So if I were to have sex with a 17 year old girl it would be fine? By your logic it would be perfectly acceptable.
We have penalties so it will hopefully deter other people from doing the same thing in the future. She f*cked up, and she's going to have to do the time.
Yup, I'm fine with it if you both consent and she isn't somehow mentally impaired or coerced. Especially at 17, but not so much under 16.
Unless a person is a danger to society then why would you take an otherwise productive, self-sufficient citizen and make them a criminal burden on us all. There must be a better answer.
What the heck happened to judges making case-by-case decisions based on the facts of each case? Why do we have a hard time understanding that adult woman/teen boy is not the same as adult man/teen girl?
Americans have a hard-on for zero-tolerance justice because it keeps them from having to think.
Edit: You can apply the same argument to drug use and any other activity we love to criminalize. I'd rather pay for every drug addict to get clean, safe drugs and treatment than pay to keep them in jail and unable to work. The American government needs to stop criminalizing their citizens for profit.