This topic has gone back and forth many times. At least in my lifetime, the U.S. has viewed 16 - 18 as an age of sexual consent.

In other parts of the world, the age has ranged from 12 - 18 in most places. With a small minority of places that had no designated age set, but very strict religious laws to cover sexual relations to all.

Biology seems to point to around 11-13 as being when a girls body is past puberty to start bearing children. In the ancient past, girls were married at a young age and typically started having children as soon as their body was capable of doing so.

Culture, and religion seem to have been the most influential of designating an "age". In the U.S. history, there was no age designated until around 1880 when it was set to around 10 or 11, with Connecticut being set at 7. It was raised around 1920 due to a film that was released at the time showing that younger girls were being taken advantage of.
Around the world, it seems similar raising of the age occurred, mostly from pressure of groups all claiming young girls were being taken advantage off.
Lately social media and media in general condemns any form of idea of an older man with a younger girl.

I feel the original age setting of 10 to 11 to be reasonable. Although this sounds ridiculous in todays society, It does follow more in line with biology.
A study done shows that Denmark was able to cut their teen pregnancy rate in half (1974-1990), by lowering the age of consent to 12. The government also started a promotional policy of encouraging the family to be involved in teaching their own children about sex. The study came to many possible conclusions, especially in light of western countries like the United States having extremely high teen pregnancy rates.
But I think "Scandinavian model" worked simply because it made the girls more responsible at a younger age.

In the United States, the age of consent repeatedly moved higher and higher seems to have created the effect of making a lazy mind about being pregnant and starting a family. Parents lack of involvement in their daughters mental growth and sexual knowledge, has caused girls to continue to act less mature to an older age. Including girls in their 20's now, still continuing to portray personality traits of a 10 yr old.

Also, there seems to be a disconnect with the law not being consistent in that many states have the age of consent set to 16, yet their laws on videos and pictures is set to 18. So technically a girl could be in a legal relationship with a man and if he had any nude pictures of her, he could be arrested. Not a very logical or thought out set of laws.

That all being said, I know my opinion will not be a popular one.

And knowing the scientific data that I do about the psychological studies and cultural impacts, I feel like the age of consent set to 18 is more of a mass appeal move to religion and middle aged women who are jealous of the idea of a man dating a younger girl.

Let the flaming begin.

For me, this is a very sensitive and relevant topic. There are 2 reasons for this:
1) Sensitive - this problem concerned me when I was in puberty.
2) Relevant - my son will soon be in puberty.

So, my opinion and one of the rules of sex is - TIMELINESS.
What does it mean? Sex should happen on demand, not at a certain age.

The note. The Timeliness rule has a broader definition. Here I only touch on sex during puberty.

----- Statement 1 -----

I believe that as soon as the signs of puberty appear, parents (not a school or any other institution where education in groups takes place) should begin sexual education of the child.
Sex education should include a very wide range of knowledge about sex, the causes and consequences of sex.

In this case, the training should be:
1) built on a trusting relationship between the child and parents,
2) taking into account the child's ability to absorb information,
3) understanding what exactly is worrying the child right now (it is unlikely that the child himself will be able to isolate and formulate this),
4) with an understanding of how to “correctly” convey information to your child,
5) parents must be sure of what they tell their child.

This may all seem very complicated. It's easier to say "we figured it out and our child will orient himself." I am 100% sure that this is not an efficient way.

For example, I really lacked sex education. I examined my body, the body's reactions to various stimuli, and it seemed shameful to me. My mother was talking to a clairvoyant woman at the time, and apparently she told her that I was doing self-satisfaction or something like that. No one (neither my mother, nor that woman) could even tell me directly what they wanted to say, there were only some vague hints) - it was terribly annoying for me.

The more I explored myself, the more orgasms I got, the more I moved away from my parents (from my mother; my father did not take part in my life at all). The reason is that my physiological needs were not accepted as normal, I did not receive information about physiology and sex, the "bridge of trust" was not built. At the same time, my upbringing did not allow me to speak directly about my needs. It's like with friends - friends are those people who have common interests, who support each other.

It seems that my description has gone a bit into the topic of children's sex education. But, I think this is the basis.

----- Statement 2 -----

The beginning of a sexual life is definitely no accidental (and even planned) pregnancies! In my opinion, the age before the end of puberty is the age of formation of the hormonal background of the body. In no case should this period be disturbed by pregnancies (which change the hormonal background).
In my opinion, pregnancies are physiologically acceptable only after the full formation of the physical body (22-25 years).

