comment: >
  
  The states aren't exactly sovereign. There's many things they can't do, that only the federal government is allowed to.
  This is like saying Canada isn't a single country because it has provinces. If everyone thought this way, the UN would have like 800 member states for all the little political subdivisions each country has.
context: if you're 19 you're still technically a teenager and it makes no sense for it to be, at a maximum, 18.
  
  It makes as much sense as 20. Literally the only reason you're a teenager at 19 is because the word "19" ends with "-teen". All of this is arbitrary. >
  
  Indeed. It is such an odd argument to make laws based on linguistic peculiarities.
  How does the law change in other languages?
  In French for example, the words 11-16 have their own unique words:
  
  onze
  douze 
  treize
  quatorze
  quinze
  seize
  
  However, 17-19 are literally worded ten and whatever is the second number.
  
  dix-sept (ten-seven)
  dix-huit (ten-eight)
  dix-neuf (ten-nine)
  
  So, does this mean in France, the AOC should be 17 because that is when the linguistic trend changes? Why would England and France have a different "correct" AOC? >
  
  And in French-speaking countries smoking weed should become legal at the age of 80, because quatre-vingt means 420. >
  
  Lol, indeed. >
  
  So first off, there is no universal authority with the ability to govern age of consent.
  Second, I don't see how the age of consent has anything to do with drawing people. A drawing can't consent, no matter how old it is, it's a drawing. Also, how do you tell the difference between a 19 year old somebody drew, and a 21 year old? Again it's a drawing. >
  
  As far as the drawing part, I think OP might be talking with respect to the lollicon thing that is (I believe) illegal in US, but not in other countries since it is drawing. >
  
  Yea but that has nothing to do with age of consent, because a drawing doesn't have an age, and can't consent. >
  
  Well I understand but what I was saying was that if you draw a character that is supposed to be (doesn’t have to be based on a real person) underage, below the age of consent, then in the US that drawing is/has the potential to be classified as child pornography. I wasn’t making an opinion about that but saying I think that might have been what OP was talking about. >
  
  I see a number of major issues with your position:
  First is the pragmatics. How do you plan to enforce a universal law of this kind? There are 195 different countries in the world. Many of them do not have the most congenial of relationships with one another. They struggle enough to agree on universal issues that directly impact international relations. Let alone domestic policy issues (i.e. something that is aimed at policing their internal population rather than their nations interactions with other nations).
  Secondly you risk criminalising large numbers of teenagers. We’ve already seen this in the US where there have been a number of high profile cases in which teenagers having perfectly normal sexual relationships have been caught up  in the criminal system and classified as sex offenders. Yet, I hope we agree, there is nothing creepy or wrong about two sixteen-year-olds being attracted to one another.
  Teenagers are going to have sexual relations with one another. This is totally normal. We can make sure that they are as safe as possible by teaching them good health and hygiene practices, and ensuring that they have access to contraception and support where needed. But simply trying to criminalise them is not going to help. It’ll not stop them having sex. It’ll just make their doing so more risky, and in a small but significant number of cases, result in bad justice.
  I think a much better solution is to have a more nuanced law. For example, a legal age of consent at 16, but a limit on how much age difference there can been between the parties. Two people who are both 16 having sex with one another in a consensual way is fine. A creepy old man having sex with a 16-year-old is not. And so why not create a law that reflects that nuanced reality, aimed at protecting younger people from those who are predatory, while avoiding the blanket criminalisation of what is a normal and inevitable behaviour between people coming into adulthood.
  ​
  ​
  
  The age of consent for someone to have relationships with older people should be 20, including drawing underaged characters. 20 is the end of "teenage" years, if you're 19 you're still technically a teenager and it makes no sense for it to be, at a maximum, 18.
  
  You seem to be hanging on the arbitrary word “teen” here in the numerical sense. I would moot that what matters is not the specific number per se, but the physical and psychological maturity of a person. It may be that 20 is the right choice. But that choice should be grounded in our best understanding of how people develop and at what point they are mature enough to make these choices in an informed way.
  It should not be grounded in the arbitrary and irrelevant fact that we use a decimal counting base to track numbers. >
  
  An 18 year old can join the army to fight for their country and they are viewed in the court system as an adult. 18 should be the universal age of consent >
  
  There is no universal government. So you can’t say what one country does applies to another. That’s the problem. >
  
  There's two separate arguments here:
  
  That the age of consent should be one specific age, that is objectively the best age to have it
  That irrespective of what the age is, that age should be universal
  
  On point 1, while you say that 20 is the right age, I think most people would disagree and would say it should be younger. Certainly most countries do have a younger age. I don't think there's anything particularly special about any particular age, and can't advance an argument for or against any age in particular beyond simply saying "seems a bit too young", or "seems a bit too old". Some people think that having one age to make people a legal adult makes sense, and that the age of consent should match the drinking age, the voting age, the age you can leave school or the age you can join the military. This makes some sense, and has a consistency to it, but of course the age you can do those other things vary by country too, so you can't keep them all in sync everywhere.
  On point 2, there are a lot of things that are legal in one country and not another, and for the most part it doesn't cause very many practical difficulties. The law of the country you're in applies and the fact that the law is different somewhere else isn't very important. If there's anything we know from centuries of diplomacy it's that international agreements are hard. There aren't effective decision-making bodies at the global level, and those we do have (the UN) struggle with both democratic legitimacy and enforcement of anything. On the other hand most countries have a relatively effective national legislature, usually with some degree of democratic accountability, and make laws that are acceptable locally and therefore can be enforced.
  I don't think either argument has much merit >
  
  
  Why is it okay for a 15 year old child to have sex with an older man in one place but that same child needs to be 18 somewhere else?
  
