CARNAL NATION

Everybody remembers their first kiss, that scary but exhilarating early teenage experience. It would be even more memorable if you or your partner landed in jail because of it. Though it sounds far-fetched—ridiculous even, such a scenario could happen if you are a Belgian teenager under the age of 16. While that memorable kiss or some heated petting might land you and/or your partner behind bars, you could, under the right circumstances, lose your virginity at 14 with relative impunity. Yes, you did read that correctly: penetrative intercourse can be legal for minors while kissing and touching can be illegal for those very same Belgian teens.

The Belgian Penal Code (read it in French or Flemish) establishes the age of sexual consent at 16 for both genders and all sexual orientations. However, in other legal texts, the minimum age for sexual consent is set at 14 years of age. "Right now, under criminal law, there are two age limits. A 14-year-old minor may consent to acts of penetration, but he or she must be 16 years old for fondling and kissing. It's illogical," says Raf Terwingen, a member of the Belgian parliament. The laws surrounding minority vs. majority age in relation to rape and indecent assault are even murkier. For more than a decade, Belgian judges and lawyers have called on the government to sort out these contradictions. The Constitutional Court has finally agreed to look into and rule on the matter by year's end.

However, Terwingen and his center-right Christian Democratic and Flemish Party (Christen-Democratische en Vlaamse Partij) have preemptively proposed legislation that would clarify who can do what (to whom) and when. Under Terwingen's proposal, teens between the ages of 14 and 16 could legally consent to kissing, intimate touching, and oral sex. Teens would have to wait until they reach the majority age of 16 to consent to penetrative intercourse. As you might expect, the proposed law is not without controversy, as right-wing and religious fundamentalists seek to maintain the minimum age of consent across the board at 16.