Talk:Age of consent/Archive 2

The Age of Consent Clean up

Referencing

Looking at this article what we really need to do is have, for each country, a reference to the statutes (or, if no statute, other documentation) setting the age of consent. Only then will the article truly be sourced. I'll do some of it... anyone else want to join in? The Land 18:42, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Hehe, did I set some kind of standard with my edit of the Australia section? I agree wholeheartedly, a lot of AoC information is created from hearsay and doesn't cite actual law. Monotonehell 13:35, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

I have added a hidden note in each section requesting people to add an authority when they edit. Hopefully people will look up their local statute or similar authority and add the source from now on. Monotonehell 17:07, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

How to format the list of statutes/laws?

The list of ages needs to be cleaned up. I would do it, but wanted to seek comment to get the best way to do it since many states have exceptions. I am thinking a chart like the one for the countries and to include the exceptions as footnotes. Or the United States could get their own page Assawyer 01:59, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree that this information needs to be cleaned up. But I also must stress the need for it to be properly cited (see 'challenge' above). I don't think an extra page for exclusivly the USA is an answer - perhaps a page per continental region if we think that extra pages are required.

The whole page really does need a rethink, the introduction is good however, the following sections meander a bit and should possibly be rewritten to remove the country specific details and make them more universal. Possibly the page should me more focused with either things like marriage and protitution completely removed (put on their own separate pages?) or included as the concensus indicates. It would be good if we can settle on a format and style common to all the list sections that includes relavant information in an easily comparitive way.

I supose what we need do is think about all the issues needed to be discussed in the introduction and following sections then settle on a usefull format for the frequency chart and list of local laws below? Monotonehell 05:50, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good, I will go through using LexisNexis and check out the U.S. states to verify their accuracy and add legal citations. I will be using the following link to do so User:Assawyer/AOC. Feel free to contribute. I'm using a table for now to keep things organized.Assawyer 07:06, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Very good, however you may find yourself in trouble trying to fit the diferences in law between states into a table format. You'll end up with more footnotes than table (lol). Monotonehell 10:36, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm unsure whether it's due to our requests for more statutes or just coincidence but a lot of wonderful editors have been adding citations for law in verious countries. This is great. Soon we can look at moving the countries to subpages. The question still remains as to how to order them. Recently someone boldly reordered the listing so that it's no longer in order of continent. Should the sub pages be grouped by continent(how it was) by alpha(as it is now) or some other grouping. The target should be to get roughly the same amount of text on each subpage while grouping them in a sensible manner. -- Monotonehell 15:51, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Delete and start again?

It seems likely the entire section should be deleted pending reintroduction of entries for the various countries once they can be referenced. Tomyumgoong 01:02, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Interesting idea, however I think that would take a very long time to get all the referenced sources in place. We seem to be getting one every few days now. Perhaps it would be an idea to open a new section that is intended to replace the current section and move the referenced parts to there as they get added? Monotonehell 07:38, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps. I understand that it is difficult to replace all of these countries with referenced facts, but might it not be better to provide no information than incorrect information? It seems most of this is just lifted from the popular internet guides to age of consent, most of which are out of date and flawed. Tomyumgoong 17:44, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Okay I do agree with you in theory but am not bold enough to delete a whole section just like that LOL. Perhaps we could move the entire section out to a linked temporary archived page with a caveat letting people know that most of the information is unreliable at worst as it is unverified. THEN add a new section on the main page stating that ONLY properly referenced information is to be contained there.

But only once we've settled on a concensus for the format and content and written a style guide for it.

More opinions please ;) Monotonehell 13:04, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

I will not have a problem being bold enough to nuke any information that does not meet the referencing standard (including what I added regarding Brazil) that's agreed to. I would be in favor of requiring that specific statutes be cited in each case, although this will be very cumbersome (considering the language barrier) for many countries. Perhaps there is another compilation or resource we are comfortable lifting information from (Interpol has such a website I believe). Tomyumgoong 01:54, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I've looked at Interpol's site a number of times and found it out of date unfortunatly. Not a reliable source. I think you've talked me into the wholesale deletetion of bad information. With that indicitive chart at the top we need not have specific bad information below. I think the chart is enough and then have the relavent legal citations and discussions as per the Australia section on sub pages with links from this page. This I believe would balance the article being too large with the need for specific information. What's other people's opinions here? Monotonehell 03:33, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you and Tomyumgoong. The deletion you're discussing is a very good idea. Joey Q. McCartney 08:14, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes enough discussion, I've left this open for awhile. I guess everyone has put forward their views now - time for action. This will take me awhile so I think I'll put a template on the page while I'm bastardising it. I need to do a little more research and think a bit first but I should have this done this weekend. --Monotonehell 12:18, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Talk page itself need(ed) cleaning

Also this talk page could do with an archiving. Done. Monotonehell 13:05, 4 February 2006 (UTC) Now I've began to organise the talk page as it was already becoming hard to follow, or maybe it was just me? Monotonehell 03:33, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

