Downing Street has rejected a call from a leading public health expert to consider lowering the age of consent for sex to 15.
Professor John Ashton, president of the Faculty of Public Health, said society sends "confused" signals about when sex is permitted.
But a No 10 spokesman said: "We reject the call to lower the age of consent.
"The current age is in place to protect children and there are no plans to change it."
Prof Ashton's intervention comes against a backdrop of official figures which suggest that up to a third of teenagers have sex before the present age of consent of 16.
He told Sky News: "The problem we have got is we have got this massive sexualisation and pornographication of childhood and early adolescence.
"Huge commercial interests - pop music, fashion, internet pornography everywhere, social media.
"There doesn't seem to be any real appetite among politicians and leaders to address this.
"In the meantime, our young people are becoming sexually active at younger and younger ages.
"If we are not going to create an environment where they are not sexualised, then we need to address their needs."
He added: "What we know from other European countries that have lower ages of sexual consent, I am thinking here particularly about the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark, is that very often what that leads to is where there's an atmosphere of discussion within the family, within the school, within the social environment, they actually defer putting off sex, even though the age of consent is lower, and that they have lower teenage pregnancy rates.