----- Statement 3 -----

For the quality formation of a person, it is necessary to have sex as much as you want and when you want. If the body wants it, then it needs it.

Analogy. If you do not let a person sleep or eat when he wants, then the consequences will be sad. It's the same with sex.

At a young age, the physiological consequences are not so noticeable, since the body is still young. But morally and psychically it affects very negatively.

So, my conclusion: sex before 18 is MANDATORY. And sex should be age-appropriate, or rather, needs and experience.

In the next post, I will describe my opinion about sex under 18 from a legal point of view.

This is about consent to sex, which was mentioned in the first post (by selectiveentropy).

In order to consent to sex and be responsible for it, the intellectual maturity of the individual is necessary.
At the age of 22-25 years, physical formation occurs. With intelligence up to this age, everything is difficult, since naturally most of the body's resources are spent on physiology.
The note. This is not about erudition (acquired knowledge), but about the ability to "find logical solutions for equations with several unknowns."

In the past few years, I have noticed that today's children have physically matured faster. For example, girls at 14-15 years old look like mature women (at my 14-15 years old girls looked like immature teenagers). Accordingly, I can conclude that the formation of intelligence (especially with today's huge flow of information) is also faster. Therefore, it can be assumed that for today's children the age of sexual consent is possible at 18-20 years, subject to prior sexual education.

And here the question arises. What to do if you have to have sex on demand (on average, starting from 12-13 years old), and the age of sexual consent is 18-20 years old?

I believe that access to sex as a basic need (as well as sleep and nutrition) should be provided by caregivers.

What does it mean? Guardians / parents are obliged to find professional "teachers" of practical sex for their child who has matured for sex, who can lead the child from self-exploration to the ability to use sex as a basic need. That is, up to a certain age, parents must choose a partner for their child for sex and give final consent to the sex of the child.

!!! A very important note. For such an approach to the child's sexual education, parents must also be sexually developed and not impose social restrictions on sex.

At the moment, I have not yet met such "schools" and teachers. Perhaps someone knows these. Share with others.

If there are no such teachers yet (and even if there are, then there are very few of them), then everything is in the hands of modern society!

I think back to my own childhood at around the age of 11-12 (circa 1993-94) and how i learned at a public school here where I am from all about sex in as much detail as was necessary at that time for children of our age. We learned all about the different body parts, their individual function as well as how they worked together for the purposes of reproduction, etc. We were never encouraged to try any of the things we learned in those classes. We didn't have the internet then and as far as I knew most children my age at the time weren't engaging in any sexual activity (except maybe masturbation).

I have to be honest though and when I think of how quickly (as you pointed out, Julia) young people are maturing both in the physical and psychological, as well as the readily available access to the internet, I wonder whether it does require a reassessment of children's sex education. Ideally, whether it be schools or parents, etc. I think the education should be very similar to what I learned with maybe the additional component of encouraging the child(ren) to wait until they are mature enough as well as being able to legally consent (Age of Consent here is16yo).
I am open to lowering the age of consent to a younger age but in the grand scheme of things, 16 years of age I still think is quite reasonable. I certainly do not encourage paedophilia, etc.

Julia, I personally would like some clarification regarding your last post on the legality of consent and finding certain "teachers". I also don't agree with the idea that the parent(s)/guardian(s) of the child would give consent on their behalf. I also don't agree, if I understand you correctly If you were asserting that parents should find a fellow adult whom they would give their consent to (on behalf of their child) to have sex with their child in order to teach them about sex.

I have nothing against teaching about safe sex such as using condoms or "the pill" but I think that should be coupled with encouragement to wait and try and remain celibate until the young person is truly ready so that the risk of peer pressure is reduced as well as child sexual abuse and exploitation.

As a "philosophical nudist" i.e. I believe in the tenants of nudism but don't get to practise them myself, I believe that a nudist lifestyle would help a lot of young people deal with many of the issues related to the body and even sexual issues. Without having all those hangups towards the naked body as is common in many Western households, children would not only experience the natural naked body in a regular setting, they might (hopefully) get to see many people of different ages and genders naked also. In so doing, the young people might also have less body issues of their own as well as a more open scenario to ask questions relating to sex and reproduction, etc.

Finally as a Christian, I believe that sex should be express within a heterosexual couple who have made a public declaration of a lifetime exclusive relationship with one another alone. Therefore I personally think that young people should ideally wait until they are 18+ and in such a relationship before they engage in such activity. For the record, I don't believe that sex is a bad thing just that as it is a very intimate activity, the decision to participate in sex needs to be taken seriously.

Anyway those are my thoughts on those issues. If anyone has any questions, feel free to ask.