AoC chart

I have completed the chart. The notes haven't been paraphrased and are copied directly from the report that I used to create the table of the AOC ages. The table is at User:Assawyer/AOC and the report is http://www.lewin.com/NR/rdonlyres/e3d7lvkcstaiyubdifbbbr7azimi4of52xm5bld7kppnaewt3cmjv6oc4ox4oyrp7772tvp6qyhlrg/3068.pdf. It has a lot of good information that could be used to improve the article, mainly the US related information. I will add the table after doing some last minute editing. I will also see about grouping the various states to see if i can reduce the height of the table. Assawyer 14:25, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Nice work! That would have taken a bit for formating. But (here's the bit where I attack all your hard work lol) as I suspected this kind of information is not something that is easily conveyed in a table. A question: The Age differentials you quote, how many are defences at court and how many are exemptions to the law?

The reason I presented the Australian section the way I did was due to the small but important differences in Laws between the states. I suspect that a reader will go to only the sections in which they are interested and read that text. The table format doesn't lend itself well to the idiocies of law and makes it a chore to extract any information. People need things explained to them in a straightforward way. However (here's where I undermine my position) doing it in this way will lead to a huge body of text (note it is already above the 31Kb sugested limit). Perhaps several regional subpages need to be created? I throw it open to discussion. Monotonehell 15:02, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

I believe all are devised from the statutes, I merely copied their table. The trouble is many states don't have a bright-line age and many states have a buffer age depending on the victim and actor. In the article I provide the link to, it goes over each states laws. I plan on reading the sections to pull the nessceary citations for the laws regarding statutory rape. As for the table, it could be placed in a separate article like "List of Ages of Consent in the United States" Assawyer 15:05, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Interpol - member state age of consent laws

I added this very useful link that should be used to reference most of the ages listed on this page. I just looked up Mexico and it appears that 18 is the AoC, not 12 as shown here. My Spanish isn't very good, but this sounds like a prison sentance to me: "Al que tenga cópula con persona mayor de doce años y menor de dieciocho, obteniendo su consentimiento por medio de engaño, se le aplicará de tres meses a cuatro años de prisión." -Gavin 15:40, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps we should request interwiki help from the other languages. It's going to be impossible to source this entirely in English. Tomyumgoong 17:39, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Your right, your Spanish isn't very good. The AoC in Mexico is indeed 12. What Article 262 actually says is if you have consensual sex with a person older than 12 but less than 18 and obtain their consent by means of deceit, you can expect to spend between three months and four years in prison. --Pascal666 03:06, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Be careful with interpol's site, I've found it to be years out of date in some respects. --Monotonehell 03:47, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Monotonehell is right. The source cannot be relied on. Just checked the subject Russia--it states that there is NO legal concept of AOC there. This was true before 1997 (Soviet laws were often intentionally vague to provide for arbitrary interpretation), but since then the situation changed twice! --Goldminer 16:20, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

But wouldn't logic say to use the data that's provided rather than make up something arbitrarily? I mean if Interpol is the only thing you have to work with, then it should just be that. From everything I've heard, it's still 12 in Mexico. (Homosexuality is outlawed) --Rookiee Revolyob 09:55, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

It would be a very strange logic that suggests we should copy a source we know is wrong, when we have verifiable sources giving the right information. Did anyone suggest making up something arbitrarily? I missed it if they did. -- Avenue 10:53, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

The point is exactly the opposite. We keep the unverified information out of the article until such time as it can be verified. Much of the information on Interpol is out of date (with the exception of one or two pages that have recent upadates - Japan comes to mind). What Goldminer was refering to was pre 1997 Russia's laws were so vague that the courts could interperet them on a case by case (abitary) basis. Goldminer wasn't refering to the article here.

We need both the federal and regional laws for mexico as in Mexico the federal law varies according to the age gap between partners and is often overruled by regional laws. The entries on Interpol are not specific enough to make that information verifyable. Only then can we safely move the mexico entry back to the N.America page. Oh and I've not found any references to homosexuality. If you could find any such sources that would be wonderful! --Monotonehell 12:39, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure if this is what you're looking for on homosexuality, but the ILGA website has some info. -- Avenue 13:47, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Canada events

Harper just bumped the age of consent up to 16 in Canada.Bookmastaflex 03:39, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Hi Bookmastaflex, I think the reason your edit was reverted was because you only edited the table and left the discusion below as it stands. The table is a summary of the discusion so inorder to complete your edit you'd need to do three things.

1- Find the revelent legislation after it passes through the (Canadian) House of review (I forget how the Candian legislature works - Senate, Upper House?).

2- Edit the discussion to reflect the change in the law, add a citation to the legislation as a link or footnote.

3- Move Canada's entry in the summary table.

Any entries in the discussion that are not referenced are going to be removed soon when we finalise the page cleanup so if someone doesn't update Canada then it will be removed. --Monotonehell 14:02, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

How could Harper change Canadian laws when the House hasn't even sat yet? There's a good chance the age will change, but not until there's a vote.

