Sex with a 16-year-old when you’re 30 is just wrong…

The allegations against Russell Brand over the weekend have got people examining the age of consent. Rightly so. That a 30-year-old man would embark on a sexual relationship with a schoolgirl feels instinctively wrong to many of us.

The woman in question, “Alice”, who has said she now feels she was groomed by Brand (though he has denied all of the allegations), has called for consent law to be reviewed in light of her experience. “The law enabled it,” she told reporters for The Times, The Sunday Times and Channel 4’s Dispatches investigation which was published at the weekend, with the documentary airing on Saturday night. “It shouldn’t be legal for a 16-year-old to have a relationship with a man in their thirties.”

Now, most of us are comfortable with the idea that a 16-year-old can consent to sex with another 16-year-old; that two teenagers can have a sexual relationship. But we start to feel iffy when it’s an adult in a sexual relationship with a minor. As the age gap increases, so does our disquiet. That’s not mere hand-wringing or moralising, and it’s not about trying to deny young people their sexuality. It’s because we understand implicitly, even when we can’t articulate it, that an imbalance of power can affect consent.

In Denmark, the law recognises this. As in the UK, it is illegal for an adult to have sex with an under-18 if that person has been entrusted to their care. But the Danes extend it, making it a crime to abuse one’s “superiority dependent on age and experience” in order to have sex with someone under 18. This seems eminently sensible to me and something we ought to have written into law here too. But at present the UK does not provide for this situation. The alleged age gap between Brand and Alice was “perfectly legal.” We are left to grapple with the ethics of it ourselves.

To many of us, a 30-year-old embarking on a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old is clearly not quite right (and that’s before we get into any of the unsettling details, or the way she claims he referred to her as “my baby” and a “dolly”). Yet countless others are adamant that if the law says it’s fine, then it must be fine. “She was over 16 so he hasn’t done anything wrong,” goes the refrain.

Let me get this straight: the same people who would argue in favour of the “grey area” when it would get their faves off the hook for sexual assault, are now trying to tell me that consent is black and white? I obviously don’t know any of these rape apologists personally – but let’s just say, as someone who writes regularly about sex and relationships, I recognise the crowd.

As it happens, I don’t believe consent is a clear-cut thing either. It’s true that no means no, but yes doesn’t always mean yes. Especially when there are other factors at play. And there are always other factors at play.

In all of our interactions, sexual or otherwise, we encounter power dynamics. And those dynamics affect how consensual the interactions are. We say yes to things we don’t want to do – tasks, responsibilities, activities – all the time at work, in our place of study, within our families, communities, and friendship groups, because we feel in some way obliged, or because saying no might affect our career progress, might piss off the wrong person, might jeopardise our relationship, our grades or our social position.

An imbalance of power can come in the form of differing levels of authority. It’s why we often question the ethics of teacher-student relationships, even when they are legal. It can also come from different amounts of social power. A boss cracking onto their employee almost always raises eyebrows for this precise reason. Big age gaps, too, can influence the dynamic. As can being a globally-recognised celebrity. A “household name,” you might say.

“I never felt like there was any power balance at all, I always felt like he had the upper hand,” Alice said in the documentary. “I didn’t feel like I could argue with a grown-up.”

She admitted she felt flattered and excited by Brand’s attention. “Giddy” was the word she used. Also, “overwhelmed.” I imagine she probably genuinely believed she wanted to be with him. She thought she was 16, grown-up, mature and able to consent – legally and ethically. It’s only now, with age and distance from the events, that she recognises she wasn’t, she couldn’t. Far from appearing disingenuous, this seems to me to be entirely in keeping with our argument: A 16-year-old cannot fully understand what they are getting into with someone that much older and, to borrow from the Danes, with that level of “superiority”.

To me, the suggestion that a man with significantly more life experience, more sexual experience; a man with fame, with glamour and with enormous social standing wouldn’t hold sway over a GCSE-aged schoolgirl is honestly deranged.

Alice claims Brand made sure to confirm her age before they started sleeping together but for me, being “legal” means nothing when the power balance is so skewed. She felt it then and we feel it now, hearing and reading her story. It’s time this discrepancy was taken into account by the law.