In the United States, each state and territory sets the age of consent either by statute or the common law applies, and there are several federal statutes related to protecting minors from sexual predators. Depending on the jurisdiction, the legal age of consent (that is, the age at which one can consent to anyone older) is between 16 and 18. Many states also include close-in-age exemptions, which legalize sexual activity involving those under the age of consent, when both partners are close-in-age. In some places, civil and criminal laws within the same state conflict with each other.

Summary

+ Ages of consent in the United States State/territory By age By authority Unrestricted 1619 18 16 18 1416 1417 131618 16 "Statutory Rape: A Guide to State Laws and Reporting Requirements." United States Department of Health and Human Services. Retrieved on November 4, 2014. "Florida[ ... ]A child under 16 years of age cannot consent to sexual activity, regardless of the age of the defendant. A child who is at least 16 years of age and less than 18 years of age cannot consent to sexual activity if the defendant is 24 years of age or older." and "Pennsylvania[ ... ]Sexual intercourse with someone less than 13 years of age is illegal regardless of the age of the defendant. Sexual intercourse with someone at least 13 years of age and less than 16 years of age is illegal unless the defendant is less than four years older than the victim or is the victim's spouse.""Fla. Stat. 943.04354. 16 14"Report of the Age of Consent Task Force" (Archive). State of Hawaii Department of the Attorney General. Retrieved on November 4, 2014. p. i (PDF p. 6/79). Submitted to The Twenty-Second State Legislature Regular Session of 2003 Pursuant to Act 1, Second Special Session, SLH 2001. 18 17 and 1416 16 16 1618 17 1416 1618Sexual offense in the third degree. Maryland Code, Criminal Law § 3-307.Sexual offense in the second degree. Maryland Code, Criminal Law § 3-306.Rape in the second degree. Maryland Code, Criminal Law § 3-304.Sexual solicitation of minor. Maryland Code, Criminal Law § 3-324. 16 16Gordon, Claire. "Lawmakers Move To Bar Teachers From Having Sex With Students". AOL News. March 27, 2013. Retrieved on August 8, 2013.Murray, Dave. "Teachers prohibited from having sex with students of any age under bill approved by Michigan Senate". MLive. March 20, 2012. Retrieved on August 8, 2013. 13 16 1417 16 "Statutory Rape: A Guide to State Laws and Reporting Requirements. Summary of Current State Laws.". U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, December 15, 2014. Retrieved on May 15, 2016. "A common misperception about statutory rape is that state codes define a single age at which an individual can legally consent to sex. Only 12 states have a single age of consent, below which an individual cannot consent to sexual intercourse under any circumstances, and above which it is legal to engage in sexual intercourse with another person above the age of consent. For example, in Massachusetts, the age of consent is 16. In the remaining 39 states, other factors come into play: age differentials, minimum age of the victim, and minimum age of the defendant. Each is described below." - The mathematics does not add up in this section as there are 50 states, unless DC is counted as #51."Chapter 28 Section 805". Nebraska Legislature. Retrieved on May 15, 2016. 131618 17 1316 1518 1316 161820 18 1316Boyer, Barbara. "Chester sex case points up questions A high school administrator has been charged with two misdemeanors. Experts say the issues are not clear-cut." (Archive). The Philadelphia Inquirer. April 9, 2005. Retrieved on August 4, 2015. "Wilson's arrest highlights confusing questions about sexual relations between youths who are of the age of legal consent at 16 and adults. Sex with a minor younger than 16 is considered statutory rape." and "In Pennsylvania, prosecutors turn to broader laws, such as corrupting the morals of a minor, that are not as clearly defined." and "JoAnne Epps, dean of academic affairs at Temple University's Beasley School of Law, said that even though a teenager can legally consent to sex[ ... ]"[ ... ]but that's irrelevant in determining whether a person is guilty of corrupting the morals of a minor.""Smerconish, Michael. "The Pulse: Coming forward on abuse helps the community" (Archive). The Philadelphia Inquirer. August 5, 2011. "There are no statutory-rape charges pending as the age of consent in the commonwealth is 16."Anastasia, George. "D.A. to fight ruling on Rinick sex tape A judge said reporters were entitled to view it. Prosecutors said four women's privacy rights must be protected." (Archive). The Philadelphia Inquirer. August 5, 2011. Retrieved on August 6, 2015. "Rinick's lawyer in that case, Nino Tinari, said yesterday that the charges were downgraded to corrupting the morals of minors after Rinick produced videotapes that indicated the girls took part in consensual sex. (The age of consent in Pennsylvania for sex is 16.)"Finley, Ben. "Corbett signs law targeting predatory youth coaches" (Archive). The Philadelphia Inquirer. June 20, 2014. Retrieved on September 15, 2015. 16 14 1318 17"Appellant's Brief, Texas Department of Public Safety v. Garcia, 2010 WL 1366961, at 8 (Tex. Ct. App. filed Feb. 1, 2010)". "Under Texas law, a person commits the offense of Sexual Performance by a Child [...] Like the *8 Oregon statute, this Texas statute identifies the age of consent as 18."Ex parte Fujisaka, 472 S.W.3d 792, 800, 801 (Tex. Ct. App. 2015). "The court concluded that "although an adult's consensual sexual contact with a seventeen-year-old cannot be prosecuted as indecency with a child, the teenager's consent to sex does not de-criminalize the adult's conduct under section 43.25(b) proscribing conduct involving a person under eighteen years of age because the adult's conduct is a crime against the public, not against the teenager." " 13 16 1516 Schulte, Brigide. "An Age-Old Cultural Divide". The Washington Post. Sunday March 20, 2005. Page LZ21.(Archive). "In Virginia, the age of consent is 18."Sheppard, Kate. "More on Cuccinelli's Defense of Virginia's Anti-Sodomy Law" (Archive). Mother Jones. Thursday April 4, 2013. Retrieved on September 17, 2015. "While that might be seen as creepy, in Virginia, the age of consent is 15 years old."Chandler, Michael Alison. "Laws on child sex abuse in schools". The Washington Post. July 24, 2010. Retrieved on September 17, 2015. 1621Clark-Flory, Tracy. "Student-teacher sex: When is it OK?". Salon. November 20, 2010. Retrieved on December 25, 2013. 18 16 18 17

