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• Thursday, December 15, 2005 08:03 PM

  Difference between girls and boys?

  Hi Folks,

  It might be a ton of post-structuralist fun to say there's no difference between girls and boys when it comes to ersatz cases of statutory rape. But such folks saying same ignore the fact that the risks for girls having sex with older guys is much greater than teenage boys bucking horny older women. While there may be some Mrs. Robinson-after-effects for the guys, nothing matches the actual responsibility for pregnancy, which inherently falls on the woman.

  I also find some of the other comments re: sexual abuse between a consensual teenage boy and an older woman as about as unreality-based as they can be. Sex isn't always about emotions, and it isn't always about love. When I was a teenager, it was way more about exploration, adventure, passage, and sex (which I wasn't getting), which would have been about the most positive thing that would have happened to me in high school. When I think of other things that happened to me-- the inherent violence of the teen culture I grew up with-- physical beatings and fights with the other males, and the rejection of the female half that happened when one didn't play on the football team, an affair with an older woman would have been a dream come true, and quite frankly, would have nurtured my soul.

  When one talks about age of consent for boys vs. girls, the stakes are different physically. They may or may not be different emotionally, but law tends not to judge how you feel. The law judges actions, and their consequences-- and the consequences of an adult woman and a teenage boy are by biological nature of less consequence than the other way around.

  The other thing that comes to mind in all this is the aping of the Religious Right in reinforcing puritanical sexual standards on young people. One of the biggest blows (no pun intended) I've seen against the status of young women happened during the Clinton Presidency, when the Left didn't stand up and shout down the craven cretins regarding Monica's right to choose. And she was 24. What does that say about women's rights, and how we on the Left really feel about them, if we can't even let a 24 year old choose what she wants to do?

  Sometimes, positive learning about sex takes an off-age coupling. And sometimes, it's not about love. Sometimes sex is about sex.

  —Reality-Based Lefty Read Reality-Based Lefty's other letters
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