I came across this question on Quora: "Why is there a law in America that allows a woman to rape a man, have a child and sue him for child support, even if he is a minor?" The referred case is not new, but I wanted to discuss the specific answers to this question

​

The whole point of the Age of Consent is that children--though some of them may have a physical desire for sex--don't have the mental capacity to fully understand the consequences, or to give informed consent. That being the case, holding a boy responsible for the consequences because he supposedly has a desire for it defeats the entire purpose of the AoC

​

The main claims are:

  • "he consented (or he was 'willing'), so he's responsible": It's self-contradicting to say "he wasn't able to consent, and yet he consented", which exposes this argument as another way of saying that it's not actually abuse for a woman to rape a young boy. Basically, "what's the issue? it's what boys want anyway"

Because if it were actually seen as abuse, his being raped and whether or not he should pay would not be separate issues as the first answer claims: if he was raped, then he isn't responsible, because people aren't responsible for things they don't consent to; if he isn't responsible, then he shouldn't be held responsible for the child. Edmonson claims he should be held responsible, which just means he doesn't actually see it as rape--as is usually the case when sexual abuse involves a woman and a boy

Another says "The whole notion that 13 year old can’t consent is bonkers if anything." So it seems pretty clear here that the boy being raped and yet paying child support are not separate issues. And in fact that the main reason they think he should pay child support is specifically because they don't believe he was actually raped in the first place

​

  • "it's what the courts decided, so it's fine": this is an appeal to authority fallacy. Just because the courts say a boy should be held responsible, doesn't mean it's right. Do the courts, the government, the law enforcers, etc. always make the right decision? If that were so, there wouldn't be so many women who rape children being spared jail, nor a gender-based sentencing disparity, nor sex-based genital integrity laws, etc.

It's not as if the people in law enforcement aren't liable to hold the same prejudices that anyone else is. Namely that boys raped by older women aren't actually rape victims, and so should be held responsible for the consequences rape. Or that women who rape younger boys aren't actually predators, and so should maintain custody of children. So dismissing the possibility of this being wrong with basically "the courts said he knew what he was doing, so he knew what he was doing" is ridiculous

​

  • "his being raped and his paying child support are entirely separate matters": This to some extent is true: child support laws don't take into consideration how the child is conceived. The more appropriate question than "why is there a law that allows it?" is "why is there no law to prevent it?"

This is something that affects male victims disproportionately more, since when it's the other way around and the female is raped, she'll usually have an abortion or keep custody of the child, and therefore won't usually be in a position to have to pay child support while the rapist maintains custody

This being the case, since the people usually affected by this legal oversight are men and boys who are raped, it's not something enough people have been concerned about to provoke change. Evidently, judging partly by the answers on Quora, there are too many people who perceive it as "oh well, he wanted to have sex. What's wrong with him paying child support?"--even when it's a child who didn't give informed consent and was taken advantage of by an older authority figure--because it's a boy and they "know what they're doing"...

​

(...where it comes to sex. Somehow, in every other matter, boys are stupid and girls are more mature. But where it comes to having sex or becoming a parent, suddenly boys and only boys are apparently mature enough to know "exactly what was going on and the potential consequences")