At times there is a great confusion between terms that may seem similar but, at the same time, very different from one another. Some of the terms on which there is confusion are about the “legal age” for different things in life, one of these “legal ages” is the age of sexual consent and is the one that we want to explain in this article.
Many people can confuse the term legal age with a generic character with the legal age to vote, to drive, to have sex, to buy alcohol, etc., and it does not always have to be so unfailingly.
It is true that, on many occasions, the acquisition of the legal age of majority (at 18 year) is accompanied by the acquisition of the faculties also for other things, such as, for example, in our case also to vote, drive cars, etc., but as it has been said, not so in all cases and the assumption of the age of sexual consent is one of them.
But what is the age of legal consent? The age of legal consent is none other than that age that marks the limit between the ability to give you consent to have sex and not be able to have that ability.
The legal age of sexual consent in many country is situated in the 13 years until makes it relatively very little and not long ago that the legislation has been adapted to raise the legal age to mark the sexual consent of 13 to 16 year.
Much controversy has generated the increase in the age of legal consent from 13 to 16 year. On the one hand, there was a current that called for this ascent (or an even more accentuated rise) and another understood that maturationally the pre-existing age was already sufficient.
In any case, the age of legal sexual consent increased to 16 year and the truth is that what is done according to a rapprochement with the existing laws in our environment, always bearing in mind that the age of sexual consent, and its different and diverse implications, is very different between countries and others at global level.
But what practical effects does the age of sexual consent have from 13 to 16 year? The answer is simple: before an adult who had sex with a person of 13 years or more who had voluntarily given his consent to keep them could do so, now not, now that consent is placed at 16 year.
In other words, under the age of 16 it is understood that no consent of the minor is valid, that he is not mature enough to discern about it and that even if he or she gives consent, the adult should refrain from having sexual relations with this or this minor because for legal purposes would be understood as a non-consensual relationship, which can roughly be said to be equivalent to sexual abuse, which – also way – is equivalent to rape.