This post assumes that you are already familiar with Hige wo Soru. If you are not, then please review the story's main couple, Yoshida and Sayu. The main takeaway for this forum is if they had sex (and there are several plausible moments where that could have happened), Yoshida could have gone to jail and Sayu would have seen the man she loves hauled off to jail - a double tragedy and gross injustice.
So to avoid that unacceptable outcome in real life, here is one version of a Yoshida and Sayu law. Someone can be convicted of violating an age of consent law if it is beyond a reasonable doubt that:
# The defendant pursued the relationship solely because of the alleged victim's age, and,
# The essential nature of the relationship caused the alleged victim to suffer provable harm to their pursuit of life, liberty, or property, or,
# The defendant demonstrated callous and gross disregard for the alleged victim's evident welfare.
# The pursuit and existence of a sexual relationship in itself will not be construed by the finders of fact as a priori harm to the pursuit of life, liberty, or property, nor will it be construed by the finders of fact as a priori callous and gross disregard for evident welfare.
Now that I've given the forum a starting point, it's up to us to take what is written here and debate its merits in terms of good law, political considerations, and whether it fits the overall goal of keeping couples similar to Yoshida and Sayu under the law's good graces.
To address the heart of the term "MAP", what is a "minor" anyway? By some social definitions, a 24-year-old is a "minor" by virtue of not being able to rent a car. Is this particular age group off the table for dating by the car rental-enabled community thanks to their industry-imposed contractual handicap and the oft-mentioned "power imbalance" this imposes? By other social definitions, a 16-year-old is not a "minor" because they can work a wage-earning tax-paying job and apply for emancipation. Is it then "wrong" to be attracted to one if they suddenly quit their stint at Circle K?
But this quibbling over the inconsistencies in the cultural cachet of "minor" is beside the point - how is someone's attraction to someone else dependent on a legal status? "Oh man, I'm really hot for a guy because he's legally forbidden from drinking alcohol." Seriously? That's just as plausible as hearing, "Whassup, hot stuff, that IR5 visa is making you extra spicy today!" Being attracted to someone because of a legal status concocted by some politicians long ago sounds like an offbeat fetish for autistic nerds.
Do we have other terms for attraction to other people with special legal statuses? Probation Attracted Persons, or PAPs? Subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice Attracted Persons, or UCMJAPs?
As for me, I am not any kind of chronophile. A woman can be 16, 36, 66, whatever, and if she's attractive in body, personality, intelligence, and temperament, I don't care how old she is. A spirited rejection of current society's intellectually lazy and harmful fixation on age and its relationship to romantic relationships is what started this very subreddit!
As "minor" is a laughably inconsistent legal fiction concocted for the sake of administrative convenience, and especially a fiction the way "minor" is often used on the internet, so too are "minor attracted persons" fictional. One would do well to reject yet another ill-advised identity marker that reifies a legal status category and cultural catch-all that is riddled with injustice.
