I admit I know nothing about the bra-snapping teenager, or about any cases involving 19 year olds with 15 year olds. But I am certain of one thing: when there is what seems on its face to be a silly prosecution, there is always more to the story. I just don't buy it that a boy snapped a bra strap once and was prosecuted, for example. Think of the hurdles a case would have to overcome: the cooperation of law enforcement and prosecutors, the victim and then finally a judge. Too often, protests that a sex offender has been over-convicted leave out the other side of the story- as did the poster who brought up the bra strap snapper. What did the victim say that he did? How did the snapping come to the attention of the authorities? How many times was it alledged to have happened as opposed to how many times he was convicted of it? What was the offender's criminal history? How did the behavior affect the victim? Was he charged with anything more serious that was later reduced for a plea agreement?

I am in favor of laws that protect children from predatory adults. This may seem anti-traditional, since Juliet was only 14, but I think these laws have arisen out of a recognition that young teenagers are easily taken sexual advantage of by older people who know exactly what they are doing and proceed to ruin their lives. It also may seem prudish- but its not intended that way at all. I would like my daughter to develop her sexuality without the proverbial predatory older man we are all warned about over and over as young women. I am not against tweaking laws and giving prosecutors and judges discretion about whether to make offenders register or not. What I am against is the idea that there is something unworthy about these laws. I remember very well how 2 older men, teachers actually, began 'relationships' with girls in my highschool. Unstable girls from trououbled backgrounds. Shouldn't these girls be protected? Wouldn't the world be a better place if such men were held accountable everywhere?

Whenever the topic of female soldiers getting raped and harrassed by their fellow soldiers is brought up, inevitably a certain type of man says they have nothing to complain about because they dared to enter the sacred Male Domain of War. Well, radical misled feminists or not, they are over there and their armchair warrior critics aren't. For that fact alone, they deserve everyone's respect. It's not any less brave to volunteer to go to that hellhole if you're a female.

The idea that a war zone is some place for males only, where women tread at there own risk is preposterous. There have always been women in war zones. Remember that prostitutes are actual human beings, and there are even female Iraquis. If male soldiers have the notion that since they are far from prosecutors and rape kits then anything goes, then they are bringing shame on all of us. Because they weren't called on it before makes it no less shameful now. We want to think of our military as heroes, but hearing tales of so many male soldiers acting like the worst type of thug makes it very, very hard to respect and honor them.

American housewives of the the last generations of the 20th century or so were historical anamolies. They had relatively fewer children than women from previous generations, access to birth control, and most of them were moving away from being farm wives and producing all of the family's cloth, clothing, soap, candles, canned goods, etc. Not to mention they cooked and cleaned with electricity and didn't have to slaughter their own meat. In addition, most of them didn't have outside jobs. Perhaps they were the first women in history who didn't contribute financially to their families. Plus, childrearing was still based on the model of huge families and short childhoods- kids were largely left alone past a certain age. So in that respect, for a brief time for some women, life was pretty easy.

Now women have even fewer children, and even fewer homemaking tasks beyond basic cleaning and preparing food that has been made very simple to prepare. Now we focus our attentions more on the kids, whether or not we work. I'm convinced that this is because we have more time for them. Even working moms have more time than housewives with 10 kids used to. I don't think this is bad. Perhaps children have fewer chores, but we ALL have fewer chores. And the anxiety people feel about a 'dangerous world' is only harmful because of the anxiety itself, not because the world is more dangerous here in the US. Remember, your children are far more likely to be injured and killed when you drive them to school than by walking by themsleves or playing outside in the neighborhood.

Instead of falling into the thought trap of 'what's the matter with kids today', why don't we all rejoice that our children are growing up in peaceful and safe places with lots of enriching activities available to them?