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"An 18-year-old who's more than three years older than his girlfriend could spend a lifetime on the registry for having consensual sex with her."

If she is not the age of consent, then she, by definition, is unable to consent. So the above-mentioned "consensual sex" is bogus.

Agreed. We need clearer standards and we need to communicate those to young people. The girls need to know they might ruin their lovers' life by having sex with him. And we should probably introduce a practice of keeping records on girls who consent to sex with older men as well, something that cannot be expunged at the age of majority. And the boys need a clear idea of what is legal and what is not. And these Romeo laws are a bad idea, chipping away at the age of consent.

Let's say you have laws that a girl can consent at 14 only if her suitor is less than five years older. Then a girl who is one day short of her fourteenth birthday has sex with a young man on his nineteenth birthday. He becomes a sex offender. If they had waited one more day, no one could have done a thing.

I think that police and parents should be free to file statutory rape charges against any male (or female) having sex with a girl under the age of 18. It's a simple rule, one you could communicate to young people.

These laws should also apply to underage boys with adult female or male partners.