  The same reason it's ok for women to drive one place and not another, or for people to drink at 18 one place and not another. Laws are different; cultures are different. 
  
  The age of consent for someone to have relationships with older people should be 20, including drawing underaged characters. 20 is the end of "teenage" years, if you're 19 you're still technically a teenager and it makes no sense for it to be, at a maximum, 18.
  
  Who is going to implement a global law? We don't have that for anything (some Hauge-related offenses aside). 
  Also, what's older, in this pretend scheme? Can a 17-year-old not date a 19-year-old? >
  
  Wouldn't you agree that a minor shouldnt be in a relationship with an adult? A minor can't consent while an adult can. Why are we going to say minors cannot consent but yet we can't even agree on what classifies as a minor? >
  
  
  Wouldn't you agree that a minor shouldnt be in a relationship with an adult?
  
  Depends on what we're talking about. A 16-yr-old and an 18-yr-old is a minor and an adult, 17 and 19 is a minor and an adult. 14 and 35 is a minor and an adult. One of those is not ok, 
  
  Why are we going to say minors cannot consent but yet we can't even agree on what classifies as a minor?
  
  See above, because laws and mores differ. >
  
  Why does there need to be universal morality when morality isn't universal? >
  
  
  The age of consent for someone to have relationships with older people should be 20  
  
  Where is the evidence for this?  Your only argument is the name "teenager" which only works in English, why would you think English is the only basis of world legislation, including china, india or egypt?  
  Have you travelled outside of your state?
  In countries like Brazil where sexuality is very open and relaxed, youg kids around 14 are more sex aware than 17yo latin american girls that go to nun's schools, who are more sex aware than 20 year olds in north carolina, US.  UK is about in the middle depending on location.  Even the urban/rural distinction changes the likelihood of a young person to be able to decide how sex works for them.
  Even more, in places where education, contraception and health care is more present, the age can be a bit lower with less social risk.  
  While I think the age of consent is not a settled matter, and agree 12 is too young and 20 is quite passed, I don't have a problem with this varying across very different cultures. >
  
  I think the world needs to decide on what is a minor, it doesn't matter how mature a kid is, a minor is a minor, and minors cannot consent. And the meaning of a child shouldn't be something that changes based on location. >
  
  But your answer is only circular, how do you define a minor?  
  I didn't say just location, I said a lot more than that. >
  
  I define a minor as a child and teenager, someone who isn't an adult yet.
  Once again, a minor is a minor regardless of location and maturity level. >
  
  
  Any logical person will agree that minors cannot consent to things like sex and shouldn't be allowed to date an adult. But different countries's views blur the lines on what a child is and causes disagreements.
  
  There are almost no countries on this planet where the age of majority is the same as the age of consent. There are very few rational people apparently.
  Most countries put the absolute age of consent anything from 2 to 4 years below the age of majority, and have further “romeo and juliet” exceptions where minors can consent to sex with each other even lower. Where I live, in the Netherlands, one can consent as long as 12 to sex with a peer legally speaking. This is democratically decided, do you believe my country is short on “logical persons”?
  
  Why is it okay for a 15 year old child to have sex with an older man in one place but that same child needs to be 18 somewhere else?
  
  Because laws on about everything differ from place to place as laws are not made by logic but culture. Why is it okay to drive at 16 in some places but 18 in others, drink at 16 in some, but 21 in others? Have a tattoo at 12 in some, but 18 in others? 'tis a mystery.
  Why is age of consent to sex act so special here?
  
  The age of consent for someone to have relationships with older people should be 20, including drawing underaged characters. 20 is the end of "teenage" years, if you're 19 you're still technically a teenager and it makes no sense for it to be, at a maximum, 18.
  
  What's “older person” here? 1 second? I hope not since no two persons are of course exactly the same age. >
  
  
  different countries's views blur the lines on what a child is and causes disagreements.
  
