Letters to the Editor
healthyskeptic
Published Letters: 671 Editor's Choice: 14
-
-- somegirls
[Read the article: Boys just being ... sex offenders?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I've seen those grossly inflated claims before. They're always on fringe advocacy sites. They grossly distort the studies they cite and their conclusions are false and unsubstantiated. People who cite them never read the actual studies to verify the accuracy of their claims, and probably wouldn't know how to even if they bothered to try.
Stay away from fringe advocacy groups and propaganda.
If you can read and understand scientific journals, do so. If not, don't try and confirm your pre-existing views from crackpot sites on the internet. Any ignorant person can confirm anything and everything by some kooky web site.
@AKA Smith
You don't seem to realize that anecdote is a perfectly legitimate way to illustrate a point.
You can't generalize from anecdotes. Especially not from anonymous posters online, who are notorious liars. Duh.
-
looks like the anonymous troll
[Read the article: Boys just being ... sex offenders?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]has found himself a new angle. Now he is trying on his "women's advocate" persona.
-
@somegirls
[Read the article: Boys just being ... sex offenders?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]In case you haven't heard Catholic schools have quite a history of covering up, glossing over, or down right ignoring child sexual abuse.
Very different. You're referencing coverups of homosexuality and sexual molestation by priests in the Catholic church. The MO for that coverup is clear.
The case at hand refers to interactions between children in schools. And Catholic schools are notorious disciplinarians, repress teen sexuality, and favor segregated environments.
The point remains, it's totally unbelievable that a girl complaining to multiple staff members that a boy was harassing her and grabbing her breasts, would be completely ignored, and that they wouldn't even be segregated. Or that she wouldn't be able to avoid him on the bus by changing seat, or complaining to the bus driver for example. Any any kid who went to a parent to complain about that could get immediate action from a principle or such.
Totally unbelievable. Seperatign kids having disputes is always the first thing staff do, whether it's spit balls or whatever.
-
btw
[Read the article: Boys just being ... sex offenders?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I think the "DD" anonymous poster is our regular anonymous troll who is usually insulting women voraciously, but is now induldging in a little role playing. He was on the other day and disappeared about the same time as the supposed feminist trolls and their dramatic stories popped on.
The person is truly a "troll" i.e. a compulsive liar who will say anything or be anyone to create argument and get attention.
-
@AKA Smith
[Read the article: Boys just being ... sex offenders?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I remember seeing boys behave this way when I was in high school with well-developed girls.
It was common 20 years ago for boys and girls to grab. And many boys and girls encourage and enjoy it to some extent. Of course children don't have good boundaries and self control, hormones are raging, and problems abound.
But it's even more common now, especially when many kids are losing their virginity at 12 or 13, and rates of things like oral and anal sex are way up from even a decade ago, as recent studies have shown. (ironically the abstinence movement seems to have increased the rate at which religious teens are having anal sex. Talk about unintended consequences.)
I was a late-bloomer so I got a pass, but I do recall there were some hallway grabs and that the boys used to make that hand motion as if they were going to grab. I don't imagine many girls found it at all funny.
Well, as you said you were a late bloomer, so that's all speculative. And of course anecdotal as well.
And to humor you with another anecdote, in my middle school and H.S. grabbing of boys and girls was constant as were sexual jokes, flashings, flirts, and so on. I remember the practice of hugging friends, particularly of the opposite sex, suddenly became very popular in middle school. Friendly massage also became very popular about that time. Girls grabbed, massaged, and hugged boys just as much as boys did girls. By HS girls were already aware of gender equality issues, and have sex hormones equal to or beyond boy's levels.
It was mostly all consensual kid stuff. And when it wasn't consensual, it was still kid stuff and a disciplinary issue, and somebody would get busted and do detention or such.
Even in my preschool we used to alternate between playing "boys chase the girls" and "girls chase the boys" and it would often wind up in the chased party getting tackled by the other. I remember these three girls used to regularly like to play show and tell.
In my anecdotal experience, women are just as sexual as men, and like to flirt, grab, and experiment with their sexuality just as much. And I've dated many sexually aggressive women.
I think the people who make a big deal out of this stuff, or act as though girls are always victimized and nonsexual, are the Andrea Dworkin types with some serious sexual problems.
-
@Truemoboy
[Read the article: Couric goes to bat for Lohan]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You blame *content providers* for Lohan's popularity? As if the tabloids simply jumped off the racks and into the pockets of fine upstanding Americans who are forced, goshdarnit, FORCED to read them.
Well nobody is forcing to sell the shit either. They rationalize selling shit with the "whatever sells" cop-out.
Doctors can market and sell snake-oil and bogus medical procedures too, if they wanted to. And sadly, many do. But they're not supposed to, and it's a shameful thing to do.
-
Obama is the centrist
[Read the article: What Beltway media stars mean by "centrism" and "extremism"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Obama is a left leaning centrist and always has been. His heart is to the left, but he legitimately respects opposing views and will seek to find middle ground. He's done so throughout his life even prior to his political career.
Hillary, though I generally like her, is a party insider. Meaning her platform is interpreted from the democratic party, and she is less free to stray from it.
Considering much of the Democrats and much of the Republicans are unhappy with policies that have become entrenched in thier own parties, I think a candidate like Obama can optimally find the middle ground and is nimble and intelligent enough to find solutions and common cause where a long-time insider can not.