated: "By 2014 there had been civil court rulings in California stating that minors under 18 may consent to sexual activity, even though the age of consent is 18 under state criminal law." (From this diff) so in my opinion it should have been clear that it does not negate the criminal law. I think the context it's clear that it's perceived as a fluke in the "civil court" code. @Fabrickator: WhisperToMe (talk) 09:12, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

These "civil courts" are not hearing cases about the criminality of an act, but about civil liability for an act. Typically, when a crime involves a victim, the victim has suffered some harm and thus may recover damages from the responsible party. (Of course, commission of a crime is not a prerequisite for damages, but if there is a crime that resulted in damages, the criminal conviction is compelling evidence as to the person actually being responsible.) In the case in point, the civil court deemed that the consent of a competent albeit underaged person precluded actual damages based merely on the violation of law. In short, although the person is treated as a victim under criminal law, there was no "civil wrong" committed.

Some see this as an anomaly or at least a quirk of sorts, and perhaps it is. It might be on point if it were the other way around: one could not be criminally charged, but the person (or the parents) could recover for damages; in that case, a person, believing the sex was lawful, could find himself on the hook for substantial damages. But in this case, a person who's committed a crime may not have to also be concerned about financial damages in a civil lawsiut. To be relevant, it would seem that this page would have to have the goal of identifying all of the potential consequences of having sex with an underaged person, or at least, all of tho consequences that might come out of a courtroom, and I don't think that's what this page is about.

Notwithstanding my contention that this is therefore not on point, it's just confusing. It requires the reader to interpret what are the ramifications of this seeming anomaly. Are these judges somehow indicating they don't agree with the criminal liability specified in the law? Is a trend afoot here? Is there hope that a smart lawyer, citing the absence of civil liability, could convince the judge in a criminal case that, given that a civil case would not be upheld, then surely, a criminal case cannot be upheld either?

Nevertheless, nothing about the holding in such a civil case speaks to criminal liability. So while a learned person, taking the time to unravel these various statements, may indeed be able to figure this out, this issue of "civil liability" adds no pertinent information while raising the question of why this belongs here, increasing the risk that some will misconstrue the effect of such rulings in civil cases, and at a minimum, this makes it more difficult to understand how the law applies in a particular situation. @WhispterToMe: Fabrickator (talk) 14:39, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

Sodomy

I moved this material from the lead to the body: "On June 26, 2003, both heterosexual and homosexual sodomy became legal (between non-commercial, consenting adults in a private bedroom) in all U.S. states, territories, and Washington, D.C. under the U.S. Supreme Court decision Lawrence v. Texas.[5] In State v. Limon (2005), the Kansas Supreme Court used Lawrence as a precedent to overturn the state's "Romeo and Juliet" law, which prescribed lesser penalties for heterosexual than homosexual acts of similar age of consent-related offenses."[6]

The lead is supposed to be a summary of the main points discussed in the body and, although interesting, I don't think this is a main point here looking at the big picture. —PermStrump(talk) 06:30, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

External links template

Stevietheman: I was a little confused by the template you added here when I realized there were only 2 websites listed in the EL section. Were you referring to the future reading section or did you really mean the EL section? IMO, it's fine to delete the 2 links in the EL section. About.com isn't reliable and the fbi.gov site is a broken link and even if it worked, it's not directly related to this topic and it's unclear what additional knowledge it would provide for the reader. —PermStrump(talk) 10:57, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

It's about the use of external links in the prose. There are quite a number of them. The template applies not only to links in "External links" but also links elsewhere in the article. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 11:05, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

Gotcha. I was pretty sure it wouldn't have been about those 2 links in the EL section since there were only 2, but I couldn't figure out what else it might have been. I see what you're talking about now with a lot of the statutes. I'll take a stab at it a little later. —PermStrump(talk) 14:44, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

Texas school employees (21.12)

@Plmokg22345: Texas 21.12 (titled "Improper Relationship Between Educator and Student") criminalizes certain sexual relationships between various school employees and various students (which may apply even when the employee and student involved are not associated with the same school, and even when the student is an adult). While there have been appeals based on the constitutionality of this statute, it appears that these appeals have substantially been rejected.

While the paragraph includes a reference to an article explaining how this may apply in somewhat surprising situations, it also includes references for some of the appeals to this statue. Given that there does not seem to be any dispute or confusion as to how this law applies, these references seem gratuitous to me, and detract from rather than improve the article.

I don't think the mere fact that the law was appealed is in and of itself a good enough reason to include these references, but perhaps I'm missing something, and there really is a good reason for these references. Would anybody care to elaborate on this? Fabrickator (talk) 04:36, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

@Fabrickator: I removed one of them but the other I think should stay as the article gets into the individual being charged with 21.12. also they overruled his issues(Plmokg22345 (talk) 15:16, 31 August 2016 (UTC))

Virginia crimes against nature with otherwise legal minor

While my personal hope is that, in the current Wikipedia environment, this page will eventually be re-cast in a context where it can be useful, a recently re-added paragraph under "Virginia", regarding the Virgnia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli's prosecution of a 47-year-old man for having oral sex with a 17-year-old, based on the Virginia "crimes against nature" law, just doesn't belong, at least in its current form.

