Letters to the Editor
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Wow, they don't grow 10 year old like they used to
It's kind of hard for me to imagine a 10 year old looking 16, but okay, I haven't been around a lot of 10 year olds lately, so I'll concede the point.
What's wrong with the judges ruling is the language he used. I'm all for free speech, but any judge with half of a brain knows its not a good idea to start calling an alleged rape victim "crazy" or "needy" or saying they "dress provocatively." Especially if it's a 10 year old girl. 10 year olds are by definition needy because they're children. And quite a few of them are crazy.
Here in the US, this guy would have been arrested for at the least statutory rape (with some special circumstances tacked on for having sex with a child under 13.) And it wouldn't have mattered if she ran down the street in only a thong.
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Judge sounds like he is a closet sex abuser!
Really...doesn't it sound like he really rather envies what those men are doing, and wishes he could be one of them? What a complete joke. And instead of considering appealing the judgment, the Attorney general Goldsmith should really "consider" sacking the "good judge"!
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Age of Consent in the U.S.
The age of consent in practically every American jurisdiction is 16, and in a few jurisdictions even younger.
I'm vaguely curious what you mean by "practically every American jurisdiction"; to make that statement even marginally true you must be literally referring to "America" as the continent rather than as the U.S., as is so commonly done.
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this is why
we need people to protect children. Because children have *no* *idea* of the potential consequences of their actions.
Ten year old girls *may* look like teenagers from a distance, but any sensible person can see their immaturity in how they speak, think, act and respond to adult attention.
I don't care if she was wearing a tshirt that read "Put Your Dick Here" pointing to her crotch. That was a little girl. The 24 year-old man had no business touching her, even if she begged him to.
She was betrayed be everyone around her, including this judge.
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Pyrian
I'm vaguely curious what you mean by "practically every American jurisdiction"; to make that statement even marginally true you must be literally referring to "America" as the continent rather than as the U.S., as is so commonly done.
Federal laws are meant to apply to activities that occur in more than one state. For example, we have federal drug laws because drugs can be transported across state lines.
But when drugs are not being trasnported across state lines, then generally drug dealers are prosecuted under state laws not federal.
Each state has its own laws governing age of consent.
There's no such thing as a federal law governing age of consent. Were Congress to make such a law, the Supreme Court would most likely overrule them and strike the law down at the first opportunity.
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Age of consent
Right, and the vast majority of states have set the age of consent at 16.
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Double Bind
I think the point here is not just that some bad judge did some bad stuff in the UK (though his comments in the sex abuse case are certainly icky and make me glad the kids I work with don't have him overseeing their cases). There will always be assholes. And there have been instances of female judges doing some pretty outrageous things too, which incidents were covered pretty substantively on a lot of feminist blogs that I read (I'm thinking specifically of the judge who suggested a fat woman must have appreciated the attention when she was raped because, you know, what else makes you feel more beautiful than some sexual assault?). Sexism is something we all learn and we all perpetrate.
The point that I gather from this issue is about how our larger culture - the one in which all of us participate - helps fuel this type of problem. Girls in the West are increasingly being placed in a double bind, marketed to as a demographic interested in adult-type clothes and makeup, which cause them to look older and more sexually suggestive, then denied justice when they are abused because the abuser can claim they looked too, you know, adult and sexually suggestive. This is not something that some asshole judge started; we are all complicit in this to the degree that we support the corporate culture that sells sex to children, particularly female children.
What I would like to see in response is not just anger at this judge (however deserved it is), but the names of companies that design and market things like thongs and makeup to ten year olds. If I buy any of the products made by the same company, I've lined the pockets of people who are doing serious disservice to our children.
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I knew there was something wrong with one of my exes when he kept mistaking 12 for 18.
He began to give me the creeps. Not only was he disrespecting me by constantly commenting on the bodies of other women, but he kept picking underage girls to leer at. I never had any trouble seeing that they were too young.
It was a long time after I dumped him, but he was eventually charged with a sex crime involving an underage girl.
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"Double bind" -- nicely put, DonaQuixote.
Thanks for your comments.
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Child rapist
If a 10-year-old boy were molested by an adult woman, do you think there would be equivalent outrage? Unfortunately, that type of crime seems more and more common in the UK and in the US, yet sentences for female child molesters seem minimal given the traumatic effect that sexual assault has on children.
DonaQuixote alludes to only half of the issue. The US and EU have turned into cultures where female sexuality is implicitly regarded as benign, despite the obvious harm women do to children when they sexually assault them. Curiously, this issue seems to elude those who would point a finger at men and men's attitudes as being determinants in sexual assaults perpetrated by males.
That silence on the part of feminists is nothing new. The implicit assumption is that unless a crime is perpetrated by a male, it is not noteworthy. And where child victims of female sexual assault, male and female are concerned, there is only deafening silence.