  And these disagreements between countries are more important than being correct about the location you are actually in?  Seems to me it would be much worse to allow predation on kids or to ban old-enough teens than to have disagreements here and there. >
  
  So the reason the age of consent is different in different places is that people are complicated, and mature at different rates. Imagine a normal distribution of kids passing the age of consent, some are ready for it when it comes, some aren't, most are happy they don't have to lie to porn sites anymore. 
  Which leads me to the next point: The average teenager wants sex long before they're at the age of consent. This is usually fine, given they should be in relationships with their peers, and that won't cause problems if handled well. 
  In the real world, this leads to teen pregnancy alarmingly often because of poor sex ed, lack of easy access to birth control, and more generally trying to keep things a secret, something often needed because it's technically illegal for two 17 year olds to consensually fuck. Furthermore, given that everything is online, people have similarly faced child pornography charges for underaged sexting with people their own age. 
  Which moves us on  to talking about CP more generally. It's not illegal because of it's content, it illegal to protect the people harmed in making it. As such, it doesn't follow to care about any form of it where people aren't being harmed to make it. 
  Furthermore, about art and ages, a drawn character doesn't really have an age, they have a canon age, dictated by authorial intent, and they have an apparent age, which is arbitrarily decided by viewers and can be endlessly argued about. If you try to ban things by the former, you'll get nothing changing, except lip-service changing of ages, and trying to ban things based off the latter is giving your censors the power to ban any hentai that looks too young based off the whims of your censors, power they could easily abuse. And all this to stop some harmless drawings? >
  
  
  So the reason the age of consent is different in different places is that people are complicated, and mature at different rates.
  
  It doesn't matter how quickly children mature, a child is a child and should be regardless of location.
  
  because it's technically illegal for two 17 year olds to consensually fuck. Furthermore, given that everything is online, people have similarly faced child pornography charges for underaged sexting with people their own age. 
  
  It shouldn't be illegal for two teens about the same age as eachother to have sex, no one is being exploited, and nobody can be charged because they're both minors. But nude sending counts as possession of CP regardless who it is sent to.
  
  Furthermore, about art and ages, a drawn character doesn't really have an age, they have a canon age, dictated by authorial intent, and they have an apparent age, which is arbitrarily decided by viewers and can be endlessly argued about. If you try to ban things by the former, you'll get nothing changing, except lip-service changing of ages, and trying to ban things based off the latter is giving your censors the power to ban any hentai that looks too young based off the whims of your censors, power they could easily abuse. And all this to stop some harmless drawings?
  
  If a character is confirmed 16 that means people are looking at the way she is drawn regularly and taking that 16 year old and depicting that character sexually, especially if there are signs telling us that she is 16. The average person will look at art and begin to decipher her age and conclude she is 16. 
  Although drawn art doesn't harm anyone, it still enables pedophilia. >
  
  
  Although drawn art doesn't harm anyone, it still enables pedophilia.
  
  Why do you believe this? Drawn depictions of other acts don't 'enable' those acts. Does a drawing of someone doing renovation cause or contribute to people renovating? Does drawn violence enable violence? >
  
  It all depends on the viewer. It may not affect someone but someone who is obsessed with violence could very well end up doing something violent, not all the time, but high risk. Someone doing renovations could inspire someone to get their life back together. Just like how something transphobic won't make the viewer transphobic but you know it's bad regardless, so is someone depicting a child get taken advantage of. >
  
  Good luck having every single country in the world agree on any law, let alone the age of consent. >
  
  
  The age of consent for someone to have relationships with older people should be 20, including drawing underaged characters. 20 is the end of "teenage" years, if you're 19 you're still technically a teenager and it makes no sense for it to be, at a maximum, 18.
  
  If the word for 20 were "twenteen", would you want the age to be 21? >
  
  It physically couldn't be, but if it some how was then I'd still prefer it was that. Once the age where you can no longer be classed as a teenager is reached, it should be that age. >
  
  
  Once the age where you can no longer be classed as a teenager is reached, it should be that age
  
  So if all of the numbers from 13-99 ended with "teen", you would want the age to be 100? >
  
  You do realize that is completely impossible? Right? All I'm saying, is that at twenty you're a young adult. >
  
  
  ... countries's ...
  
  Not how possesive nouns work.
  
  Why is it okay for a 15 year old child to have sex with an older man in one place but that same child needs to be 18 somewhere else?
  
  A 15-year-old in a country with a culture that is sexually permissive develops a different view of sexuality than a 15-year-old in a prudish society.
  
  The age of consent for someone to have relationships with older people should be 20, including drawing underaged characters. 20 is the end of "teenage" years, if you're 19 you're still technically a teenager and it makes no sense for it to be, at a maximum, 18.
  
  "Why is it this arbitrary age, when it should clearly be a different arbitrary age?" >
  
  
  Not how possesive nouns work.
  
  Not what I'm concerned with at the moment.
  
  A 15-year-old in a country with a culture that is sexually permissive develops a different view of sexuality than a 15-year-old in a prudish society.
  
  This is my problem, we need to decide what is and isn't a child. This is why the world becomes so messed up and degenerate, we can't decide on basic things and it becomes problematic. >
  
  
  This is my problem, we need to decide what is and isn't a child.
  
  A child is someone who hasn't reached the age of majority, which is 18 in the vast majority of the world. It is not to be confused with the age of consent, which varies widely across nations. The point is not the age at which someone stops being a child, but the age at which a person can reasonably consent to sexual activity. That age would vary across cultures based on their views on sexuality, and on the level of sexual education youngsters get.
  It's in the same spirit as laws regarding the age at which one can take a driver's license. In highly urbanized and heavily trafficked areas of the U.S, that age is generally higher than in sparsely populated states. Different cultures, and the lifestyles that stem from them, call for different laws.
  