Update dates

Joey Q. McCartney makes an good point that the legal discussion should include dates. He's kindly placed one on the New Zealand entry and I believe this is another requirement that should be incorporated into the rewrite. --Monotonehell 12:11, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Restructure underway

No one has made much comment in the past few days so I took that as a consesus of sorts and began the restructure. I'm probably halfway through now and it's very late. What I've done is laid out a structure with the information we currently have organised and rewritten as needed. Some areas need fleshing out still. Lots more work to do. The various countries are now on separate pages (well they aren't quite finsihed yet) in order to reduce thepage size. As per the discussion here I'm not including any countries/states that do not have at least a simple citation to the law. Those subpages will also need fleshing out. I'm going to bed now been doing this for 4 hours lol. I'm leaving the work in progress template up until Sunday 5th so I can get the bare bones work done before people start messing with the details. Finish it Sunday. --Monotonehell 18:05, 4 March 2006 (UTC) (Ships! it's Sunday already here)

Okay my general work is done. It's still a bit rough I'll continue to edit but I also invite others to come in and clean up my work and add decently referenced material to the sub pages. I'm thinking of reducing the size of the headings somewhat. It currently looks like there's too many headings but my vision is to have the sections expanded with content. Any comments? --Monotonehell 07:43, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't think there's any real need to move specific age of cosnent information to subpages indefinitely, but it was a good way to get rid of all of the unsourced garbage that plagued the article. Perhaps it can be merged back once it is more complete. The chart remains, however... Does it not require extensive sourcing also? Tomyumgoong 20:48, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

The subpages were created as the main article was well over the recommended size limit as it stood. But of course now that we've removed all the unsourced hearsay it would be much smaller; I was thinking of the future when there will be an entry for every country! (lol) The chart should eventually be informed from the subpages. But as the disclaimer says it's there for indicaion of the 'norm' only. I think it is a good thing for an overview (which the main article is).

We also need to flesh out the main article. Most of the sections are mere placeholders. Remembering to alter the introduction to reflect the altered body as we go. --Monotonehell 06:12, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

The picture

People seem to not understand the purpose of the picture of the youth jumping off some hay stacks. It has a two fold purpose - Firstly it dresses the page from a design point of view, making it more visually interesting. Secondly it has a metaphorical meaning; the youth is making a leap, experimenting and as such is a metaphor for sexual exploration.

Any views on this? -- Monotonehell 12:39, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I think it is too metaphorical. I suggest another image which is more direct. --OrbitOne 16:26, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Please, read WP:NOT --tasc 17:14, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I have read it. Your reasons are not all that clear. Care to expand what you mean? --OrbitOne 20:43, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

do not create or modify articles just to prove a point. if you read, you shoud've noted. --tasc 20:53, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I am not editing or proving a point. I am contributing to the article to make it better. --OrbitOne 21:06, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

well you didn't succed then. --tasc 21:15, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I would differ there. Five edits in 24 hours? That is a big 3RR break. Just letting you know about that right now. But care to tell me why you think my image has failed to improve the article while the other image does? --OrbitOne 21:21, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

You did see the topic, didn't you? and you've started adding new pic. w/o any discussion. So, now you're claiming that i'm breacking rules. :-\ --tasc 21:29, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I am pulling my hat out of this one. But to be clear, you did break the 3RR rule and I hope you wind up with no more than a simple warning. Reverts are not answers to disputes. --OrbitOne 21:55, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

well, why did you than started them? --tasc 22:01, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Suggestion

Leave both images out of the article. IMO, neither is appropriate. If there is a disagreement use WP:DR FloNight ^talk 06:11, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

The picture in question

Visualy uninteresting page it is then. I asked for comments/opinions not an edit war. *lol* Oh well, picture in, picture out, picture in, picture out, picture in, picture out, picture in, picture out... I hope we are all above the age of consent cos that's the closest thing to sex I've had in a while. >.>' TMI?.. The background to the picture is this this; I was searching wikicommons for a suitable picture of a group of youths that would dress the page a little in order to improve its visual interest. However nothing suitable could be found. Then I browsed the children section in hope that something had been placed there mistakenly and happened upon the boy jumping picture which shouted "youthful exurberent experimentation" and my visual communications background alarm bell rang. So it wasn't simply a picture with no point, it has visual metaphoric meaning.

But I'm happy to leave it out if a few people disagree with, it's just that the first two edits seemed like vandalism. I guess it's a reminder to us all to use the reason field properly and take things to the talk page when we do something that doesn't have an obvious reason. *takes note of own suggestion*

Cheers to all - I hope you all stick around and make many more content contributions to this page instead of just cosmetic changes. We still need good researched information for the place holder subsections as well as referneced legal discussions for the sub pages. I know Tomyumgoong is working on a summary of the social/legal debate and I'm looking at expanding the marriage as a defence subject. -- Monotonehell 11:09, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

I moved the graph to the top of article. Can we leave it there for awhile to see if it works. --FloNight ^talk 11:38, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Great job, FloNight. I can't think of any picture that would be more appropriate for this topic. ThePedanticPrick 16:37, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Good picture, unfortunatly doesn't use continious colors. better that nothing anyway. --tasc 16:48, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

