An inflammatory post has been removed.  

I do worry that there is an atmosphere of hysteria concerning 'child sex' and the idea of an 18 year old who has sex with a 15 year old going on the sex offenders register for life seems excessive.

I remember when my son was 19 he hooked up with a new girl. She looked every inch an 18 year old. We were all (son included) absolutely staggered to discover she was only 15 - she had been lying about her age. He dropped her very quickly. Big difference between that and a 50+ Aussie bloke who travels to Asia in search of 10 year olds.

Interesting that not much is said about some countries/religions where pre-teen girls are married off to 60+ y.o. guys...  There is also the practise of akheth in some muslim countries where very young girls are loaned to 'elders' for a week or two.  Of course these are the countries that buy multi-$Bn weapons systems - so we must respect their 'culture'.

Edited June 8, 20179 yr by HauptmannUK

Years ago, when working with young offenders, it was generally considered as acceptable for a relationship to occur provided there was not more than a 5 year difference in the age.   If it was greater than that, then it was invariably referred for legal action; less than that it may be handled by a social service, or juvenile diversion type of program.  

 

In short, a person might get into legal trouble if a 20 year old male was in a relationship with a 15 year old girl, but he would most likely not be charged and labeled as a sex offender.