Ages of Consent in Equestria · 8:56pm Aug 3rd, 2014
Introduction
Rarity's Reverie in Chapter 13 of Divine Jealousy and the Voice of Reason may have some readers wondering if I am trying to imply that Rarity is a perverted child molester who is seducing an underaged Dragon. Well ... no, though her desires have enough overtones of the sort that Rarity herself is starting to wonder if she is. This leads squarely into a discussion of the concept of Age of Consent as it applies to Equestria.
Origin
Before the greater organization of modern times, the regulation of sexual conduct in a community was a matter for the local social leaders and the heads of families. This especially applied to sex involving legal minors (persons who had not yet reached the age of independent legal contracting). A legal minor is subject to the decisions of his or her guardians, including in matters of sex and marriage, though in the West both have generally also required the active consent of the minor as well as of his or her guardians.
Age of sexual consent is usually not the same thing as age of legal majority. To take the obvious, the age of legal majority in the 20th-century United States of America was 21 until 1971, when it was lowered to 18. However, the age of sexual consent was generally between 14 and 18 (varying by state) during this period. Hence, there has usually been an age at which consent to sex was valid but consent to contract was not. This is true today in most American states as well (though not California, where our movies are made, which means that popular culture often gets this wrong).
The age of legal majority generally lowers as technology advances, because it becomes easier and easier for a younger person to survive on his or her own in a higher-tech and thus wealthier society. For instance, in pre-industrial Western Europe, one generally needed to be "head of household" to have full rights of contract; in particular, adult servants were considered in many respects in many jurisdictions to be legal minors over whom their masters had some legal rights.
The age of sexual consent, however, has shown a tendency to rise over time. This is probably because in a wealthier society there is also a tendency to want to keep children "childlike" longer, and hence to keep their sexuality more under parental control. The more juvenile the adolescents, the less able they are to deal with responsibilities such as marriage and children, and the more advanced the medical technology the easier become contraception and abortion to avoid them having to deal with such problems before they are deemed emotionally able.
Because these laws affect wealth and sexuality -- two topics in which we tend to become very emotionally-invested -- there is a very strong tendency for us to assume that whatever age is the local age of sexual consent constitutes a universal for all cultures of all species and civilizations throughout space and time, and any deviation from them blatant perversity. I have personally experienced extreme condemnation for so much as pointing out that it differs from time to time and place to place. I ask for civility in discussion.
Human History
Medieval and Early Modern age of consent laws set the age of consent shockingly low by our standards. Their concept of "consent" does not match perfectly with our own (for instance, absconding with a ward even with her express consent and even if she were past the age of sexual consent might be termed "abduction" or even "rape") but does include the fundamental similarity that an age is set at and past which "consent" means that the younger person says "yes" and below which her "yes" is not to be accepted as legally meaningful. The usual age of consent ranged from 8 to 12, depending on the authority and the jurisdiction.
The point should be emphasized that things didn't really work like this. Medieval and Early Modern society was horribly lawless by today's standards. One's main concern when courting a young girl was not that her parents would set the law on one, but rather that her father and brothers would show up prepared to beat, maim or kill oneself; if they on the other hand approved of one's suit, the only questions would involve arranging and celebrating the marriage with attendent issues such as dowries and tangible expressions of familial alliance.
Also, because of the strongly economic and political aspects of these marriages, a betrothal or even marriage was often publicly performed long before much sex or offspring were expected. In the instances of 30 year old men marrying 10 year old girls, the marriage might not even be consummated until years later; if it was, this was done almost ritually. (One of the reasons why the bawdy showing of the sheets became part of the medieval wedding reception was that other potential heirs might challenge the legality of a marriage which had not yet been consummated -- in many cases of child-marriage, I would not be surprised if the consummation was not faked for this reason).
Ages of consent remained, however, fairly low well into recent times. In 19th-century America, the age of consent was typically 10-14, depending on state. When they were finally raised, in the 20th century, to what we now think of as more "normal" (14-18) the motive was to prevent prostitution. This is because prostitutes generally started young, as soon as they were old enough to be appealing to most males, which meant around the onset of puberty. Raising the age of consent to well past puberty solved this problem, which is why there is no prostitution in America today ... um, well, never mind. Good intentions, and all that.
The original purpose of the age of consent laws, as passed in the 19th century and stiffened in the 20th centuries, was to give parents a way of controlling their daughters. If they disapproved of a suitor, they could have him prosecuted as a rapist, molester or corrupter -- and note that the last class of sexual offense, "corrupting the morals of a minor," let them in theory (and if they were rich and had it in good with the local police, in fact), prosecute young men they didn't like for such hideous conduct as flirting with their daughters. The laws were almost always applied against men (the term for teenage boys who met obliging older women was generally "lucky devils") and almost always on the insistence of the girl's parents (social workers were not spawned in any numbers until the 1920's).
