The Age of Consent

Age of consent laws regulating young people's sexual behaviour are at the heart of contemporary debates and conflicts over young people's rights and citizenship, child protection and child abuse. This book analyzes the development of age of consent laws in the UK from the Nineteenth century to the present, in international perspective. The analysis, informed by contemporary perspectives in social theory on gender, sexuality, youth and childhood, focuses upon changing understandings of citizenship embodied in the law.