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.

Go to Google. Do an image search for "Debra LaFave." Look at her. Look at several images of her. She's absolutely beautiful.

Teenage boys by the hundreds of thousands get down on their knees at night and PRAY for something like this. The idea that they're going to be "damaged" is the concoction of third parties who don't have any idea what they're talking about, and who are ignoring the almost universal response of these boys -- "Hell, yeah."

The objections seem to fall into two categories. The first layers on an additional, irrelevant attribute, creating an unfair comparison. She's crazy. She gets pregnant. She uses power or authority to compel him to do something he doesn't want to. Baloney. Let's address the question at hand, shall we? Assume we're not talking about rape or pregnancy. Assume the woman's completely rational -- she's not his teacher, or his sister or something. And she hits on some fifteen year-old boy.

As one previous poster pointed out, it would make that boy's year. It would be the best thing that ever happened to him. He would thank God in many languages for his unbelievable luck. And he would not be damaged at all. In fact, he would be blessed.

Here's a bulletin from the real world. Teenage boys are obsessed with sex. They're genetically and biologically programmed to want to nail anything that comes anywhere near them. They are walking hard-ons. And because of this, and all the thousands of barriers society throws up to squash, control or obliterate this need, they're constantly frustrated, often miserable and baffled.

Teenage boys are interested in just about one thing -- sex. Everyone seems to be conveniently ignoring this fact -- it's much more reassuring to portray them as helpless little victims, or overgrown children. They're not. Teenage boys live to get laid, and the opportunity to get laid by someone who's older, who's hot, and who knows what she's doing is a miracle.

And absent that miracle, what does he get? He gets guilt. He gets fear. He gets some horrendous fumbling session in the back of the car, and all the shame and humiliation that goes with it. He gets some inexperienced, frightened, guilty little cheerleader, who's being force-fed conflicting media messages about exactly what she's supposed to be, and who takes all this crap, and burdens the boy with it.

And his real sexuality is apparently permissible only under clinically controlled, society-approved conditions. Anything else is evil, and shameful, and despite his constant protestations that he wanted this, that he enjoyed it, he's dragged into court, and the woman is criminalized. What better way to teach him that he can't trust his own judgment? What better way to make him think that women are the keepers of sexual and romantic knowledge and that what he wants, needs and believes is unimportant. How does the song go? "Age fourteen, they've got you down on your knees. So polite, they've got you still saying "please"". Every instinct in his body is driving him towards a willing, eager woman, and he's being force-fed the lesson that his own essential sexuality is evil, wrong and criminal. Something as basic, essential and human as his need for sex is mercilessly punished. If he does what his entire makeup, and hundreds of thousands of years of genetics have programmed him to want and need, someone goes to JAIL. Nice. If that isn't an excellent way to teach a boy that he's not capable of thinking or feeling for himself, I don't know what is.

Teenage boys aren't that nuanced. They're not emotionally mature. But they are hard-wired to be absolutely obsessed with sex, and the idea that this drive could be satisfied with no baggage, with no guilt, with no control and no fear completely freaks people out. The greatest gift a teenage boy could receive would be a sexual partner who was truly interested in no-strings-attached sex for its own sake, and allowed him to be accepted, and even sought after sexually, for who he really was rather than some theory about who he's supposed to be.

Before you start banging out the hate-posts in response to this, go find the nearest teenage boy, sit him down, and ask him to tell you, honestly, how he would feel if he had a crack at a pretty, willing older women.