Letters to the Editor
leftychris
Published Letters: 354 Editor's Choice: 4
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@AKA Smith
[Read the article: Is Bill O'Reilly sorry now?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Thanks for the compliment. Your posts make me think too, and I always appreciate that :-)
Part of the reason that women can get away with "seducing" teenage boys is that it is not seen as rape. There are reasons for this, the most obvious of which is anatomical, but the undercurrent is about power. Rape is first and foremost an abuse of power and we just don't yet see grown women as powerful over adolescent males. They cannot physically overpower them (usually) and they have little social power.
This is all valid, but let's be a little more careful with it. We always need to distinguish between rape (non-consensual, if not always physically violent) and statutory rape or molestation (often with a willing partner who is not being physically coerced but who is underage.) There are sizable difference between those crimes, and they hold regardless of the gender of the perp and victim. So it may be hard for people to imagine adult women raping teen boys (although it's not unheard of--cf. my pizza boy example earlier in this thread), but statutory rape or molestation should be a different matter, and if people scoff at that because of the anatomical differences, then they should be consistent and say that adult men who only fondle or have oral sex with underage girls aren't really committing criminal acts either, right? I mean, if the only act to get upset about is penile-vaginal penetration, and only if the penis belongs to the adult and the vagina belongs to the minor, then we're conveniently defining a huge percentage of sexual abuse out of existence, aren't we?
I also disagree somewhat about adult women having no social power. I think women have far more social power than they like to admit, they just use it in different ways than men use theirs and it tends to operate in more covert and subtle ways. And your point about women not being able (in most cases) to physically overpower teen males is only valid to a point too. Power and control can be exerted in many ways other than sheer physical force. Women who sexually abuse young males tend to be masters at emotional and psychological manipulation and control. People tend to dismiss that as inconsequential as compared to physical force, but it's certainly not. We ARE talking about teenagers, aren't we? And don't feminists always harp on the use of chemical intoxicants to facilitate sexual crimes? Don't most or all of the adult women who sexually abuse teen boys give them alcohol and/or drugs? The answer is: YES, at least from my recollections of nearly every case to reach prominence in recent years.
I think at least part of the problem is about our discomfort at viewing women as powerful and men as powerless.
Yes, this is perhaps the crux of the problem, but as I already pointed out, unfortunately too many feminists contribute to that problem. Women are empowered and in control and should be treated as equals when they're doing good things, but when a woman is accused of doing bad things, too many feminists become excuse makers and rationalizers for "weak" women who deserve special lenient treatment. No call for equal treatment with the men then! LOL
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Women Now Empowered By Everything a Woman Does
[Read the article: The reluctant feminist]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]LMAO!!! Thanks, Anonymous on p.5, for posting that link to The Onion. I'd read that piece back a few years ago when it first came out, but it was a wicked joy to be reminded of it and read it again. I rarely laugh out loud while sitting at my computer, so thanks for giving me something to giggle over this weekend ;-)
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@KitchenGirl & the last Anonymous
[Read the article: Roundup: Are Republicans secretly crushing on Hillary?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]KitchenGirl, your posts on this thread have been a delight to read--well-argued and reasoned and fair. In particular your efforts to defend an Anonymous poster with whom you clearly disagree on some issues from being misrepresented and taken out of context were laudable. Such qualities are unfortunately rare in online postings!
Last Anonymous, thanks for bringing a much-needed legal perspective to this. I think you made some crucially important points that unfortunately tended to be overlooked in the shoddy reporting of this incident.