The 'Age of Consent' Controversy: Age and Gender as Social Practice

Abstract

This paper examines features of a controversy surrounding a recommendation to change 'age of consent' legislation in N.S.W. The use made of commonsense notions of age and gender relations as sense- making methods in organizing the popular defeat of the proposal is shown, casting participants in the controversy as practitioners of social structures. Competing adult discourses about young people are identified in the materials, and the study of such material is suggested as part of a comprehensive sociology of youth.