It is one of the most difficult issues of all. At what age should young men and women alike be considered mature enough to engage in consensual sexual acts? And – whatever age is agreed on – should there be exceptions to the rule, if people of the same age are involved in having what has been deemed to be underage sex?

We have a history in this country of facilitating the sexual abuse of children. We are all aware at this stage of the extent to which priests and unordained members of the clergy – ‘brothers’ of various kinds – routinely and systematically imposed themselves on unwilling targets of both sexes. And they were not alone in this grotesquely exploitative activity. Ordinary men, and occasionally women, were also guilty of sexual molestation of varying degrees, up to and including thousands of incidents of rape of minors.
Often, especially within institutions, this was linked to other forms of violence and abuse against children. And it was part of a much wider, essentially authoritarian, prejudice against children which was deeply ingrained in Irish society.
It is not an exaggeration to say that children were meant to shut up, bow to authority and do what they were told – no matter how unreasonable or unpleasant what they were being told to do might have seemed. That culture of authoritarianism was the breeding ground in which abuse flourished. People who had an inkling of what was going on were afraid to confront the abusers. Children were scared to tell their parents or other adults. Those who were being abused or bullied didn’t know where to turn.
In terms of liberating children from the deeply oppressive and frequently nasty brutality of which authority figures in general and teachers in particular were guilty, the banning of corporal punishment in schools was a major breakthrough. The campaign was led by Frank Crummey, an ISPCC employee who set up the Reform group to lobby for a change in the law. It is remarkable to reflect now on just how much opposition he had to overcome before corporal punishment was finally banned in Ireland in 1982.
I always harboured a deep suspicion of authority figures. In my own experience, growing up – their all too familiar hypocritical platitudes notwithstanding – the Roman Catholic Church and the agencies of the State had in common that they held children in almost complete contempt. Kids were routinely thumped around, shouted at, bullied and harassed by adults – and no one gave a shit. Teachers did it. Priests and brothers did it. Cops did it. Sports coaches did it. Fathers and mothers were at it too. A dead body might stir the outrage of the Gardaí and the media – but otherwise the working assumption in Irish society was that whatever abuse was dished out to children was probably deserved.
Well, we’ve come a long way since then. I’ve read a lot of nonsense over the past few years about how much better it was, in so many ways, when the Catholic Church was in the ascendancy and we had what people thought of as ‘spiritual values’. This, of course, is self-deluding rubbish. There is a simple measure of our psychic health as a nation: a lot else may be wrong but at least children can now go to school without that terrible sense of fear and dread that was an inescapable part of growing up in the era of corporal punishment. A black cloud has been lifted. Kids are not constantly made to feel worthless by the very people who should be helping and encouraging them. They can actually enjoy school. And, at least some of the time, learning can truly be a pleasure.
There is still work to be done but – albeit the process has taken far too long – the fact that a Children’s Rights Bill is on the way is an indication of the extent to which things have changed.
In general, the prevailing mood is far less tolerant of the abuse of children or young adults than was the case in the past, when crimes against children were routinely covered up. This is how it should be.
But something else has happened too. In the rush to make it clear that there is no hiding place for those who would abuse children, the law on the age of sexual consent has been framed in a way which is entirely inappropriate and discriminatory against males.
For a start, it is against the law for a boy of 15 to have sex with a girl of 15 – but not vice versa. It is clearly wrong, and utterly unjust, that the law discriminates in such a blatant way against young males. The fact is that this reflects a hopelessly outdated moralistic prejudice – which is based on the assumption that men are the sexual ‘aggressors’ in any relationship.
This law must be changed. But in what way? The worst possible outcome would be to create a situation where any young couple who engaged in consensual ‘underage’ sex, would both be guilty of a crime. Is this really what we want? The alternative is to acknowledge the fact that teenagers of both genders are equally capable of initiating, or agreeing to enjoy, sex – and to create a ‘Romeo and Juliet’ clause which would free any 15 year-olds who had sex with one another (whether boy-girl, boy-boy or girl-girl) from the taint of criminality.
The fact is that too many people have been tippy-toeing around this issue, in a way that is absurd. Well, with a court case pending, in which a boy is about to be entered onto the sex offenders list, and have his young life ruined as a result, for having consensual sex with a girl of the same age – there is no room for coyness any more.
It is a fact that a huge number of 14 and 15 year-olds are sexually active. It is a fact also that girls – or young women – are at least as advanced and in many cases far more advanced than boys at that age. No amount of handwringing or self-delusion is going to change any of this. By all means, we can do our best to educate teenagers to the perils of unwanted pregnancies. But trying to get them not to experiment sexually on the basis that it is criminal is not just daft – it is morally reprehensible.
Of course there is a natural instinct among adults to urge their children that there is plenty of time for all of that later. But how many of the people who are preaching that line would themselves have turned down an opportunity to have sex when they were in their teens, had the opportunity arisen? And how many of them actually did have sex that would now be considered underage?
Life is far more complicated, and nuanced, than people who like to draw hard lines in the sand want to acknowledge. One parent’s belief that it is morally wrong for a teenage daughter to have sex at 15 should not be allowed to turn young men into sex criminals, when all they have done in their own terms is share the love.
The Government must act now, immediately, to change the law. In this regard, it may well be helpful that Alan Shatter is the Minister for Justice. He is a liberal on issues to do with sex and sexuality. He also has an understanding of what equality between the genders actually means.
Not to do so would be an act of extreme cowardice. Now, let’s see if Mr. Shatter has the courage...