Just Because It’s Legal Doesn’t Mean It’s Equal: The Case for Rethinking Age of Consent

There is a phrase people reach for when they want a conversation to end quickly. You’ve probably heard it. You may have said it yourself.

“They’re consenting adults.”

It’s delivered like a magic spell. As if those three words instantly erase everything else. The age gap. The power difference. The life experience imbalance. The nagging feeling that something about this situation feels off, even if you can’t quite articulate why.

Once “consenting adults” is said, we’re apparently meant to shut up. Stop asking questions. Stop trusting our instincts. Stop noticing patterns. Legality, we’re told, is the end of the discussion.

But legality has never been the same thing as equality, and deep down, most of us already know that.

The recent resurfacing of the idea of a staggered age of consent has made people uncomfortable in a very specific way. Not confused. Not curious. Defensive. Angry. The kind of reaction that usually means a nerve has been touched. Because this conversation forces us to look directly at something we’ve been trained to ignore: adulthood is not a flat, even playing field, and pretending it is has consequences, especially for young women.

On paper, eighteen is adulthood. You can vote. You can sign contracts. You can legally sleep with whoever you want. In theory, that means equality. In reality, it means very little about how power actually works.

One of the most common arguments in favour of rethinking age of consent comes from women talking honestly about their early adult relationships. And once you hear it, you can’t unhear it. Many men actively seek out much younger women because they are easier to influence, easier to impress, and easier to control. Not because younger women are stupid or weak, but because they are new. New to adult relationships. New to boundaries. New to recognising manipulation when it’s dressed up as romance.

An eighteen or nineteen year old woman might be legally an adult, but she is often still figuring out what feels normal, what feels wrong, and what she’s “supposed” to tolerate. A man in his thirties or forties has had years, sometimes decades, to practice relationships. To learn how to push without being obvious. To frame jealousy as care. To make control sound like protection. To position himself as the authority on what love is meant to look like.

The imbalance doesn’t announce itself. It doesn’t come with a warning label. It often feels exciting at first. Flattering. Intense. You’re “so mature for your age.” You’re “not like other girls.” You’re “wise beyond your years.” All phrases that sound like compliments and function like hooks.

The reason these relationships can be so damaging is that the younger person often doesn’t know anything is wrong. Why would she? If this is your first serious adult relationship, what are you comparing it to? Discomfort feels like growing pains. Confusion feels like passion. Self-doubt feels like personal failure rather than a red flag.

This is why the word “consent” starts to wobble when we look at it too closely. Consent isn’t just about saying yes. It’s about having the confidence, information, and safety to say no. It’s about knowing you can leave without consequences. It’s about understanding what you’re agreeing to. Those things don’t arrive all at once just because the law says you’re an adult now.

Feminism has always been about power. Not just who has it, but how quietly it operates. We understand this in workplaces, in politics, in money. Yet when it comes to sex and relationships, we suddenly pretend power disappears. We act as if desire magically neutralises imbalance. As if age, money, confidence, and experience stop mattering the moment attraction enters the room.

And yes, before anyone rushes to say it, not every age-gap relationship is abusive. That’s true. It’s also beside the point. Feminist analysis has never been about exceptions. It’s about patterns. When the same type of relationship keeps producing the same kind of harm, ignoring that pattern becomes a choice.

This is where the backlash often comes in, especially from women. Some argue that a staggered age of consent is patronising. That it strips adult women of their right to choose. That it treats women as fragile or incapable. Given the history of women’s bodies being regulated “for their own good,” that fear makes sense. No one wants to hand autonomy back to the state under the guise of protection.

But there’s a hard question hiding underneath that discomfort. Whose autonomy are we actually protecting right now?

Because in practice, the current system overwhelmingly benefits older men. They get unrestricted access. They get social permission. They get the shield of legality. Young women get told they chose this, even when they later describe feeling pressured, confused, or manipulated. Choice is celebrated loudly at the start and used as blame at the end.

It’s also worth being honest about hindsight. Many women who once defended their relationships with much older men look back years later and see things they couldn’t see at the time. That doesn’t mean their younger selves were wrong or foolish. It means experience changes how you understand power. Growth doesn’t cancel agency. It reveals its limits.

The idea of a staggered age of consent isn’t about declaring eighteen year olds children. It’s about acknowledging something obvious and uncomfortable: adulthood is a process, not a switch. We already accept this everywhere else. We don’t expect an eighteen year old to have the same financial literacy, career stability, or social power as someone twice their age. We don’t pretend they’re equally positioned just because the law says they’re adults.

Sex is the one area where we insist on this fiction, and it’s worth asking why.

Maybe it’s because admitting inequality would force us to question stories we’ve normalised. Stories where predatory behaviour gets reframed as preference. Where discomfort gets reframed as jealousy. Where harm gets reframed as regret. Legality makes these stories easier to tell, and harder to challenge.

Rethinking age of consent doesn’t mean banning desire or policing relationships. It means admitting that “consenting adults” is often used to shut down conversations we should be having. It means recognising that protection and autonomy don’t have to be opposites. And it means accepting that pretending power doesn’t exist hasn’t made women safer. It’s just made harm easier to excuse.

If this conversation makes you uneasy, that’s not a failure. That’s the point. Discomfort is often the first sign that something we’ve taken for granted deserves a second look. Feminism isn’t about making everything simple or comfortable. It’s about telling the truth, even when it complicates the story.

Just because something is legal doesn’t mean it’s equal. We can keep pretending otherwise, or we can start being honest about what consent actually requires. One of those options protects the status quo. The other opens the door to something better.