Half of the black-comedy situation of today, the half where rich to upper middle-class men trawl the slums and trailer parks for teenage girls of negotiable virtue, would have been familiar to any century of Western civilization (and indeed most other civilizations). The other half, where Child Protective Services social workers go fishing to families to break up to feed the foster-care system and get their own renumeration under the tale from the support-check farmers, and 17-year-olds are arrested for sending their lovers nude selfies as "creating child porn," would not have been in many ages, though analogies existed, such as the abuse of medieval wardships of unmarried minor noble- and gentlewomen, or the misadministration of the Poor Laws.
What does this mean for Equestria? Is Rarity in danger of prison? And if not, why is she so ashamed of her own behavior?
Equestrian History
During the Time of Thrones (1st through 5th centuries YOH) Equestria was semi-anarchic, divided into feuding principalities and small polities, and lives and fortunes only safe within the spheres of law and order carved out by the stronger princes and nobles. And only in peacetime, at that.
One's real source of security was one's clan. Regardless of the presence or absence of local laws, if one raped (or even unduly trifled with) a young Apple, one was apt to find oneself (if fortunate) fleeing an aroused mob of her kinfolk. If unfortunate, they'd already caught one. Better luck next incarnation.
There were obvious flaws with such a system. Clan leaders could be arbitrary and brutal. Those backed by weaker clans -- or who were unfortunate enough to be clanless -- might be unable to obtain justice. When two strong clans clashed, with the original slight possibly a small one -- blood-feuds might ensue.
However, as political order began to grow from the nuclei of principalities and duchies and earldoms and city-states, the sexual exploitation of the young was one of many crimes which could be more effectively dealt with by actual legislation and judicial enforcement than by clan-based vengeance. Much as in our world, the first ages of sexual consent were set, to enable the courts to distinguish between actual rape and molestation, on the one hand, and family opposition to romance, on the other.
Among Ponies, one obvious sign of sexual maturity is the Cutie Mark (that's the original reason the term evolved from "Mark" to "Cutie Mark," though this is not much remembered by the time of Luna's Return, save by social historians). This is however only a rough indication, as the appearance of the Cutie Mark has no functional correspondence with the onset of the estrus cycle in fillies or the responsiveness to heat-scent in colts. Some children get their Cutie Marks when they are very far from sexual capability, while others (such as the CMC) may remain unmarked well into adolesence (the CMC are 14 by the end of Season Four in my chronology).
For this reason, the older laws based on Cutie Marks were rationalized into ones based on chronological ages. This made the rules of social conducts far clearer -- and reduced the practice of child prostitutes painting such marks on their flanks, which was a whole sphere of sexual perversion in and of itself.
The original age of consent laws were based on "earliest age at which one might plausibly be Marked," which led to ages of consent of around 8 to 12. Very few Ponies, even in the chaotic centuries of the Time of Thrones, were married or having sex at such young ages; the point was that below these ages few would argue that valid consent was possible, or sexual activity healthy in any way, shape or form. Below those ages, sex could be assumed to constitute "rape," and was so termed by statute.
As Equestria has grown increasingly peaceful and prosperous over the last millennium, and especially in the last couple of centuries, the age of consent has tended to drift upward. With society becoming more gentle, Ponies have become more protective of their children and of their presumed innocence, so now the ages of consent have reached 10 to 14, with ages of 12, 13 or 14 the most common.
Again, these are statutory limits. Very few Ponies actually attain the age of consent, go "Well, I'm supposed to have sex now," and proceed to do so, with the nearest member of the opposite sex who is willing and able. The vast majority of Ponies do not have sex until they are Intended, Understood or Betrothed, and many wait until actual marriage. This means that the average onset of the age of sexual activity is more like 16-24, with some remaining virgins well into later life, than it is 10-14.
Ponyville is at the southern fringe of the settled heartland of North Central Equestria, and its age of consent is 14. In the coastal cities of Manehattan, Fillydelphia and Baltimare, it's only 10. There are reformist movements in those coastal cities to raise it, in order to criminalize the corruption of children.
Instances
Rarity is 22 as of Divine Jealousy and the Voice of Reason. Spike is 14. The local age of consent is 14. Hence, in purely legal terms Rarity could ravish Spike to her heart's content, without feeling at all guilty about it, and there's nothing the law could do to punish her for it (though, Spike being a legal minor, Spike's guardian Twilight Sparkle could forbid her to have further contact with him until he attained his legal age of majority).
