I’ve always thought the way we impose limits is strange. A tiny fraction over a drink limit for example and you’re classed as drunk, ****ed, rat-arsed. You would suffer a fine, ban and the indignation of being regarded as a complete maniac. However, if you are one fraction under the limit it’s a case of on your way sir; no fine or ban etc. It’s not as though a 2 mg difference sends you from competent to crazy but that’s how things are assessed.
I knew a guy who went with a girl of fourteen. Sounds bad doesn’t it? But he’s from Trieste where the age of consent is lower and he himself was only fifteen. Taking it to the next level, over here if you went with a girl the day before her 16th birthday it’s classed as rape but the day after it’s not.
Add to that the fact that adolescents mature at a different rate and you can easily try and make a case for someone being too young or old enough, yet we have this fixation with numbers and limits. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to make a case for underage sex, but I do find it odd how, depending where you are and circumstances, it’s deemed legal or illegal; good or bad.
At the age of 16 I felt like a boy amongst men at school. In the gym playing basketball these big hirsute guys were all around me, but I couldn’t grow a beard and had no armpit hair. I remember girls I knew at the time and some were flat-chested whereas others were unquestionably full grown women. So, like all limits, they’re a strange way of doing things but there’s no better alternative I guess.
I think there’s something inside me from my Victorian upbringing which would make me recoil if a young woman made advances towards me. I’m 54 now and although it would be both flattering and legal for a women of 18 to come onto me I honestly couldn’t. I’d feel weird if she was under 30 TBH because my daughter is that age so it would almost seem like, well you know...
Of course, what he’s alleged to have done isn’t a grey area at all.
