text: A 27-year-old has sex with a 16-year-old and gets only 10 days in jail, likely to be served as weekend litter patrol. We all know that if the perpetrator was male that the charges and sentence would have been much more severe. Our laws don't allow for this kind of unequal protection. If we want to change them in light of some evidence that sex prior to the age of consent does differential harm depending on the gender of the minor, let's have that discussion openly and change the law legislatively. However, for prosecutors and judges to just apply the law differently depending on gender is medieval.