Regarding the first post thing: Yeah, that's gross.

Leeza: It was in the papers today. I think it's pretty open news all over the world, actually. Unless there's a very, very large and elaborate prank going on, I'd say that it's factual.

With regards to age, I've grown up with the 16-years-old rule and that's where I've always thought it should stay. Once you come down to it, 16 is probably the average age people first have sex all throughout the first world anyway. It seems to be the norm.

People going on about how mature you need to be need to consider the fact that some people might not give a damn about having a baby. I know it's a possibility, but it's a remote one (provided you use protection - if you don't use protection when you're that young, you wouldn't be smart enough to say 'no' anyway) - and the vast majority of 18 year olds aren't so much better off than 16 year olds that they can support kids at that age anyway. I wouldn't be surprised if an 18 year old is 95% as likely to abort as a 16 year old is. So if you're pulling the "what if they have a baby" card, then you may as well lift the legal age to 21 or something.

But no, that's not the way it is these days. People have sex for fun, and if they're smart enough to respect the legal age then hopefully they're smart enough to do it safely so they don't have to think about the baby ordeal. So long as they aren't going to suffer mental trauma from it in their future or anything like that, then I don't see the huge problem with sex-for-fun. That's why I think 16+ is fine.

This also means that society can start properly readying 16 year olds without being seen as training the underage. They're probably going to have sex at around this age anyway, parents, so you should be happy they're learning about what the hell they're getting into.

Personally, I would have never had sex at the age of 16. But that doesn't mean I don't think anyone should have the right to.