As I understand it this Foley guy goes does the tubes because he talked dirty with a 16 year old. That’s not pedophilia, but most reports use the term “underaged”. Same with Clinton. Much was made about Lewinski being in her early 20s.
So how old does the younger member of a sexually charged dialogue have to be before it is acceptable ?
The key is the age difference between the two people. Sending dirty IMs to a sixteen year old is okay if you, too, are a sixteen year old. Sending dirty IMs to a thirty year old is pretty skeevy if you’re in your nineties.
Regarding Foley, while what he was engaged in was not pedophilia. A pedophile is interested in people who are too young to have any expressed secondary sexual characteristics, such as breasts or pubic hair. A sixteen year old will (usually) have those characteristics, so someone lusting after them is probably not a pedophile. Such people are properly called “ephebephiles.” “Underaged” is, essentially, a legal term referring to someone who is younger than the age of consent laws in their region. In the US, the age of consent varies from state to state, and can be anywhere from fourteen to eighteen. Canada, I believe, has the age of consent at fourteen throughout the nation. I don’t know what the age of consent is in Mark Foley’s district, but I gather it is higher than sixteen, making his advances to the boy illegal, even if they were examples of pedophilia.
So, refering to Mark Foley as a pedophile is likely incorrect, clinically speaking, the intern to whom he was speaking was still probably underaged. And even if he wasn’t, it’s still majorly creepy for a man more than twice his age to be hitting on him.
Actually, I’d say the important component is structured power difference. Your employees are off limits. Kids are off limits because of the institution of childhood. People other than employees who report to you in a service-providing mode are generally off limits, especially if you hold a position that incorporates a lot of power and prestige (Hello, Bill Clinton). Your students are off limits. People who need your OK or your sig on important things they can’t be expected to do without are off limits unless they can get that sig or OK from someone else in a position parallel with yours, not just you.
Incompetent people are off limits. That includes the comatose, it tends to include the mentally retarded or handicapped (depending on your capacities as well as theirs). If tomorrow we changed the definition of “childhood” to be something that legally ends at 17, most of us would agree that 18 year olds would no longer be off-limits; but if we simply threw out the definition of childhood as a legal concept altogether, most of us would agree that 8 year olds would still be off-limits. To save you from having to assess every individual for incompetency or capacity, legal definitions put specific borderlines in place. There are some I’d argue with, but I agree in a loose general way that some folks can’t consent in a meaningful fashion and are off-limits, and, meanwhile, anyone in a legal category that says they cannot is generally disempowered as well as protected and the disempowerment alone makes them off-limits (you can’t do 17 year olds no matter how worldly or mature they may be because they are at a legal disadvantage).
Right – what really puts Foley outside the pale is the breach-of-trust situation and the difference in relational dynamics.
Social norms are such that you are expected to “take on someone your own size”, to aim your come-ons to someone who can brush you off with no concern for consequences, and steer clear of subordinates and those considerably younger.
Essentially, even if we stipulate someone exactly at the Age of Consent, be it 16 or 18, then come-ons from a 21-year-old may be socially tolerated, come-ons from someone twice the younger person’s age are likely to be socially frowned upon, and come-ons from someone who is in a position of institutional authority in the same organization may be even illegal.
Nobody had seriously addressed Monica as “underaged”, since that has a connotation of being a minor; but it WAS pointed out – and it was true – that she **was ** half Bill’s age, which goes into the social censure factor, and that she was a very low ranking subordinbate vis-a-vis someone with a stupendous degree of power. Again, difference-of-power; and breach of the expectation that the “higher-ranking” party should know better, be the grown-up, and forego gratification.
Flying Dutchman, are you actually Dutch? The reason I ask is because I know that many European countries have lower age limits on sexual consent laws than America does. While the laws vary from state to state, eightteen is generally considered the age in the United States when a peron becomes “legal” for sexual purposes.
I believe that federal law would have precedence in this case, were it a legal proceeding. The Page(s) in question are federal employees, and the Congressbeast was a federal official, and at least generally in a position of both authority, and responsibility for the page(s). Federal laws governing sexual content of material on the Internet all make the legal age 18.
However, the sleaze factor is way over the line, if the page were 29, and the Great Man only 31. Cruisin’ for tail on the Internet won’t get you elected, or nominated by the folks in power. They have to rail against you as the incarnation of Satan Himself, or risk having their own peccadilloes investigated. The man is a crusader against Internet Porn! I say run him out of town on a rail.
Tris
Good point. I’d just add that, in American society, there’s usually a perception (not always true) that a radical age difference necesarily includes a power imbalance, even if the two people are not involved in any of the other types of relationships you list.
That’s not exactly accurate; eighteen is the age in the United States when a person becomes a legal adult - not legal for “sexual purposes”.
Via Google I found this page which lists the age of consent by US State. In some cases or circumstances 18 may be the age of consent, but in many states it is younger or depends on the age of the adult.
Regardless, in this situation it is not only the age of the person receiving the attention, but the power situation involved which adds to the inappropriate nature of the crime.
I’ve always heard a Miss Manners “I pulled this figure out of my ass” guide that for adults, the rule-of-thumb is half your age plus seven, not to appear creepy. So for me, aged 39, to date a 27-year-old would be OK, but a 23-year-old would be creepy (except to me, where it would probably be fun, if exhausting).
Ditto on the power thing. Age is a small part of it. Power and the fact that it’s in the workplace, on the taxpayer’s dime, is a huge issue.
Dutch born but I’m a Canadian through and through. Fourteen is the age of consent here.
I would suggest the power issue though extremely relevant is independant of the age issue that I’m interested in.
jjimm, That mathematical formula reflects my own morality and I suspect a great many others. I check out the extremes from 14 to 90 and I’m comfortable with that. In retrospect this formula is what I was looking for in this thread.
I’m reminded of John Nash and “A Beautiful Mind”. It seems there is a simple mathematical formula that can describe our morality.
As Miss Manners’s staunchest defender, I must point out that she has never said any such thing.
True, but I remember reading it in The Autobiography of Malcolm X as something the Nation of Islam taught.
Regards,
Shodan
Apologies, I should have written “-style”. I didn’t mean literally Miss Manners, never having read her oeuvre.
Shodan, never heard that before. Weird.
As regards the OP, yes, the power difference is much of the creepy part. Sixteen is too young for a grown-up anyway, but “keep your hands off the hired staff” is a lot more of it as well.
The trouble is that the staff has much less opportunity to refuse. Thus there tends to be an element of coercion built in, even if the victim consents. And it leads to a sexualized workplace, and that’s not business-like or efficient.
Regards,
Shodan
Why? If the thirty-year-old doesn’t mind, then Yay! nonagenarian. If the thirty-year-old does mind, how is it any skeevier than if the two parties were the same age?
I don’t know. I didn’t invent social mores.
Was he actually a page when the e-mails were sent? This seems to suggest otherwise –
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15063977
Not that changes anything in my mind. Just setting the record straight.
I know you didn’t; otherwise you’d be a lot older than I take you to be. But you wrote that the nonagenarian sending dirty messages to the thirtysomething was “skeevy,” which to me implied that you personally were discomfited by the prospect. Are you saying you accept the prejudice against May-December affairs yourself merely because doing so is expected by society, or have you a reason for your distate independent of social mores?
I didn’t mean to imply any sort personal judgement about such relationships.