This page had that picture before actually; why was it ever taken down? --OrbitOne 20:16, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps it has mistakes? I can't see any offhand but I'm only looking at it briefly. --Monotonehell 21:20, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

how am i supposed to know? i haven't ever seen any pictures here --tasc 21:37, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

The UK

Would it be useful to include Great Britain instead of the United Kingdom in the age 16 column? The age of consent here in Northern Ireland (as noted) is 17, quite different legally to the rest of the UK Alastairward 09:30, 22 March 2006 (GMT)

If we did that then we'd also have an entry for every state in the US and every state in Australia and so on. The decision was taken awhile ago to only enter the 'average' age for each country/union. Although this opens up the question what should be done with member states of the EU...

Are you saying that the information on Age_of_consent_in_Europe is incorrect? Does the law the Home Office refers to not aply in all parts of the UK? Sorry I am a bit ignorant of the legal framework there. -- Monotonehell 07:48, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't have cites to hand but laws in the UK can be specific to England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, its a bit of a pain and adds time to the drafting of legislation. This may be covered in depth in another Wikipedia article. I couldn't find a government related cite, but the BBC does list the age of consent (hetero- and homosexual) as 17; [[1]]

I added this note to the talk page for Age_of_consent_in_Europe, I couldn't find the stipulated government related cite as requested on the page.

As to the EU, its not a fully pan-European government, so its probably better to have seperate European listings -- Alastairward 24 March 2006

This conversation carried over onto the Euro talk page Please visit it as we need help regarding UK law...

I think we should just expand this article and live with the size instead of getting hot and bothered over what we should do about states, the EU and if we should average it or not. Just let the information get sharper and sharper the more people add to it. --OrbitOnetalk 17:10, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't fully understand what/which article you mean. The size issue refered to is regarding the table not the article (is this what you mean?) The Subpages will be as big as needed to include details of all jurisdictions. I never really thought a table would be of much use, just look at the problems ageofconsent.com and avert.org are having representing the data in a table. --Monotonehell 00:34, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Marriage section

I've just edited an addition that was a bit PoVy to try to ballance it a bit. But I'm not sure that I've suceeded. I've tried to state it as an opionion instead of a fact. Any opinions on it? --Monotonehell 05:15, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

The table

This table keeps causing headaches. People alter it or add to it without citeing their sources or adding to the subpages, it's the main target for drive-by vandals, it's difficult to maintain and it misrepresents some information as it's fairly close to impossible to properly convey the info without 400 footnotes.

I'm sugesting we delete it and just stick with the subpages for specific information. Also trying to keep the main page general and non-jurisdiction specific. Opinions? --Monotonehell 05:29, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

What about adding a disclamer? Also state that it is a general guide and that the laws are too complex to all be summarised by a table. Kalmia 04:47, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Have a look at the history that was all included in many and various forms, including editor's notes in the html code. But people constantly ignored these pleas and edited away (this is wikipedia after all) --Monotonehell 07:21, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Removed passage

I've been looking at this passage for some time now and have tried to reword it several times...

"In countries where "protection" of youth in terms of sexual behavior has reached its zenith (e.g. the United States), there has been a growing tendency to charge minors as adults for some major crimes. This leads some to consider why it is that a 15 year old could be too immature to agree to sexual relations, yet be mature enough to be tried as an adult for committing a crime and sent to prison, possibly for life.1"

...I realised that I was labouring under a fallacy. The AoC laws are intended as a protection for children as victims, whereas a murder charge is about protecting the murder victim. I can see why this passage was added, but the argument is non sequitur and a tad irrelevent so I've zapped it. --Monotonehell 19:34, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

New material

I would like to highlight the excelent work that is being added to the European and Oceanic sub pages by several Wikipedians. They have added a LOT of well referenced information in the past week and are helping make this article what it should be. Cheers! --Monotonehell 03:59, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

I disagree with the fragmentation of this article, and after some period of contribution useful information should be merged with the original subject. It's great that people are doing seemingly good work to properly document this matter. Tomyumgoong 09:36, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Are you sure? That would mean a VERY large article once all Jurisdictions are accounted for. People are starting to add historical information regarding law changes and so on. The Oceania page is already 5 screens long and Europe 8.

The version previous to the restructure was listed on longpages and as per the style guide was broken up into subtopics. The subpage format allows a general discussion of the matters on the main AoC page in a fairly International manner. And in depth analysis of the individual laws in each jurisdiction. This way there would be no "useful information" on the subpages that would belong in the main article. But some of it may inspire new topics in the main article. Why do you disagree with this approach? --Monotonehell 15:00, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Need verifiable, reliable sourced content

The content of this article needs to be based on verifiable reliable sources. Parts of it look like an essay instead of an encyclopedia article. FloNight ^talk 13:47, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree - the current form is more of a template for others to add information to, "Suggested topics". I've added a call for references template to the top. --Monotonehell 07:39, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Urban Legend about Japan

There it is again. The urban legend that the age of consent in Japan is 13. I cannot count the number of times a gullible American G.I. stationed here made the front page because he fell for this story.

