i am 13 and thers this boy i like in my class and i keep getting urges to do things wth him but i dont know if its legal can you help and tell me how to ask him out that would be great
Hi there,
According to the law, you need to be a certain age in order to have sex, and this age is called the age of consent. In the UK the age of consent is 16 no matter what your gender or sexuality is. As this is something I get asked about a lot, I'll explain more about it.
The law is there to protect young people from being abused by adults. Some adults might take advantage of young people, by pressuring them into having sex. The way adults do this can be different from case to case. For example, they might make it look like they want to be in a relationship, when they only want sex. When this happens it's common for the young person to feel like they’re choosing to have sex, and will agree to doing it. The law is to make sure that even if this happens, the adult can be held responsible for what they've done.
The reason the age is set at 16 is because this is thought to be when most people are old enough to make decisions for themselves. This won't always mean that everyone feels ready to have sex then. Sometimes people aren't ready until they are older than this and some are ready sooner. The law does say that if someone has sex with a person who is under 13 then it's a more serious crime called statutory rape.
Although the law is clear on what the age of consent is, it's not always clear how the law is going to be used. It's unusual for the police to want to prosecute two people under the age of 16 if they feel like there's no abuse involved. They may also not prosecute when one person is under 16 and the other is 17 or 18. There are no set rules for this however and it's often down to the police to decide if something is harmful enough to press charges.
It might feel like you are ready to have sex when you’re younger than 16 but it's important to really think about if this is the case or not. It's your choice whether you have sex or not but it's good to think about how you might feel afterwards. For some people,sex can be a very private, intimate experience that they share with people they care about. Other feel okay about having sex with lots of different people. It might be difficult to know already how you will feel about it, but try to spend some time thinking about it, as this is an important decision,
I hope that this has helped you to understand. If you want to talk more about whether to ask this boy out or not and how to do that, you can post on our message boards or call our counsellors.
Take care.
Sam
You can talk privately to a counsellor online or call 0800 1111 for free.
You can ask me about anything you want, there's nothing too big or small. I read every single letter but I can only answer a few each week. My replies are published here on my page.