  ... we can't decide on basic things and it becomes problematic
  
  The world is much more nuanced than just black-and-white moral generalizations dictated by a governing body. >
  
  I think the USA is a good example of this, you can legally drive in places at the age of 16, but can't drink alcohol or consent to sex in the same state until 21.
  I might be wrong, but I think economics comes into play more than morals in some governments when considering age of consent. It's better for them to consider people adults at younger ages because then they can legally work, they can live on their own which means they'll be renting or buying a property, and other examples of such. 
  I personally think that since we have a global government (United Nations), this should have been something implemented a long time ago. And I believe that if it does come into place the age will be made 18, which definitely helps in preventing drawn CP, but it could be higher. >
  
  
  I think the USA is a good example of this, you can legally drive in places at the age of 16, but can't drink alcohol or consent to sex in the same state until 21.
  
  The age of consent for sex is 16 in most states, 17 in 6 states, 18 in 11 states. No state in the US places the age of consent at 21. >
  
  I thought in california you become legal at 21? Maybe that was a misunderstanding on my part and I did specify I wasn't 100% sure, but the rest of my point still stands >
  
  Do you believe that states should give up their ability to make their own laws in favour of some international authority making laws for them?
  You could certainly make the argument for extreme cases. You could maybe say that any country with an AOC of 12 is wrong, and that the international community should put serious pressure on them. You could say a country with an AOC of 30 is extreme in the opposite direction, and should be pressured. However, when it comes to difference a single year, be it 16, 17, 18, or 19, should we really invoke international pressure to get country to change its laws? That's taking it too far and enters into the realm of neo-colonialism. >
  
  Age of consent should be made on a federal level, it makes no sense for that to be different based on state. It is like 14 being the age of consent in a place like Berlin but 16 in Dresden. >
  
  
  Age of consent should be made on a federal level, it makes no sense for that to be different based on state.
  
  It 100% makes sense because of the federal system in the USA. In the USA, states are legal sovereigns and make their own laws. This goes beyond AOC, but is how all laws in the USA work. You say that it makes no sense for the laws in Dresden to be different than the laws in Berlin, but why? I would argue that it makes no sense that they have to be the same when they are in different German states. Germany is also federal, so there will be some different laws in Berlin than in Dresden. Perhaps your argument is more about federalism and less about AOC.
  Let me you ask you this, do you agree with states legalizing marijuana? If you truly oppose federalism, then you should oppose the states legalizing the drug and instead support that federal prohibition should reign supreme. >
  
  If the US is one country then why should there be such a divide on what is and isn't wrong? Either Marijuana should be legal throughout the entire US or it shouldn't. It definitely shouldn't be up to the states, just like AOC, it's blurring the lines and causes confusion. >
  
  
  If the US is one country
  
  It isn't. You are misunderstanding what the USA is.
  In any case, I think the main issue here is that you simply do not support federalism, which is an argument that goes well beyond AOC. It is hard to argue about any specific law when we do not agree on the basis of making law in general. We can't argue any specifics when we don't speak the same language to begin with. >
  
  
  If the US is one country
  It isn't. You are misunderstanding what the USA is.
  
  It may have chosen to use the term "state" instead of "province" or "prefecture" for its constituent parts but the U.S. is a country. >
  
  It's a union of 50 sovereign states. When it comes to day-to-day laws for the average person in their normal lives, it is not a single country. >
  
  The states aren't exactly sovereign. There's many things they can't do, that only the federal government is allowed to.
  This is like saying Canada isn't a single country because it has provinces. If everyone thought this way, the UN would have like 800 member states for all the little political subdivisions each country has. >
  
  Canada is not quite as federal as the USA, but it is federal. In may ways, Canada is not a single country either. This is especially the case when you consider all the self-determination claims of the First Nations. You mention the UN, and one big criticism from Indigenous people is that the UN asserts rights for Indigenous people, yet refuse to recognize them by offering them membership. It is also the case with Quebec because they use a completely different legal system.
  I understand that there is a single federal government under a supreme Constitution and federal Crown, but the actual day-to-day life of most people is governed by local government. >
  
  Whether you think there should be or not is actually academic. There is no body that holds legal jurisdiction over the whole globe, for very good reasons (I would worry so much more about that and the potential for them to embed their power permanently than our own UK government, who are supposed to be democratically elected) ..
  Even within elected multinational bodies like the EU there are differences between age of consent between member states, as issues that are social and sometimes based on religious belief are held at the smallest and most local level, for reasons of cultural acceptance and buy in. 
  Laws applied from a distance, by people who do not understand the cultural nuances of their jurisdiction tend to be ignored which undermines the authority for this and all other law making. >
  
  The age is fairly arbitrary, which is why it's different in different places. 20 years old is also arbitrary, so why should that be the age? The brain is still developing until 25, which would be a reason to universally adopt that age. Most people would agree that 25 is too old though. >
  
  25 is obviously too old, but 14 shouldn't have even been an option. I'll agree with the 18-20 year range because it's a solid compromise. >
  
  96! >
  
  I think it's crazy that a 16 year old teenager can drive in USA but shouldn't or can't have sex with an 18 or 21 year old >
  