Emotional, moral and social realities, are -- of course -- rather more complex than this.
Rarity is a very decent and principled mare. There are all sorts of things she could legally do which she would never do. She could have a line of stallions waiting outside her bedroom door like in the worst clopfics about her. This would also be quite legal, but she wouldn't do it. In point of fact (as her internal monologue makes plain) she's been essentially-chaste since the mistake of her youth, though she's dated a lot, and "fooled around" a bit.
(In most of her behavior, Rarity comes the closest of all the Mane Six to having what we would think of as a "normal social life" for an unmarried young adult female, though by the standards of early 21st-century America, she's fairly prudish).
She is well aware that Spike is too young for her. She knows that, despite the fact that he's very intelligent and mature for a 14-year-old by Pony standards, he's quite innocent in a number of ways, and if she took him as a lover and then simply dropped him for a more suitable stallion, he'd be seriously heartbroken. She doesn't know that if she takes him as a lover he'll probably lifebond to her, because that's a Dragon thing, but if she did she would fear trifling with him even more than she does already.
Rarity herself was treated quite badly in her youth, by Rush Rocks. They met in Fillydelphia when she went away to study at secondary school, when she was 12 and he was 15. She lost her virginity to him when she was 13, and broke it off with him when his response to her pregnancy was to offer her money for an abortion. She miscarried soon after turning 14. That relationship would have been illegal in Ponyville, but not in Fillyelphia.
Rarity's experience on the one hoof leads her to not automatically dismiss the seriousness of the sexuality of somepony in their early teens. She, after all, nearly had a child come of it. On the other hand, it also leads her to be very careful of hurting anypony fitting that description. The last thing she wants to do is duplicate the behavior of Rush Rocks. She is quite aware of the obvious analogies between the situation of herself as a filly and that of Spike today.
On the other hoof, she loves Spike, and her love for him is growing increasingly less platonic. Her internal monologue goes into this in considerable detail -- so much detail that I'm not sure it makes it clear that in fact all they've ever actually done, in carnal terms, is hug and nuzzle each other. Long, romantically-tinged hugs and nuzzles, to be true -- but they are not lovers. Yet.
The physical displays of affection are, incidentally, completely supported in canon. To an extent that almost shocks me considering that this is a show aimed at young girls, and that Spike is most definitely under the legal age of consent in most American states today.
The issue comes up of the children of Ponyville. Most of them seem to be pairing-up in the sense of finding childhood sweethearts, but it's all rather innocent. it would be, though -- this is a small town, they've been mostly raised well, and the ones who are searching the most seriously for romance are also the ones most aware of the issue of reputation. Most of them aren't looking all that seriously -- Cheerilee's students appear to be between around 6 and 16, and only at the older half to third of that range would they find members of the opposite sex to be more than occasionally interesting.
What happened between Filthy Rich and Featherweight would be pure child rape, pure and simple -- except that both of them were under geas (and Featherweight under transformation) when they did it. Neither Filthy nor Featherweight like to think about the incident.
Featherweight doesn't even put this in the same mental category as "romance." Featherweight, incidentally, has a crush on Twist, one which she returns, and his emotions toward her are quite healthy for somepony who is around 13-14 years old attracted to another pony around the same age. They are both rather cutely shy around one another. He sometimes has nightmares about the Day of Discord, but it hasn't spoiled his capability for love.
Hopefully, the events of Divine Jealousy and the Voice of Reason won't scar him too deeply.
She doesn't know that if she takes him as a lover he'll probably lifebond to her, because that's a Dragon thing
I have trouble believing she'd not know that. Twilight Sparkle is one of Rarity's best friends, and Spike's guardian besides. Twi's the sort of person who, having been entrusted with the care of a dragon by her hero and mentor Princess Celestia, is going to read every book and scholarly article about dragons that's available, and devote herself to assimilating and using the information so as not to disappoint Celestia. Assuming that the idea of dragons lifebonding is in the literature somewhere, Twilight's going to know about it, and being aware as she is of Spike's feelings for Rarity, she'd make sure that Rarity knows about that, and anything else she thinks is important to Spike's wellbeing.
Rarity herself strikes me too as the sort of serious-minded pony who'd more than likely read up a bit on dragons when she found herself becoming interested in Spike.