In the first place, for the purposes of this page, it's already been determined that the age of consent in Virginia is 18. Hence, sex between a 47-year-old and a 17-year-old is already a criminal act, and (IMO) it's not really the place of this page to provide details of the various levels of criminality. That's because this page serves the purpose of providing the information a person needs to determine if a sexual relationship between two parties would be legal or illegal, based on the age of the two parties. This is both the necessary and sufficient information, and enables us to actually contain the content that's appropriate for this article..

For the sake of argument, though, let's assume that the age of consent were lower, so that sex between a 47-year-old and a 17-year-old would be legal. In this case, it would certainly be pertinent that speicifc sex acts would be subject to prosecution. The paragraph in question details the sequence of a person being charged, convicted, the conviction overturned, and the Supreme Court denying a petition to hear the case. The status of the law seems pretty clear that having oral sex doesn't turn this act into a crime, and, unless Virginia is continuing to prosecute cases based on this law, mention of oral sex as an aspect of age of consent is just not on point.

In summary, every Wikipedia reader within range of this "talk page" has my blessing to remove the affected paragraph (i.e. as re-added by WhisperToMe on 5 October 2016 in version 742754083. Fabrickator (talk) 20:39, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

Texas cannot be ignored

Ladies and gentlemen,

In spite of the arguments y'all have had about Texas's age of consent, I think it's critical that some consensus be published on the age of consent in Texas. There is no controversy, regardless of what some users would like to make one believe. The law in Texas is clear:

First, §43.25(a)(2) describes "sexual conduct" as: "Sexual conduct" means sexual contact, actual or simulated sexual intercourse, deviate sexual intercourse, sexual bestiality, masturbation, sado-masochistic abuse, or lewd exhibition of the genitals, the anus, or any portion of the female breast below the top of the areola.

Yes, §43.25(a)(3) defines performance (the title of the section) as: "Performance" means any play, motion picture, photograph, dance, or other visual representation that can be exhibited before an audience of one or more persons.

However, the statute itself reads as follows: § 43.25 (b): A person commits an offense if, knowing the character and content thereof, he employs, authorizes, or induces a child younger than 18 years of age to engage in sexual conduct or a sexual performance. A parent or legal guardian or custodian of a child younger than 18 years of age commits an offense if he consents to the participation by the child in a sexual performance.

The text of §43.25(b) makes it quite clear that inducing a ""child"" under 18 years of age to, for example, actual sexual intercourse, even without performance, is a punishable offense.

Why are we still debating this? Where are other lawyers? Do we need to look for case law? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Worldlaw2016 (talk • contribs) 12:40, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

@Worldlaw2016: We already have the case law (e.g. Dornbusch v. State), though some have asserted that the judge's own words are not good enough, they must be in a secondary source, in part, at least, because someone with appropriate legal credentials is required to interpret judicial opinions, so we evidently must wait for the legal analysis to be found in a textbook (and FWIW, if this should actually be addressed by some textbook, it is highly unlikely to be freely available online). This is notwithstanding the statement on the "page discussion header" (Template:Age_of_consent_pages_discussion_header) calling for special rules to apply to citations on the AOC pages.

That said, it is even disputed as to what is meant by the "age of consent", with some arguing that either the law itself or some secondary source must actually refer to the "age of consent", rather than applying a Wikipedia-specific definition which would apply for the particular context of the AOC pages on Wikipedia.

But the real issue, IMO (the expression of which may well violate some rules of conduct), is that the ignorant don't always realize they are ignorant, and they are frequently less reasonable than those who are not ignorant. For many reasonable people, who presumably want to get involved in a big tangle, as well as preferring to avoid their reputation being tarnished by a Wikipedia sanction, it's not worth arguing with the ignorant. While we presumably act by consensus, my experience is that there's no effective way to determine consensus ... just how many people will take time out from doing something more useful, to dig into the nooks and crannies to inject their opinions when this is raised as an item for discussion. And unless they're really familiar with the AOC pages, many reasonable people are likely to reach either a "common sense" or "Wikipedia rules-based" conclusion that's really incorrect. Of course, this is just my personal opinion, I wouldn't deign to assume that I actually had the right answer. (jk!)

