When Paul lost his virginity to an older girl, he never thought he might be
committing a crime. Emma, his first girlfriend, was a year older than him at
15 and already sexually experienced. But when her parents discovered the
nature of their relationship, it was 14-year-old Paul who was threatened
with the law.
“All hell broke loose, made worse when they phoned my parents, who rushed
round for a mortifying conference,” he recalls. Paul thought his parents
would be reasonably supportive, as they liked Emma and had always been
straightforward about sex education.
“I couldn’t have been more wrong,” he says. “Emma’s dad kept saying, ‘We could
get the police in, you know,’ and my mum was agreeing with him. I kept
waiting for Emma to defend me, even if she couldn’t tell them that I wasn’t
the first person she’d had sex with, but to say it was a mutual decision.”
Both sets of parents agreed that the relationship had to end immediately.
Emma’s parents told Paul they would call the police if he tried to contact
her and have him charged with having sex with a minor. He was shocked. “We
were just two teenagers experimenting.”
But the adults were correct. It is an offence for anyone to have sex with a
girl aged less than 16 — even if the other person is a child himself.
It’s the experience of boys like Paul that encouraged Chief Superintendent
Clive Murray, president of the Association of Scottish Police
Superintendents, to speak out recently against the law.
Murray told The Sunday Times Scotland that the current legal age of consent
did not distinguish between sexual abuse and “youthful natural instinct”.
The age of consent in Britain is 16, but many European countries set it much
lower.
His concerns echo those of academics and senior police officers in England,
who believe the Sexual Offences Act 2003 has criminalised an entire
generation.
One of the most scathing critics is John Spencer, professor of law at Selwyn
College, Cambridge, who calls the measures “legislative overkill”. He
believes the law is completely out of touch with young people’s behaviour
and says it will “eventually make indictable offenders of the whole
population”.
So will Scotland learn from what Spencer believes to be England’s mistake? The
Scottish Law Commission has been asked to look at sexual offences here and
will report to the Scottish executive next year. A discussion paper by the
commission has advised against lowering the age of consent to 13, as in
France, or 12, as in Malta and the Netherlands. It suggests this would make
teenagers much more vulnerable to exploitation. However, it has invited
comments from experts, which will influence its final report.
The charity Children 1st has contributed a response and believes clarification
is required. “We support the need to have a legal age for consent to sex, as
this underlines that sexual activity is about emotional maturity as well as
physical maturity,” says Tom Roberts, head of public affairs. “Such an
offence is important for the protection of young people who are still
maturing and developing.”
The charity wants teenagers who find themselves on the wrong side of the law
to be dealt with at children’s hearings. By keeping them out of adult
courts, criminalisation can be avoided.
The Victorians raised the age of consent from 13 to 16 to tackle the scourge
of child prostitution. Yet the restriction has done little to prevent
Scottish adolescents from losing their virginity at a younger age than those
in countries with more liberal laws.
More than a quarter of young people aged 13-15 in Glasgow have already had
sex, according to a report published this week to launch the city council’s
new sexual health strategy. Teenage pregnancy rates are high in every
Scottish city, with Dundee topping the league.
In Scotland, the rate of conception for people aged 16 to 19 is 6.82%,
compared with 5.98% in England and Wales. Rates for the UK as a whole are
double those of Germany, three times higher than in France and five times
higher than in the Netherlands.
Much of the problem is social. Young middle-class girls from stable homes
rarely get pregnant, despite engaging in sexual activity.
Emily Smith, now 21 and a student at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and
Drama in Glasgow, discovered boys at 13 and does not feel this has harmed
her. She was brought up in an open, but not liberal, middle-class home. Her
father, a doctor, and her mother, a nurse, were strict Catholics, but made
sure their children knew about sex and health.
Emily’s boyfriend was slightly older than her at 14, but the decision to have
sex was mutual. “We planned it up to a point, and I was determined to use
contraception.”
She believes abstinence can be just as damaging as early experimentation. “I
have a 28-year-old ex-boyfriend who is waiting for God to tell him when it’s
the right time to have sex, and that just gets more intense by the day.”
She feels her own attitude is healthier. “I think I’m well-adjusted and at
ease with my sexuality. The only regret I have is that guilt made it a less
enjoyable experience, and I think accepting that teenagers want to have sex
at a young age and effectively decriminalising it would be better for
everyone.
“There’s a vast difference between people of the same age experimenting with
sex and someone vulnerable being exploited for sex, but that can apply at
all ages. Just because I started having sex young doesn’t mean I wasn’t
mature or didn’t make an informed decision. The important thing is that you
make these decisions for yourself.”
Emily’s relationship continued for a few months, until her parents discovered
she had a boyfriend and ended the association. She postponed having sex
again until she was 17. Many Scottish teenagers have a far more damaging
experience than Emily, however, resulting in rising rates of sexually
transmitted disease and early pregnancy.
Glasgow city council found a depressingly familiar picture when it asked a
market research company to interview 2,700 young people across the city.
This was not because so many had lost their virginity by 16 — that was
expected — but because of their attitudes. A very large number of girls
admitted being drunk when they had sex, believing they could avoid the label
of “slag” if they were seen not to be in control.
The sexual health strategy devised as a result of the survey goes beyond
improving education. It places an old-fashioned emphasis on respect,
intimacy and the family. Jim Coleman, the council’s deputy leader, said: “We
need to prepare our young people to be practically and emotionally ready to
deal with the consequences of sex.”
The strategy advocates a bigger role for parents. Teenagers who talk regularly
with their parents are more likely to postpone sex until they are mature.
This, more than any other factor, may explain why some British children are
so dangerously out of control.
In Scotland, 59% of 15-year-old boys spend most evenings with their friends,
compared with 17% in France, according to a report by the Institute for
Public Policy Research. In Italy, 93% of teenagers eat with their families,
compared with 64% here. Changing the age of consent might make very little
difference, then. Having dinner with mum and dad could prove to be a far
more effective contraceptive.
