California
California is a state located at the western coast of the United States. It is known for being one of the regions with the strictest age of consent laws in the world.
The age of consent in California is 18 years with no exception for close-in-age sexual partners.[1]
Legal mine field
Culturally, any attraction to a person below the social construct "age of majority" is strongly frowned upon, even if that person is physically mature and able to reproduce and looks physically indistinguishable from a slightly older legal adult, given that they are socially infantilized with the label of "minor" that is applied equally to both toddlers and mature teenagers.
Even romantic relationships without intercourse between adults and teenagers are strongly discouraged in the United States.[2] As usual in the United States, violators of sexuality-related laws are publicly pillorized on a sex offender registry, no matter how minimal the violation was, for example intercourse with a person one day away from becoming a legal adult.
This makes it a legal mine field for young adults to date and sleep with people at a similar age. There is a risk that one of the partners lies about their age, so people sometimes ask each other for government identification, which can become an unromantic formality.[3]
International impact
Californian culture reaches out internationally, given that all large social media platforms (YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Reddit) and also some other widely used knowledge services including Google, Wikipedia, and OpenAI are headquartered there.
California was also the first state to pass operating system age verification into law, allowing any online service to query the age provided by the user. Here, "child protection" is used as a political trojan horse to get people to accept mass surveillance.[4][5]
References
- ↑ What is the California Legal Age of Consent in 2026? - "The close-in-age rule in California (3 years) do not provide an exception nor provide any defense; it merely lowers the crime to a misdemeanor."
- ↑ Can a minor date an adult without any sexual relationship and still be legal? - Nebraska Criminal Law Questions & Answers - Justia Ask A Lawyer
- ↑ Should you ask to see a girls ID before sleeping with her? : NoStupidQuestions - Reddit
- ↑ On the unfortunate need for an "age verification" API for legal compliance reasons in some U.S. states - lists.debian.org
- ↑ OS Age Verification: Millions Of Evil People With GPS In Your Kid's Pocket, Required By Law! - Jody Bruchon