Beware. The age of consent in Japan is 18. The urban legend derives from the fact that sex with minors under under the age of 13 is a federal offence, while sex with minors 13 thru 17 will throw you in jail on local laws. There once was a time when the age of consent was different for each prefecture. The district of Tokyo was the last holdout, the age of consent there remained 16 up until the mid '80s. After circa 1986, the age of consent in Japan has been 18 in every prefecture. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 219.163.12.72 (talk • contribs) .

I'm sorry. Where is this stated in this article? Please point it out so it can be edited. --Monotonehell 07:15, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

In the map, I'm afraid.

Ah I see - this was added for colour, but removed some time ago then readded because no one could remember why it was removed. I'll see what can be done about it. Thank you. (hey everyone maybe I'll put the madboy.jpg back? what do you say - LOL)--Monotonehell 08:53, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

I've edited the map and updated it with the information that we've gathered on the subpages. I'll add to it as people add to the pages. --Monotonehell 15:25, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm confused. You say 18, but interpol's website says it's 13 with no mention of an overarching law forbidding sexual activity with a minor (Yamanashi Prefecture aside). I don't doubt that you're correct, but where's your source? catcherinthesty 09:21, 8 April 2007 (EST)

Are you talking about the discussion above (note that this discussion is a year old) or the article? --Monotonehell 14:08, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Japan unknown?

Why is Japan marked as unknown on the map. I'm certain I remember reading either: They didn't have one but made it 12 or it was 12 and they made it 14--82.133.115.55 11:24, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Until last week there wasn't a referenced entry for Japan, but as it stands it may have to be put on the map as 'varies by state'. The national standard is 13, however there are some complex prefecture laws which don't actualy set an AoC exactly but refer to 'immoral sexual acts' and in effect set the AoC 'without sincere love' sometimes to 18. see Japan's entry here It's complex and the article hasn't been fully fleshed out. If you can find some real, verifible references that you can cite feel free to update the text yourself.

Also the map is only updated on occasion when a few entries have been updated and verified. It's a bit of a task to make lots of little changes all the time ;) The map is based on the referenced information on the Wikipedia pages only and as such there's a lot of grey areas right now. --Monotonehell 15:49, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Oh and look directly above. There's someone saying something quite different to what you "read somewhere". lol --Monotonehell 15:53, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Map

Your map is wrong. If this article isn't just about sex (I was told it is at Talk:Age of consent in North America for sex) then the age of consent for anything else varies by province. Ardenn 16:57, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Please fully read and comprehend what it is you are looking at before making wholesale changes to articles. You have caused a lot of work for others with your disruption of these pages. You are very welcome to contribute to these articles once you have read and understood the Wikipedia policies, guidlines and protocols.

From the lead paragraph of this article...

"In criminal law, the age of consent (AoC) is the age at which a person is considered to be capable of legally giving informed consent to any legal contract or behaviour regulated by law with another person. This article refers specifically to the AoC Laws regulating sexual acts, not to be confused with the age of majority or age of criminal responsibility, and in some jurisdictions, the marriageable age." --Monotonehell 12:01, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Then the title is wrong. I'm not the only one who thinks this. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Age of consent in North America. Ardenn 03:23, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

I believe "wrong" is too strong a word, since "age of consent" is generally understood to refer to sex unless otherwise stated. But it could be clarified, e.g. "Age of consent for sex", "Age of consent for sex in North America". Please do not call them "Age of consent in North America for sex", etc - that sounds terrible. -- Avenue 04:45, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

I'll concede that "Age of consent in North America for sex" does sound terrible. Ardenn 04:51, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

While something like that may be the grammatically correct term, Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names) says we should be using the term that most people actually use, and that is just "age of consent" when referring to the age of consent for sex. --Rory096 05:19, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Current concerns - let's talk about them...

This group of pages has seen several distractions from its primary concern recently, mostly regarding the naming of the subpages in relation to the content therein. Can we bring all the concerns here and have a civil, productive argument and hopefully come to some kind of consensus (and possibly teach me to spell?)?

Some rules I think will help the discussion (but might sound a bit condesending - sorry);

• No normative statements. Example; "It should be this way" without any supporting evidence doesn't further your point. If you have a point of view, that's great!, but tell everyone why you think it should be that way. Cite WP:policy, dictionary definitions and other authoritive sources.
• No outright snubs. Let's give any reasoned point of view equal consideration. Just because it's always been this way doesn't make it right.
• Let's keep it civil and try not to lose our cool.

I'll start by dragging this from the N.American talk page to get the ball rolling. If others have more points of concern please feel free to add them here. ---

This should be at ages. While yes, "age of consent" is a common name, this is a list of ages of consent around North America, not just one term. Having it at ages of consent in North America doesn't even violate WP:NC(CN), as it still USES the common term, just makes it correct. If there was one age of consent in North America, then that would be where the article was, but there are many! Nobody would use age of consent in North America when it clearly refers to more than one age, and so "ages" is clearly more common. --Rory096 06:32, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

LOL This argument could go on for ages with semantics and normative statements. :) The page is in fact a list of Laws regarding the Age of consent (for sex? lol) in many jurisdictions. So which word to pluralise?

