Robby Soave at Reason explains the impetus for a proposed Kansas bill to decriminalize sex.

A Kansas state legislator has proposed a bill that would decriminalize consensual sexual contact between kids under the age of 14—a much-needed update to the state’s draconian laws, which currently criminalize sexual contact up to age 16.

Democratic Rep. Dennis Highberger’s bill, HB 2738, would remove the criminal penalties associated with consensual sexual acts committed between kids ages 11 to 14. “Children of these ages are together in junior high school, and any sexual experimentation between them would be much better handled by parents, teachers and counselors than by the juvenile justice system,” said Highberger, according to The Wichita Eagle.

Most parents aren’t pushing their kids to go out and engage in sexual adventures. But then, they were young once, too. That first kiss. The nervousness when you first held hands or put your arm around your date’s shoulders at the movies. We know that kids do such things, and where it leads. And that it’s all part of growing up.

Even the intellectually dishonest admit that it happens, and that it’s part of normal life. They argue that female sexual agency entitles young ladies to send naked images of themselves to boys they hope to attract, even if they want to put the boys in prison for showing them to a friend afterward.

The impetus came, in part, from the experience of Randy Masten.

The bill is partly inspired by the ordeal of Randy Masten, whose 14-year-old son was charged with a felony for engaging in mutual, consensual kissing and touching with a 13-year-old girl in a school elevator:

After the encounter came to light, he was contacted by a police officer who was investigating. Nearly a year later, in January 2017, Masten’s son was charged. The charges were later dropped. Masten said he spent nearly $13,000 on an attorney and never found out why the case went away.

He said his son and the girl were 55 days apart in age.

“What if we did not have the means to defend our son? An overzealous DA and judicial system, following the letter of the law as it stands, could have destroyed my son’s life and wrecked the lives of my wife and myself as well,” Masten said.

That the boy and girl were a mere 55 days apart in age is noted to quell any objections based upon her being 13 at the time and him being 14, as if that was a valid wedge to explain why Masten’s son should have been arrested and charged with a felony.

Masten’s point about his having the wherewithal to retain counsel to defend his son isn’t limited to underage sex charges. Indeed, lack of ability to defend is endemic to the system. Here, it reflects the likelihood that another father’s son might well have pleaded guilty rather than stood his ground without counsel dedicated to his cause. The toll on Masten and his family was no doubt huge, just as it is with a family when their son is threatened with college expulsion for regretted sex.

But there is a broader conundrum here as well, one that is specific to the problem of juveniles doing what juveniles have always done. As we persist in bastardizing Puritanism to vilify sex for all, it’s superimposed on the old-school concerns about children. If we’re inundated with adults wallowing in their #MeToo moments, it’s doubly horrifying to realize that underage girls are being subjected to teen male hormones.

Is this puppy love or a felony? And if college women can’t come to terms with their experiences in a world where breaking up magically morphs consensual sex into rape, what are the chances a younger woman will be able to handle the vicissitudes of romance without demanding that some 14-year-old boy go to prison?