The age of consent is the age at which a person is considered to be legally competent to consent to sexual acts and is thus the minimum age of a person with whom another person is legally permitted to engage in sexual activity. The distinguishing aspect of the age of consent laws is that the person below the minimum age is regarded as the victim, and their sex partner is regarded as the offender, unless both are underage.
Restricted by age difference: younger partner is deemed able to consent to having sex with an older one as long as their age difference does not exceed a specified amount.
Restricted by authority: younger partner is deemed able to consent to having sex with an older one as long as the latter is not in a position of trust or authority, or is not recognised to be abusing the inexperience of the younger one.
Unrestricted: age from which one is deemed able to consent to having sex with anyone else at or above the age of consent or the marriageable age if they must be married.
Different jurisdictions express these definitions differently, like Argentina, may say the age of consent is 18, but an exception is made down to 13 years of age, if the older partner is not in a position of authority over the younger one. The data below reflects what each jurisdiction's legislation actually means, rather than what it states on the surface.
^"Statutory Rape: A Guide to State Laws and Reporting Requirements." United States Department of Health and Human Services. Retrieved on November 4, 2014. "Florida[ ... ]A child under 16 years of age cannot consent to sexual activity, regardless of the age of the defendant.[189] A child who is at least 16 years of age and less than 18 years of age cannot consent to sexual activity if the defendant is 24 years of age or older." and "Pennsylvania[ ... ]Sexual intercourse with someone less than 13 years of age is illegal regardless of the age of the defendant.[641] Sexual intercourse with someone at least 13 years of age and less than 16 years of age is illegal unless the defendant is less than four years older than the victim or is the victim's spouse."
^"Report of the Age of Consent Task Force" (Archive). State of Hawaii Department of the Attorney General. Retrieved on November 4, 2014. p. i (PDF p. 6/79). Submitted to The Twenty-Second State Legislature Regular Session of 2003 Pursuant to Act 1, Second Special Session, SLH 2001.
^"Statutory Rape: A Guide to State Laws and Reporting Requirements. Summary of Current State Laws.". U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, December 15, 2014. Retrieved on May 15, 2016. "A common misperception about statutory rape is that state codes define a single age at which an individual can legally consent to sex. Only 12 states have a single age of consent, below which an individual cannot consent to sexual intercourse under any circumstances, and above which it is legal to engage in sexual intercourse with another person above the age of consent. For example, in Massachusetts, the age of consent is 16. In the remaining 39 states, other factors come into play: age differentials, minimum age of the victim, and minimum age of the defendant. Each is described below." - The mathematics does not add up in this section as there are 50 states, unless DC is counted as #51.
^Kuruvilla, Carol. "English teacher avoids jail after cops nab her in hotel room with 17-year-old student" (Archive). New York Daily News. Sunday March 29, 2014. Retrieved on October 5, 2014. "The age of consent in Oklahoma is 16. But because Queen was the teenager's teacher, different rules apply. According to state laws, a sexual act is considered rape if the victim is a student between 16 and 18 years of age and the suspect is an employee of the student's school system."
^Boyer, Barbara. "Chester sex case points up questions A high school administrator has been charged with two misdemeanors. Experts say the issues are not clear-cut." (Archive). Philadelphia Inquirer. April 9, 2005. Retrieved on August 4, 2015. "Wilson's arrest highlights confusing questions about sexual relations between youths who are of the age of legal consent at 16 and adults. Sex with a minor younger than 16 is considered statutory rape." and "In Pennsylvania, prosecutors turn to broader laws, such as corrupting the morals of a minor, that are not as clearly defined." and "JoAnne Epps, dean of academic affairs at Temple University's Beasley School of Law, said that even though a teenager can legally consent to sex[ ... ]"[ ... ]but that's irrelevant in determining whether a person is guilty of corrupting the morals of a minor.""
^Martin, John P. (January 5, 2011). "Lower Merion High teacher suspended in student-romance allegation". Philadelphia Inquirer. Archived from the original on September 19, 2015. Retrieved June 24, 2018. Pennsylvania law sets the age of consent for sex at 16, although prosecutors in some counties have brought child endangerment and corruption-of-minors charges against teachers who have had relationships with 16- and 17-year-old students.
^"Appellant's Brief, Texas Department of Public Safety v. Garcia, 2010 WL 1366961, at 8 (Tex. Ct. App. filed Feb. 1, 2010)". "Under Texas law, a person commits the offense of Sexual Performance by a Child [...] Like the *8 Oregon statute, this Texas statute identifies the age of consent as 18."
^Ex parte Fujisaka, 472 S.W.3d 792, 800, 801 (Tex. Ct. App. 2015). The court concluded that "although an adult's consensual sexual contact with a seventeen-year-old cannot be prosecuted as indecency with a child, the teenager's consent to sex does not decriminalize the adult's conduct under section 43.25(b) [proscribing conduct involving a person under eighteen years of age] because the adult's conduct is a crime against the public, not against the teenager."
^Schulte, Brigide. "An Age-Old Cultural Divide". Washington Post. Sunday March 20, 2005. Page LZ21. Online p. 1 (Archive). "In Virginia, the age of consent is 18."
^Zhang, Laney (Foreign Law Specialist). "Children's Rights: China" (Archive). Library of Congress. August 2007. Last updated March 16, 2015. Retrieved on April 25, 2015. "Having sexual intercourse with a girl under fourteen years of age is statutory rape, with a sentence of heavier punishment within the range of punishments for rape." and "Having sex with girls under the age of fourteen who are acting as prostitutes may result in a fixed-term imprisonment of five years and fine."