Ages of consent

Age of consents

Age of consent laws

There's been a lot of page moves going on recently, I'm not against a civil discusion regarding a name change. As long as once a consenus is reached, all 7 pages in this group have a consistent and logical page structure. Perhaps we should move this entire debate to the main page and address all the concerns people have instead of all these edit wars? --Monotonehell 10:48, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

The article's focus is on the variance between the Ages that can consent to particular acts. The variable that differs from article to article is not what is consented to, but the difference in ages from state to state. Thus, the proper term for this article is "Ages of consent". BorgHunter is correct. Daniel Davis 12:51, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

It seems only a couple of people had an opinion about this. I can think of arguments for both cases, so I went with the one that made the most noise. Even though I think that "age-singular" would be the more common search term I think if we keep the main page "Age of consent" the sub pages can be the plural. I've also edited the disambig page and added a header paragraph to all the sub pages to let people know that they are solely about AoC for sexual activity. Let's hope that clears up any furure confusion. --Monotonehell 08:01, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Back to business as usual

I've been hacking at pretty much all the AoC pages as well as some of the linked pages and disambig page. Just general cleanup and checking links/facts etc. Still not finished. I've also posted a note on the African note board calling for edits on the Africa sub page. So hopefully we get some more entries on there. Tired now. X.X --Monotonehell 18:35, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Welcome Dr. Matthew Waites

While the entries by Dr. Waites are most welcome, his enthusiastic effort to properly reference this article has unfortunately resulted in making it look a little like a promotional tool for his new book. While I'm sure this is more a result of the existing serious lack of references than any bad faith on his behalf, it is a problem. It's possible that the only way to truely rectify this is to add further diverse sources. But in the mean time are there any more suggestions on how to incorporate Dr Waites's research while holding onto balance? (EDIT: I've just cleaned up the formatting which has helped on the surface) --Monotonehell 06:07, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Merger: Initiatives to raise the age of consent

Oppose for reasons of size. There's actually two pages of concern here. Initiatives to raise the age of consent and Abolition of age of consent laws. The first is barely a stub while the second contains a lot of text. IMO the second article is too large to be merged. Unless it can be shown that a large amount of text can be removed without damaging the article I think it would be best if Initiatives to raise the age of consent and Abolition of age of consent laws be merged together into something like Debates over age of consent laws. Which would then be summarised and included as a heading in Age of consent with a "See full article here" link. --Monotonehell 06:58, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree, merge them into an age of consent "debates" or "initiatives" page, and add a summary and link to this article. There's too much there to merge it into this article. -- Avenue 08:36, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Oppose. I advocate either merging the info in Initiatives to raise the age of consent with Abolition of age of consent laws in a new article, as suggested by Monotonehell, or radically improving the Initiatives to raise the age of consent which at the moment is just a vague reference to "some groups or individuals" who favour raising the AOC (see weasle words)... -Neural 11:34, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I've removed the proposed-merge tag on this one for now. Please see my reasons at Talk:Initiatives to raise the age of consent. -Neural 03:30, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Proposed merge with Ages of consent in South America

I oppose this proposal too, again on the grounds of size. If any regional articles are to be merged, we should start with the smallest articles (e.g. Ages of consent in Africa, Ages of consent in Asia), but I'm not sure we should even do that. By the way, what's the situation in Antarctica? -- Avenue 08:36, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

lol, I did consider Antarctica when creating the regional layout, but well you know... All six of those subpages have the potential to be quite large if all the regions are added, that's the reason they were separated on that basis. So I don't think it's a good idea to merge them just because of apathy due to systemic bias. All it takes is one editor to make the difference - the Europe page was looking a little sad until one editor added the bulk of the data on there. --Monotonehell 09:59, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and added a couple of sentences on Antarctica, for completeness, but I'm open to any objections. -- Avenue 11:50, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

10 points for completeness that boy! XD --Monotonehell 12:11, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I also oppose this second merger, not only on the grounds of size, but on the grounds that it is already one subpage of six that were forked from the original Age of consent article in the first place. --Monotonehell 09:59, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Oppose. I see no reason to single out the South America stats to merge here. -Neural 11:37, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Removing suggestion. No argued support. --Monotonehell 15:49, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Consent before puberty

In the Abolishion of age of consent laws section, consent before puberty is a red link. Is there any plan to write an article about this, or should the [ [ ] ] be removed? -Neural 18:17, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually it seems that the merger has gone ahead over at that article so I've put a summary of sorts and linked the combined effort. It's not good however as I have little idea how to summarise that mishmash of opinion, other than link it and let it stand for itself. --Monotonehell 03:56, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

The thing I read was about typical age of marriage, not age of consent as such. And it was older - late medieval through early modern period. And I also don't remember what the heck it was! So I guess I should shut up, since we have a source for the Victorian AoC thing. DanB†DanD 11:49, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

