I agree. I also think it had something to do with the huge fuss being made over celebrating American history for the bicentennial in 1976.

Show me the law. Someone else posted CA law and it says nothing about that. I think it’s rubbish.

But if they were both 8, were they both coerced? What if he was 7 when she was 8 - would the fact that she was the older child make her the coercer? There are some important points missing from the original letter. Age of both parties is absolutely vital.

How so? You don’t like the facts of what I say? Maybe you are the asshole?

I have a weird memory, not quite photographic. It’s a pain in the ass really, as bad events in the distant past are still “real”.

Yeah, I probably did too, it’s just so far in the past I can’t really remember what life was like at 8 (I can probably thank the weed a little for that too). I think the “knowing what to do with it” part was probably lacking by quite a bit, though.

I got boners at eight. Didn’t know what they were for but thought it was cool what it did when it got rubbed. A bunch of boys did - “hey, look what it does”!

this is precisely how the law works. Romeo and Juliet laws. If their ages differ by 3 years or fewer (in TX, e.g.) no crime has been committed.

My wife knows two that were together from age 10 to about age 45. Three kids.

Two kids are disgusting? When your kids play doctor, is that what you will say to them? Give them a trauma?

if the dude in this relationship was also a child, that doesn’t count as forced.

Sorry there is no law covering two children of near the same age having non-physically coercive sex. PERIOD.

I said WE DON’T KNOW, but the feminist assumption seems to be that he was an adult. If he’s not, then Dear Abby was right, SHE has a problem NOW, he may or may not.

I knew a girl in college who said she lost her virginity at the age of 6. She said it was a neighborhood boy only slightly older than herself. She said she didn’t look back on it as anything sinister. That it was just one of the many things they did to play. It wasn’t until later in life she learned what sex was and…

She doesn’t state that. The only valid assumption is that they coerced each other in that case as both were underaged.

I’m bleeding from my eyes.

Nope. Threatening to leave is no coercion in ANY jurisdiction.

We don’t know how old he was. If he was near her age then no, there is no problem from that perspective.

Two kids can consent to sex yes.

“forced”?