When it comes to sex, teens get treated with "kid" gloves

"A lot of my experiences were with older women," added queer youth activist Alix Mukonambi. "Queer relationships develop differently than straight ones in this way."

That's why queer activists are concerned that the Conservative government's promise to raise the age of consent from 14 to 16 could push gay youth back into the closet. According to Hinds, it will have queer youth wondering if they'll be able to date without worrying their boyfriend or girlfriend will be arrested.

There are broader implications as well, added an older audience member.

"Gay 14- and 15-year-olds are most at risk for suicide, usually because of issues surrounding their sexuality," he said. "Criminalizing their sexuality will only put them at greater risk."

And it's not just gay youth who will suffer, added panelist Leanne Cusitar, a Toronto AIDS educator. "Are young teenagers going to be comfy seeking out sex information or counselling if they're having illegal sex?"

Never mind the risks for educators, nurses and clinics providing this information.

"We want young people to have information about every other aspect of their lives but sex," complained Rob Teixeira, a member of the Toronto-based Sex Laws Committee.

"You can't treat young people with fully functional sex apparatuses and hormones in overdrive as children," said one audience member. These are not "kids" but "apprentice adults," he half-joked.

The history of Canada's age of consent laws is about as confusing as our attitudes about childhood sexuality.

In 1886, sex with a girl over 12 and under 16 "of previously chaste nature" was made illegal. In 1892, the age was changed to between 14 and 16. After 1920, they tossed "blame" in there as an issue that could lead to acquittal, and that stuck until 1988 when the government decided that maybe it was a little unfair to restrict the law to girls. Now sex with anyone over 14 is legal as long as you are not in a position of authority (e.g., their teacher) and you don't pay for it. They also threw in a "close in age" restriction, meaning that, if you're 12 to 14, you can have consensual sex with someone two years older than you. Unless you're having anal sex, which is illegal under the age of 18, unless of course you're married or living in Ontario or Quebec, where courts have ruled this law discriminatory.

Got that?

Now the Harper government wants to raise the starting age to 16 (they'd keep the "close in age" exemption, meaning 14-year-olds could still have sex with 16-year-olds, ostensibly admitting that 14-year-olds can be sexual, but we'll let that one go for now). They'd actually prefer to raise it to 17 or 18 as it is in some U.S. states, like Texas, where the age of consent is 17.

In fact, the whole age of consent debate was refuelled in part when, last year, Ottawa police charged a man from Texas with luring a 14-year-old boy to his hotel room after meeting him on the Internet. Lobbyists fighting to raise Canada's age of consent law used the case to say that Canada's low age of consent is a "magnet for Internet lurers."

The panelists said this is horseshit.

"They say they want to change the age of consent laws to protect youth," said Rob Teixeira, "but there are already laws to deal with predators and pedophiles."

"We don't need to start punishing boyfriends and girlfriends," added Hinds.

Cusitar cites the recent case of Nova Scotian Stephen Marshall, who gunned down two men in Maine whose names he found on an online "sex offender registry."

"William Elliot was on the registry because he had sex with his girlfriend who was just shy of her 16th birthday," she explains.

Unfortunately, pedophile and sex offender panic dominates any discussion surrounding youth and sexuality, complained Teixeira.

So what should the age of consent be? I asked the panel.

"I'd like to see laws based not on age, but on the specifics of relationships, the power dynamics et cetera," responded Hinds.

"What defines consent is not about age," said Mukonambi.

"I've been wrestling with this one for 30 years," concluded Tom Warner, a long-time gay activist. "Strategically, the age should remain as is. That's a big enough battle right now."
 
 

		Write your comment on this article!

