Reply to Dating app lands teen on sex offenders list after girl lied about her age

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I would like someone to answer the fake ID question from a PP. Obviously it is the right, legal, morally necessary thing to make sure the person you're having sex with can and does grant competent consent. However, here we have one partner lying and claiming to be of age to do exactly that. If the young man had taken steps to verify somehow, such as asking for proof of age, how would the law react had the girl presented false identification? At what point has the adult truly done their due diligence to comply with laws protecting our children in good faith, if there are clear incidents where some underage individuals are determined to deceive in an effort to engage in acts they are not legally permitted to consent to?

I'm curious to see if anyone thinks there could be a point at which the underage partner could be the one in the wrong, from either a legal or moral standpoint?[/quote]

There is no due diligence in these cases and it is only the legal standpoint that matters, since we are discussing a legal case. The fact that one person is a legal adult according to the law and the other is an underage minor according to the law makes an act of sex between them statutory rape. It is rape because the statute says it is. The fact that it is statutory rape has no relation to any statement or act of the underage minor, it is the fact that one person is a minor and one an adult according to the parameters of the law of the state involved that makes it rape.

The law recognizes that children are immature and so we protect them from their own immaturity with statutory rape laws. The legal adult in the situation bears the full culpability. Our society places a priority on the protection of children and that is the purpose of statutory rape laws

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On one hand that's understandable and probably good. But if someone can lie, say they can legally take an action, provide false documentation when someone else attempts to verify this, and still it is the other person who is in trouble for eventually going ahead with the action... does that truly make sense? Unless you either know the person's family or attended some portion of K-12 education, which is age-separated, together, how can anyone truly verify another person's age and legal ability to engage in adult activities [i] given that provision of what may genuinely appear to be a proof of age document is not sufficient if that document is false [/i]?

I have had the same question in the past for businesses that are charged for providing alcohol to underage people with fake ID's however it is slightly more understandable to me that a business can be required to train its employees to recognize fake proof of age. I just think it's a bit unrealistic to require every legal adult to be able to do so.

Of course children should be protected from people who would take advantage of them, however this doesn't seem like such a clear-cut situation to me if I'm interpreting the facts correctly.

Most dating sites require users to agree to TOS stating they are legally of age, so if someone on a dating site who has integrity to follow the regulations takes that in good faith it seems to me a bit harsh to expect the person to basically be able to read minds.

I'm conflicted on this one. Minors can't consent, so going after someone below the age of consent is flat out wrong, but it also feels to me like this young man was fairly effectively trapped through no active fault of his own. I didn't get the impression that he purposefully went looking for an underage individual, knowingly had sexual relations with an underage individual, or even necessarily would have consented to the activity had he known the girl's true age. Is it possible that his consent was violated as well by provision of false information about his partner by said partner? I don't think either party gave competent consent in this case. This is all kinds of messed up, IMO.[/quote]

I don't see the point in going through mental contortions to blame children for the crimes of adults. The laws in these situations are clear. The laws are written to protect children, from their own immaturity as well as from predatory adults. The responsibility is on the adult to ascertain that the other person is a legal adult. If the adult has any doubt whatsoever, they shouldn't do it, whether it is selling alcohol or having sex.
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