| "I went to my first gay bar at 14," says actor Ryan Hinds. "There weren’t a lot of people my age to share with, so I gravitated toward older people to ask questions and figure things out."
"A lot of my experiences were with older women," says queer youth activist Alix Mukonambi. "Queer relationships develop differently than straight ones in this way."
That’s why queer activists are concerned that the Conservative government’s promise to raise the age of consent could push gay youth back in the closet.
Speaking on a panel on the subject recently in Toronto, Hinds said raising the age from 14 to 16 will have queer youth wondering if they’ll be able to date without worrying their boyfriend or girlfriend will be arrested.
There are broader implications as well, added an older audience member.
"Gay 14- and 15-year-olds are at most risk for suicide, usually because of issues surrounding their sexuality," he said. "Criminalizing their sexuality will only put them at greater risk."
And it’s not just gay youth who will suffer, added panelist Leanne Cusitar, a Toronto AIDS educator.
"Are young teenagers going to be comfy seeking out sex information or counselling if they’re having illegal sex?" she asked.
Never mind the risks for educators, nurses and clinics providing this information.
"We want young people to have information about every other aspect of their lives but sex," complained Rob Teixeira, a member of the Toronto-based Sex Laws Committee.
"You can’t treat young people with fully functional sex apparatus and hormones in overdrive as ‘children,’" said one audience member. These are not "kids" but "apprentice adults," he half-joked.
The history of Canada’s Age of Consent laws is about as confusing as our attitudes about childhood sexuality.
In 1886, sex with a girl over 12 and under 16 "of previously chaste nature" was made illegal. In 1892, the age was changed to between 14 and 16. After 1920, they tossed "blame" in there as an issue that could lead to acquittal and that stuck until 1988, when the government decided that maybe it was a little unfair to restrict the law to girls. Now sex with anyone over 14 is legal as long as you are not in a position of authority (e.g., their teacher) and you don’t pay for it. They also threw in a "close in age" restriction, meaning that if you’re 12 to 14, you can have consensual sex with someone two years older than you. Unless you’re having anal sex, which is illegal under the age of 18, unless, of course, you’re married or living in Ontario or Quebec, where courts have ruled this law discriminatory.
Got that?
Now the Harper government wants to raise the starting age to 16 (they’d keep the "close in age" exemption, meaning 14-year-olds could still have sex with 16-year-olds, ostensibly admitting that 14-year-olds can be sexual, but we’ll let that one go for now). They’d actually prefer to raise it to 17 or 18, as it is in some U.S. states, like Texas, where the age of consent is 17.
In fact, the whole age of consent debate was refuelled in part when, last year, Ottawa police charged a man from Texas with luring a 14-year-old boy to his hotel room after meeting him on the Internet.
Lobbyists fighting to raise Canada’s age of consent law used the case to say that Canada’s low age of consent is a "magnet for Internet lurers."
The panelists say this is horseshit.
"They say they want to change the age of consent laws to protect youth," said Rob Teixeira, "but there are already laws to deal with predators and pedophiles."
"We don’t need to start punishing boyfriends and girlfriends," added Hinds.
Cusitar cites the recent case of Nova Scotian Stephen Marshall gunning down two men in Maine whose names he found on an online "sex offender registry."
"William Elliot was on the registry because he had sex with his girlfriend who was just shy of her 16th birthday," she explains.
Unfortunately, pedophile and sex offender panic dominates any discussion surrounding youth and sexuality, complained Teixeira.
So what should the age of consent be?, I asked the panel.
"I’d like to see laws based, not on age, but on the specifics of relationships, the power dynamics, etc.," responded Hinds.
"What defines consent is not about age," said Mukonambi.
"I’ve been wrestling with this one for 30 years," added Tom Warner, a longtime gay activist. "Strategically, the age should remain as it is. That’s a big enough battle right now." |
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