It bothers me because it exemplifies the powerful and dominant exploiting the vulnerable and most powerless segment of our society: children.
Adolescent development is not synchronous and physical development/maturation does not happen simultaneously with social-emotional development. I am sure there are sixteen and seventeen year old young women with more maturity than many adult men, but we have a social responsibility to provide a safe environment for all adolescents. They need a safe place to develop physically and gain social maturity and sophistication. The line has to be drawn somewhere and eighteen is the legal age in the United States.
I don’t think that all mature men who have sex with a sixteen or seventeen year old girl are sexual deviants or creeps, but I do think there are sexual deviants and creeps that actively seek out girls and teenagers.
Dateline does these shows with help from from www.pervertedjustice.com. PJ supplies the chatlogs and decoys. There has been some controversy regarding this organization over the years.
Another obvious question: by declaring this sort of activity rape aren’t we actually making it a lot worse for the girls, as in a self fulfilling prophecy? So they’ll think they’ve been raped where as if this were considered acceptable they would be fine with it.
Miller, I will agree with unconventional. It is brain development that prompts educators to separate students into groups that include grades 7 through 9 and 10 through 12. There is a sort of transformation that takes place usually between the freshman and sophmore years (14-15). I don’t know what the physical changes in the brain are, but I could see the results in my classrooms easily.
This is a generality and it doesn’t happen for all students at the same age. But these arbitrary lines do have to be drawn somewhere. Drawing the lines on an individual basis causes chaos. Imagine what would happen if a teacher decided that her favorite student was mature enough to get a driver’s license at fourteen but you had to wait until you were seventeen.
I would also like to point out that some of you guys are approaching these situations as if the females at fourteen have an eighteen year old male’s sexual attitude. Most fourteen year old females would not think of it as (I paraphrase) “getting all the ass they want.” Some may, but generally they are not in heat all the time.
When we are discussing peers, I can understand your need for specificity. But when the guys are over 21 – and most of these guys seem to be much older than that – and the girl is only 14, then it is not necessary to specify which kind of rape it is.
The man who drove over to her house (when her parents weren’t there) for the purpose of screwing her despite her age is not a victim. Often he brings alcohol. If entrapment is involved, it will be thrown out of court. Some of them are.
Why are so many of you feeling sorry for these slimey bastards? Real men don’t pork fourteen year old kids no matter what.
This is exactly what I’ve been saying this entire thread. I’m not arguing that it’s okay to sleep with fourteen year olds. I’m arguing that there’s a significant difference between sleeping with a teenager, and violently raping someone, and the way society treats each class of criminal should reflect that.
I’ve honestly got no idea at all what in this thread gave you this impression.
I’m sorry, I’m not sure what you’re trying to say here. Are you arguing that, under the law, there should be no difference between rape as violent assault, and rape as sex between two consenting parties where one party is not legally capable of consent?
And if entrapment is involved, then yeah, he is a victim. Being a victim isn’t a badge of moral rectitude. Complete scumball motherfuckers can also be victims.
Has anyone in this thread argued differently? Has anyone expressed sympathy for these slimey bastards? I don’t think so. I know I sure haven’t.
Of course it is. There’s simply no similarity between having sex with someone who consents - and may in fact be coming on to him just as much as he is to her - and using force to sexually assault someone.
As said, they are victims if they are entrapped. For that matter, the girl herself may be manipulating him; and yes, even a fourteen year old can manipulate a man who’s letting his crotch do his thinking for him. The only real difference her age makes is that the results are more likely to be mutually disasterous than disasterous just for him.
Because I tend to regard them as more stupid and pathetic than slimy. And “real men” is a meaningless and irritating term. Generally, I’d expect the kind of men who call themselves “real men” to have sex with a fourteen year old or anything else that holds still long enough and isn’t male.
I keep imagining Edgar Allen Poe paying court to Virginia Eliza Clemm, and as he sits in her parlor Chris Matthews comes out and confronts him:
But our love was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we
Of many far wiser than we
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.
“I mean, come on! She’s a thirteen year old girl. ‘But our love was stronger by far than the love / Of those who were older than we’ Isn’t this all just sexual manipulation?”
