The Student Room Group

Why is age of consent 16 yet illegal to act in pornos until 18?

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Original post by JLXP
Enlist in the army at 16, can't play CoD until 18.


You can enlist in the army at 16 but you won't be sent to war until you're 18 years old. That rule applies to all the armed forces and has existed since sometime in the early 70's I think.
Original post by Annoying-Mouse
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_Offences_Act_2003 - Who was responsible for this act? Because that act is the one that changed the law.


Implying I was being serious.
Reply 22
Original post by Annoying-Mouse
Your romanticizing sex. How do you know they're going to **** someone who they love as opposed to a one-night-stand? The only way pornography will effect someone life-long is due to societal attitudes and the fact that they'll be negatively judged for it. How exactly is a just out of school 18 year old any better equipped?


There's no guarantee sex will be responsible, safe, loving etc at either age, but having a higher limit reduces the chances of people being manipulated into it. It's also less damaging to have sex casually at 16 than to get into the porn industry at the same age, where one becomes dependent on sex for income. It allows people to mature before they make such a big decision, and attempts to protect young people from maniuplation. I'm not saying it works, but you asked why it's the case, and this is the reasoning behind the legislation.
Because if you were in porn and you're under the age of eighteen it's considered child pornography, due to the fact that you're not considered legally an adult yet.
Technically, you're not meant to send naked photographs of yourself to your boy/girlfriend or whatever as that's considered child porn too and then you can get done for the production of it, but in honesty nobody really cares much about that part because it's hard to find out about.

If you think stuff like that is weird, in most parts of America you can't drink until you are 21 but you can have a gun licence at 18!
Reply 24
Maybe a better question is, are there people who who would like to see 16/17 year old porn?

If so, maybe a vote is needed to change the law?
Until you're 18 you're legally a child so technically anyone watching porn you appeared in could be charged with watching indecent images of children or whatever the relevant charge is.
It is because people who make these laws are so far out of touch with rational thought.
Reply 27
Original post by madders94
Until you're 18 you're legally a child so technically anyone watching porn you appeared in could be charged with watching indecent images of children or whatever the relevant charge is.


Yet it's legal to have sex with a child (older than 16).
Reply 28
I see why a 16 year old can not appear in pornographic material however I do not understand why they are unable to look at it. As it stand you must be 18 to see such things yet 16 to engage in the very acts depicted this is ridicules’.
Original post by 93jm
I see why a 16 year old can not appear in pornographic material however I do not understand why they are unable to look at it. As it stand you must be 18 to see such things yet 16 to engage in the very acts depicted this is ridicules’.


Hi, totally agree with you. One of these crazy laws which do not make sense, however...I wouldn't agree with raising the age of consent to 18 though!
xx
There is also the issue of U18s not being legally competent to make a contract.

The situation with prostitution is similar, following the SOA 2003: you can legally have sex with a 16/17 year old (presuming you don't have a duty of care towards them etc) but you can't pay for that sex.
Original post by unprinted
There is also the issue of U18s not being legally competent to make a contract.
The situation with prostitution is similar, following the SOA 2003: you can legally have sex with a 16/17 year old (presuming you don't have a duty of care towards them etc) but you can't pay for that sex.


Hence when 16/17 year olds appeared on page 3 topless and in softcore porn magazines such as Parade and Men Only (until 2005 for the Daily Sport- they reprinted Cherry Dee images from before the law came into effect in 2004, which was technically illegal- and the late 1990s for the Sun and magazines) a parent or guardian was required to sign the release. One pic showed a 16 year old and her mum topless together: I think it was Donna Ewin. A company called Fantasy Blue used to make DVDs and VHS tapes until about 2002 featuring topless "schoolgirls" claiming to be 16, many of whom were obviously much older. The same applies to "legal teen" porn now, in which supposed 18-19 year olds can be anything up to 25.

The worst example of this was the girl (i.e. woman) playing Bex Fisher on Waterloo Road. The seedy Hodge had got her to make porn while she'd ran away to London and in the storyline was aged 16-17, which her mum and head teacher Karen calls "child abuse" and Tom Clarkson tells the boys downloading her video they will get in trouble for "child abuse images". The actress, Tina O'Brien, was 27 when the scenes were filmed. Some child porn! A 17 year old actor was in much more graphic sex, playing a 14 year old sleeping with his teacher, in "Notes on a Scandal" shown that autumn on BBC. So there was no legal need for them to even be 18.

As far as "many countries" doing it, this started for two reasons: international groups pushing a definition of "child sexual exploitation" that included any prostitution or pornographic images of minors regardless of national ages of consent, and US hardline persecution of anyone suspected of downloading CP which cut off a whole major market to anyone using under-18s. There was a Danish magazine "Fifteen" featuring 15-19 year olds in hardcore sex, produced by Color Climax, in the '70s which now attracts serious prices on the black market. The Dutch film series "Seventeen" and many German "Teenie" films also included 16-17 year olds in hardcore scenes: the age limits in these three countries rose to 18 in 2003, 2002 and 2009 respectively.
There's a huge difference between being seen as old enough to have sex and being old enough to commit to the porn industry. I don't think it's wrong that the age restrictions reflect this. I don't think it's wrong that you have to be 18 to watch porn either to be honest. Soft porn isn't likely to disturb teenagers but some of the hardcore stuff is pretty ridiculous and I don't think it's healthy for 16 year olds to watch it. Things would just get too complicated if you were to categorize all porn into either soft or hardcore so I think it's best it just stays at 18.

I think what we need to remember in this discussion is that sex in the real world isn't (or shouldn't be) anything like porn and the harder stuff especially is not something that virgins or people with little sexual experience should watch because it's likely to give them the wrong idea and make relationships awkward for them.

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