fair’s fair

People are having a bit of a freak-out over Lib-Dem proposals to allow 16-year-olds access to pornography and it seems a tempest in a teapot to me. You either have an age of consent that’s relevant to everything or you don’t. It’s simply ridiculous to pick and choose.

I’m not 100% convinced I know what the age should be, however. Sixteen seems too young for an awful lot of things, to be honest, but it depends on the person. Too young to be a parent, too young to understand politics perhaps, too young to understand the consequences of joining the military or of smoking tobacco. But if you’re going to let 16-year-olds get married, have children, go to war, smoke cigarettes, then you have to let them do the other things that adults do.

It’s only fair.

Page 1 of 1 pages