# Idiot friend of the family, who has sex with underage girls **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [November 9, 2009, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-friend-of-the-family-who-has-sex-with-underage-girls/516965 "2009-11-09T23:52:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-friend-of-the-family-who-has-sex-with-underage-girls/516965/21 "2009-11-11T01:11:10Z")
> [@Inigo\_Montoya](#): > > Does it matter? Dude knowingly exposed his family to the loss of himself and now they have to suffer the consequences. Banging a child is a lot like skydiving, bungee-jumping, croc-rasslin, and shooting up junk with strangers: all those activities are voluntary and can take you away from the people who depend on you. And I think that’s what the OP is on about. well, and the shame of having a certified ped in the family. All that is true, and yet it still does matter. Fucking an 8 year old is a lot more sickening than fucking a 15 year old. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-friend-of-the-family-who-has-sex-with-underage-girls/516965/22 "2009-11-11T01:39:47Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > No, but I’d like to point out that the age of consent in Canada was 14 until quite recently, and there were no resultant herds of barbarian pedophiles blackening the plains like the buffalo of old. I’ve heard that Canada is crawling with Canadians. Canadians spouting opinions on just about everything. Just sayin’. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-friend-of-the-family-who-has-sex-with-underage-girls/516965/23 "2009-11-11T01:42:34Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > I’ve heard that Canada is crawling with Canadians. Canadians spouting opinions on just about everything. Just sayin’. Fuck it. I knew that C4C program wasnt what they claimed it to be 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-friend-of-the-family-who-has-sex-with-underage-girls/516965/24 "2009-11-11T04:30:55Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > I can honestly say the pity I hold for the other fool is a big deterrant Mr. T? Is that you? ---
**Author:** ![D\_Odds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/d_odds/32/2882_2.png) [@D\_Odds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Odds)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-friend-of-the-family-who-has-sex-with-underage-girls/516965/25 "2009-11-11T15:32:17Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > Count me on the side of ‘Presumed innocent until…’ Unimportant in a small town. Careers and lives get ruined just from the accusations, and are hard to regain even when the accusations are false. That said, the pit thread is better off waiting until convicted, else there will need to be a counter-thread about the community shunning an innocent man (assuming innocence and not just acquittal). ---
**Author:** ![Epimetheus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c4cdca/32.png) [@Epimetheus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Epimetheus)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-friend-of-the-family-who-has-sex-with-underage-girls/516965/26 "2009-11-11T16:06:43Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > How underaged is she? Frankly, 15 and over and I just shrug. 15 is still icky in this day and age, if the other participant is 30. I shrug when the guy is 18 sleeping with a 16 y/o. I hate it that those guys get charged as a sex offender, ruining their life because some backward law wouldn’t let a guy and a girl that love each other be together, when in 5 years, that 2 years difference would make no difference. ---
**Author:** ![Rumor\_Watkins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@Rumor\_Watkins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rumor_Watkins)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-friend-of-the-family-who-has-sex-with-underage-girls/516965/27 "2009-11-11T16:14:14Z")
> [@Epimetheus](#): > > 15 is still icky in this day and age, if the other participant is 30. Don’t you mean “15 has only recently become icky in this day and age…” 30 year-olds taking adolescent girls as wives/sex thangs is not a historical anomaly. (edit: i’m actually asking here. your post can be read both ways; as making a statement that it is “still” icky - in that that has never changed, or as making a statement that “still, it is icky”) ---
**Author:** ![Epimetheus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c4cdca/32.png) [@Epimetheus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Epimetheus)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-friend-of-the-family-who-has-sex-with-underage-girls/516965/28 "2009-11-11T16:18:36Z")
> [@Rumor\_Watkins](#): > > Don’t you mean “15 has only recently become icky in this day and age…” > > 30 year-olds taking adolescent girls as wives/sex thangs is not a historical anomaly. > > (edit: i’m actually asking here. your post can be read both ways; as making a statement that it is “still” icky - in that that has never changed, or as making a statement that “still, it is icky”) Well, I’m not convinced it was universally done and accepted as perfectly fine. It was DONE, sure, but I doubt everybody was “I see nothing wrong with it at all”. Maybe back in our ‘caveman’ days, sure. Legal and ‘not icky’ are two different things. 🙂 As for cultural relativism, maybe it has “become” icky or not. I wasn’t implying anything when I made the statement though. ---
**Author:** ![Rumor\_Watkins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@Rumor\_Watkins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rumor_Watkins)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-friend-of-the-family-who-has-sex-with-underage-girls/516965/29 "2009-11-11T16:23:43Z")
> [@Epimetheus](#): > > Well, I’m not convinced it was universally done and accepted as perfectly fine. It was DONE, sure, but I doubt everybody was “I see nothing wrong with it at all”. Maybe back in our ‘caveman’ days, sure. I’m confident that you would be shocked if you looked up the average age disparities in male/female sexual encounters in the 19th century and before. especially among the aristocracy. don’t forget, people didn’t regularly live until they were 85 years old back then. Getting married when you were 14-18 was probably far more normal and accepted than it is today. (edit: here’s some wikipedia for ya: Social (and the resulting legal) attitudes toward the appropriate age of consent have drifted upwards in modern times. For example, while ages from 10 to 13 were typically acceptable in western countries during the mid-19th century,[1] 15 to 18 had become the norm in many countries by the end of the 20th century) ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-friend-of-the-family-who-has-sex-with-underage-girls/516965/30 "2009-11-11T16:33:16Z")
I thought that whole “People married at 14 because they didn’t live long enough” was debunked, no? ---
