Buzzfeed recently reported that a man who was 37 when he filmed himself having consensual, legal sex with a 16-year-old girl in Nebraska — and then shared the videos with her — is guilty of distributing “child pornography.” A federal appeals court ruled on this matter last week.

Here’s what happened:

Matthew Rouse, then 37, was a sergeant in the Army National Guard in Lincoln, Nebraska when he started having sex with a 16-year-old girl/high school student from Omaha. He became acquainted with the young person while he was recruiting for a CrossFit competition. The two then met up multiple times to have sex from September, 2016 through January, 2017.

During the relationship, Rouse suggested that they record their activities, and the girl agreed. Both used their phones to do so, and he shared the videos only with her via the internet. The girl also sent Rouse explicit selfies she took of herself. The girl’s mother eventually found out about the relationship (and found the media evidence on her daughter’s phone) and notified Rouse’s employer.

Although Rouse’s sexual activity with the teen did not violate Nebraska law, the state charged him with possessing “child pornography.” Then, back in 2018, Rouse pleaded guilty to a federal charge of distributing “child pornography” and was sentenced to eight years in prison.

Rouse, now 39, later appealed to the US District Court in Nebraska to dismiss his indictment. He argued that prosecuting him for having consensual sex with a 16-year-old and for recording and sharing the videos only with her violated his constitutional rights to free speech and sexual privacy.

Dude, STFU.

The district court denied Rouse’s motion and upheld his conviction due to the fact that “child pornography” was “categorically excluded” from protection under the First Amendment, which is great. Creating and distributing sexual imagery of underage persons is 100 percent reprehensible — even if said underage teen is legal game and totally down for it.

For as strongly as I feel about the fact that Rouse’s consensual and legal sex with an underage teen is exploitative in its own right, this case confounds me on other more pertinent levels.

Apparently, it is legal for a 37-year-old person to have consensual sex with a 16-year-old person in the ol’ Cornhusker State. The age of consent is sixteen in many US states, including Nebraska. Interestingly, in attempting to verify the age of sixteen, I found multiple sources that stated that seventeen was the actual age of consent in Nebraska instead. Other states have the age of consent set at seventeen (eg Texas), and others at eighteen (eg Tennessee).

In addition to setting an age of consent limit, many states have close-in-age exemption laws, sometimes referred to as “Romeo and Juliet” laws. These laws are intended to protect underage couples and/or couples who are close-in-age but where one person may be underage from prosecution in the event of consensual sex.

In Connecticut, for example, a state which has set sixteen as the age of consent, there is an exception window of two years. This means — I think — that a legally consenting person (age sixteen or over) can have sex with a person up to two years their senior, even if that senior person is over eighteen. In other words, age sixteen with an eighteen-year-old or age seventeen with a nineteen-year-old, but not age sixteen with nineteen as that’s outside the two year age window. Nebraska, however, has no such age window law. Meaning, if you are sixteen you can consent to sex, be it with a person who is seventeen… or thirty-seven.

Regardless, bonkers as it may seem, Rouse’s crime was not having sex with a sixteen year old. His crime was filming it and sending the girl the clips after the fact.

Per Buzzfeed, the court said “the production and distribution of video recordings of a 16-year-old girl engaged in sexual explicit conduct” was illegal “even if the sexual activity is legal in the State of Nebraska.”

Takeaway from this whole thing? In an effort (I hope) to protect young people from sexual predators and nasty adults (read: some Army sergeants) while still allowing for reasonable teenage sex exploration, consent laws are very complex and somewhat unclear. This could be dangerous for an eighteen year old with a sixteen year old partner, a coupling that seems reasonable to me. In a state like Florida however, which has set age of consent at eighteen and has no Romeo and Juliet laws, it isn’t considered reasonable at all.

Consent laws are even more unclear for a person twice-over teen-aged looking to hook up. In my view, if this is your case, just stay away — and definitely don’t film it. Because if you’re like Rouse — a gross dude idiot, yes, but not a “child pornography” producing predator a la, say, Jeffery Epstein or R. Kelly — you’re still going to be labeled as one of the worst types of criminals ever.

And as we know, the media loves to call out “child pornography” whenever it gets the chance.

(Author’s note: I am not an expert in legal age limits of consent or Romeo and Juliet laws. If you are an of-age person and you wish to have sex with an underage person, please seek legal counsel to verify you are within your rights to do so.)

Photo by Tonya Kumpula from Pexels.