My feeling is that the AOC pages are the poster child for Wikipedia's ultimate failure. Though everything may work okay for 99.9% of Wikipedia pages, it seems that the AOC pages cannot be fixed in the Wikipedia model, at least as long as that means having the pages open to every fool who feels like they have their own bit of [mis]information to add. But perhaps you'll prove me wrong and demonstrate that informed and intelligent editors can win out over the ignorant and unreasonable ones. Go forth and edit boldly! Fabrickator (talk) 20:41, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

Texas age of consent: references for section 43.25

In a recent revert, @User Yo uheman221q2w3e4r5t: defends a revert, stating "secondary sources take priority by wiki standards and since all of them say 43.25 is for performance then it should be left alone." However, "secondary source" does not imply a highly reliable source, and "primary source" does not imply a less reliable source.

• Per Template:Age_of_consent_pages_discussion_header, a high standard of verification is called for, and references to statutes, case law, and other authorities are specifically encouraged.
• "Case law" has been cited in the Texas age of consent section, e.g. the judicial opinion of the Dornbusch case.
• The statute itself constitutes the primary source of what the law is; a judicial opinion which provides an interpretation of statutory law is thus a secondary source insofar as the meaning of that law is concerned.
• Pages from lawyers' websites are not legal briefs; they are designed to attract customers by providing general information about the law are thus of lower quality; they are not considered legal advice. and they provide only general information. More to the point, lawyers do not purport that they are providing a comprehensive analysis of the laws about which they provide information.
  • In at least one instance, a lawyer's website which is cited includes the text of the statute in question (43.25) without the phrase in contention, i.e. the statue is presented in its pre-1985 form, further supporting my contention that such websites are not reliable sources for the current interpretation of the law.
• A judicial opinion from a relevant appellate court which addresses the interpretation of a statute is the highest possible quality reference for the meaning of a statute, providing the ruling has not been overturned; this is true even if there is widespread consensus that the ruling is wrong, because lower courts are bound to abide by the appellate court ruling.
  • The appellate court opinions cited (e.g. Dornbusch) are referenced in yet other (necessarily more recent) appellate court opinions, giving additional weight to the validity and currency of the cited opinion.
  • Citations of the Dornbusch case in other judicial opinions often present an interpretation in clear, unambigous language, stating in one case (as an example): "The statute, however, 'criminalizes the inducement of a child's sexual conduct regardless of whether it amounts to a sexual performance.' Dornbusch v. State." This eliminates any concern that specialized knowledge would be needed to understand the judicial opinions involved.

The only way to reach a determination that's contrary to Dornbusch (aside from a legislative change to the statute) is a subsequent ruling overturning Dornbusch by an appellate or higher court. Fabrickator (talk) 18:18, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

The application of Texas Penal Code 43.25 does not cover consensual sex with a 17 year old except for the very narrow case of sex in the presence of another person as a key element of the statute requires an "Audience", and one can not be audience to their own actions requiring a third person be present, which is why the judge stated several times that the application of 43.25 is extremely narrow, and the Dornbusch case mentioned involved an incident with a man and two girls, of which he performed a sexual act with while the other was clearly present, making the second girl the "audience" to the sexual conduct and thus making it a sexual performance.

The Fujisaka case is similarly a narrow instence as even though we do not know the outcome of the case except there was 4 counts and assumptively he was convicted as he was sentenced to prison, his case centered around video chats in which the 17 year old masturbated for him on webcam which would make him audience to a unlawful sexual performance as I'm sure live streaming video of a minor engaging in sexual acts is still considered distribution of child pornography thus creating an unlawful act as the courts ruled the online solicitation statute was unconstitutional because it criminalized discussing sex with a minor without intent to commit a unlawful act. Thegunkid (talk) 01:48, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

@User Thegunkid:: Here's the TL;DR version: The claim in the above post that 43.25 does not cover consensual sex with a 17 year old (except in the presence of an "audience") is just wishful thinking. In fact, the claim is unsupported. To put it more bluntly, the claim is false and should be ignored.

Admittedly, there is the additional requirement of inducement, but this is an exceedingly unsafe shield to hide behind. Inducement doesn't require some form of payment or other benefit, consent seems to be almost enough to prove inducement. Both Summers v. State ("a person commits an offense if [he] induces a child younger than 17 years of age to engage in sexual conduct ...") and Dornbusch (the statute "criminalizes the inducement of a child's sexual conduct regardless of whether it amounts to a sexual performance") make clear that an audience is not required if there is inducement. To your credit, you haven't tried to make a claim that you have determined the law to be unconstitutionally vague, or some other legal theory by which you assert a legal defense. I am certainly not claiming that there isn't the possibility of such a defense being successful, but I would suggest that arguing the point of what behavior is within the law, based on the possible success of such a defense, is inadvisable. So I will ask that you cease and desist from making the sort of unsupported statements that you have made here. Fabrickator (talk) 04:09, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

Ok you know what, since apparently Inducement is the key lets actually go into what the court actually stated about inducement in Dornbusch.

