They put a fucking 17 YEAR OLD in JAIL for this?!

[9th Engineer]

Everyone seems to be making references to a spirit of law, but for the life of me I can't see how that applies here. The age of consent agreed upon sets a boundery at which most people are old enough to make their own sexual desision, not everyone will fit this but there are personal exeptions to every law. The best solution would be to have every person individually evaluated, but that's impossible. The next best solution is to set a boundry applicable to the majority with minimal inconvinience to the minority.
Also, why is youth now considered an excuse for acting on ignorance and stupidity? You certainly don't have to be a legal expert to know that if you are over the age of majority then sex with ANYONE under it is strictly off limits, alcohol and drug intake to not change this. Am I really supposed to feel sympathetic for someone that stupid? Or someone that unwilling or unable to control themselves?
One of the original purposes of that law was to make a clear, nonemotional boundary for behavior. Parents involved in this sort of issue will of course be emotional, hence the law. We absolutely cannot start tweaking the law based on emotional impulses of particular moments. Emotion makes bad laws, lets keep to legality here, not hand wringing and weeping. Kid breaks the law, kid pays the penalty.

If ignorance of the law ever becomes a defence in any situation, we're all screwed.