Letters to the Editor
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Bigots
I have a strong dislike of bigots, especially bigots who wrap themselves in political correctness while crying, "I'm a victim!".
Many of the articles and posts on Broadsheet demonstrate that kind of bigotry, a bigotry which is a basic tenet of much of American feminism.
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Parson Jim makes an excellent point
I would never want to be thought of as a bigot.
Throughout my life, I have taken actions to ensure that I learn about others, learn to respect others, and am not thought of by others as a bigot.
I can imagine little worse than to be considered a bigot.
And yet, Broadstreet Feminists every day are told by many people that they are bigots. And their response is to dig in. Their response is not to ask themselves what these people are seeing, and not to question their own behavior and see if there is any truth to those claims.
The response is to dig in harder and insist they are correct and everyone else hates women.
I've seen white nationalists do this. In fact, I've only seen bigots and the paranoid take these actions.
Everyone else learns to respect other people and not dismiss large numbers of people as ill informed, or out to get them.
Tracy Clark-Flory. Carol Lloyd. You are bigots.
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@ Parson Jim
Well Parson Jim,
Wading through the first link you posted, I found this:
"As a final note, while this paper is only concerned with the discretion vested in judges, it should be recalled throughout that prosecutors and law enforcement have a great deal of discretion as well, particularly over what charges to bring, the vigorousness of the prosecution, and the content of the plea agreement. These factors will affect the offense level and whether charges are even brought."
I know that isn't the primary subject of the paper, but those are probably the truest words in it. All I really found that your first link said was that female judges were less likely to show sentencing disparities than older male judges. Older males judges tended to give lighter sentences to women. Of course, this is about crimes in general and not at all about sex crimes specifically.
Why don't you save me some time and just tell me which of the links you provided proves there are more female teachers molesting boys than male teachers molesting girls. Or was that not one of your original points?
I too am deeply offended by people who commit sexual offenses and then claim it was because they were offended against. Anna Salter, in her excellent book, "Predators" told about how the number of rapists and sexual offenders in prison claiming that they were molested sharply dropped when they were given a polygraph test. Turns out a huge number of them lied.
However, we wouldn't want to ignore the fact that real victims exist, would we?
Parson Jim, do tell me how you came to be so concerned with child victims and their trauma. I am really interested in what motivates someone to show the caring, decency, and senstitity that you show obviously show. Have you encountered many child victims of sexual abuse?
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Rape and morals should NOT be discussed in the same article
Talking about the morals of women in an article about rape is UNACCEPTABLE! Shame on Cosmo! Helen Gurley Brown would NEVER have allowed that! Ms. Stepp should have written an article for Men's Health about how having sex with a drunk woman is RAPE. Not an article about "loose women" having sex after shots. But then, Ms. Stepp seems to have many problems about female sexuality. I just wish Ms. Stepp would see a therapist instead of working out her sex problems -- or, pay attention magazine editors! -- being paid to work her sex problems out with my hard-earned money!
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@Anonymous concerned that I am an authoritarian.
I am more libertarian than thou.
You said:
>So I have no idea what you're getting at. The age of consent is 18 where I live, and 17 where I believe you live. Age of consent matters in statutory rape, but not in gray rape, the subject of TCF's post.<
The most common age of consent in the nation is 16.
>Regarding teachers fucking their students, the issue is not just statutory rape, which presumably is rape between consenting individuals where one or more of those people are underage, but about the abuse of power, where a teacher/mentor/priest/shrink takes advantage of someone under their control.<
Good point. I am glad we agree that power disparity matters in issues of sexual offenses.
>What does raising the age of consent have to do with any of that?<
Just wanted to see where you stood.
However, Saletan had good reason for distinguishing between perpetrators who offened against victims under 16 and those who offended against victims over 16.
First of all, many judges are (due to age of consent laws) quite used to factoring it in to their decisions. In the past, teachers molesting students was often handled within the schools. It was not often treated as a criminal matter. It is more recently that states began prosecuting these abuses as crimes. So some judges are on new ground here. I suspect that both judges and juries have a difficult time not seeing these as consensual when the victim is older rather than younger or appears older rather than younger.
Second, perpetrators who target younger victims are far more likely to be true pedophiles and to reoffend. Judges, I believe, take the possibilty of reoffense quite seriously. Pedophiles ARE more dangerous. They have vastly more victims over a long career. Their desires tend NOT to diminish with age.
Third, younger victims do tend to be more traumatized -- although most victims are traumatized. Not to recognize the differences in child development and traumatization is absurd.
>How is it that women fucking their students over or under 16 are any less vile than men fucking their students over or under 16?<
I don't believe it is any less vile. Men and women predators are equally vile. However, I think we tend to underprotect boy victims and this is not helped by inane comments like: "Oh that teacher is hot. I wish someone like her had wanted me when I was a teen." The tendency to see young men as more eager for sex than young women means that we misunderstand the damage that may be done to young men. Physically ready and horny does not translate into psychologically ready for sex with adults -- especially when there is a vast power disparity as you get with teachers, parent figures, and much older adults.
>>Saletan in his non-scientific study decided on his own that the crimes themselves were less vile. That's quite a judgment to be making -- an unsupported assertion -- does it hold up to what doctors and shrinks and parents think?<<
You are not communicating clearly here. Please rephrase so that I may respond. Do you mean crimes against children under 16? If so, I believe I have already answered you.
Trauma is an individual thing. We can make reasonable judgments but we cannot absolutely quanitify it based upon what doctors, shrinks, and parents think shortly after the fact. The effects of trauma can play out in various ways over the lifetime of a victim. It is how the victim is ultimately impacted that matters. For instance, we know that overall children who have a one time encounter with a pedophile may fare better than those who endure ongoing victimization by an incest offender.
Given what we know (and it is quite incomplete) girls are more likely to be incest victims. Boys are more likely to be pedophile victims. We also know very little about women offenders. That matter needs much, much more study.
We also need to better understand why victims of sex crimes (especially children) are more likely to be revictimized.