**Author:** ![Epimetheus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c4cdca/32.png) [@Epimetheus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Epimetheus)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-friend-of-the-family-who-has-sex-with-underage-girls/516965/31 "2009-11-11T16:34:31Z")
I don’t doubt the ages. I just doubt that it was “widely” accepted by normal folks for 30 year old men marrying 14 y/o women, and doubt it was ever accepted the reverse way (by normal folk I mean not aristocracy, which also practised inbreeding, something most people probably found icky too). Many of those 15 year olds getting married were marrying other 15 year olds (or, more generally, probably 13-18 years old). ---
**Author:** ![Rumor\_Watkins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@Rumor\_Watkins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rumor_Watkins)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-friend-of-the-family-who-has-sex-with-underage-girls/516965/32 "2009-11-11T16:35:56Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > I thought that whole “People married at 14 because they didn’t live long enough” was debunked, no? no clue, but i’m sure that Jezebel didn’t have 12 years of high schooling and 4 years of “college life” in 1750 before she went on and entered adulthood. just saying that (i would think partly due to life expectancy) life events occurred quicker centuries ago. this includes sex and marriage. ---
**Author:** ![Rumor\_Watkins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@Rumor\_Watkins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rumor_Watkins)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-friend-of-the-family-who-has-sex-with-underage-girls/516965/33 "2009-11-11T16:40:17Z")
> [@Epimetheus](#): > > I don’t doubt the ages. I just doubt that it was “widely” accepted by normal folks for 30 year old men marrying 14 y/o women, and doubt it was ever accepted the reverse way (by normal folk I mean not aristocracy, which also practised inbreeding, something most people probably found icky too). > > Many of those 15 year olds getting married were marrying other 15 year olds (or, more generally, probably 13-18 years old). I will politely disagree, but since I can’t be bothered to do research on this, we’ll just have to leave it at that. I brought up aristocracy not as a suggestion that what they did was socially unacceptable to the masses, but rather they were the only ones who were in a position socially to have multiple wives and/or sex thangs. I will say, though, that I can understand (but I don’t necessarily agree with) a perspective that sees sex with a barely-post-pubescent girl as not being icky at all and sees current attitudes towards the prohibition of under-18/over-18 sex as being based primarily in recent social constructs. (edit: ok, some more wikipedia clippings: In Ancient Greece, no specific civil ceremony was required for the creation of a marriage - only mutual agreement and the fact that the couple must regard each other as husband and wife accordingly.[26] Men usually married when they were in their 20s or 30s [27] and expected their wives to be in their early teens. It has been suggested that these ages made sense for the Greek because men were generally done with military service by age 30, and marrying a young girl ensured her virginity… In the twelfth century, aristocrats believed love was incompatible with marriage and sought romance in adultery.[24] Troubadors invented courtly love which involved secret but chaste trysts between a lover and a beloved… The average age of marriage in the late 1200s into the 1500s was around 25 years of age.[36] Beginning in the 1500s it was unlawful for a woman younger than 20 years of age to marry.[34][37]…) ---
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-friend-of-the-family-who-has-sex-with-underage-girls/516965/34 "2009-11-11T17:56:01Z")
The OP needs to givce out more information. I can’t get out raged until he (or she?) does so. ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-friend-of-the-family-who-has-sex-with-underage-girls/516965/35 "2009-11-11T18:00:21Z")
OK, here’s a counter example: the mother of King Henry VII of England, [Lady Margaret Beaufort](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Margaret_Beaufort), married for the second time in 1455 at the age of 12. (Her first marriage was probably not consummated, and had been annulled). Her 24-year-old husband died before she gave birth to her only child at the age of 13. It may not have been all that common, but it shows tht it was possible for aristocrats to marry before they were teenagers. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-friend-of-the-family-who-has-sex-with-underage-girls/516965/36 "2009-11-11T20:29:37Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > Mr. T? Is that you? Why yes, actually it is. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-friend-of-the-family-who-has-sex-with-underage-girls/516965/37 "2009-11-11T20:31:05Z")
> [@Epimetheus](#): > > I don’t doubt the ages. I just doubt that it was “widely” accepted by normal folks for 30 year old men marrying 14 y/o women, and doubt it was ever accepted the reverse way (by normal folk I mean not aristocracy, which also practised inbreeding, something most people probably found icky too). > > Many of those 15 year olds getting married were marrying other 15 year olds (or, more generally, probably 13-18 years old). Actually no. He’s right, the anomaly historically is age parity, not age disparity. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-friend-of-the-family-who-has-sex-with-underage-girls/516965/38 "2009-11-11T20:41:49Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > Why yes, actually it is. Well, If pitying fools is your shtick, you’ve come to the right place 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-friend-of-the-family-who-has-sex-with-underage-girls/516965/39 "2009-11-11T20:43:46Z")
Does it really matter if it was done that way, though? We did a lot of really awful things back then. It’s not an argument one way or the other. ---
**Author:** ![Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tastes_of_chocolate/32/3232_2.png) [@Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tastes_of_Chocolate)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-friend-of-the-family-who-has-sex-with-underage-girls/516965/40 "2009-11-11T23:45:12Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > Count me on the side of ‘Presumed innocent until…’ How about presumed innocent until admitted guilty? The trial hasn’t started yet, but he has admitted guilt to the police. As for age, 14, but it really doesn’t matter. As long as she was below the age of consent, it is illegal. Even if she begged him, it is illegal, and hell, the age of consent exists because kids that age do stupid things, and the adults are supposed to know better. Add the fact that he was her coach, and in a position of authority, and it only gets better. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-friend-of-the-family-who-has-sex-with-underage-girls/516965.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-friend-of-the-family-who-has-sex-with-underage-girls/516965.md?page=3)