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Thing is -- not a lot is known about Dragons in terms of the aspects of their personalities not involving fighting or trading with them. Dragons can be rather private beings, and the Ponies rather incurious ones. Also, some of the literature is contradictory (in part because there's more than one Dragon Kind).
I am not certain how ponies should make their laws because it is canon that ponies mature differently than humans, both mentally and physically. It is also canon that their mature minds are different than ours. As for our laws, we should write them dispassionately, based on evidence —— ¡not belief!:
We have a tangle of laws, some based on religion, like in some countries it is illegal for women of any age, even if they are over half a century old, to have sex outside of marriage —— ¡stone the 53-year-old MILF!
In other countries, we have overprudish laws that as an example, when a 17-year-old and a 17⅛-year-old give into hormones and have consensual sexual relations, the state prosecutes the 17⅛-year-old for statutory-rape. That is somewhat ridiculous.
The purpose of Age-Of-Consent-Laws is for protecting children from exploitation by adults and significantly older children.
¿What is the ideal Age of Consent? Nopony knows, but even numbers, especially 10, 12, 14, 16, and 18 are the most popular. The extremes are much less popular than the middle values. Let us suppose that the Age of Consent is set at 16-year-old and 15⅞-year-old give into their hormones and have consensual sex, ¿should the state prosecute the 16-year-old? ¡No! ¡They are too close in age! ¿How do we determine whether they are close enough in age to write it off as hormone or it is the older exploiting the younger? ¡Mathematics!:
Relative age differences are important in determining whether it is the case of teenagers giving into hormones, or whether it is the case of an older person manipulating an younger person into giving false consent. I propose taking the squareroot of the younger person beneath the age of consent in years and in the difference is younger than that, write it off age teenagers giving into hormone or children playing doctors, as the case may be, or if it is greater than the difference of the squareroot of the younger person, the state should consider it a case of the older person manipulating the younger person into false consent, thus it is statutory-rape.
¡We need some examples!:
A 20-year-old and a 15-year-old have consensual sexual relations. ¿Is the consent real or from manipulation? √15=3.873. The 20-year-old committed statutory-rape.
A 6-year-old and an 8-year-old agree to play doctor. ¿Is the consent valid? or ¿did the 8-year-old exploit the 6-year-old by manipulating a false consent? √6=2.449 ¡It is consensual!
¡Mathematics makes everything better!
What I am about to write will ruffle the some feathers of PegasiMares; although, the PegasiStallions will agree; but nonetheless however, I am just being an Honest AppleJack:
Heterosexual males are horndogs. When it comes to young heterosexual males having sex with older heterosexual females, it is a case of no-harm-no-foul. I see no point in prosecuting these cases. I know because I am n heterosexual male. Frankly, I have never heard of any case of a teenaged male having sexual relations with a 30-something-year-old female over twice his age ever causing psychological harm. Indeed, I know it to be the reverse:
If the father of the UnaBomber would have rewarded him for graduating from elementary school by taking him to the bordello, he would not have snapped from the stress of being a virgin in his 20s and become the UnaBomber. Instead, we would know only Doctor Theodore John “Ted” Kaczynski Ph.D., the Mathematician.
By the way, here is a video we should show all young girls about the creeps who want to be their “Older Boyfriends”:
http://blip.tv/midwest-teen-sex-show/mtss-episode-3-the-older-boyfriend-855159
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This is their theoretical purpose now. They were not instituted for that purpose. They were instituted in the Middle Ages for the purpose of preventing unconsummated (or, worse, consummated for the sake of legality) child-marriages for the sake of political alliances; then re-instituted (at higher ages) in American in the late 18th to early 19th century for the purpose of enabling families to take legal action against suitors for their daughters they did not desire. Then the age limits were significantly increased by the Progressives about a century ago to make it more difficult for pimps to run teenaged prostitutes. Finally, around the mid 20th century, the ages were further increased to let the government control teenaged sexuality. Note that, under the original laws governing Age of Consent in medieval times, teenagers were assumed to be old enough to wed even though they usually didn't (age of marriage has consistently averaged around early 20's through much of human civilized history, essentially for economic reasons).
Like most laws more complex than making theft or physical harm illegal, they were not instituted for a single purpose at a single time -- in our world, anyway. I've given them a simpler history and purpose in Equestria because Equestria's actually been controlled by a particular single sovereign individual for its entire history -- and she's protective toward children.