LOL If you remember what it was be sure to tell us about it. Sounds interesting. --Monotonehell 11:09, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

History

There should be a history section included in this and other related articles. How has it changed over time? What have been the trends? What were the laws canturies ago and the times in between? I realize some of this info may be hard to find, but it would be good to add. --Kalmia 21:18, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Also see my answer on Talk:Ages of consent in North America, any country specific information should go on the sub pages. We need to be general in our discussion on this page. But if you can outline a general history with a worldwide perspective go for it (cite sources! ;) --Monotonehell 01:14, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Iceland and the second map. Europe or North America

Iceland seems European to me whenever I see something on TV about the country however I hear Belize is rather European also. The map shows Iceland having the same color as North America. Until someone finds a different map and there is consensus to use the new map Iceland should stay in North America. --Gbleem 11:59, 28 September 2006 (UTC) Oh Iceland is not Greenland. --Gbleem 12:04, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Argh I didn't even think to look at the map] we are using as an "authority". Iceland is red on this [[Continent}7 continent model]] so North America it is. --Monotonehell 15:52, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Paolo's new sentence and why I'm reverting it

For one thing, the phrase "actual consent" is POV - lots of people don't think children can consent to sex, so from that point of view consent by kids would be apparent, not actual.

Also, I don't know where you get this "violence" idea - lots of things are illegal without being "presumed violent." Maybe you want to put a paragraph about this in child sexual abuse? Most psychologists would agree that sex with children is inherently violent, but age of consent laws are not necessarily motivated by the views of psychologists.

DanB†DanD 06:14, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

• Dan, it depends on the age of the "children". There is little doubt that adolescents can consent to sex. The controversy comprises the ages before or around puberty.

• Age of consent is a legal barrier, which varies according to the country or jurisdiction. The phrase "actual consent" indicates the cases where it would be considered that there is consent if the law didn't make any restrictions, once in these cases there was no violence, or any form of manipulation, deceit, nor abuse of authority, nor the use of substances like alcohol, drugs, anesthesia, etc. For instance, if a 14 year old have sex in an area where AoC is 16, he or she may give "actual consent" although legally it is not possible in that area.

The phrase is close to a concept used by Matthew Waites in his book (page 132). (a) top of page – “(…) following his criticism of internal proposals to endorse an age of 12 in circumstances where a defendant could prove consent”. (b) middle of page – “The society regarded the term ‘age of consent’ as representing a ‘legal fiction’ by implying that ‘consent’ is only possible above the existing legal age, and hence ignoring the actual existence of consent by persons below that age”.

• My post that was removed is:

“In this sense, the age of sexual consent is also the age below which violence is legally presumed in sexual relations, regardless of any evidence to the contrary or proof of actual consent.”

• So maybe it should be replaced with :

“In this sense, the age of sexual consent is also the age below which violence is legally presumed in sexual relations, regardless of any evidence to the contrary or of circumstances where a defendant could prove consent.”

• As for “violence” - The presumption of violence here is a legal one. It is what separates rape from statutory rape. In other words, for the crime to be characterized, it is not necessary the existence of violence (or manipulation, deceit, fraud, use of drugs, abuse of authority, etc). Age only is enough. It is regarded as a "legal fiction" exactly because of this aspect. Even in cases where otherwise the act would not be considered a rape, it is considered like a rape, as a result of the law. Note that the article "age of consent" is already placed in the category "legal fiction" since a long time ago.

Paulo Andrade 07:20, 04 November 2006 (GMT)

Yes, I understood your point of view without the longer explanation. The trouble is that it is a point of view, not that it was unclear.

So this Matthew Waites fellow is your source. Googling, I discover that he is a Scottish sociology professor who has written a book on the age of consent. That's fine -- as an academic I suppose he is notable enough to have his opinion represented in the article. But be very sure that everything you get from him is attributed to him as his opinion, not Wikipedia's. And a particular writer's POV doesn't belong in the lead paragraph.

For general reference, here is Matthew Waites CV.

DanB†DanD 08:09, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

• Regardless of the outcome of the whole argument above; such a discussion should not be covered in its entirety in the lead paragraph. When concensus is arrived at, please create a sub section. Please visit the MoS regarding lead paragraphs. Idealy a lead paragraph sould also be in Simple English (for when the SE.WP is deleted.. I mean if... ;). Cheers. -- Monotonehell 10:45, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Requirements on an adequate presentation of ages of consent

We've got the great problem that information on ages of consent often are not quite correct, incomplete or interpreted in different ways. How can we improve the presentation of ages of consent?

1. We have to recite the relevant laws - literally! This has to be cited, link to an (official, if possible) page of the criminal code and the exact date of this information. (avoid citing pages like ageofconsent.com - they already did not cite correctly!)