That's not the best way to help.     Reading this article makes me feel very uncomfortable. If a teen comes to you with questions about sexuality and/or his sexual orientation, there are other ways to help him than having sex with him, and that's true for gays as much as it is for heterosexuals. Talk to him. Answer is questions honestly. Help him understand what he lives. The goal of that law is actually to protect teenagers, whom their physical and hormonal development as much as their inexperience makes vulnerable, from, amongst other things, peoples who would think that they would help them by "initiating" them. Gay teenagers deserve that protection as much as heteros. And need it more, if I believe this article.
Marie-Joëlle Bertrand	{9 votes}	July 4th, 2006
Correction     Not that I want to defend the proposed changes to the age of consent laws, but I'm afraid that Josey Vogels has got her facts wrong. Yes the legal age for sexual intercourse would be raised to 16, and yes, they will keep the two-year "close in age" exemption, but the latter will apply to 12- and 13- year-olds who have sex with 14- and 15-year-olds. In addition, there will be a *new* exemption for all teens under 16 whose partner is less than five years older. In other words, it will be possible for a 14-year-old to have sex with a 19-year-old, but not with a 20-year-old. Thanks to this last-minute addition to the bill, all federal parties now say they approve of the bill. .As for the young man who got killed by a vigilante because he was registered as a sex offender for having had intercourse with his underage girlfriend, reports about their respective ages vary (Le Devoir recently stated that they were 20 and 14 at the time, while other sources go for 19 and 16, which is just as illegal in the States, where the events took place). Either way, our government keeps insisting that it does not target young lovers, but much older men who prey on teenagers. Yet if that is indeed the case, one has to wonder why they don't specify that in the bill, and still go for a mere five-year age gap. In the end, that's where the problem usually lies with sex laws. Last summer's "Child Protection" bill might have been just as well-meaning, but it still defined child porn as any depiction of a sex act in which one of the protagonists is under 18 (or even looks like it). In effect, the end result was that having sex at 16 remained legal in Canada, but *discussing it on paper* didn't, even in a sex education leaflet--a total perversion of the government's stated intentions. The way the current bill is speeding through the legislation, we're about the repeat the exact same type of mistake.
Charles Montpetit	{22 votes}	June 30th, 2006
Under Age Sex is Just That     After just reading everything I have, I am pissed off. So does some aristocratic conservitive mean to say that as a parent I now have no legal options for protecting my minor daughter from the luring teenage boys who are looking for sex, encouraging girls to engage in sexual activities, "take their virginity" like some frat house hazing ritual. So what is a parent to do now? Because they are within the "5 years" is it legal? Where are the other parents responsibilities to supervise they're son while he and my child are in their physical presence? This new bill with the addition of the 5 year protection plan is simply Bullshit! With everything that we have done as parents, protecting, teaching, nuturing, providing spiritual guidance. And in the end they are within 5 years of each others age so it is legal. I will be sure to advise the boy who took my daughters virtue to seek out Mr. Harpers Daughter for sexual gratification as she is within the 5 year range also.
Kelly Wallace		May 2nd, 2008
~My Messy Bedroom~     The legal age of consent in the hands of Harper's Conservatives? This from the same people that are running a sword through every pro-gay legislation on the books and turning back the social clock without a hint of foresight of what this might mean for us collectively in the future? Ultimately, we all know that we'll all have sex when we want to. It could happen today, tomorrow, when we're 30 or when we're a pimply-faced walking hormone machine of 14. This move might not affect everyone the same way but it will definitely have a negative impact for many. So yeah, where is the logic behind this?
Pedro Eggers	{1 vote}	July 5th, 2006
Obfuscation     This law isn't meant to stop teens from having sex, and, like abstinence-only education, won't do that. Will it make teens less likely to have safe sex, or be willing to talk about things, because they're worried they (or their partner) will get in trouble? Possibly. The most important issue in the law is clarity -- if it's not understood well, it won't work out.
J Flegg	{1 vote}	July 5th, 2006
Rules for Having Sex: Too Complex     The rules for having sex legally are not always obvious and can be downright confusing. The government needs to set up a web site where the parties who are contemplating sex can enter details such as respective birthdates, gender, type of sex desired such as anal, oral or vaginal and partner relationship like teacher-student, manager-employee or stranger. After pressing the submit button a complicated program with artificial intelligence quickly determines if the desired sexual activities between these two individuals would be legal according to Canadian law. If forbidden the penalties for breaking the law would be explained in detail. To complete the web site, pointers on safe sex would be provided.
Stephen Talko	{4 votes}	July 3rd, 2006
(((My Two Cents))) - Thinking This Is Preposterous     After reading this article, I really wonder what is going on in the heads of the members of the Conservative government. Couple of problems occuring here. Firstly, as was mentioned in the article, for the homosexual youth in Montreal, this will only hurt them. Lately, there haven't been too many suicides due to this and many of the homosexual youth have begun coming out of the closet. But if the change here is made by the Conservative government, I can guarantee that they will go right back to the closet. To make matters even worse, children will just be more confused than ever. Instead of being 15, having sex, and being able to go to a sexual counsellor to talk about what occured, they will never say anything because they would have done something illegal. Bottom line, as has most likely been mentioned many times, kids will have sex irregardless of what the government does or says. However, instead of forcing them to doing it in secrecy and scared to talk to anyone about it, why not keep the age at fourteen and give the kids the chance to talk about it and such. Honestly, the age must remain at 14!
Zachary Masoud	{6 votes}	July 2nd, 2006
14 or 16...     The age should stay at 14, because let's face it to change this law wouldn't change if kids have sex at 14 or 16, it wouldn't stop them, the only thing it would do is cost more money to taxpayers just to change a law that no one really cares about anyways, kids will be kids and they'll start experimenting when they will want to, the government won't have any say in it, so lets just let things the way they are.
Roxane Gibault	{5 votes}	July 1st, 2006
Legal Manouvers!     Age of consent - talk about a thorny issue which is destined to cause more divisiveness than anything else. I never would have thought to look at it from a gay perspective and after having read this piece, I understand that older queer folk often seemingly play a hands-on mentoring kind of role in helping gay youth actualise and express their sexuality. This makes me feel somewhat uncomfortable if I superimpose my heterosexual imprint upon the kind of inherent disparity in age that goes along with this - still if this is the reality of the situation, then so be it. And while we're on the topic of what's real, I can't believe that the Conservatives are so short-sighted and insular that they somehow think that they can return the youth of today to a kinder, gentler (and more ignorant) time simply by raising the age of consent. Kids are exposed to a constant ebb and flow of information and consequently are more self-aware sexually not to mention expressive than ever before. I'm not implying they're necessarily any wiser but you can't legislate wisdom anymore than you can morality, Mr. Harper!
Mark St Pierre	{6 votes}	June 30th, 2006

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