I will not disagree that there is a double standard. I do have a bit of a different take over the other poster that has a white hot hate for anything female.
It is different, they are treated differently, because....guess what, there is a difference between men and women. They are not equal, they are not the same, different rules apply to them....on and on.
The interaction between men is also very different from the interaction between men and women, or women and women. And do you know why that is.....again because men and women are different. Their brains work differently, the "hard wire" part of their brains are very different.
If you have been around younger people you should know that boys and girls are just wired differently.
From my observations:
Boys are simple, supply female, pretty much anything human and alive and a teenage boy will have sex with it if that female is willing. There is no filter there.
Girls have a strong drive to "pair up". They want to land their boy, get very attached to that first boyfriend, and that first breakup is really hard. If you have a daughter you likely know this well. They are driven to "nest".
Now the reasons behind the under age sex with older people, this is where things get really messy.
If an older guy is going after a young girl, he is praying on her need to "pair up". She is looking for a stable partner that can "take care of her and the children". This is just the way females are wired, sorry if that offends anyone, but it is accurate. The older guy is just taking advantage of the girl, he knows what is going on, and is going in knowing this is not going to last, and she will be tossed to the curb. See the part about boyfriends above. He is so mature, does not make fart jokes, has his own car, and place.......... You can see where that will go.
An older woman with a boy I think can come from a few different roads. In my case she was damaged by a nasty divorce. Other women want to control the man. This is really not a big deal because MOST of the time the boy just wants to get his wick wet. And if that can keep going he is happy. That is how the male is hard wired, fuck anything that will let him. "Normal" females that just does not appeal to. Sure they do it, because well men do it. Tell me how do you feel now.
IMHO the law should be applied equally between the two sexes......but.....when you get to the magic age 18 for example, well should the same thing happen if one is 17 and the other is 21? Those numbers would be for my now wife and I. What about if it is 17 and 45, should that be the same.
There are actually laws on the book that gives kids "around" 17......having trouble wording this......lets just say sex between 17 and 20 is ok, but 17 and 50 is not. One is a boyfriend girlfriend deal, the other is not, and yes I know it "could" be...yea right. If you are 50 and want to tap that young ass I suggest you wait till she hits 18, life will be more easy.
This has gone long enough, but I would also bring up the time and place comes into effect. IIRC Loretta Lynn got married at 14. Jerry Lee Lewis married his cousin at 13. That was legal at the time. Is a 14yr old in 1950 more or less grown up then a 14yr old in 2024? Should that matter?
My experience I give her a pass, I was 6 months from my 18th birthday, and yes she was 20 years older I was close enough. It falls into the what I said above. But 16 and under, I think you are just too young, your body is out running your brain. Not that it is not applicable to you much later in life.
It might be a bit pointless to point out the errors in your logic since it won't change your mind but perhaps I might just say you should consider "18" is not some "magic" number it's an arbitrary number just like "21" and others. It's also a pretty recent number that has been revised up and down for all kinds of things recently.
For example if you were here in Texas being 17 would have meant it didn't matter how much older the woman was, it was fine and legal
Also Texas has an allowance for if the two parties are less than 5 years apart in age.
Many other western countries 16 is where you can have your own agency and consent to whatever.
Other countries it could be 21, other countries it's stone them if they weren't married regardless of the age
Federal law also is different so things that would be legal in one state become illegal if travel or communication between states is involved.
For most of the history in this country, if it was fornication or adultery there was a much higher age barrier, but for marriage 14 and 15 was the norm and widely accepted.
You also make a lot of assumptions based on gender and I can say from seeing how humanity plays out you can't be so quick.
Was the woman in this case actually looking to for a "paring" as you call it that in your mind makes everything a woman does apparently fine?
NO she wanted some hot quick sex and to enjoy herself, she had already just gotten "paired".
Women can be sexual predators just as much as men can, there are plenty of examples, usually they are smarter and more manipulative.
You also can't say for sure that some older man who gets involved with a 16 or 17 year old wasn't looking for something permanent, that used to be common and well accepted about 100 years back and human nature hasn't changed. Unlikely, yes perhaps, but not a sure thing.
Go try your "women are not equal" stuff on any woman, I don't care if they are supposedly "hard right wing conservative" they don't believe that, they don't practice it. The ONLY thing they do is convince Simps to give them their rights on land but their privileges on the sea. It doesn't matter if they are in "rural conservative areas" nope the moment they want something they are all about equality.
Oh and you are kind of stuck in binary thinking.
Now here I'm going to talk about SPECIFICALLY when someone convinces the young person to agree, NOT things done by force and violence:
This case is all about a woman who convinced young males to willingly agree to her desires.
This also happens very often when the gender roles are reversed.
You know Female teachers quite often also prey on young female students, right?
You know Male teachers quite often also prey on young male students, right?
Is a young girl who gets sexually used by a older woman less of a victim than if she was sexually used by a man?
If so why do you think that?
So if an older woman is doing sexual stuff with a young female is it all okay still since well women can do no wrong according to you?
Or is it women are only allowed to get away with sexual activity with young people if the victim is a male?
If young males aren't "real victims" does that apply if the older person manipulating them into agreement is a male?
Or as a male are you only a "real victim" if it's a male?
If so, why do you think that?
This whole, women are always special and always better and men are always the bad ones and always need to be taken as suspects is wrong.
You wonder why your society is going down the drain, well your double standard is what has made women who choose the path of evil free to be the destroyers of all that is good that folks complain about when looking at the news or divorce cases or such.