  A 16 year old isn't an adult, I can see 18. But 21 is way too old for someone to have relationships with a 16 year old. >
  
  I don't think most countries could really be described as having a universal age of consent internally. Sometimes adults with intellectual disabilities are effectively treated as children for the purposes of sex crimes. Some countries, such as the US, allow young children to get married and have sex provided that they have permission from their parents (iirc some US states don't even have a minimum age for this). Some countries have a higher age of consent for sex between same-sex partners, or forbid it entirely. Many countries either de jure or de facto allow kids slightly below the age of consent to have sex with kids of similar ages. And enforcement is patchy everywhere. Realistically, many teenagers do end up having sex whether they're allowed to or not, and adults often get away with abusing kids.
  
  and causes disagreements.
  
  It would be difficult to craft a law that doesn't cause disagreements.
  
  including drawing underaged characters
  
  Well, you're never going to be able to have a sharp cutoff for drawings of fictional characters, since their ages and actions are necessarily more ambiguous than those of real people. Try coming up with the precise wording of a law that would forbid any sexualized drawing of a character under the age of 20. You will probably have to resort to something like "if a reasonable person would consider that the character is clearly under the age of 20..." >
  
  First of all, any age of consent that functions as a hard line is going to criminalize normal healthy relationships and will be used to target already marginalized people, e.g. people in same-sex or interracial relationships. It will always be illogical that a relationship with someone one week younger than you is illegal, no matter what the actual cutoff age is. The only sensible way to do it is to make it legal to date/have sex with people who are close to your age, even if one or both of you is younger than the general age of consent. 
  Anyway, to your main point, if a country wants to make it illegal for people in their jurisdiction to access or possess certain materials, they can do that without worrying about any laws in other countries. The differences are not actually problematic because you're still subject to the laws of the country you're in. 
  And if law-enforcement can't tell what country you're in, then it probably doesn't matter whether what you're doing is legal in a given region, since you're not going to get caught regardless. >
  
  
  if you're 19 you're still technically a teenager and it makes no sense for it to be, at a maximum, 18.
  
  It makes as much sense as 20. Literally the only reason you're a teenager at 19 is because the word "19" ends with "-teen". All of this is arbitrary. >
  
  Indeed. It is such an odd argument to make laws based on linguistic peculiarities.
  How does the law change in other languages?
  In French for example, the words 11-16 have their own unique words:
  
  onze
  douze 
  treize
  quatorze
  quinze
  seize
  
  However, 17-19 are literally worded ten and whatever is the second number.
  
  dix-sept (ten-seven)
  dix-huit (ten-eight)
  dix-neuf (ten-nine)
  
  So, does this mean in France, the AOC should be 17 because that is when the linguistic trend changes? Why would England and France have a different "correct" AOC? >
  
  And in French-speaking countries smoking weed should become legal at the age of 80, because quatre-vingt means 420. >
  
  Lol, indeed. >
  
  So first off, there is no universal authority with the ability to govern age of consent.
  Second, I don't see how the age of consent has anything to do with drawing people. A drawing can't consent, no matter how old it is, it's a drawing. Also, how do you tell the difference between a 19 year old somebody drew, and a 21 year old? Again it's a drawing. >
  
  As far as the drawing part, I think OP might be talking with respect to the lollicon thing that is (I believe) illegal in US, but not in other countries since it is drawing. >
  
  Yea but that has nothing to do with age of consent, because a drawing doesn't have an age, and can't consent. >
  
  Well I understand but what I was saying was that if you draw a character that is supposed to be (doesn’t have to be based on a real person) underage, below the age of consent, then in the US that drawing is/has the potential to be classified as child pornography. I wasn’t making an opinion about that but saying I think that might have been what OP was talking about. >
  
  I see a number of major issues with your position:
  First is the pragmatics. How do you plan to enforce a universal law of this kind? There are 195 different countries in the world. Many of them do not have the most congenial of relationships with one another. They struggle enough to agree on universal issues that directly impact international relations. Let alone domestic policy issues (i.e. something that is aimed at policing their internal population rather than their nations interactions with other nations).
  Secondly you risk criminalising large numbers of teenagers. We’ve already seen this in the US where there have been a number of high profile cases in which teenagers having perfectly normal sexual relationships have been caught up  in the criminal system and classified as sex offenders. Yet, I hope we agree, there is nothing creepy or wrong about two sixteen-year-olds being attracted to one another.
  Teenagers are going to have sexual relations with one another. This is totally normal. We can make sure that they are as safe as possible by teaching them good health and hygiene practices, and ensuring that they have access to contraception and support where needed. But simply trying to criminalise them is not going to help. It’ll not stop them having sex. It’ll just make their doing so more risky, and in a small but significant number of cases, result in bad justice.
  I think a much better solution is to have a more nuanced law. For example, a legal age of consent at 16, but a limit on how much age difference there can been between the parties. Two people who are both 16 having sex with one another in a consensual way is fine. A creepy old man having sex with a 16-year-old is not. And so why not create a law that reflects that nuanced reality, aimed at protecting younger people from those who are predatory, while avoiding the blanket criminalisation of what is a normal and inevitable behaviour between people coming into adulthood.
  ​
  ​
  
  The age of consent for someone to have relationships with older people should be 20, including drawing underaged characters. 20 is the end of "teenage" years, if you're 19 you're still technically a teenager and it makes no sense for it to be, at a maximum, 18.
  
