Equality Under The Law??

My Government class is very open to where we can talk about anything. Okay, well it's mainly just the teacher and me talking since the rest of the class seems to zone out before the class even starts. My teacher was telling us about this 17 year old guy who got into a lot of trouble for having nude pictures of his 16 year old girlfriend on his cellphone. Just to clear this up before I get into my opinion on this issue, I do NOT agree with the couple's actions, nor do I believe that promiscuity of any sort is acceptable.

So anyways, this 17 year old guy has to be forever labeled a sex offender because of an act that he AND his girlfriend did together. The part that bothers me is that she was mutually involved in this act, yet she had no legal repercussions for it. I then brought up the topic of statutory rape. For those who don't know what that is, statutory rape is defined as "sexual intercourse with a person (girl or boy) who has not reached the age of consent (even if both parties participate willingly)". Please note "even if both parties are willing". Again I do not agree with illicit sexual relations between adult or youth. The thing that bothers me is that the law almost always favors on the side of the girl. This is however the opposite if the girl is of age and the boy is not. Coming back to this.. if a boy and a girl the age of let's say 16 have sexual relations with one another, the law will find the boy guilty but the girl will not be found guilty because she is not legally able to consent to such an act at that age (but a boy is??).

The law has not caught up with the times. Nowadays, women are much more likely to engage in a sexual activity than they used to be. I don't think that the law should force punishment on the guy but not the girl even though the sexual relation was completely mutual. One thing that our government tries to promote is that in the US there is equality under the law. How is this equality if it is biased? I don't care if anyone agrees with me or not, but I see this as completely unfair. The law should consider both parties equally guilty if the act was indeed mutual and not forced.