History While the unrestricted age of consent is between 16 and 21 in all U.S. states, the laws have widely varied across the country in the past. In 1880, the ages of consent were set at 10 or 12 in most states, with the exception of Delaware where it was seven. The ages of consent were raised across the U.S. during the late 19th century and the early 20th century. By 1920, 26 states had an age of consent at 16, 21 states had an age of consent at 18, and one state (Georgia) had an age of consent at 14. Small adjustments to these laws occurred after 1920. The last two states to raise their age of general consent from under 16 to 16 or higher were Georgia, which raised the age of consent from 14 to 16 in 1995, and Hawaii, which changed it from 14 to 16 in 2001.

Age-of-consent laws historically only applied when a female was younger than her male partner. By 2015, ages of consent were gender independent. Until the late 20th century many states had provisions requiring that the teenage girl must be of "chaste character" in order for the sexual conduct to be considered criminal. In 1998, Mississippi became the last state to remove the chastity provision from its code.

The laws were designed to prosecute persons much older than their victims rather than teenagers close in age; therefore prosecutors rarely pursued teenagers in relationships with other teenagers even though some laws made close-in-age teenage relationships illegal. After the 1995 Landry and Forrest study concluded that men aged 20 and older produced half of the teenage pregnancies of girls between 15 and 17, states began to more stringently enforce age-of-consent laws to combat teenage pregnancy in addition to preventing adults from taking advantage of minors.Smith and Kercher, p. 7.

A backlash among the public occurred when some teenagers engaging in close-in-age relationships received punishments perceived by the public to be disproportionate,Smith and Kercher, p. 8. and thus age-gap provisions were added to reduce or eliminate penalties if the two parties are close in age.Smith and Kercher, p. 10. Brittany Logino Smith and Glen A. Kercher of the Criminal Justice Center of Sam Houston State University wrote that these laws are often referred to as "Romeo and Juliet laws", though they defined Romeo and Juliet as only referring to an affirmative defense against prosecution.Smith and Kercher, p. 11. Previously some of these statutes only applied to heterosexual sex, leaving homosexual sex in the same age range open to prosecution.Higdon, Michael J. "Queer Teens and Legislative Bullies: The Cruel and Invidious Discrimination Behind Heterosexist Statutory Rape Laws" (Archive). UC Davis Law Review, University of California, Davis. Vol. 42, p. 195–253. 2008. Retrieved on September 13, 2015.

On June 26, 2003, both heterosexual and homosexual sodomy became legal (between non-commercial, consenting adults in private) in all U.S. states, District of Columbia, and territories, under the U.S. Supreme Court decision Lawrence v. Texas. In State v. Limon (2005), the Kansas Supreme Court used Lawrence as a precedent to overturn the state's , which prescribed lesser penalties for heterosexual than homosexual acts of similar age of consent-related offenses.

Since 2005, states have been enacting Jessica's Law statutes, which provide for lengthy penalties (often a mandatory minimum sentence of 25 years in prison and lifetime electronic monitoring) for the most aggravated forms of child sexual abuse (usually of a child under age 12).

Federal laws {Chapter 117, 18 U.S.C. 2422(b)} forbids the use of the United States Postal Service or other interstate or foreign means of communication, such as telephone calls or use of the internet, to persuade or entice a minor (defined as under 18 throughout the chapter) to be involved in a criminal sexual act. The act has to be illegal under state or federal law to be charged with a crime under 2422(b), and can even be applied to situations where both parties reside within the same state but use an instant messenger program whose servers are located in another state.United States v. Dhingra, which discusses the fact of incorporation of state criminal law into violation of 2422(b), specifically California statute, where Dhingra resided and committed the acts.

{Chapter 117, 18 U.S.C. 2423(a)} forbids transporting a minor (defined as under 18) in interstate or foreign commerce with the intent of engaging in criminal sexual acts in which a person can be charged. This subsection is ambiguous on its face and seems to apply only when the minor is transported across state or international lines to a place where the conduct is already illegal to begin with. The United States Department of Justice seems to agree with this interpretation.