Best Posts in Thread: What is the legal age?

Here's the skinny on it.

The *Legal* age of consent is 12. However their is another law which I forget the name that makes it illegal when under 18 if the sex is coerced through numerous different means such as *promises*, money, or pretty much whatever they want to call coercion. So while legally you could go have sex with a 12 year old who consents the family or police will come after you for *coercing* the minor somehow into sex. Further its also another crime to have a female minor under the age of 16 in a non family members house or hotel without parent or adult family member present.

Now isn't this where is gets tricky. The added 2 laws were more so of an attempt to hold foreigners accountable for sex with minors while not outright making it illegal. Hence a filipino could easily have sex with a minor (consentual) and its just fine but if its a foreigner your going to be paying up big quick and if try and fight it prison followed by a permanent ban.

 

According to the U.S. Consulate in Cebu, the legal age for sex in the Philippines for everyone is 18. the old Spanish law is not in effect.

 

Hmmm maybe but if it was My 16 year old, There would be a Totally Different Outcome. Believe me! and I think I can vouch for every other Father here. Law or no Law.

JP

 

OK, now my head is spinning. Some Fed laws;

Federal laws
{Chapter 117, 18 U.S.C. 2422(b)}

forbids the use of the United States Postal Service or other interstate or foreign means of communication, such as telephone calls or use of the internet, to persuade or entice a minor (defined as under 18 throughout chapter) to be involved in a criminal sexual act. The act has to be illegal under state or federal law to be charged with a crime under 2422(b), and can even be applied to situations where both parties reside within the same state but use an instant messenger program whose servers are located in another state.[53]
{Chapter 117, 18 U.S.C. 2423(a)}


forbids transporting a minor (defined as under 18) in interstate or foreign commerce with the intent of engaging in criminal sexual acts in which a person can be charged. This subsection is ambiguous on its face and seems to apply only when the minor is transported across state or international lines to a place where the conduct is already illegal to begin with. The United States Department of Justice seems to agree with this interpretation.
{Chapter 117, 18 U.S.C. 2423(b)}


forbids traveling in interstate or foreign commerce to engage in "illicit sexual conduct" with a minor. 2423(f) refers to Chapter 109A as its bright line for defining "illicit sexual conduct", as far as non-commercial sexual activity is concerned. For the purposes of age of consent, the only provision applicable is {Chapter 109A, 18 U.S.C. 2243(a)}

. 2243(a) refers to situations where such younger person is under the age of 16 years, has attained 12 years of age, and the older person is more than 4 years older than the 12-to-15-year-old (persons under 12 are handled under 18 U.S.C. 2241(c) under aggravated sexual abuse). So, the age is 12 years if one is within 4 years of the 12-to-15-year-old's age, 16 under all other circumstances. This most likely reflects Congressional intent to not unduly interfere with a state's age of consent law, which would have been the case if the age was set to 18 under all circumstances. This law is also extraterritorial in nature to U.S. Citizens and Residents who travel outside of the United States.
Although legislation tends to reflect general societal attitudes regarding male versus female ages of consent, Richard Posner notes in his Guide to America's Sex Laws;

"The U.S. Supreme Court has held that stricter rules for males do not violate the equal protection clause of the Constitution, on the theory that men lack the disincentives (associated with pregnancy) that women have, to engage in sexual activity, and the law may thus provide men with those disincentives in the form of criminal sanctions."[54]
The Assimilative Crimes Act (18 U.S.C. § 13


) incorporates local state criminal law when on federal reservations such as Bureau of Land Management property, military posts and shipyards, national parks, national forests, inter alia. Consequently, if an act is not punishable by under any federal law (such as 18 U.S.C. 2243(a) mentioned above) then the local state's age of consent laws would apply to the crime.
The Protect Act § 503 of 1992 (codified at 18 U.S.C. § 2251 to 18 U.S.C. § 2260) makes it a federal crime to possess or create sexually explicit images of any person under 18 years of age; this creates a federal age of consent of 18 for pornography.[55] Thus, while some conduct covered by the statute is highly culpable, these penalties apply even when consensual sex between someone under the age of eighteen and someone over the age of eighteen is entirely legal under state law, the non-commercial possession of an explicit picture or video clip of the person under the age of eighteen (such as a cell phone photograph of a naked sexual partner, under the age of eighteen, of the person taking the photo) may still constitute a serious federal child pornography felony.[56] The sentence for a first time offender convicted of producing child pornography under 18 U.S.C. § 2251 (such as taking a suggestive cell phone picture of an otherwise legal sexual partner under the age of eighteen without an intent to share or sell the picture), face fines and a statutory minimum of 15 years to 30 years maximum in prison.[57][58] While mandatory minimum offenses do not apply to mere possession of child pornography, it is almost always the case that a person in possession of child pornography is also necessarily guilty of either receipt of child pornography, which carries a five-year mandatory minimum sentence, or production of child pornography, which carries a fifteen-year mandatory minimum sentence.[59]

 

You're correct regarding the state by state laws, but, if memory serves me right, I think I remember reading some stuff about some federal penal code buried in a trafficking law affecting international US travelers. I might have to do some digging to find.