Age of consent in the United States received a peer review by Wikipedia editors, which is now archived. It may contain ideas you can use to improve this article.
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This article is part of the Age of consent series of articles project.
In the interest of accuracy and quality it was decided by consensus* to hold these pages to a high standard of verification and to avoid ambiguity through the use of prose (not dot points) discussing the relevant statutes, case law or other authorities.
To this end all information must be properly referenced. Where writing about legislation or other law, the appropriate statutes and similar must be cited.
Where appropriate, portions of the legislation can be quoted.
Where possible, a link to an up-to-date online copy of the legislation can be included (preferably, but not necessarily, in English).
It is preferable to include any such references in-line, rather than in a separate <ref> section at the bottom of the page. This is to make it easier for readers to find the references in context.
The unfettered age of consent should be in bold text, in order that it stand out. No other ages should be in bold text. Any exceptions to should then be discussed afterwards (close in age exceptions, same sex relations etc).
This contradiction still exists as of November 2024. I'm a passerby (i.e., not even vaguely versed in how to edit Wikipedia), but the discrepancy is explicit. How can this be fixed? 98.232.105.86 (talk) 20:58, 6 November 2024 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 7 months ago3 comments1 person in discussion
There's an updated version of the Delaware code for 2024 (as it pertains to the age of consent) starting here.
It seems to have some potentially confusing aspects, and hence raises some doubts as to whether this meets the criteria for inclusion in WP. Fabrickator (talk) 10:35, 9 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
According to section 768, it would appear that anyone who has intentional sexual contact with a person under age 18 is guilty of unlawful sexual contact in the second degree. If there are other authoritative sources that conflict with this, we may have a conundrum, because this seems to be quite plain on its face. Fabrickator (talk) 02:17, 1 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
BRMYX23 removed the sticky table headers. BRMYX23 is a very new editor (May 27, 2025 first edit under that name). They have also been warned about possible edit warring. They also removed the sticky table headers from here:
On that article BRMYX23 called my edits vandalism which is a personal attack. See WP:NPA.
Can someone else return the sticky tables? Then there is more than one person who wants them, and my time has not been wasted. @Jroberson108: can you have a look at the sticky version, and tell me what you think since you (like me) are an expert on sticky tables on Wikipedia. --Timeshifter (talk) 21:50, 26 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
@Timeshifter and BRMYX23: I suggest only discussing the article's content here.
Reviewing the "Summary" table. It is tall with three columns next to each other with very similar age data. In my opinion, this can easily be mixed up when column headers are no longer visible.
I don't think Template:Sticky table start is needed, instead use Template:Sticky header because it isn't "very" wide, the text wraps, and most aren't going to read the "ref" column. Sticky column headers will help with not having to scroll back and forth to re-read column headers, especially on mobile.
Also, sorting on the ref column can be removed as it serves no purpose. Finally, the caption might be better rephrased as "Ages of consent in the United States" or "United States ages of consent".
I had been offline for the past couple of days - However in response to the points listed, yes the sticky tables had been removed as they make the information on the summary tables harder to access than they had been previously - requiring scrolling through and along to the sides, hiding large chunks of information which are the core purpose / pieces of information of the page - A page which has existed for decades within the formats that it had been previously, until you came along and made large changes to the page - in the decades this page had existed at no point had objections been raised to the format and it was the format which was agreed upon for displaying the page by those who created the page originally and by all those who had edited on it -
the information on the original format indeed fixed, therefore and easy to view - Your changes make information harder to find and the page more complicated, unnecessarily and it goes against the agreed upon format for the page - and this edit was made without gathering information from others - Simply put you massively re-formatted the page on your own convictions in such a manner that hides information, and this was the reason for removal - the layout of information was agreed upon originally by the page creators your edit goes against that and hides / makes information harder to find - These were therefore the grounds for removal BRMYX23 (talk) 17:20, 27 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
(Or more accurately to revert back to the original format, agreed upon on the creation of the page - things have not altered on the topic enough between the page creation and now to justify an update to the way information is formatted, keeping it clear and there rather than making huge changes keeps in line with the intended format of when the page was developed) BRMYX23 (talk) 17:23, 27 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
@BRMYX23: Here below is the US table in the sticky table format suggested by Jroberson108: {{sticky header}}. Instead of the more compact sticky table format I used: {{sticky table start}}. Scroll down and you will see that the headers follow you down the page making it much easier to know what column a number applies to. I prefer {{sticky table start}} since it makes tables more viewable in portrait view in smaller cell phones. By making the left column sticky too.
↑"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.
↑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). The 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". The 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.
↑Cite error: The named reference puerto_rico was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
↑"Sexual Performance by a Child". Mary E. Conn & Associates. 2020. Archived from the original on September 23, 2020. Retrieved May 30, 2022. Although the title of the law specifically refers to performances, the detailed language of the law clearly criminalizes sexual conduct itself, regardless of whether that is related to ... a performance.
↑"Sexual Performance by a Child". Saputo Law. 2019. Retrieved June 6, 2021. The Texas crime of Sexual Performance by a Child makes it illegal to allow or encourage a child ... [to] engage in "sexual conduct.
↑"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 de-criminalize 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." "
This table as I am presented with it seems fine - As long as the physical information (the states and laws themselves aren’t hidden and are locked / fixed in place) - I have no accessibility issues on my end - I could see some finding issue with the header following them down (I don’t know if there’s a way of making this optional for users?) but I am generally speaking fine with this version of the table and am happy to agree on it BRMYX23 (talk) 03:39, 28 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
@HeavyGoat1491: The explanation that was provided with the edit states:
Michigan has no unrestricted age. Literally stated in this article itself: "In March 2012 the Michigan Senate passed a bill which was to prohibit sexual relations between students of any age and teachers."
I am not an advocate of trying to convey the age of consent in the form of a table. (As to the age of 26, perhaps that's supposed to represent the upper limit for the age of a student... though a couple of states have a dash in this column.) Once upon a time, the bulk of the states simply had a single age of consent, but now, each state has its own idiosyncrasies, and the table presentation really hides more than it reveals. Fabrickator (talk) 19:15, 1 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
That was my edit, I'm talking about Hamon669's edit that changed it from N/A to 26. Thing is, I see it being banned regardless of age no matter what, not just up to 26. Therefore I don't see how 26 comes in.
Sure I ain't a fan of a table either, there are nuances. But it is the most easily interpretable format. Of course, being easily interpretable must also mean people can derive their perception of truth reasonably from it. HeavyGoat1491 (talk) 20:56, 1 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
I interpreted the "unrestricted" age of consent to mean the age at which a person may consent without any age-difference, restrictions authority, or restrictions special-vulnerability protections. So things like authority restrictions (teacher, counselor, etc.) applyto the actor, not the “unrestricted age”
This is not the only issue with the ages in this table and I will try to fix them all tomorrow.
750.520d (f) is the section that lists 26 as the age limit that a special ed teacher can have sex with a student. Also, that bill that would have gotten rid of the age limit for teachers was just that, a bill, which only passed the Senate but not the house. Hamon669 (talk) 12:18, 3 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
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