Well, the legal history in this area here in Jawja is kinda interesting. Until the code revision of 1933, Georgia recognised the common law age of consent; that being 10 years of age.
At that time, with the legislative objectives of "protecting young girls from the unique physical and psychological damage resulting from sexual intercourse with males," the age of consent was raised to 14 years of age.
There it remained until it was raised again to the age of 16 something like 15 or 20 years ago. This time it was done mostly because of the lobbying of people who believed the age of consent had something to do with the rise in teenage pregnancies... Kinda like the crime rate is directly related to gun ownership sort of mentality...
Anyway, since 1933 until comparatively recently if a male had sex with a girl under 14, he committed child molestation. If the girl was 14 or over, all that person had to worry about was an irate daddy with a shotgun! That is unless someone were to enforce the laws against fornication or adultery in which case, I believe, most of the breeding age population of Georgia would be in jail!
Now as I said, the new law on statutory rape covers a male having consensual sex with any girl (not his wife) under the age of 16. The only problem is that the law says a girl under 16 cannot legally consent. Hence the statutory in statutory rape. To allow for youthful um,
exuberance, the law does have a provision where: if the defendant is 18 or younger, and no more then 4 years older then the victim, and said victim is 14 or 15, the crime is a misdemeanor.
But, if the defendant is 19 or 20 it is a 1 to 20 felony, and if the defendant is 21 or older it is a 10 to 20 years felony.
An interesting aside, and I believe a bow to the common law age of consent, is the statute on rape. It includes carnal knowledge of a female under the age of 10 and the penalty is death or life imprisonment.
DISCLAIMER: The foregoing is strictly a contribution to a group discussion and not intended to be or should it be viewed as a learned treatise on the subject at hand. The reader is not to take this as, in any way, a concise statement of the law in Georgia or any other jurisdiction! Do so at your own peril!