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)
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'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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
Harper just bumped the age of consent up to 16 in Canada. Bookmastaflex 03:39, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
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)
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)
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)
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)
I have read it. Your reasons are not all that clear. Care to expand what you mean? -- OrbitOne 20:43, 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)
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)
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)
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)
Good picture, unfortunatly doesn't use continious colors. better that nothing anyway. -- tasc 16:48, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
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. -- OrbitOne talk 17:10, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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) .
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)
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)
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);
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)
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)
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)
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 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)
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)
Removing suggestion. No argued support. -- Monotonehell 15:49, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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”.
“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.”
“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.”
Paulo Andrade 07:20, 04 November 2006 (GMT)
For general reference, here is Matthew Waites CV.
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.
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
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. citation needed
--—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.237.206.62 ( talk • contribs) 19:41, 14 November 2006.
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
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)
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'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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
Harper just bumped the age of consent up to 16 in Canada. Bookmastaflex 03:39, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
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)
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)
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)
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)
I have read it. Your reasons are not all that clear. Care to expand what you mean? -- OrbitOne 20:43, 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)
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)
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)
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)
Good picture, unfortunatly doesn't use continious colors. better that nothing anyway. -- tasc 16:48, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
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. -- OrbitOne talk 17:10, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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) .
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)
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)
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);
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)
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)
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)
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 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)
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)
Removing suggestion. No argued support. -- Monotonehell 15:49, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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”.
“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.”
“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.”
Paulo Andrade 07:20, 04 November 2006 (GMT)
For general reference, here is Matthew Waites CV.
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.
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
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. citation needed
--—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.237.206.62 ( talk • contribs) 19:41, 14 November 2006.
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