-the guy with the arsenal in his truck? He drove 6 hours to Flagler Beach-and then got arrested. How does somebod like this eve become a police officer? Or is it considered OK to have automatic weapons and ammunition in the back of your truck? My impression was that this guy was a time bomb, waiting to go off!
Since I was the one who said that, I presume you’re addressing me.
No, that’s not what I meant. I know that’s what it sounded like, so that’s my bad, but what I meant was that those fourteen-year-old girls who would actually seduce someone, regardless of their age:
Want to have sex and
Have better choices available than overweight, middle-aged men on the Internet–namely, hot guys their own age who they see every day.
I’ve known a small number of fourteen-year-old girls who were in heat all the time (particularly when I was 16-18), and while they may have dated and/or had sex with older men, I don’t think they would’ve been doing it with 45-year-olds, and I never heard that they found those men on the Internet.
Of course it is. Not because the concepts are fundamentally different in this case–even though they are–but because the use of the word “rape” alone implies physically forcible rape, and that image has been used to justify various illogical arguments over and over again, hence why I stepped out of the debate with Shamozzle. For example, when he asked, “Can someone be ‘enticed’ to rape?”, he was clearly counting on a strong emotional response to the word “rape” alone–which implies physically forcible rape.
I, for one, didn’t say that he’s a victim–you’re absolutely right that real men don’t pork fourteen year old kids. What I said was that the people running these stings are as evil as the men they snag, for literally seducing men into deviant and criminal behavior that many if not most of them would probably never have been seriously tempted by, otherwise. It’s like a heroin dealer giving out a free sample to someone who he knows is going through a rough time in his life and wants to escape, and then the dealer throwing up his hands and absolving himself of all responsibility when the guy turns out to be an addict.
First off, the fact that some of them are, is telling. Secondly, I don’t think it’s a given that they’re thrown out of court if entrapment is involved. I think the person upthread who said that the DA rushes to offer a juicy plea bargain, because they know they don’t have a case, was probably spot on. I bet most of these guys–considering that they’re stupid enough to actually believe that a 14-year-old girl is begging them for sex on the Internet–probably don’t know that they could plead not guilty and walk.
Think of it this way - they’re out there committing the crimes anyway. They just picked the wrong person. It’s as if burglars are operating in your neighborhood and the cops pick a house to watch and bust the folks who come break into it.
What I was trying to ask was: Can someone be enticed to commit either statutory or forcible rape, where that “enticement” would be viewed as absolving the offender to any degree? I would say the answer is “No”.
That was what I was thinking, sorry I was previously unclear.
That’s bullshit. The people running the stings are NOT evil. The people they catch are evil. They are not being “seduced into deviant and criminal behavior”, they are out there committing the deviant and criminal behavior already.
Go see Perverted Justice for some examples of exactly what I’m talking about.
I’ll break my word and debate just this one point with you, because it is, to your credit, an interesting analogy that I’ve never heard of before.
Here’s where the analogy breaks down: Do they leave the cars unlocked? Do they make them easy to break into? Do they paint “STEAL ME” on the car? Are there specific efforts to attract attention to that car, and furthermore to encourage people to steal it when they may not have set out to steal a car in the first place?
Actually, the analogy is even better if there’s a sign saying “FREE CAR !” And then prosecuting for theft the people dumb enough to believe the sign, get in and try to drive it off.
Remember, the “victim” of statuatory “rape” is willing; I expect that in the vast majority of cases the older partner doesn’t think of it as rape. And in many cases they don’t think of it as wrong, either. Illegal, yes, but people ignore sex laws all the time; they have little credibility because of their unfairness and illogic.
I believe the cars are prepared in such a way as to make them indistinguishable from regular cars. I don’t think they leave them unlocked or make them easier to steal. Cars are easy enough to steal, anyway. But I do think they use popularly stolen models and plant them in areas where car thieves are likely to operate. Is that entrapment?
But even if it was entrapment, I don’t care. I mean, if I walked down the street and came across a Ferrari with its motor running, the door open, and nobody around, would I jump in and race away with it? No. Why? Because I’m not a car thief. I don’t take things that don’t belong to me. Whether or not I take things has nothing to do with how easy it would be, who might know, or how I might be punished. I don’t do it because its wrong.
Theft doesn’t work as an analogy because theft is against people’s will. This is more like arresting someone for buying something from a teenager because of a law against financial transactions with anyone under 18.