"To decide Dornbusch s constitutional challenge, we must determine whether, in common understanding, Dornbusch s alleged conduct brought about V.V. s sexual conduct through persuasion or influence. See Markovich, 77 S.W.3d at 280; Brennman, 45 S.W.3d at 732. It is uncontested that Dornbusch was substantially older than V.V. Also, as an educator at her high school, Dornbusch was in a position of authority over V.V. According to the State s evidence, appellant requested that V.V. and J.R. accompany him on errands away from campus; provided the girls with alcohol, even though they were both minors; drove them to an out-of-town motel on his own initiative; urged them to undress and enter the hot tub with him; and made unsolicited sexual advances in the hot tub and on the motel room bed. In sum, Dornbusch constructed a situation in which V.V. was unlikely to have the ability to refuse his advances: she was miles away from school (where she was supposed to be) and her only alternative to acquiescing to Dornbusch s advances was to call someone to pick her up from an out-of-town motel, after she had consumed alcohol in the middle of a school day. We conclude that a scenario such as this, where a person of authority creates a situation in which a teenager would find it almost impossible to deny a sexual advance, can be fairly considered to constitute inducement in the common understanding of the term. See Markovich, 77 S.W.3d at 280.

We hold that the statute was not impermissibly vague as applied to Dornbusch s conduct. The statute forbids inducement of sexual conduct by a child under eighteen years of age, and according to the State s evidence, Dornbusch did exactly that: he induced (he used persuasion and influence to bring about) V.V. s sexual conduct. See 43.25(b)"

Later on the court reiterated this in denying another point. "We disagree. The proof of guilt is not outweighed by the exonerative evidence cited by Dornbusch. Regardless of whether V.V. consented to the sexual conduct or if Dornbusch never promised her anything in return for sex, the evidence still shows that Dornbusch induced V.V. s sexual conduct by using his position of authority to create a situation in which V.V. was afraid or unable to refuse his sexual advances. Dornbusch seems to read the word induce as meaning force, but we do not equate the terms."

The Dornbusch court also does not foreclose 43.25 being inapplicable for the purposes of sexual conduct if the seventeen year old in question propositioned the adult for sex, simply stating they couldn't rule on it as it was not relevant to the case.

"Dornbusch argues that when considered together, sections 21.11 and 43.25(b) would allow an adult to have legal sex with a seventeen-year-old if the minor initiates the sexual conduct, while an adult who asks a seventeen-year-old for sex could be prosecuted for inducement. See 21.11, 43.25(b). Dornbusch asserts that it is absurd for him to be convicted based on which party initially requested the sexual contact as long as both parties consented.

As a preliminary matter, the evidence does not indicate that Dornbusch was propositioned for sex. To the contrary, the evidence strongly indicates that Dornbusch initiated and induced the sexual conduct. Thus, the instant case does not require this Court to determine whether a criminal offense occurs if a minor initiates sexual contact with an adult."

Remember Dornbusch is a 2005 ruling, Ex Parte Fujisaka was decided in 2015, where the court did explicitly state Seventeen is the age of consent and that 43.25 only criminalizes the act of "inducement".

"Because seventeen years is the age of consent to sexual relations in Texas, and thus speech incidental to such relations would not be categorically excluded from protection under the First Amendment, we agree with appellant that application of section 43.25(b) to the authorization or inducement of seventeen-year-old children to engage in sexual conduct or a sexual performance is the most problematic application of the statute. However, the set of applications where the regulation is problematic is narrowed drastically by the removal of cases involving only conduct as inducement, cases where the speech seeks to induce a criminal act, the statute's scienter requirement that the inducement occur "knowing the character and content thereof," and the affirmative defenses incorporated into the statute. We conclude for the vast majority of its potential applications, section 43.25(b) does not raise issues of constitutional dimension. "

Therefore read together the only act that is unlawful at the very most is an adult inducing a seventeen year old to have sex, which in the facts of the Dornbusch case, the inducement in question was his undue influence. Thegunkid (talk) 08:06, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

Northern Marinara Islands

This article lists the age of consent for Northern Marinara Islands as 18. However, the sections 1306-1310 of the Commonwealth Code indicate that it is actually 16, but rising to 18 when the older partner occupies a position of authority over the younger partner. Furthermore, Sections 1303 and 1304 indicate that the age is 20 when "the offender knows [the 18/19 year old] is committed to the custody of the Department of Public Health and Environmental Services under the Commonwealth’s civil or criminal laws, and the offender is the legal guardian of the person". Is the information of the Wikipedia article wrong, or am I missing something? Sega31098 (talk) 17:40, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

@Sega31098: It's been corrected. WhisperToMe (talk) 23:26, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

lead paragraph: conflict of civil and criminal law

The lead paragraph of Ages of consent in the United States emphasizes the diversity of jurisdictions in the United States, each with its own set of rules to determine what consitutes lawful and unlawful sexual contact. Notablye, the final sentence of the paragraph asserts that civil and criminal laws in a given state may even conflict with each other, possibly leading some to believe that, since conflicting laws could not concurrently be valid, the law must be unconsitutionally vague or otherwise unenforceable.

