[coloradan]

So do I understand you correctly that a 16 year old boy can sleep with a 14 year old girl for two years, but then he turns 18 so it becomes illegal, she's still 16. But then two years after that, he's 20 and she turns 18, so it's legal again for one year, they're both in the gap, but then he turns 21 and she's 19, so it becomes illegal again, until she turns 21 two years after that? Is that correct?

[discostu]

That's about the jist of it (at least as I understand it, I could be wrong, I have been before). Statutory rape (even in states that don't have a silly buffer zone) requires one person to be over the line and the other below. From a legal perspective two kids under the age are just being stupid, but one person over the age can apply pressure on someone under the age and make them consent to things they don't understand. Probably the wierdest sets of laws in the books. Not that they're entirely bad, there should be some concept of age proofing consent to keep the extreme situations punishable, but when you look at it in cases where the two parties are close in age it begins to seem a little odd.