Samenvatting

Teenagers between twelve and eighteen years of age are protected by Dutch criminal law against sexual encounters that cannot be qualified as non-consensual. If these teenagers are approached without force they are thus protected against such a contact, but they could have played a sexual active role nevertheless. This paper deals with how officials of the police and justice departments value sexual contacts between youngsters as lewd and in what circumstances these interactions are possibly permissible. What is the motivation for initiating criminal law and how to explain the distinction between the alleged offender and the alleged victim? The juridical valuation of the professionals dealing with criminal law is analysed followed by some critical remarks regarding the protection of sexual active youngsters against other sexual active youngsters as well as the act of sex as transgression.