"Have you heard of any such legislation gaining any foothold in Germany right now?" German laws are becoming more and more like US laws in many respects, but so far there hasn't been any party, organization, or influential person arguing to raise the age of consent laws to my knowledge. A few years ago the government created an expert commission to find out if any laws in regard to sexual crimes should be changed. The comission published its statement to the government two years ago or so and concluded that age of consent laws probably should not be changed, but also mentioned that there are good arguments for lowering or raising it. In Germany the heterosexual age of consent has been 14 since 1890 or so, or perhaps even earlier I believe. In West Germany the homosexual age of consent was at first something like 21 in the 70s, and then lowered to 18 and eventually 16 in the 80s. In East Germany the homosexual age of consent was lowered to 14 in the 80s or so. After reunification it was therefore unclear if West and East Germany have different homosexual ages of consent, so in 1993 the government passed a law saying the homosexual age of consent is now like the heterosexual age of consent at 14 for all of Germany. A few years ago mainstream media also talked for a few weeks or so about a relationship between a 14 year old girl and a 40 year old man. The parents of the girl wanted to prohibit her from spending time with him, but a court ruled that her parents cannot do that, which is why media was interested in their relationship. Surprisingly, most of the media described the relationship in very positive ways, and even quite right-wing or conservative media described it as love. Of course, if the relationship would have been homosexual then only queer media would have described it in a positive way. |