2. We have to interprete the laws and give sources as accurate as possible (preferingly experts publications).

3. We have to present these information in an clear and understandable (and - the most important: checkable!) way, distinguishing between minimum vs. secure age of consent and penetrative vs. "soft" sexual relations.

minimum age of consent = the age only after that an individual can engage in sexual relations with another who is also at or above that age, without the older person forcibly beeing punished when discovered.

secure age of consent = the age at or above which an individal can engage in unfettered sexual relations with another who is also at or above that age, without the older person beeing in risk of punishment at all.

Example of correct citing

Belarus

The minimum as well as secure age of consent of all kinds of sexual relations in Belarus is 16, as specified by Articles 168 and 169, which read: "Sexual relations, sodomy, lesbian acts or other actions of sexual character of an adult, reached eighteen years of age, with a person who obviously has not reached sixteen years of age, at absence of attributes of the crimes stipulated by articles 166 and 167 present codes, are punished by restriction of freedom of two years to four years or by imprisonment of two years to five years." and "Dissolute actions accomplished by a person, reached eighteen years of age, concerning a person who obviously has not reached sixteen years of age, at absence of attributes of the crimes stipulated by articles 166, 167 and 168 present codes, are punished by arrest of about six months or imprisonment of one year to three years."

Belarus Criminal Code (in Russian) (relevant articles last changed by laws in May, 4th, 2005 - National register of legal acts of Byelorussia, 2005, № 74, 2/1112)

Provisionally english translation of the relevant articles of the Belarus Criminal Code

Interpretation

The age of consent in Belarus involves not only all kinds of sexual acts (Article 168), but also "dissolute" (debauching/depraving) acts. Which kinds of behavior this includes, depends from national jurisdiction and has still to be examined.

--—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.237.206.62 (talk • contribs) 19:41, 14 November 2006.

I agree with most of what you're saying here. There's an orange box at the top of all the AoC Talk pages that states pretty much that. Before the cleanup of these pages back in December 2005 there was NO citation and pretty much all the info was taken stright from ageofconcent.com, which I think is discussed above as being mostly wrong and out of date.

I'd caution people on the 'interpretation' you require. Other than stating what the legislation says too much interpretation may lead us into grey areas. Unless one can find (as you also mentioned) authoritive sources for interpretation. This kind of research is very hard to find however.

What we've been doing for the past 12 months is, if an edit is unsourced it gets removed after a few days of putting a {citation required} tag on it, if there is no supporting sources. When I find the time I try to investigate sources supplied and verify that they seem correct. I also try to convert the lazy dot point writing into encyclopedic prose (a BIG problem on the north american page).

Could you please stop changing the focus of sections to this "minimum age of consent" and revert your edits so far that have done so. All the articles in Age of Consent are written from the perspective that there exists an unfettered age of consent, and then in some jurisdictions, there also exists close in age exceptions.

Close in age exceptions vary greatly from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, they carry differnet penalties and have different rules depending on where you are. They are not a sufficient commonality for Wikipedia's articles to hold to. Therefore the concensus so far has been to focus on the unfettered age of consent and then mention as a side note in each jurisdiction their specific variations for close in age exceptions, homosexual relations, prohibitions on anal sex and so on as they exist.

What you've done is destroy the consistency between articles, please change it back.

May I ask that in future you add new discussions at the bottom of the talk pages and that you sign your posts (just type four tildes ~ it will be added for you automatically) it makes it easier to see who's saying what. Also you may want to get yourself an account, that way you'll be a name not a number ;) Thanks for your other contributions so far by the way, they have been good.

See also: WP:3RR WP:TPG and Help:Contents

--Monotonehell 07:51, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

India and Map

Interpol also lists the AoC of India as 18. The graphic shows 16. I think the map graphic showing the AoC in different countries should be removed until a more updated version can be made. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Pengopen (talk • contribs) 00:52, 27 November 2006.

It's true that Interpol do list the AoC for India at 18. But they don't cite the legislation at all. As far as I can see AoC in India is 16 for Male/Female sex {Rape:§375-Sixthly} and illegal for Male-Male sex {Unnatural intercorse:§377} [2] Unless this Act is outdated. Can anyone help here?

As for the map, I originally had it greyed out in areas that had not been confirmed by Wikipedia research. But others decided to fill in the blanks from unreliable sources. --Monotonehell 06:45, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Sir, I will find you a source from THE Indian government. Then you should please change the graphic image on the AoC page. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 59.182.21.48 (talk • contribs) 20:20, 11 December 2006.

Please do. If you can find legislation more up to date that on commonlii.org that we can cite then we can add an entry for India in the appropriate place and eventually update the map. Remember that anyone can edit wikipedia so as long as anything you intend to add is verifyable go for it! --Monotonehell 01:10, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

cleanup, rewrite

I have tried to maintain NPOV and reformat the section that needed re-writing.I read through all the posts here, this seems like a hot spot for conflicts, so I hope I was helpful and did not damage or change any necessary content. If I did, please someone fix up behind me and drop me a note on my talk page with feedback. I'd like to know if it helped, or if it went horribly awry. Resonanteye 14:14, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Oh for crying out loud, I'm an idiot. Time for a break, I think. Resonanteye