Yep. Sure can. Not because there is no 17 year old alive that is mature enough to make those decisions, but because a line has to be drawn somewhere for purposes of the law. The truth is most 18-22 year olds aren't ready to make those decisions, but their ability to make mistakes is the cost of giving those who are ready to exercise their rights the ability to. Has to be that way.
Now to be fair, I think the majority of 17 year old boys can bounce back from getting involved with some attractive 20-something teacher without serious psychological consequences. It's still not right, but yeah it does get annoying when people act like it's exactly the same as some middle aged man grooming a middle school aged girl. Two things can BOTH be wrong without being equally wrong, one is worse. In this case though the boy doesn't even have that silver lining, she's not even attractive. ALL of that said, you seem WAY too far in the other direction, and generally when people say similar things to you, they almost always turn out to be cloaking or trying to rationalize some much worse feelings.

Yep. Sure can. Not because there is no 17 year old alive that is mature enough to make those decisions, but because a line has to be drawn somewhere for purposes of the law. The truth is most 18-22 year olds aren't ready to make those decisions, but their ability to make mistakes is the cost of giving those who are ready to exercise their rights the ability to. Has to be that way.
Now to be fair, I think the majority of 17 year old boys can bounce back from getting involved with some attractive 20-something teacher without serious psychological consequences. It's still not right, but yeah it does get annoying when people act like it's exactly the same as some middle aged man grooming a middle school aged girl. Two things can BOTH be wrong without being equally wrong, one is worse. In this case though the boy doesn't even have that silver lining, she's not even attractive. ALL of that said, you seem WAY too far in the other direction, and generally when people say similar things to you, they almost always turn out to be cloaking some much worse feelings.