Eliza

This morning, Kirk and Lynne officially became my first friends to (voluntarily) reproduce. In my “congratulations, don’t drop her” email I almost said something about them having 16 years before they had to worry about me hitting on their daughter, but in a rare fit of common sense I didn’t.

Mazur brought up the fact that in Missouri, the age of consent ranges from 14 to 18 depending on the ages of both partners. That is:

where A_m is the age of the “major” partner and A_c is the age of consent. Which actually seems like a unusually rational way for legislators to account for their belief that, say, a 17-year old having consensual sex with a 15-year old is not rape, but a 22-year old having consensual sex with a 17-year old is. The problem with this, and any other, statutory rape law is that it doesn’t take actual informed consent into account, because legally speaking a minor can’t be informed. Which, if you consider what they’re looking at online anyway, is just foolishly optimistic and outdated thinking.

Anyway, this being-at-an-age-where-people-get-pregnant thing is harder than you might expect. For one, the conversations are prone to enormous early forks. Witness:

Friend 1: So my girlfriend is pregnant.
Me: Really?
Friend 1: Yeah, and we’d only been trying for three weeks.
Me: That’s awesome!

Friend 2: So my girlfriend is pregnant.
Me: Really?
Friend 2: Yeah, and she wants to keep it.
Me: Sucks to be you, dude.