Age of consent

[Mimerio]

On this site I viewed quite a while back which displayed all the ages of consent in the world, on some of the entries it said for example

Male / Female 18
Male / Male Illegal
Female / Female 18

Why is male homosexuality prohibited when female homosexuality isn't, this baffles me.

[NickT]

Girl on Girl Is Hot - Television Tropes & Idioms

[Chip]

Originally Posted by Mimerio

Why is male homosexuality prohibited when female homosexuality isn't, this baffles me.

Most likely because most societies are male dominated, many males are deathly afraid of homosexuality, so they make it illegal to pretend it doesn't exist

[qboy]

The history of the UK Age of Consent probably explains it a bit....

The following is England only, and England and Wales from the 1800s - Scotland and (Northern) Ireland have different legal systems (and assumes I have understood everything correctly, there may be some slight errors).

Until 1875

M:M = no age of consent
F:F = no age of consent
M:F = Male - None (unless the female was an adult), Female 12
N.B. - anal penetration of a human or animal illegal since 1533 (and in Wales following the acts of the union in 1543).

From 1875 to 1885

M:M = Illegal
F:F = no age of consent
M:F = Male - None (unless the female was an adult), Female 13
N.B. - anal penetration remains illegal for all

From 1895 to 1922
M:M = Illegal
F:F = no age of consent
M:F = 16
N.B. - anal penetration remains illegal for all

From 1922 to 1967
M:M = Illegal
F:F = 16
M:F = 16
N.B. - anal penetration remains illegal for all

From 1967 to 1994
M:M = 21
F:F = 16
M:F = 16
N.B. - anal penetration remains illegal for all, however you can no longer be prosecuted for this, neither can two men be prosecuted for consenting sexual relations.

From 1994 to 2001
M:M = 18
F:F = 16
M:F = 16
N.B. - anal penetration remains illegal for all, however you can no longer be prosecuted for this, neither can two men be prosecuted for consenting sexual relations.

Since 2001
M:M, F:F, M:F - 16, until one person is in a position of trust (e.g. teacher) then the other person must be 18
N.B. - anal penetration remains illegal for all, however you can no longer be prosecuted for this, neither can two men be prosecuted for consenting sexual relations.

Since 2003
anal penetration (of a human) no longer a crime

i.e. M:M sex wasn't originally illegal only "buggery" was, for whatever reason it was decided to extend this to any sexual activity between men therefore making M:M sex illegal. F:F wasn't legislated against for some reason, a theory being that they didn't want to give women ideas, a change in the law then made the age of consent for all females 16 therefore including F:F sex.

[Mad Man L]

The reason male homosexuality is banned, but not female homosexuality, is because quite often, these societies are male-dominated societies. And men love lesbian sex - it means potential threesomes etc., and who wouldn't turn that down?

Meanwhile, male homosexuality is effeminate, disgusting (because it involves two or more penises) and perverted in these societies, so they ban it.

A girl thinking about a guy eating penis and/or deserting her for a guy can also make them freak. e.g. I know a girl who despite her boyfriend being openly bi, said he was straight, because she didn't want to think about her BF liking men.

There's also the notion that anal sex is the way 'gays have sex', and that by banning it, you somewhat stop gay male sex. Hence, why the age of consent for sodomy in Queensland is 18, not 16. (This law originated from the days when laws against male homosexuality were repealed in 1990).

[GuardianKitten]

N.B. - anal penetration remains illegal for all, however you can no longer be prosecuted for this, neither can two men be prosecuted for consenting sexual relations.

Would someone please explain to me the point of something being illegal but nonprosecutable ?

[Enaithor]

Originally Posted by GuardianKitten

Would someone please explain to me the point of something being illegal but nonprosecutable ?

There is no point. Although I don't know for certain, I imagine that maybe, instead of revoking the original legislation, they created new legislation that directly or indirectly made it something for which one could not be prosecuted

[qboy]

Originally Posted by Enaithor

There is no point! Although I don't know for certain, I imagine that maybe, instead of revoking the original legislation, they created new legislation that directly or indirectly made it something for which one could not be prosecuted

There often seams to be conflicting stuff in law - it seams that the primary intention was to legalise consensual sex between males and and obvious side effect of this needed to be preventing the prosecution of anyone taking part in such (the Wolfenden* report, which paved the way for the decriminalisation of homosexuality in England and Wales, was a response to the well publicised crack down on homosexuality by the police after world war II) under laws which hadn't been used since Oscar Wilde in the 1890s.

