Letters to the Editor
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What?
"I don't want to diminish what they did; it was a violation against those girls that might have been seriously traumatic. It's also deserving of serious punishment."
Smacking a fellow student (of the same age) on the butt or touching her breast is a serious violation? That can cause serious trauma? That's ridiculous. It is boorish behavior. Someone should have explained to the boys that this is not acceptable behavior. They should reasonably be suspended if it happens again. But a serious violation?
There is a real difference between someone who has power over someone else doing something and a peer doing. If these things were done by a teacher it would be serious. The reason is that someone is using power to force something sexual. I just cannot see this as anything more that boorish behavior. Yes, people should not act this way. But these are kids.
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it's going to be very difficult to force boys to act exactly like girls (or not act at all); only draconian measures have any hope of accomplishing this
so if that is the goal, and it obviously is, everyone might as well face up to the need to take a hard line now.
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Secret groper societies
One day during recess in second grade, I zoomed down the slide, and got a surprise at the bottom--a boy waiting, who thrust his hand between my legs (over my skirt) and then ran away. I immediately turned to look for a teacher, when the most popular girl in my class came up an informed me that he was one of The Touchers, and they were going to get every girl in class, and that I shouldn't tell on them. I asked her if they'd touched her and she said of course.
I told.
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This is just silly
Treating butt-smacking by adolescents the same as rape will make lists of "registered sex offenders" meaningless. I don't care if a butt-smacking teenager lives next door; I do care if a child molester does. Does someone convicted of indecent exposure for taking a piss in an alley pose the same risk as someone flashing schoolkids? No, and shame on us if we can't tell the difference.
We no longer know any middle ground in this country, no longer care to think about complex issues or differentiate between real damaging behavior and simple rudeness. "Zero tolerance," means kids with asthma inhalers are treated like crack dealers, pot-smokers are jailed longer than murderers and clumsy adolescent exploration of sexuality results in the label "sex offender."
Our brains have turned to mush.
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Just a friendly hello.
Oh sure. That's how how all my male friend's say hello to me. They just swat me on the butt. Then there's the one that likes to touch my breast. Nice friendly greetings.
It would be interesting to hear if other women here are cool having their male friends and acquaintances greet them that way?
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It could be traumatic
If you read what she wrote carefully, she said it might be seriously traumatic, not that it might cause serious trauma. I was badly molested by a family member from the time I was six until I was ten, and yes, someone slapping me on the butt or grabbing a breast while I walked down the hall would have been extremely traumatic to me. It would have re-awakened memories that I was trying very hard to suppress of having been repeatedly raped. Behaviors that might be mildly annoying to someone who is (relatively)emotionally healthy can be devastating to a person who has been the victim of abuse. Having said that, I still think the punishment is extreme. I think it would have been better to explain why the behavior was unacceptable; perhaps have them read some first-person accounts of what it feels like to be the recipient of unwanted sexual attention. If the behavior persisted after that point I think suspension would be appropriate. Sex offender registry should be reserved for more serious crimes, not least to avoid having the term become meaningless.
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Wee need to call their bluff
I want to see millions of people of every age locked up for life w/o the possibility of parole for anything with a whiff of sexual impropriety. Please, extermination is the only solution.
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this is crazy
Thirteen year old boys are hell on wheels...uncontrolled balls of hormones, insecurity and recklessness. Obviously what they did warrants a serious punishment - but why not just slap them with some serious community service? There are plenty of ways to make kids really, really sorry they did something without messing up the rest of their lives.
Sadly, the adults have gone crazy.
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My niece was sexually abused by a relative at a very young age.
One day her mother found that she was wearing shorts under a skirt to school and asked her what was going on. She said the boys chased her and flipped up her skirt. Then she cried. We don't need victims reabused in a setting where they should feel safe. Nothing was done about the boys who harrassed my niece. They did not even get a talking to because the principal said it happened all the time and the boys were just being boys. My niece was terrified to go to school.
Don't put them on a life long sex offenders list, but do treat their infractions seriously. Obviously, in this case, at least one girl must have complained, so not everyone saw it as a "greeting."
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Get a butt slapping grip.
Get a butt-slapping grip
This article makes me crazy. It's right up there with the BBC report I heard today about the massive--a true BBC adjective--number of sex offenders on MySpace.com. In this Salon.com piece, the writer of the regular column Broadsheet writes, describing the offenses of two 13 year old boys who ran through the halls of their middle school "slapping girls on the butt," that she doesn't want "diminish what they did; it was a violation against those girls that might have been seriously traumatic.... deserving of serious punishment."Don't misunderstand me, the salon.com article is bemoaning the boys' absurd fate--they are facing jail time and having to put their names on the sex offenders list (This is why the BBC article bugged me--after the case in Georgia, I'm now suspicious of the "sex offender" label.) I, like many women, have my stories about inappropriate advances from males--the Steve Miller song "The Joker" will, for me, ever be associated with an obnoxious older boy who hung about my locker when I was in 7th grade singing to me about my peaches--but, with one exception, I never had an encounter I thought should be punished by a force greater than gossip. That exception occurred when I was in college and I, through threat of screaming, managed to stop the unwanted advances. The guy in question went on to marry and be a reasonable man. I am not sure that throwing him in jail or forcing him to register as a sex offender would have made the world a better place. I am sure that he and I are lucky things turned out the way they did.Sex is complicated. Men and women, especially in today's world, are trying to map out amorphous territory. Some things are stark. Violence and rape are rather like pornography: we know it when we see it. But the brush of an unwanted hand, the leer of an unlike co-worker, the come-on of the dissed datee: are these things we want to criminalize? Even more frightening to me, the mom of three boys, are these things we won't to lock up our minors for? I think we just need to take a deep breath and step back. Because, really, does every unasked for butt slap deserve a civic response? I don't think so.