Search Results: what s your real age

This question may be controversial, so I want to preface it by making abundantly clear that I do NOT condone or excuse any form of child abuse. This is a thought experiment regarding hard limits to protect the well-being of everyone involved in sexual activity, but social norms would still apply, and they would likely continue to be more effective than any law at regulating this behavior. That said, let's begin.

In the U. S., the age at which a person can consent to sexual activity is typically between 16 and 18 years old, and various nations across the globe stray even further from this range. Assuming there is a "correct" age of consent, this discrepancy must mean at least one of three things:

1. some places set the age too low, leaving naive children vulnerable to abuse;
2. some places set it too high, prosecuting people who are effectively innocent; and/or
3. the same act between the same two people can magically become more or less ethical depending on geographical borders.

Option 3 seems a bit unlikely, meaning that either 1 or 2 is true (if not both), either of which has very real and harmful impacts.

In order to address this issue, many jurisdictions make an exception for minors and adults close in age, known as "Romeo and Juliet law" — such a law allows, for example, a 19yo and a 17yo to have intimate relations without consequences even if the age of consent is 18.

Still, 18 is a pretty arbitrary age to use for defining adulthood or any of the rights, privileges, and responsibilities that come with, as is 16, and 21, too (the legal drinking age).

Objectively speaking, it makes more sense to either lower the age to about 13, when most people hit puberty, or raise it to 25, when the brain is fully developed.

Another solution is to measure the ages relative to each other, as in the widely used formula for what's socially acceptable — half your age, plus 7 (14 & 14, 20 & 17, 30 & 22, etc. would be okay).

So, what do you think it should be, and why?

I was raised in an interracial family. My sister and I are the black children in the family. We were raised by our grandparents after we were abandoned. From the age of about 3 years old until college, my grandmother and grandfather were our guardians. We lived in the house with them as their children.

My grandmother most of my life was an emotionally abusive woman.

She spend 20 years convincing me that I was "handicapped" because my father was born with fetal alcohol syndrome off of the reservation. I only tell you this because there was a huge fight about 7 years years ago where I called her out on this lie. She told me I shouldn't go to graduate school because I was "handicapped". I ignored her. When I graduated with my graduate degree I refused to invited her to my ceremony because she didn't believe in me.

I also a couple months ago, called out my grandmother for telling my sister when she was young, "I don't think my son is your real daddy." This caused years of torment for my sister. So I told her that was wrong to do.

The entire time, my grandfather was the loving mediator in the conflict that we had with our grandmother. Granddad was the favorite. We all love him.

So at midnight tonight, my sister got a text reply for Mother's Day. It was a video of our grandfather with slurred speech. Then my grandmother tells my sister that our grandfather had a stroke ONE WEEK AGO. I have reached out to my grandmother to find out what is going on and she won't reply. I have reached out to their daughter (my aunt) to find out what is going on and she hasn't called back yet.

I am so upset that the grandfather that raised me for 20 years had a stroke and nobody ever intended to tell me or inform me what is going on. I live 500 miles away. Is this normal?