To make matters worse, for readers who bother to check the footnote for this statement, they will discover it refers to a 2013 paper with a title indicating that the end of the age of consent has been "confirmed" in California.

In spite of the above, California law enforcement officials have continued to charge and prosecute people for "sex with a minor", so evidently, California has not yet reached "the end of the age of consent".

From my perusal of the referenced paper, the focus seems to be court rulings to the effect that minors who are the victims of underage sex by an older person cannot automatically sustain a civil tort against the perpetrator, assuming that the sex was consensual, and therefore the underage sex could not have been a crime to begin with.

The inclusion of this statement in the article, along with its accompanying footnote, is misleading to the reader. I therefore suggest that it ought to be removed. I'd like to hear opinions from others, one way or the other. Fabrickator (talk) 08:32, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

Missouri close-in-age exception effective 1 January 2017

Missouri statute RSMo §566.068, child molestation in the second degree, has been modified effective 1/1/2017 to allow a 4-year close-in-age exception for sexual contact with persons at least 14 years old. Notice that while this statute actually specifies age 12 and not age 14, RSMo §566.032 statutory rape and attempt to commit does not allow a close-in-age exception for sexual intercourse with persons under age 14. The general age of consent remains unchanged at 17. Fabrickator (talk) 02:39, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

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Washington State Law

This court precedent is really important for Washington State Law - [7]. In light of the mentioned case, its clear that Communication with minor for immoral purposes article refers only to victims, who are 15 and younger. 217.76.1.22 (talk) 13:40, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

Can you please clarify, when you state that it refers to victims "who are 15 and younger", should that be taken literally to mean that it does NOT apply to somebody who is 15 years and 1 day old? Fabrickator (talk) 13:48, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

I mean in Washington State (where the general age of consent is 16), the mentioned article refers to the victims, who are less than 16. Please read the case. 217.76.1.22 (talk) 06:12, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

California

See here - [8]. It says, that "Any person who commits any of the following acts upon a child who is under 14 years of age and seven or more years younger than the person is guilty of aggravated sexual assault of a child:" And then there is a list of special crimes listed bellow. So, NOT EVERY sexual act with minor less than 14 is aggravated sexual assault of a child (punishable by imprisonment in the state prison for a term of 15 years to life). It is an aggravated sexual assault of a child only if connected with other dangerous sexual crime (listed in the artcle, for example "Rape, in violation of paragraph (2)or (6) of subdivision (a) of Section 261."). Please correct the sentence. M.Karelin (talk) 13:40, 21 August 2017 (UTC)

@Миша Карелин: Well aren't we being kind of huffy and puffy about this? Would you please be so kind as to indicate to whom your command is directed?

As to your dispute about the information regarding sex with someone under age 14.... first, IMO, this is really outside the scope of the article, because the article is supposed to indicate the age of consent; the article ought to focus on the conditions under which certain acts may be subject to criminal prosecution (and specifically, acts in which criminality is dependent on the age of the other party). I do not believe that the degree of penalty is relevant for this article, and the article would be improved by omitting such information.

Notwithstanding that objection, as I read section 269, I'm perplexed by your statement that the Wikipedia article conflicts with your statement that this section applies "only if connected with other dangerous sexual crime (listed in the article)". There are at least some sexual acts called out here which would be illegal based only on the age of the other party, such as consensual oral sex. That one's enough to suggest that the statement is not wildly inaccurate. Now if you can be more specific as to which sexual acts you are concerned with that are not prohibited by section 269, then that would help us along. But generally, in California, "sexual acts" with a 14-year-old are presumably illegal, though perhaps they are not all applicable to the increased penalties of section 269.

BTW, we desperately need people who can carefully analyze statuts, judicial opinions, etc., to lend their opinions to the discussions here. We've had some quite lengthy discussions, IMO (and these people know who they are), some have allowed a "personal preference" to interfere with presenting the most accurate information, and it seems that you have done some careful reading of the statutes, so please consider participating in such discussions as they arise. Fabrickator (talk) 15:07, 21 August 2017 (UTC)

"There are at least some sexual acts called out here which would be illegal based only on the age of the other party, such as consensual oral sex." Yes, but that whould not be clasified as "aggravated sexual assault of a child" in all cases, where the victim is less than 14. For example, if an oral copulation was commited against a person who is under 14, but there is no violation of paragraph (2) or (3) of subdivision (c), or subdivision (d), of Section 288a, that is not aggravated sexual assault of a child, althought it is illegal (and, hence, the punishment would be much softer). Regards. M.Karelin (talk) 19:10, 21 August 2017 (UTC)

