Inspired by the Cosby thread, why is it that different societies have such totally different laws on sexuality? A few years ago in Morocco a very cute Spanish gay boy came onto me. I told him I wasn't interested but asked how old he was. He showed me his passport - 19 but looked 17. "But anyway", he said, "the age of consent in Spain is 12".

Yet 20 minutes across the Gibraltar Straits, in Morocco, any gay sex is illegal. Indeed in some countries (Uganda, Iran) it gets the Death Penalty.

And in Gibraltar at that time, like in the UK, it was 18 for guys.

I could never have been prosecuted for the false allegations against me in any other European country.

Odd.

I've repeatedly asked this question : if a person is claimed to be a paedophile in the UK for having sex with an under 16 year old, do they stop being one if they have it off with a 15 year old in Spain, Italy,Germany etc etc.

but I can never get an answer !

Good point Hedda and it comes down to language; but a paedophile finds children sexually attractive and in the UK a "child" is "a person under 14" according to the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 - never repealed.

Except of course, new methods are being used to declare girls over 16 as "vunerable persons", and you can be forbidden to approach one with NO EVIDENCE.

[quote]
Lorna Meyer QC of No 5 Chambers, representing Birmingham City Council, said the council and police had identified a "number of individuals" found to be "inappropriately" in the company of a 17-year-old girl........

.....This doesn't replace the criminal process but it is about finding complementary ways of working together to do all we can to safeguard vulnerable children......./quote]

www.familylawweek.co.uk/site.aspx?i=ed136903

Yes Alice is indeed surviving in Wonderland as she watches the playing cards in the Halls of Justice. As I'm sure Lewis Carroll would agree.

hedda wrote:
I've repeatedly asked this question : if a person is claimed to be a paedophile in the UK for having sex with an under 16 year old, do they stop being one if they have it off with a 15 year old in Spain, Italy,Germany etc etc.

but I can never get an answer !

Not just for having sex with the fifteen year old, which is fair enough if it is illegal,but called a paedophile for being attracted to (possibly) outwardly sexually mature people and never acting on it.

honey!oh sugar sugar. wrote:
hedda wrote:
I've repeatedly asked this question : if a person is claimed to be a paedophile in the UK for having sex with an under 16 year old, do they stop being one if they have it off with a 15 year old in Spain, Italy,Germany etc etc.

but I can never get an answer !

Not just for having sex with the fifteen year old, which is fair enough if it is illegal,but called a paedophile for being attracted to (possibly) outwardly sexually mature people and never acting on it.

is it a British thing ?

sex has never been more talked about or shoved in your face (stop laughing in the back row)yet the great masses seem naive about it in every way.

Or do people reach 40 and begin to re-write their wayward teen years?

reading 'reports' about this chap who claims he witnessed a Tory strangle a young boy at Dolphin Square- it is obvious he was on the game for good or bad..yet for years ?..and now in his 40s wishes to re-write that episode out of his life?.

Yet some tales of very very famous people and their life on the game on the way up I have heard from credible sources- Hollywood is full of successful people who don't give a damn about their sexual past.

I met Jody McRae when I was 20 in LA (I've just discovered he has died) he took me all over LA to studio lots etc..and he told me extraordinary stories- as someone brought up amongst movie stars- of some of the most famous names on the planet and their sexual past in getting to the top.

The various ages of consent are a complete mess. Clearly, as a teenager, I was vulnerable and (from what I reading the papers) being seriously abused such that my life has been ruined and I have never recovered therefrom, with little idea or appreciation of what I was doing or what was being done to me. I know that is true because I read what the learned Judge had to say in the case of Ray Teret.

Were I likely to meet a teenager the first thing
I would want to do is see their I.D. or passport and then consult my lawyer as to what I may or may not do in their presence - things such as talking to them making eye contact or waving them goodbye. Happily, as far as I am concerned, teenagers and the like wear metaphorical burkhas so I never see them - ah bliss!

Interesting item from "The Economist" on this very subject.


subscriptions.economist.com/uk/ecomdecteen/

Very interesting article Giles; thanks for posting.

honey!oh sugar sugar. wrote:
hedda wrote:
I've repeatedly asked this question : if a person is claimed to be a paedophile in the UK for having sex with an under 16 year old, do they stop being one if they have it off with a 15 year old in Spain, Italy,Germany etc etc.

but I can never get an answer !

Not just for having sex with the fifteen year old, which is fair enough if it is illegal,but called a paedophile for being attracted to (possibly) outwardly sexually mature people and never acting on it.

There is a difference between being attracted to someone who is slightly under the age of consent(say 14 or 15) and someone who is clearly a child and has not yet reached puberty. The definition of a paedophile is someone who is attracted to pre-pubescent children(i.e. under 12). It would not be considered medically abnormal to be attracted to a 14 or 15 year old, although it would be illegal to act on this attraction because they are considered to be not emotionally mature enough to make a decision to have sex. This is why most newspapers do actually avoid using the term paedophile and writing about Jimmy Saville or Rolf Harris, as most of the accusers would be past puberty, although below the age of consent.