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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
The question seems to be "Should teenage boys and teenage girls be treated equally when it comes to the definition of sexual abuse?" And I have to give a resounding "Yes." The reason stautory rape laws exist is that there is a power differential between a teenager and an adult. While a teenage boy's ultimate fantasy might be to get with his teacher, he doesn't have the experience level to even know what form a relationship with her might take in real life or what the emotional and psychological implications of acting on the urges are. His adult teacher does, and she has a responsibility to protect her students from harm.
There shouldn't be a double standard. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. If an adult male did what the females in the article did, we would be shouting "pervert" and looking for the nearest tree. I really see no difference between adult males sexually molesting girls and adult females sexually molesting boys. Those boys will suffer psychological damage from these relationships - even if there are no physical implications from their entanglements with grown women.
I say keep it simple - adult men and women have no business fooling around with kids. And if they do, they should be willing to pay the price for the illicit relationships. Let children grow up without having to worry about adults targeting them for sex. It's disgusting!
There are plenty of instances where a 15-year-old girl [or thereabouts] and an unrelated adult male authority figure have sex and it doesn't appear to harm the girl. At least, not at first. People react differently to these things. I know a woman who said she "seduced" her junior high science teacher when she was 14 and looked back upon those memories very fondly. Seems rather sickening to me, but not to her. Most of these relationships are, inherently, predatory and injurious. If it involves someone like a teacher it becomes even more problematic. If one or two teachers are allowed to get away with this behavior on the grounds that no one was hurt [and maybe -- in those cases, no one was], it'll spread to other teachers and there WILL be a lot of young people hurt.
We have a general rule against these sorts of relationships in our culture. Like most general rules, it isn't perfect, but it exists for a good reason. The alternative would be far, far worse.
A lot of people who treat older woman/ teenage boy relationships as a dirty joke finally realize the seriousness of the matter when the 15 year old boy finds himself a father. These women, like their male counterparts, steal the youth away from naive youngsters who need protection, even from themselves. The woman in Georgia has wrought havoc on the young man's life, when as an adult he deserved her maturity, no matter how delighted he may have been at a sexual relationship. Anyone of us could find a young, needy eager to please teenager to have sex with but we don't because it's unethical and wrong.
The arrival of puberty should be the threshhold for sexual maturity. To assert that a 14-year-old will necessarily make worse sexual decisions than a 24-year-old is absurd on its face.
Teachers are taught basic teacher ethics and what the law says licensed teachers are supposed to do -- report suspected child abuse, for example. I don't imagine that laws regarding statutory rape are neglected. They weren't in the "children and the law" course I took, which, while I am not a teacher, I had to take because my degree is in the educational field. Teachers who have sex with their underage male students know it's wrong, the problem is they don't feel it is, and they are unable to resist their impulses. Obviously. Did they ever think about it? Maybe, maybe not.
The one thing they don't teach in schools is how to regulate one's own emotional state, how to recognize one's own emotions and use the head instead of the heart when one is confronted with strong impulses. That's supposed to be something you start to learn from your parents as an infant, and something we assume adults have figured out, and sometimes adults get good at hiding those areas where they're less emotionally mature until...
There should be no difference along gender lines -- from a developmental perspective, teenagers are still developing, and there's already enough to interfere with the maturation process without teachers crossing boundaries and behaving inappropriately, and saying it's in the name of love. Too many people buy into the "romantic" (not really, if you ask me) notion of "one true love" - that's all fine and dandy, until some 40+ woman decides that my/your 12 year old is hers. A 12 year old hardly knows what romantic love is, let alone who he really loves. Teachers are taught developmental stages, too. They know better. They need to act like it.
When I read such reports of young teenage boys having affairs with adult women, my only reaction is envy, not outrage. Why couldn't I have been so lucky?
I am a father to two boys, ages 15 and 11. If I found out that my 15-year-old were having an affair with an adult woman I would be delighted for him. On the other hand, if I found out that my 11-year-old were having an affair with an adult woman, I might be concerned for the woman, but only bemused by my younger son, who can talk his way into and out of anything.
"To assert that a 14-year-old will necessarily make worse sexual decisions than a 24-year-old is absurd on its face."
Unless your 24-year-old has been living in a box, this is one of the most laughable statements I've seen yet. Sexual maturity is hardly a marker of mental acuity or emotional maturity. A 14-year-old will *almost always* make worse decisions than a 24-year-old, for the simple reason that they are lacking 10 years of comparative experience in the world. The onset of puberty as the marker of "maturity"? What about girls who reach puberty at 10? Shall we drop the age of consent for them?
I don't believe relationships (such as they are) between teens and adults are necessarily "abusive" as most people think of the word, but they are certainly manipulative and exploitative. It's far easier to cajole, lie to, and flatter a teenager to get what you want than it is to do the same to an adult (even a 24 year old), simply because this is their first experience with such a thing. This is what makes them teenagers, and by law "underage" -- they yet lack the experience and maturity to make otherwise adult decisions. The reason why age of consent laws exist is the same reason we don't let 14-year-olds vote, drive, hold full-time jobs, or live on their own. They're Too Young.
Legal and social issues aside, I have to wonder: who on earth wants to have sex with a 14 year old boy? Jeebus, I didn't even like 14-year-olds when I *was* 14. I mean, I guess they're cute in an antiseptic boy-band kind of way but I think any grown woman who thinks 14-year-olds are a better choice than men her own age has to have a few screws loose.
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