@Миша Карелин: Got your point, my bad. I have deleted that paragraph. We don't need any reference to section 269, since the "age of consent" pages generally are in regard to consensual sex (i.e. with young persons) and not about sex done by force or threat of force. As well, as I pointed out, we don't really need to spell out the penalties that apply to any particular violation. Fabrickator (talk) 20:55, 21 August 2017 (UTC)

Alaska Age of Consent Update

I am working on a program in Anchorage, AK that deals with comprehensive sex education and have had to research the Alaska age of consent. In that research I saw the Wikipedia entry for it and it looks as though the statute has changed since the last edit for that entry. Originally it states: "The age of consent is 16, provided the older partner is not in a position of authority.". It also puts links to the requisite statutes but as you can see when you click those links the new statute states the following with the important part bolded:

AS 11.41.436. Sexual Abuse of a Minor in the Second Degree. <http://touchngo.com/lglcntr/akstats/Statutes/Title11/Chapter41/Section436.htm>

(a) An offender commits the crime of sexual abuse of a minor in the second degree if

(1) being 17 years of age or older, the offender engages in sexual penetration with a person who is 13, 14, or 15 years of age and at least four years younger than the offender, or aids, induces, causes or encourages a person who is 13, 14, or 15 years of age and at least four years younger than the offender to engage in sexual penetration with another person;

(2) being 16 years of age or older, the offender engages in sexual contact with a person who is under 13 years of age or aids, induces, causes, or encourages a person under 13 years of age to engage in sexual contact with another person;

(3) being 18 years of age or older, the offender engages in sexual contact with a person who is under 18 years of age, and the offender is the victim's natural parent, stepparent, adopted parent, or legal guardian;

(4) being 16 years of age or older, the offender aids, induces, causes, or encourages a person who is under 16 years of age to engage in conduct described in AS 11.41.455 (a)(2) - (6);

(5) being 18 years of age or older, the offender engages in sexual contact with a person who is under 16 years of age, and

(A) the victim at the time of the offense is residing in the same household as the offender and the offender has authority over the victim; or

(B) the offender occupies a position of authority in relation to the victim.

(6) being 18 years of age or older, the offender engages in sexual penetration with a person who is 16 or 17 years of age and at least three years younger than the offender, and the offender occupies a position of authority in relation to the victim; or

(7) being under 16 years of age, the offender engages in sexual penetration with a person who is under 13 years of age and at least three years younger than the offender.

(b) Sexual abuse of a minor in the second degree is a class B felony.

It is possible I am misreading the statutes but I have looked over the other ones relating to sexual abuse of a minor in the first, third and fourth degree and the 17 years old minimum along with a 4 year age difference if under that age seems to be the new law.209.112.176.135 (talk) 21:54, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

Please fix Texas on the map

As stated in the numerous debates above, consensus must be reached for Texas on the map. We must color the map urgently, either with 17 or 18. 86.120.244.179 (talk) 15:50, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

Consensus was established to not do at Talk:Ages_of_consent_in_the_United_States#Texas_age_of_consent:_discussion_from_WP:OR_noticeboard that because of User: John M Baker's findings. The court system made a ruling that it's 17 while Texas DPS said its's 18. I would personally treat Texas as 18, but not having OR is extremely important to consider.

• " The OR issues here are a bit tricky. None of the secondary sources cited above are reliable sources: lay newspapers are not RS for legal conclusions, and neither are unedited blog posts. So can we simply say that the Texas age of consent is 18, or is that WP:SYN? I think this is a fairly close issue on the WP:SYN issue, but what carries the day for me is that a Texas court, in the course of discussing these two statutes, actually said that the Texas age of consent is 17. Ex parte Fujisaka, 472 S.W.3d 792, 800, 801 (Tex. Ct. App. 2015). John M Baker.

   On the other hand, we can't just say that the age of consent is 17, either. The Texas Department of Public Safety has taken the position that the Texas age of consent is 18. Appellant's Brief, Texas Department of Public Safety v. Garcia, 2010 WL 1366961, at 8 (Tex. Ct. App. filed Feb. 1, 2010). And this is clearly a reasonable position for the department to take. So for us to choose one age over the other would be WP:SYN."

@Fabrickator: Meanwhile I am extremely frustrated by <this edit. The discussion clearly did not conclude that way. It seems like the edit tried to folliw the discussion by saying that the age of consent was saying 'for the purposes if this article“ but IMO the edit is still very OR because it reads like an editor's interpretation of the statutes rather than using DPS's interpretatiin and the coutt's interpretation. I went ahead and included those two.

• "The student would have to be 18 for there to be no crime. This is not a point on which there is ambiguity. The ambiguity, if there is any, derives from the meaning of "age of consent." Under the definition in our age of consent article, the age of consent in Texas is 18. However, "age of consent" is often taken as the age at which consent can be given to intercourse under a rape statute, and for this purpose the age of consent in Texas is 17. John M Baker (talk) 03:35, 14 August 2017 (UTC) "

Wikipedia's Original research guidelines are important and need to be adhered to, even if people don't get a truly 'clear' answer on Texas. The responsibility for this ambiguity falls on Texas state officials for failing to clarify/unify their laws.