  You seem to be hanging on the arbitrary word “teen” here in the numerical sense. I would moot that what matters is not the specific number per se, but the physical and psychological maturity of a person. It may be that 20 is the right choice. But that choice should be grounded in our best understanding of how people develop and at what point they are mature enough to make these choices in an informed way.
  It should not be grounded in the arbitrary and irrelevant fact that we use a decimal counting base to track numbers. >
  
  An 18 year old can join the army to fight for their country and they are viewed in the court system as an adult. 18 should be the universal age of consent >
  
  There is no universal government. So you can’t say what one country does applies to another. That’s the problem. >
  
  There's two separate arguments here:
  
  That the age of consent should be one specific age, that is objectively the best age to have it
  That irrespective of what the age is, that age should be universal
  
  On point 1, while you say that 20 is the right age, I think most people would disagree and would say it should be younger. Certainly most countries do have a younger age. I don't think there's anything particularly special about any particular age, and can't advance an argument for or against any age in particular beyond simply saying "seems a bit too young", or "seems a bit too old". Some people think that having one age to make people a legal adult makes sense, and that the age of consent should match the drinking age, the voting age, the age you can leave school or the age you can join the military. This makes some sense, and has a consistency to it, but of course the age you can do those other things vary by country too, so you can't keep them all in sync everywhere.
  On point 2, there are a lot of things that are legal in one country and not another, and for the most part it doesn't cause very many practical difficulties. The law of the country you're in applies and the fact that the law is different somewhere else isn't very important. If there's anything we know from centuries of diplomacy it's that international agreements are hard. There aren't effective decision-making bodies at the global level, and those we do have (the UN) struggle with both democratic legitimacy and enforcement of anything. On the other hand most countries have a relatively effective national legislature, usually with some degree of democratic accountability, and make laws that are acceptable locally and therefore can be enforced.
  I don't think either argument has much merit >
  
  
  Why is it okay for a 15 year old child to have sex with an older man in one place but that same child needs to be 18 somewhere else?
  
  The same reason it's ok for women to drive one place and not another, or for people to drink at 18 one place and not another. Laws are different; cultures are different. 
  
  The age of consent for someone to have relationships with older people should be 20, including drawing underaged characters. 20 is the end of "teenage" years, if you're 19 you're still technically a teenager and it makes no sense for it to be, at a maximum, 18.
  
  Who is going to implement a global law? We don't have that for anything (some Hauge-related offenses aside). 
  Also, what's older, in this pretend scheme? Can a 17-year-old not date a 19-year-old? >
  
  Wouldn't you agree that a minor shouldnt be in a relationship with an adult? A minor can't consent while an adult can. Why are we going to say minors cannot consent but yet we can't even agree on what classifies as a minor? >
  
  
  Wouldn't you agree that a minor shouldnt be in a relationship with an adult?
  
  Depends on what we're talking about. A 16-yr-old and an 18-yr-old is a minor and an adult, 17 and 19 is a minor and an adult. 14 and 35 is a minor and an adult. One of those is not ok, 
  
  Why are we going to say minors cannot consent but yet we can't even agree on what classifies as a minor?
  
  See above, because laws and mores differ. >
  
  Why does there need to be universal morality when morality isn't universal? >
  
  
  The age of consent for someone to have relationships with older people should be 20  
  
  Where is the evidence for this?  Your only argument is the name "teenager" which only works in English, why would you think English is the only basis of world legislation, including china, india or egypt?  
  Have you travelled outside of your state?
  In countries like Brazil where sexuality is very open and relaxed, youg kids around 14 are more sex aware than 17yo latin american girls that go to nun's schools, who are more sex aware than 20 year olds in north carolina, US.  UK is about in the middle depending on location.  Even the urban/rural distinction changes the likelihood of a young person to be able to decide how sex works for them.
  Even more, in places where education, contraception and health care is more present, the age can be a bit lower with less social risk.  
  While I think the age of consent is not a settled matter, and agree 12 is too young and 20 is quite passed, I don't have a problem with this varying across very different cultures. >
  
  I think the world needs to decide on what is a minor, it doesn't matter how mature a kid is, a minor is a minor, and minors cannot consent. And the meaning of a child shouldn't be something that changes based on location. >
  
  But your answer is only circular, how do you define a minor?  
  I didn't say just location, I said a lot more than that. >
  
  I define a minor as a child and teenager, someone who isn't an adult yet.
  Once again, a minor is a minor regardless of location and maturity level. >
  
  
  Any logical person will agree that minors cannot consent to things like sex and shouldn't be allowed to date an adult. But different countries's views blur the lines on what a child is and causes disagreements.
  
