Turning 16 in the UK today isn’t the milestone it once was. You have to wait until you are 18 to buy cigarettes or alcohol, vote and play the lottery.

Yet, incredulously, someone twice your age is legally allowed to have sex with you if you consent to it. Even despite the fact that you can’t consent to them taking intimate images of you because you are deemed to be a child in the eyes of the law. In fact, in every other respect, you are still, legally, a child in the UK.

This legal anomaly is being highlighted by two campaigners, Lala and Poppy, via their Close The Consent Gap campaign.(1) Through their campaign, the women are proposing legal reform, which would see the age of consent staggered to prevent older adults taking advantage of teens.

The power imbalance at play means that many 16 and 17-year-olds are flattered, groomed and pressured into sexual relationships that they may verbally consent to but not always fully understand. The lack of life experience, wisdom and autonomy at that age feeds into the power imbalance so that youngsters sometimes agree to acts that they can’t entirely comprehend the consequences of.

Close The Consent Gap does not want to stop peers from having sex with each other. Instead, it is campaigning to make it an offence for a person aged 20 or over to engage in sexual activity with a person aged 16 to 17, unless the age difference is no more than three years.

In a recent Metro article(2) Dr Finn Mackay, senior lecturer in sociology at the University of the West of England, highlighted the power dynamic between younger teens and older adults.

She states: ‘There are many reasons why a young teen would want to date a much older person. These are to do with economic position and freedom. An older person may have their own house or room, may have a car, may have more disposable money. But this can be exploited by someone who wishes to enter into a sexually exploitative relationship with someone much younger.’

For many of those older adults, the appeal of dating someone more submissive, who looks up to them and reveres them, is also part of the attraction. In addition, Dr Mackay highlights the sexualisation of girls’ bodies in particular, and the popularity of teen sex on porn streaming sites, all of which contributes to a culture that accepts and normalises these huge age gaps.

More Info

To find out more information about the Close The Consent Gap, check out their website: https://closetheconsentgap.com/  You can also follow their Instagram page @closetheconsentgap for updates.

[1]  https://www.instagram.com/closetheconsentgap

[2] Metro coverage of the campaign: https://metro.co.uk/2026/06/01/2026-dads-mate-can-still-sex-minute-turn-16-28341708/