Setting up a hysteria while giving a wink and a nod is not right either. Either prohibit the acts (beyond experimentation) or sanctify them.
Considering promiscuous teen activity "normal" does not help the teens or society.
How many of these "really in love" couples are together in a year, two years, five years?
How many of them have kids? How many of them have multiple kids? How many of them have abortions?
No, we don’t have to sanctify anything. We can just try to make our punishments fit the crimes. Would up to a year in jail be a “wink and a nod?” I don’t think so. We can have meaningful punishments that deter folks without going overboard.
“Considering promiscuous teen activity “normal” does not help the teens or society.”
Making it a crime as bad or worse than crimes like burglary, grand theft, aggravated assault, etc., does not help the teens or society either. It is not behavior we want to encourage. It is however behavior that has been going on since the beginning of time. It’s one of those things we can expect to happen on a regular basis no matter what laws we have in place. We should try to discourage it, but prison and lifelong sex offender registration? That’s just overkill that will cause us more problems than it solves. Prison is expensive. People tend to come out of prison worse than they were when they went in, especially when you stick some teenage boy in prison who is likely to be subjected to homosexual rape and all other manner of abuse. And making people register as sex offenders who are not predators is counterproductive too. These people are not likely to be particularly productive members of society. They’re already pariahs as felons, but it’s even worse for them because prospective employers and people in their communities will think of them as sicko perverts and not want to have anything to do with them. It’s really hard for them to get ahead in legitimate society. The temptation to try to get ahead by less than legal means has to be really high for them. It’s not like they have a lot to lose. I’m not at all saying we should do away with sex offender registration, but we should use a little common sense and good judgment in determining who has to register.
“How many of these “really in love” couples are together in a year, two years, five years?”
Hardly any of them, but that really isn’t relevant. That’s going to be the case with any teen “love.”
“How many of them have kids? How many of them have multiple kids? How many have abortions?”
Some sexually active teens have kids. Some have abortions. Teens shouldn’t have sex. People in general shouldn’t have sex outside of marriage. But again, I’m not advocating teen sex, or sex outside of wedlock in general. I’m just saying that prison and lifelong sex offender registration is over the top punishment for consensual sex between people around the same age.
You think we should put teens in jail for having consensual sex? We are not debating morality. I don’t think teens are old enough to engage in sexual relations. However, they do. I don’t want to see kid’s lives ruined because of sex.