In America, there is a strong moral panic about pedophilia, which is highly amusing when you study the history of the age of consent. Modern Americans use the contemporary age of consent to say that any older man who likes women under the age of about 18 or engages in sexual relations with them is a "pedophile." Which, of course, is a silly, culture-bound judgement which has no relation to sexual maturation or lack thereof in a woman, and thus the appropriateness of sexual relations with them.
The best that its proponents can do is say that teenage women are not "emotionally mature" enough to consent to sex with an older man. But they can apparently consent to sex with a male of their own age just fine (as if teenage boys, emotionally immature themselves, would not rape or abuse teenage girls, JFL). And besides, when are women ever emotionally mature? Even many grown men aren't.
But the funny thing is that opponents of the age of consent who say that girls are already sexually mature and physiologically developed by their early teenage years are only correct insofar as MODERN women are concerned:
In 2023, by comparison, the average age of first menstruation was 12.4 years.
So in the early 1800s, women only hit puberty in their later teenage years. You would expect for the age of consent back then to reflect this, right? Is the average age of consent being 18 today perhaps a reflection of this old reality?
NOPE, JUST THE OPPOSITE
Thus when women were slower to come to physiological sexual maturation (mainly due to poorer nutrition during the early industrial era), the age of consent was SIGNIFICANTLY lower than today, when they are much quicker to come to sexual maturation.
The age of consent back then facilitated extreme pedophilia, whereas the modern age of consent stigmatizes sex with women who may even be sexually mature for almost a decade and counting (if they hit puberty early at 8 and are currently 17).
The best that its proponents can do is say that teenage women are not "emotionally mature" enough to consent to sex with an older man. But they can apparently consent to sex with a male of their own age just fine (as if teenage boys, emotionally immature themselves, would not rape or abuse teenage girls, JFL). And besides, when are women ever emotionally mature? Even many grown men aren't.
But the funny thing is that opponents of the age of consent who say that girls are already sexually mature and physiologically developed by their early teenage years are only correct insofar as MODERN women are concerned:
In 2023, by comparison, the average age of first menstruation was 12.4 years.
So in the early 1800s, women only hit puberty in their later teenage years. You would expect for the age of consent back then to reflect this, right? Is the average age of consent being 18 today perhaps a reflection of this old reality?
NOPE, JUST THE OPPOSITE
Thus when women were slower to come to physiological sexual maturation (mainly due to poorer nutrition during the early industrial era), the age of consent was SIGNIFICANTLY lower than today, when they are much quicker to come to sexual maturation.
The age of consent back then facilitated extreme pedophilia, whereas the modern age of consent stigmatizes sex with women who may even be sexually mature for almost a decade and counting (if they hit puberty early at 8 and are currently 17).
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