  There are almost no countries on this planet where the age of majority is the same as the age of consent. There are very few rational people apparently.
  Most countries put the absolute age of consent anything from 2 to 4 years below the age of majority, and have further “romeo and juliet” exceptions where minors can consent to sex with each other even lower. Where I live, in the Netherlands, one can consent as long as 12 to sex with a peer legally speaking. This is democratically decided, do you believe my country is short on “logical persons”?
  
  Why is it okay for a 15 year old child to have sex with an older man in one place but that same child needs to be 18 somewhere else?
  
  Because laws on about everything differ from place to place as laws are not made by logic but culture. Why is it okay to drive at 16 in some places but 18 in others, drink at 16 in some, but 21 in others? Have a tattoo at 12 in some, but 18 in others? 'tis a mystery.
  Why is age of consent to sex act so special here?
  
  The age of consent for someone to have relationships with older people should be 20, including drawing underaged characters. 20 is the end of "teenage" years, if you're 19 you're still technically a teenager and it makes no sense for it to be, at a maximum, 18.
  
  What's “older person” here? 1 second? I hope not since no two persons are of course exactly the same age. >
  
  
  different countries's views blur the lines on what a child is and causes disagreements.
  
  And these disagreements between countries are more important than being correct about the location you are actually in?  Seems to me it would be much worse to allow predation on kids or to ban old-enough teens than to have disagreements here and there. >
  
  So the reason the age of consent is different in different places is that people are complicated, and mature at different rates. Imagine a normal distribution of kids passing the age of consent, some are ready for it when it comes, some aren't, most are happy they don't have to lie to porn sites anymore. 
  Which leads me to the next point: The average teenager wants sex long before they're at the age of consent. This is usually fine, given they should be in relationships with their peers, and that won't cause problems if handled well. 
  In the real world, this leads to teen pregnancy alarmingly often because of poor sex ed, lack of easy access to birth control, and more generally trying to keep things a secret, something often needed because it's technically illegal for two 17 year olds to consensually fuck. Furthermore, given that everything is online, people have similarly faced child pornography charges for underaged sexting with people their own age. 
  Which moves us on  to talking about CP more generally. It's not illegal because of it's content, it illegal to protect the people harmed in making it. As such, it doesn't follow to care about any form of it where people aren't being harmed to make it. 
  Furthermore, about art and ages, a drawn character doesn't really have an age, they have a canon age, dictated by authorial intent, and they have an apparent age, which is arbitrarily decided by viewers and can be endlessly argued about. If you try to ban things by the former, you'll get nothing changing, except lip-service changing of ages, and trying to ban things based off the latter is giving your censors the power to ban any hentai that looks too young based off the whims of your censors, power they could easily abuse. And all this to stop some harmless drawings? >
  
  
  So the reason the age of consent is different in different places is that people are complicated, and mature at different rates.
  
  It doesn't matter how quickly children mature, a child is a child and should be regardless of location.
  
  because it's technically illegal for two 17 year olds to consensually fuck. Furthermore, given that everything is online, people have similarly faced child pornography charges for underaged sexting with people their own age. 
  
  It shouldn't be illegal for two teens about the same age as eachother to have sex, no one is being exploited, and nobody can be charged because they're both minors. But nude sending counts as possession of CP regardless who it is sent to.
  
  Furthermore, about art and ages, a drawn character doesn't really have an age, they have a canon age, dictated by authorial intent, and they have an apparent age, which is arbitrarily decided by viewers and can be endlessly argued about. If you try to ban things by the former, you'll get nothing changing, except lip-service changing of ages, and trying to ban things based off the latter is giving your censors the power to ban any hentai that looks too young based off the whims of your censors, power they could easily abuse. And all this to stop some harmless drawings?
  
  If a character is confirmed 16 that means people are looking at the way she is drawn regularly and taking that 16 year old and depicting that character sexually, especially if there are signs telling us that she is 16. The average person will look at art and begin to decipher her age and conclude she is 16. 
  Although drawn art doesn't harm anyone, it still enables pedophilia. >
  
  
  Although drawn art doesn't harm anyone, it still enables pedophilia.
  
  Why do you believe this? Drawn depictions of other acts don't 'enable' those acts. Does a drawing of someone doing renovation cause or contribute to people renovating? Does drawn violence enable violence? >
  
  It all depends on the viewer. It may not affect someone but someone who is obsessed with violence could very well end up doing something violent, not all the time, but high risk. Someone doing renovations could inspire someone to get their life back together. Just like how something transphobic won't make the viewer transphobic but you know it's bad regardless, so is someone depicting a child get taken advantage of. >
  
  Good luck having every single country in the world agree on any law, let alone the age of consent. >
  
  
  The age of consent for someone to have relationships with older people should be 20, including drawing underaged characters. 20 is the end of "teenage" years, if you're 19 you're still technically a teenager and it makes no sense for it to be, at a maximum, 18.
  
  If the word for 20 were "twenteen", would you want the age to be 21? >
  
  It physically couldn't be, but if it some how was then I'd still prefer it was that. Once the age where you can no longer be classed as a teenager is reached, it should be that age. >
  
  
  Once the age where you can no longer be classed as a teenager is reached, it should be that age
  
  So if all of the numbers from 13-99 ended with "teen", you would want the age to be 100? >
  
  You do realize that is completely impossible? Right? All I'm saying, is that at twenty you're a young adult. >
  
  
  ... countries's ...
  
