Letters to the Editor

• Ewww and triple Ewwww

  [Read the article: I have the hots for my stepson]
  [Read more letters about this article: Here]

  I am with the posters who say that if this was the stepdad, and he was fantasizing and flirting with his 17 year old stepdaughter, only the lamest trolls would fail to be horrified and grossed out. We are wading through a very deep cultural stereotype here -- that it's OK for teenage boys to be horny for or seduced by stepmoms, teachers, older neighbors, etc. and that's cool and sexy BUT if the sexes are reversed, we see it clearly as manipulative seduction by an adult of a child, and that it crosses boundaries that are not healthy or normal.

  Few posters have mentioned that ANY crossing of this boundary will instantly destroy the LW's marriage, which is clearly hanging by a thread anyways. Who would want to remain with a partner, when that partner has expressed they would prefer to have sex with your CHILD? It's absolutely devastating. The name of Woody Allen often comes up, but what I recall is the book that Mia Farrow wrote about the whole experience, and the destruction that occurred to both herself and her other children as a result. This is not harmless, "nobody gets hurt" sex -- this is sex that will unglue the family unit and send it spinning out of control.

  The LW needs to ask herself how she can stop this situation COLD -- is the stepson old enough that he is about to start college in the fall? Make sure he's going FAR out of town. But if he was a redshirted kid (held back a year), he could be looking at one more or even two more years of high school. In that case, if finances permit, you might want to think about boarding school, or some educational program that takes him to Europe -- anything that will get him out of the house for a long period of time. Then you can work on your own psychological problems and get marriage counseling. If your marriage survives, then hopefully when the son comes back home at Xmas or spring break, he will have a girlfriend. A girlfriend his own age will pour a stream of ice water on the LW's lustful thoughts, I assure you.

  That reminds me: what's with this hateful stuff about "a 35 year old is really old"? That doesn't even make sense given the average lifespan of a woman in the industrialized world (about 85!). You can't be "old" when you aren't even close to the halfway mark of your life. I'll bet none of the trolls posting these comments are much younger than 35, and I am sure THEY consider themselves in the "prime of life".

  Nobody on the face of the earth, even in 3rd world hellholes where the average person doesn't live much past 45, considers a 35 year old man to be "old". I disagree with the knee-jerk philosphy that says this is entirely linked to fertility. By that logic, 35 year old women are ancient but 70 year old men are still young hotties. (Tell yourself that, trolls, but remember that the world is laughing at you.) There is considerably more to human beings than simply their ability to pump out offspring.

  Permalink Tuesday, July 17, 2007 06:14 AM