[HPforGrownups] Re: Coming Of Age

[Kathryn Cawte]

No: HPFGUIDX 75687

 
harrypotterfanatic2000 wrote
 
16 is legal for sex in the UK? Isn't it 17 in the US?
JKR has said that her characters would be 'growing up' realistically.
 
So would this mean that technically, in Book 6 (assuming that they
are dating), Krum (19) can sleep with Hermione (16) without social
stigma or legal statutory rape??
 
Maybe it's the legalistic, "16 is too young" mentality in me, but 
that strikes me as wrong...I mean, 16 is too young to drive, but old 
enough for sex with a 20, 30 year old? 
 
I guess the legislators in Britain have set this age for a reason, but
would this be crossing the line for Harry Potter??
 
 Me -

I agree with whoever it was wh said we probably won't be givien any actual
idea if anyone is sleeping with anyone else in HP - but since you can leave
school, gt a job and get married at 16, it doesn't seem too young really to
be having sex. Specifically the 'get married' part of that statement.
However I imagine a lot of people would feel slightly creeped out by a 20
year old or older sleeping with a schoolgirl, whereas it wouldn't be seen as
too odd for her to be sleeping with someone the same age. Which isn't to say
I think Hermione would be sleeping around - she strikes me as the type who
would want to be fairly certain the relationship was going somewhere before
she did anything.

Personally I like the Dutch idea that you can have sex at a younger age but
there is a limit to how much older your partner could be - wouldn't stop the
Hermione/Viktor thing tho, but then my probs with that aren't really the age
gap so much as the fact that you grow up a *lot* in those few years - but
then boys do usually mature slower than girls. I know it wasn't exatly
unusual for the top year boys at my school (17-18) to be dating girls 2 or 3
years younger. Obviously I don't know how many were having sex but since we
have quite a high teenage pregnanc rate in this country it would seem likely
that some of them were.

K