Well yes, and females are the ones running the risk of pregnancy, which is why the seduction of girls is potentially more damaging than the seduction of boys. Note that in my fictional example, Rarity was seduced and impregnated when she was younger than Spike is now; and she's perfectly aware that males can't get pregnant. She's afraid of emotionally hurting Spike, and boys can have their hearts broken. Seriously, not just as hyperbole -- being seduced and abandoned can cause significant emotional damage to a member of either sex.
im just wondering what are you favourite shippings toward mane6 if you could pick only one partner for everyone of them. Im also talking only about straight ships so it would be possible in tv show.
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Well, the odd thing is that I didn't entirely go with my favorite shippings in picking the ones I used in the Shadow Wars.
Most obviously, I'm in favor of Flutterdash. They're childhood best friends and they are clearly sweethearts through much of the show, but it gets messed up half through canon and half through fanon I inflicted.
Fluttershy gets to be half-Changeling which lets me interpret the show's simultaneous teasing of relationships with Rainbow Dash, Bulk Biceps and Discord as "she loves all of them." Romantically and sexually. She's polyamorous, and has a huge sex drive. Which is why just her and Dashie doesn't work, because Dashie has very little sex drive in my fanon -- the least of any member of the Mane Six. And yet Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash love one another with utter, deathless passion -- it's just that to Rainbow Dash, the sex part of it was mostly "stuff I do to make Fluttershy happy."
Getting to Rainbow Dash, I deliberately worked in Phoenix_Dragon's Azure/Sky (who I assume eventually calls himself "Azure Sky" in proper Pony binomial fashion) both to throw a competitor into the situation (I could say "fly in the ointment," but the Changelings aren't really bugs) and to inflict a terrible irony on poor Dashie. She becomes (briefly) alienated from Fluttershy when she finds out that Fluttershy knew she was a Changeling from age 14 on and never told her (well, actually Fluttershy tried to tell her, Rainbow Dash just didn't believe her) and meets Sky during that period in her life; they fall in love.
The terrible irony is that Sky is a Changeling. No "half" about it. What Rainbow Dash has just demonstrated is that she is romantically-attracted to Changelings, of either sex (or apparent sex, though Sky really is male). Since I assume that her crush on Soarin never reaches any physical consummation, this means that by YOH 1504, Rainbow Dash has had sexual relations with precisely two beings -- Fluttershy and Sky, who are both Changelings.
I have no real preferred pairing for Twilight Sparkle, because she's never been shown being attracted to anyone save Flash Sentry -- and strongly, only when she was in Humanoid form. Flash is nice, and he even in part matches her male ideal (formed by two Ponies, her father and her elder brother), but I've never seen any chemistry there. I decided on a very low-probability pairing -- Twilight and Luna -- low probability because both of them seem to be heterosexual. And then I came up with a reason to explain why (Twilight is the reincarnation of the husband Luna's earlier incarnation deeply loved). And it works because, drama. (Less facetiously, it lets me explore the concept of True Love versus Sexual Orientation).
I had no plans for Pinkie Pie until Season Four and the introduction of Pinkie's friendship toward Big Mac and her obvious attraction toward Cheese Sandwich. Since Cheese is maybe the only other Pony in the world who could both understand Pinkie and is of the opposite sex, the pairing is obvious. Scoots2 does CheesePie way better than I ever could. I concluded that it wasn't until YOH 1504 that Pinkie acquired a sufficiently mature sex drive to seriously consider having sex with or marrying anypony. She's obviously slow-maturing, so this makes sense.
Spike and Rarity has suggested itself all through the series. It was literally teased in the first episode of the show. In Season Two it's further developed in "Secret of My Excess" and "Dragon Quest," in Season Three semi-canon in Nightmare Rarity, and finally in Season Four, the last three episodes have shown Rarity obviously returning his affections. Seriously, if the show abandons this arc it will constitute a discontinuity.
Finally, Applejack has never been shipped with anypony in canon. So I gave her a True Love in backstory, Landscape Carrot, the only lover she's ever had, and the reason why she is single. Landscape vanished in YOH 1498, and nopony has seen him since. AJ doesn't know if he's dead, if he abandoned her, or if he's alive and in captivity somewhere. And until she knows, she considers herself bound by her promise to be true to him.
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Flutterdash more or less is in the TV show. After "Dragonshy," a very early episode in which Dashie is mean to Fluttershy, every episode after that which focuses on their relationship either has them either being close like (discreet) lesbian lovers or bickering like discreet lesbian lovers.
Also, Sparity is pretty much shown openly, but while it is straight it is both underaged and interspecies, so the show has to be careful how they depict it.
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There was more sexual tension between CMC with eachother than there was anything romantic between Dash and Fluttershy. This is probably illusion like with videos stating that Dash is attracted to Pinkie Pie or Soarin.