The Sex-Ed License

Dan Markel proposes a "sex-ed license," through which:

minors above a certain age (e.g., above 14, 15, or 16?) wishing to have consensual sexual relations with other minors above that age or with adults should have to take a sex-ed course whose completion gives them a license to have sexual relations and possession of the license would, in conjunction with other conditions, work as an affirmative defense against prosecutions for statutory rape. This sex-ed license would cover information about safe sex, the risks of pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and genetic defects arising from consanguineous relations.

The three other conditions that would apply (or that could be made to apply) include: a) a ban on sex between asymmetrical dependents when one is a minor; b) a ban on such relations when the minor and the other person(s) i) live in the same residence or ii) exist in a relationship of unequal authority, e.g., one person occupies a supervisorial or custodial role to the other;

I also like the idea of requiring the persons involved to register a joint consent form indicating intent to have sexual relations with a designated public official before the activity happens. Obviously this implicates privacy concerns, but this wouldn’t apply to persons over the age of majority, so some state paternalism seems cautiously warranted if it’s going to increase opportunities for mature individuals to have sex.

Dan also likens the sex-ed license to a driver's license, as both are designed to promote safe norms and practices involving risky activity. 

I'm not sure how to articulate all of my grounds of discomfort with this proposal, but here's one: the driver's license has become a rite of passage for American teenagers.  Even if you do not need to drive for purposes of your daily existence, your entitlement to drive is sought-after goal, a sign of maturity and enhanced independence.  As Cass Sunstein has pointed out, one of the government's central roles is norm management.  In this regard, state action designed to prevent harm from risky behavior that we know is going to occur can easily begin to shape the norms that influence future behavior.  I don't have a problem with state regulation contributing to the centrality of driving to the adolescent experience, but what if we're talking about the centrality of sexual autonomy to the adolescent experience?  A city's free condom program has become a government message (literally) telling us all to "get some," and I'm wary as to the message of a "sex-ed license" for minors.