WhisperToMe (talk) 12:54, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

I went ahead and cited what John Baker stated to show that DPS considers it 18. Knowing DPS is the main state law enforcement agency, that alone should tell people something. WhisperToMe (talk) 14:53, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

It is unreasonable to treat this as though the age of consent in Texas is ambiguous or as though there were actually two different ages of consent, simply because there are these two different statutes. (Of course, if we were talking about a different age of consent for oral sex or for homosexual vs. heterosexual sex, that would be a different case.) I had presumed that John Baker finally "got this" when he wrote:

... people don't really care all that much whether engaging in sex with someone under a certain age will result in prosecution for statutory rape, as opposed to prosecution for some other felony; if it's a serious crime, it's a serious crime.

The meaning of "age of consent" within the context of this page is not an issue of "original research" issue, and as I've stated before, it is not a legal issue either, since "age of consent" is merely a "colloquial" term based on the understanding that having consensual sex with someone under this age is (notwithstanding the various exceptions) generally chargeable as a crime.

So please explain to me, once again, how it can be that we can't specify a single "age of consent" in Texas that one can apply to avoid being charged with a "serious crime" ... or at least to understand that if they have sex with that 17-year-old, they may be charged with such a crime merely because they hadn't waited for his or her 18th birthday. Fabrickator (talk) 22:00, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

The "age of consent" is an interpretation of law that don't use the term and don't say "people above this age are legally in the clear". John M Baker had explained that in the previous thread. Trying to apply a "a "colloquial" term based on the understanding that having consensual sex with someone under this age is (notwithstanding the various exceptions) generally chargeable as a crime." but not doing so from a document is not basing it on published sources. DPS and the court system published their analyses of the age of consent laws, hence why I used those.

Re: John Baker's statements, his recommendation in that sentence was "Our articles probably should clarify this in some standardized way, although that seems like it would be a substantial job." - How is this going to be clarified without falling afoul or OR? (it might help to get guidance from the Wikipedia:OR noticeboard - I would suggest posting a question there)

WhisperToMe (talk) 05:02, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

Or I just went ahead and started the inquiry. Its not one person being right or wrong. It's "how do we do this"? It's frustrating not being able to "answer" what should be a simple question. WhisperToMe (talk) 10:51, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

@WhisperToMe:@John M Baker: Well it seems that nobody has "taken the bait" regarding the issue of whether creating a definition for a specific purpose constitutes "research". My argument is that creating a definition "for the sake of this discussion" is simply not research, but it appears that this will not "carry the day" in our group of three, so I suggest that we re-title the page to eliminate "age of consent". For instance: "Minimum Age of Sexual Partner to Avoid Prosecution in the United States". This may still require some elaboration, but I believe it properly expresses the subject matter of the page.

This doesn't mean there wouldn't be redirects from the "age of consent" phrasing. Admittedly, it seems cumbersome, but it improves on clarity. In fact, it would put Wikipedia in a leadership position in terms of properly describing what these so-called "ages of consent" actually represent... it has been several decades since the state legislatures abandoned the legal fiction that a person below the stated age couldn't give consent, thereby having made sex with such a person rape because it was done "without consent", and yet, this obsolete phrasing that someone is "too young to consent" is still heard in TV dramas, in the news, and in informational materials that attempt to explain the law. Fabrickator (talk) 21:15, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

The application of Texas Penal Code 43.25 does not cover consensual sex with a 17 year old except for the very narrow case of sex in the presence of another person as a key element of the statute requires an "Audience", and one can not be audience to their own actions requiring a third person be present, which is why the judge stated several times that the application of 43.25 is extremely narrow, and the Dornbusch case mentioned involved an incident with a man and two girls, of which he performed a sexual act with while the other was clearly present, making the second girl the "audience" to the sexual conduct and thus making it a sexual performance.

The Fujisaka case is similarly a narrow instence as even though we do not know the outcome of the case except there was 4 counts and assumptively he was convicted as he was sentenced to prison, his case centered around video chats in which the 17 year old masturbated for him on webcam which would make him audience to a unlawful sexual performance as I'm sure live streaming video of a minor engaging in sexual acts is still considered distribution of child pornography thus creating an unlawful act as the courts ruled the online solicitation statute was unconstitutional because it criminalized discussing sex with a minor without intent to commit a unlawful act.