  Not how possesive nouns work.
  
  Why is it okay for a 15 year old child to have sex with an older man in one place but that same child needs to be 18 somewhere else?
  
  A 15-year-old in a country with a culture that is sexually permissive develops a different view of sexuality than a 15-year-old in a prudish society.
  
  The age of consent for someone to have relationships with older people should be 20, including drawing underaged characters. 20 is the end of "teenage" years, if you're 19 you're still technically a teenager and it makes no sense for it to be, at a maximum, 18.
  
  "Why is it this arbitrary age, when it should clearly be a different arbitrary age?" >
  
  
  Not how possesive nouns work.
  
  Not what I'm concerned with at the moment.
  
  A 15-year-old in a country with a culture that is sexually permissive develops a different view of sexuality than a 15-year-old in a prudish society.
  
  This is my problem, we need to decide what is and isn't a child. This is why the world becomes so messed up and degenerate, we can't decide on basic things and it becomes problematic. >
  
  
  This is my problem, we need to decide what is and isn't a child.
  
  A child is someone who hasn't reached the age of majority, which is 18 in the vast majority of the world. It is not to be confused with the age of consent, which varies widely across nations. The point is not the age at which someone stops being a child, but the age at which a person can reasonably consent to sexual activity. That age would vary across cultures based on their views on sexuality, and on the level of sexual education youngsters get.
  It's in the same spirit as laws regarding the age at which one can take a driver's license. In highly urbanized and heavily trafficked areas of the U.S, that age is generally higher than in sparsely populated states. Different cultures, and the lifestyles that stem from them, call for different laws.
  
  ... we can't decide on basic things and it becomes problematic
  
  The world is much more nuanced than just black-and-white moral generalizations dictated by a governing body. >
  
  I think the USA is a good example of this, you can legally drive in places at the age of 16, but can't drink alcohol or consent to sex in the same state until 21.
  I might be wrong, but I think economics comes into play more than morals in some governments when considering age of consent. It's better for them to consider people adults at younger ages because then they can legally work, they can live on their own which means they'll be renting or buying a property, and other examples of such. 
  I personally think that since we have a global government (United Nations), this should have been something implemented a long time ago. And I believe that if it does come into place the age will be made 18, which definitely helps in preventing drawn CP, but it could be higher. >
  
  
  I think the USA is a good example of this, you can legally drive in places at the age of 16, but can't drink alcohol or consent to sex in the same state until 21.
  
  The age of consent for sex is 16 in most states, 17 in 6 states, 18 in 11 states. No state in the US places the age of consent at 21. >
  
  I thought in california you become legal at 21? Maybe that was a misunderstanding on my part and I did specify I wasn't 100% sure, but the rest of my point still stands >
  
  Do you believe that states should give up their ability to make their own laws in favour of some international authority making laws for them?
  You could certainly make the argument for extreme cases. You could maybe say that any country with an AOC of 12 is wrong, and that the international community should put serious pressure on them. You could say a country with an AOC of 30 is extreme in the opposite direction, and should be pressured. However, when it comes to difference a single year, be it 16, 17, 18, or 19, should we really invoke international pressure to get country to change its laws? That's taking it too far and enters into the realm of neo-colonialism. >
  
  Age of consent should be made on a federal level, it makes no sense for that to be different based on state. It is like 14 being the age of consent in a place like Berlin but 16 in Dresden. >
  
  
  Age of consent should be made on a federal level, it makes no sense for that to be different based on state.
  
  It 100% makes sense because of the federal system in the USA. In the USA, states are legal sovereigns and make their own laws. This goes beyond AOC, but is how all laws in the USA work. You say that it makes no sense for the laws in Dresden to be different than the laws in Berlin, but why? I would argue that it makes no sense that they have to be the same when they are in different German states. Germany is also federal, so there will be some different laws in Berlin than in Dresden. Perhaps your argument is more about federalism and less about AOC.
  Let me you ask you this, do you agree with states legalizing marijuana? If you truly oppose federalism, then you should oppose the states legalizing the drug and instead support that federal prohibition should reign supreme. >
  
  If the US is one country then why should there be such a divide on what is and isn't wrong? Either Marijuana should be legal throughout the entire US or it shouldn't. It definitely shouldn't be up to the states, just like AOC, it's blurring the lines and causes confusion. >
  
  
  If the US is one country
  
  It isn't. You are misunderstanding what the USA is.
  In any case, I think the main issue here is that you simply do not support federalism, which is an argument that goes well beyond AOC. It is hard to argue about any specific law when we do not agree on the basis of making law in general. We can't argue any specifics when we don't speak the same language to begin with. >
  
  
  If the US is one country
  It isn't. You are misunderstanding what the USA is.
  
  It may have chosen to use the term "state" instead of "province" or "prefecture" for its constituent parts but the U.S. is a country. >
  
  It's a union of 50 sovereign states. When it comes to day-to-day laws for the average person in their normal lives, it is not a single country.