Letters to the Editor
Allie_
Published Letters: 1409 Editor's Choice: 113
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re: DonaQuixote, Parson Jim, various anonymouses
[Read the article: "She liked to dress provocatively"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Regarding the issue of the girl's clothing, she wasn't wearing Bratz brand underpants, but adult underpants. It also appears, from the judge's comments, that the girl was perfectly aware that these clothes did not make her look her age (she claimed to be 16).
There isn't a way to prevent children from wearing adult clothing and trying to look like adults. Children of all eras have always wanted to wear adult clothing and look like adults, because adults have freedoms which are denied to children. The issue of inappropriate clothing marketed towards children is a strawman at best, and it could even be argued that if thong underpants and frilly bras became standard for 10-year-olds, the average non-pedophile would have LESS difficulty recognizing a 10-year-old who happened to be wearing them - that's already happened to some degree with the "bra strap and visible thong" look which is now more popular with teens than adult women.
To go off-topic for a moment: Parson Jim brought up female abuse of male children. That has nothing to do with this story, but it's worth addressing, I think.
Regarding stats for male vs. female abuse: I've read stats saying as high as 57% of women (from the recovered-memory crowd, whom I find very suspect) and as low as 10% of women were sexually abused as children. The numbers are all over the place depending on how sexual abuse is defined and how the data was collected. The number that seems reasonable to me is self-reported by adult women: 1 in 4. Men, 1 in 7. Sex of offenders: 90% male, with the majority of female offenders being accomplices of male offenders. The female offender who molests alone is rare to begin with and even more rarely caught.
I've known two men who were sexually abused by women. One now runs a safe house for CPS - he was in a relationship with an older woman when he was 15 and she was 27. She had his baby, then died in a car wreck. The baby was adopted by his grandparents. I asked him, "Do you feel that you were molested?" and he said, "Oh, absolutely. At the time I would have said I was having the time of my life, but now that I'm an adult, I realize that a very selfish, sick women took my childhood. She wanted me to face experiences which a 15-year-old shouldn't have had to face."
The second case was a boy who went to my high school who was molested by a teacher. He was 17 years old, a football player, a large, powerful and athletic boy who also happened to be black. The teacher (actually a coach) was white. He told me about the sexual abuse - which occurred when the coach asked him to stay after school for detention, invited him into her office, and demanded sex from him - because the experience made him feel terrible and he wanted to understand why, since as far as he knew it was the sort of thing guys were supposed to enjoy. Talking about it, he realized that he felt bad because she had targeted him because he was black, because he had known discipline problems, and therefore she knew that he couldn't tell anyone in authority and expect to be believed. (Which I think was probably true.)
There's still a perception in our culture that boys who have sex with older women are lucky and have nothing to complain about, therefore there's no crime. This isn't true. Boys don't like being used sexually by predators any more than girls do. I agree with Parson Jim's point (even though it didn't really belong in this thread) that there should be more aggressive prosecution of women who molest boys.
Re: Anonymous who points out that arousal impairs male judgment: sorry, bud, the law says you are responsible for your own conduct even while aroused. Think of dead puppies if you have to keep the little head distracted to avoid sleeping with 10-year-olds.
Re: the other Anonymous who thinks that laws against teen sexual activity are to prevent children from becoming mommies. Yikes. What a mess! 16-year-olds and 18-year-olds don't make ideal mommies either. The laws are there not primarily to prevent children from becoming mothers (forced birth control, abortion after the fact or adoption would all work, if that were the only point) but to protect children from the power imbalance inherent in a child's interactions with adults. Little boys need protecting from predators just as much as little girls do. And the point is not to prevent children from enjoying their tingly bits either. It's to keep them out of situations which have dimensions they aren't old enough to understand.
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re: dikissam
[Read the article: "She liked to dress provocatively"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I wore a bra starting when I was 8 and a b-cup by the time I was 10. No hormonal problems, the women in my family simply develop early.
I still don't believe that this guy thought the girl was 16. And in any case, he had sex with her once more or less voluntarily (she says her consent was 'somewhere in the middle'), then took her back to his place and raped her. However old or young she may have appeared to be, she was raped, which is a crime regardless of her age.
Thanks to whoever posted the list of the judge's previous judgments. It wouldn't have occurred to me that so many different cases ruled on by the same judge would have made the news. I don't know if this man is a pedophile, but he certainly sounds like a loose cannon - his judgments, in my opinion, vary from peculiar to insane. That he cried over a victim doesn't mean he can't be a pedophile. Pedophiles aren't actually demons; they have jobs, own pets, mow their yards on a regular basis, and have all the variation of personality that other humans do. That he thinks a new bicycle is an appropriate payment for a child's peace of mind says to me that whether or not he's a pedophile, he doesn't understand the gravity of the offense.