To summarize 43.25 only criminalizes consensual sexual activity with a 17 year old IF there is an audience (as in the presence of a third person), without an audience the statute is wholely inapplicable to private consensual sex and only criminalizes at the very worst a threesome involving a 17 year old party, which effectively was the jest of the Borndutsch case. Thegunkid (talk) 01:54, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

@John M Baker: Hi! Re: Wikipedia:No_original_research/Noticeboard/Archive_39 I think I found the Texas Department of Public Safety v. Garcia, 2010 WL 1366961 case here. I'm trying to find the text that states that Texas DPS states that the age of consent in Texas is 18. I've had a bit of trouble with that. Do you know where the text is?

Some quotes I found, but I can't tell if they support that:

• "pursuant to the Texas Sex Offender Registration Act (SORA)."
• "Department complains that the district court erred (i) in determining that the Oregon statute under which Garcia was convicted is not substantially similar to a SORA offense"
• "Under the Oregon statute, the age of consent is 18." and "Soon thereafter, the Department determined that Garcia was required to register as a sex offender annually for his lifetime [...] that the elements of the Oregon statute under which Garcia was convicted are "substantially similar" to those of an offense identified as reportable under SORA."
• " Although acknowledging that the Oregon statute includes 17-year-old victims while the Texas statute does not,"
• "However, because the Oregon statute covers some activity sexual conduct with persons aged 17 not encompassed in the Texas offense, review of the conduct underlying Garcia's Oregon conviction is necessary. Here, it is undisputed that Garcia engaged in consensual sexual conduct with his 17-year-old girlfriend and therefore engaged in conduct that was criminal under the Oregon statute, but not under the Texas statute."

Thanks WhisperToMe (talk) 21:11, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

WhisperToMe, the Texas Department of Public Safety has taken the position that the Texas age of consent is 18. Appellant's Brief, Texas Department of Public Safety v. Garcia, 2010 WL 1366961, at 8 (Tex. Ct. App. filed Feb. 1, 2010). This brief is probably not available online, but I can email it to any Wikipedian who sends me a Wikimail. The court said in In re Fujisaka that the age of consent is 17, in the course of upholding a conviction of inducing a child under 18 to engage in sexual intercourse. That case is available online here. John M Baker (talk) 22:51, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

As previously pointed out numerous times, the "Age of Consent" pages are supposed to provide the "general" age of consent (age of consent being the age which, if your partner has reached, you wouldn't be subject to a crime based on your partner being under-aged) and aside from that; it would be the utter height of badness to publish information that will lead people to believe they are not subject to criminal criminal prosecution based on the age of their partner being at least 17. But I am willing to compromise! I will concur with this change as long as we put appropriate, prominently displayed disclaimers to the effect that the "age of consent" as published on this page is not related to what is subject to criminal prosecution. I can't imagine a more reasonable position! Fabrickator (talk) 07:06, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

In that case, the age of consent in Texas is 18 and should be stated as such. But the article needs to state more plainly that "age of consent" as used in the article has a different meaning from "age of consent" in the ordinary legal sense. John M Baker (talk) 15:07, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the e-mail! I compared it to https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2274452/texas-dept-of-public-safety-v-garcia/ but found they're different documents! Lemme check the one you e-mailed WhisperToMe (talk) 05:55, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

I found the text evidence I was looking for. Thanks! WhisperToMe (talk) 06:00, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

Start this page with a chart

This page would be so much easier to read and compare if it started out like a chart (a table) of State and age of consent. Then after that all the discussion of what state does what when. When you just want to compare state to state the ages of consent you now have to read through a bunch of conditions and what ifs. Kdcaseycole42 (talk) 12:03, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

@Kdcaseyclose42: a chart for the "base" of consent would work well. Course in practice conditions are important as various variables (age differences, whether one is enrolled in high school, etc) come into play WhisperToMe (talk) 20:58, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

Kentucky age of consent increased to 18

Effective July 14, 2018, as per http://lrc.ky.gov/statutes/statute.aspx?id=47632, Kentucky statute 510.020 has been revised to increase the age of consent to 18. Specifically, it provides that a person aged 16 or 17 is "incapable of consent" if the other person is "at least 10 years older" (redundantly adding "at the time of the sexual act" ... implying that the age difference between two persons could change).

Thus, under the terms of the revised statute, the age of consent is 18, with a close-in-age exception when the younger person is at least 16 and the older person is less than 10 years older. Fabrickator (talk) 08:47, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

Weasely words

"Even though state laws regarding the general age of consent and age gap laws differ, it is common for people in the United States to assume that sexual activity with someone under 18 is statutory rape.[5]"

The named source does not provide for this statement. It is an opinion piece noting "I often see people assuming that sex with under-18-year-olds is a crime (statutory rape)". You cannot possibly derive an objective frequency to state matter-of-factly like that from it.

If you really wanted to integrate Volokh's offhand estimate, the sentence would need to read, "[though state laws differ,] Eugene Volokh asserts he often sees people [assume something else]".

I don't understand of what use the sentence is supposed to be anyway? --62.224.62.164 (talk) 13:32, 22 October 2019 (UTC)