Reply #42: Been there, I can sympathize a bit. [View All]

[Xithras]

When I was 17 I met a young woman at a party and we hit it off. She looked 15 or 16, she told me that she was 15, and the girl who was with her claimed that she was 15. We drank, we partied, and later that night we ended up having some wild and quite consensual sex. I found out later that she was 12...and just barely 12 at that.

Believe me, that night bugged the crap out of me for YEARS, but short of refusing sex until she ponied up a photo ID, I don't really know what I could have done differently (short of forgoing sex, which no 17 year old boy is going to do when it's offered). I'm quite aware that some people would consider me an evil prig based on that confession, but I was just a guy who got lied to. Happens all the time.

If she claimed to be of legal age, and she appeared to be of legal age, and the intercourse was consensual, and he had no other reason to suspect that she was lying, then the charges should have been dropped.