"Consensual sex" is just sex.

[Gravitycollapse]

17. What your argument amounts to is the eschewing of reality...

Because it contradicts legal doctrine. That is unwise.

If the only measure for what constitutes sex is that it is at its very moment legally defined and endorsed under the law, then ethical considerations and ultimately reality itself become subordinate to law.

If you can conceive of a situation where two persons can possess the cognitive ability to knowingly consent to sex, yet at least one of them is under the legal age for consent, then you have traveled into a territory where law defines an ethical act as illegal. And that is what I'm talking about.

You can couch this inside of the idea that a "man" is taking advantage of a child, but what I am speaking about is not that. I am talking about the problem of reconciling contradictions between law and ethics.

You don't magically gain the ability to consent on the day you reach the age of consent. It isn't an on and off switch. You learn and grow to a point where it could be said you understand action and consequence. That could happen before or after you reach the legal age of consent. And, according to law, you cannot consent to sex even though you possess the mental faculties to do so.

Does that make sense? In that regard, you can have consensual sex that still legally constitutes statutory rape. That is what I mean.