However the existing laws took a fair bit longer to rewrite (you couldn't just have repealed them as that would have legalised buggery of an animal for instance) and these eventually ended up being rewritten as part of a much wider review of laws regarding sex, sexuality and indecency. Shame it took from 1957 through to 2003 to actually sort the whole mess out properly.

What was noticeable is that considering how slowly things moved at first, when it finally happened it came quickly (although admittedly much of it forced by the European Court of Human rights, even the bits promised prior to the 1997 elections )

1988 - Section 28 - the banning of the promotion of homosexuality in schools (AFAIK the last anti-gay legislation enacted into English and Welsh law).

2000 - Equalisation of the age of consent, ban on gays serving in the armed forces lifted. (Going back to the original post The House of Lords tabled a amendment to the age of consent bill which would have made the age of consent for buggery 18 and everything else 16, as it was the Parliament act was invoked and the House of Commons pushed their version through)
2002 - Gay couples could adopt children, discrimination on grounds of sexuality in the workplace made illegal
2003 - Hostility based on sexuality to be counted as an aggravating fact when sentencing criminals
2004 - All sex related legislation became no longer gender specific (therefore all M:M sexual activity is the same in law as M:F and F:F)
2004 - Transgenedered people can change their birth certificate to reflect their gender
2005 - Civil Partnerships introduced
2009 - Prime Minister Gordon Brown makes a public posthumous apology on behalf of the UK government for prosecuting Alan Turning as a homosexual
2010 - Equality Act introduced - many previous equality legislation rewritten to treat gender, race, disability, sexual orientation and transgender status, and religious beliefs as equals.

* This itself being a lovely can of worms - Lord Wolfrenden's son was gay (although Lord Wolfrenden didn't know this at the time of compiling and writing the report which would recommend the decriminalisation of homosexuality which was finally enacted into law ten years later) foreign correspondent for the Daily Telegraph and British Spy based in Moscow who was then compromised by the KGB after befriending double agent Guy Burgess who had been passing secrets to the Soviet Union during WWII ( See Cambridge Five - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia )

Amazing to think the work of one gay man, Alan Turning, who's work was instrumental to breaking the Engima code and the allied victory in World War Two was being betrayed by another man (and men like hime) who would later befriend the son of the man who would recommend the decriminalisation of homosexuality - which had it happened twenty years earlier would have stopped him from being prosecuted under those laws and requiring chemical castration which screwed his mind and body leading to his suicide!

[Zontar]

Originally Posted by GuardianKitten

Would someone please explain to me the point of something being illegal but nonprosecutable ?

In US law, this event would occur if a law were found unconstitutional in the Supreme Court.

For example, there are many states with sodomy laws still in effect, however, post Lawrence v. Texas, they are worth about as much as the dusty old scrap they're written on.

Every law must be explicitly and formally repealed to be removed from the code, even if it is no longer enforceable.

[Emberstone]

maybe we should replace age of consent with 'maturity of consent'... then, we can stop the lohans, kardashians, and palins from procreating.

[Meropspusillus]

Originally Posted by Emberstone

maybe we should replace age of consent with 'maturity of consent'... then, we can stop the lohans, kardashians, and palins from procreating.

Eugenics is always a good idea.

[mnguy]

Relating to what was said about male dominated society, the bottom was seen as being like a woman. Women were considered inferior to men so it was an insult to be penetrated by a man. After victory in battle, men would rape women and men of a conquered city to humiliate them. Rape is all about power and control as we know now. We see this in jail rape today and it isn't about sexual attraction. I think this is why male homosexuality gets all the hatred and disgust. Read comments on gay news articles and when sex is mentioned as a reason to deny us equality, they're always about how disgusting and vile anal sex is thus gays deserve no rights. By that "logic" lesbians should get more rights than straight people since that's the group that has the least anal sex.

[grimAuxiliatrix]

Dear society, I know girl on girl is hot (I myself am a lesbian), but please give the gay males their right to do the dirty tango. Your irritated citizen of the united states, Gretchen

[anatta]

Originally Posted by mnguy

Relating to what was said about male dominated society, the bottom was seen as being like a woman. Women were considered inferior to men so it was an insult to be penetrated by a man.

Exactly. See my signature.

Even in the post-patriarchal West, any and all feminine traits are still seen as inferior to masculine ones, so it is more subversive for males to exhibit feminine traits than for females to exhibit masculine ones.

As male attraction and/or being penetrated are more common in women than men, they too by definition are feminine traits.

In some societies, there is no stigma at all against being gay, not even a word for it; only against being on the bottom, as this is to take on the conventionally female, and therefore inferior role.