There is a double standard.
I would feel the same way about my daughters. “Strangle the bastard”. Or “lock him up and throw away the key”
However, my son, (just conjecture here, since I only had daughters—but I came from a family of all boys and this is what MY father would have done)-------
All I would say to him would have been " I hope you used a rubber."
And of course —
—"Don’t tell your mother about this. She would go ballistic—“Her poor innocent baby boy !! --defiled for eternity”
I don’t know-I’ve known girls who looked 18 when they were 13, and girls who looked 13 when they were 18. Boys might be different, but some do develop quickly-my 10 year old cousin is going to be taller than I am in a year or so, I’m betting. He’s a BIG kid-not as in fat, but he’s very tall and he’s got a lot of muscle on him. I wouldn’t be surprised if he looks older than his age.
However, I think it’s not the looks, but the emotional, mental, intellectual maturity that are really messed up in this case.
And I’m a serious believer that men who thinks that way were too clueless when they were teenagers to notice that a significant number of their peers weren’t just like them. I wasn’t a walking erection as a teenager, and the other male teenagers I associated with weren’t, either. You probably didn’t notice us because we belonged to another crowd you were unfamiliar with. And I don’t think we were a rarity. I think you’re just projecting : “I and my buddies were like that, so I assume everybody was like that”.
I wouldn’t have slept with anything with a heartbeat, and there was no way I would have been attracted by an old fart like a 25 yo teacher, regardless how attractive. Actually, being attractive and being adult were mutually exclusive terms.
Can I just say that I’m all in favour of acknowledging the differences between the sexes? I doubt this surprises anyone who’s seen me post for very long. I’d like to add, thought, that if we’re going to take official notice, we ought to be even-handed about it. F’rinstance, I’d be deeply suspicious of any kind of “enlightened sexism” that practised equality all down the line except when it came to matters like giving mothers preferential treatment in custody cases, or letting female teachers who molest get away with a slap on the wrist and a pound out of the till.
Okay. Here’s some Turkey Day TMI.
My ex-husband was a 7th grade teacher at a fundie school. He lost his job (and his marriage, obviously) after having a thing going on with one of his girl students. It’s been 10 years and to this day I don’t know all the details, but my ultra-fundie pastor (who was the president of the school’s board) told me I had “Biblical grounds” for the divorce. I’m also pretty certain he’d “crossed the line” with other girls, although it hadn’t gone this far and/or they hadn’t gotten caught.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but I can say with certainty that in this case, it wasn’t about physical attractiveness and it wasn’t (consciously, at least) about manipulation. Admittedly, the girl in question was extremely emotionally needy (the fact that, apparently, she had been sexually abused by her stepfather is why they opted not to press charges - and why you never heard about this one in the media), but she was average-looking at best. The Ex, however, was extremely emotionally immature, and, I think, was looking for someone on his level. (ftr, when I married him, at 22, we were both a bit immature, but ultimately I grew up and he didn’t…) From what I’ve seen and heard, Debra LaFavre is also very immature - she may be 25, but she sounds like she’s 15. I think immaturity on the part of the adult is something that needs to be considered as motive.
Another point I would like to stress is that it’s not just the age-difference. It’s the abuse of authority. A teacher is an authority figure, and “in loco parentis.” To abuse that authority and betray that trust is a crime beyond any sexual exploitation. That’s why a supervisor hitting on a subordinate is guilty of sexual harassment.
:eek:
I’d just like to focus our attention on a point made in passing by MandaJo and others, and brought up again by PerditaX here:
(BTW, Perdita, a belated Welcome to the Dope. Great post! :))
Actually, I’ve found the reverse to be true. Of the females I’ve known who were attracted to underaged boys, most of them just liked how they looked. The ones who were interested in manipulating or controlling were all men. Of course, I’ve only talked indepth with three females and five males who’ve had these urges, but from what I’ve read, it seems to be typical.
There is also the fact that some boys grow up really fast. One of my roomies for a month was a 17 year old Egyptian man who came to play tennis for the local college. I say man instead of boy because he was very large. Side by side, I looked a lot younger than him even though I am almost 7 years older. My younger brothers are all taller and larger than me now, and most of them have been since 8th grade. I wouldn’t dismiss the “attractive” factor immediately.
If you take a long hard look at the wonderful world of human sexuality, one inevitable conclusion you’ll come up with is that people tend to have some mighty strange desires. S&M, bestiality, cross-dressing, coprophilia, necrophilia–all of these are such strangers to my way of thinking. And absolutely counter to the real objective of sex, which is primarily procreation. And yet they’re not uncommon at all. Even pedophilia, while absolutely wrong morally and legally, is, unfortunately, not all that uncommon. We’re a diverse bunch, to say the least.
A few years back, I was on a message board where a number of women were bragging about how they had recently bagged boy toys–men some 10-12 years younger than themselves. And that’s entirely counter to the socialization that you speak of.
One thing to consider is motivation vs affect. It’s possible that while the affect that whatzername had on the kid was manipulation, that may not have been her motivation.
I’m not saying you’re wrong, in fact you may well be right. But given the strange diversity in sexual preference that our species displays, I don’t find it entirely outside the realm of possibility that she just has a thing for teenage boys.
Do some kids look slightly older than they are? Sometimes, yeah. When I was a clerk at the video store, I remember seeing 2 young ladies who were, in my estimation, in their early to mid 20s. I was recommending all sorts of R-rated movies to them (not specifically R-rated, but they were in the mix of what I recommended). Imagine my shock when their mother told me they were 10 and 12. The hell? These girls could easily have gone into bars without being carded. 10 years old and 6 feet tall? REAL early bloomers, I guess.
I was considering some posts in this thread, and something came to my mind while reading thelast post about the 20 yo looking 10 yo :
If pedophiles were mostly attracted towards young teenagers due to them being immatures and easy to manipulate rather than because they look like teenagers, wouldn’t they instead pick immature/easily manipulated adults? It’s not like there’s a shortage of them, in my experience, and it’s much safer.
At 6’ 2", I was often mistaken for someone much younger. Height is a poor determinent for age. Girls are more likely to look like women, than boys like men, because girls hit puberty earlier. By 14, they are much more likely to have reached their full height, and be fully developed.
I’ve never seen that with boys. My brother was a year younger than I was. Four kids in his 6th grade class were over 6’. By the time they were 14, I believe all four were over 6’3" and not skinny. Not one of them looked like a man though. When they were juniors in HS, they were all at least 6’4" and 240. They were much closer to looking like men at that point. It is the jaw, the shoulders, and the muscular development. IIRC, the boy in this case was pretty big, but still looked like a boy. At any rate, that woman knew she was in the wrong, because of the abuse of authority and his age, that is why she admitted it was “exciting”.
PerditaX, my deepest sympathies. The shame and embarrassment must have been overwhelming.
My sister is 2 years older than me. When she hit 18 or 19 (legal drinking age at the time), we’d go out to dinner with my parents. When asked if we’d like something to drink, my parents would order a pitcher of beer and three glasses. Invariably one glass would be put down in front of me instead of my sister. That used to bug the crap out of her. 
Obviously there’s a double standard. Hell, the age of consent laws we have now are a result of campaigns in the late 1800s by women’s societies to protect girls from the “predations” of men who might “take advantage” of naivete. Personally, I think it’s a crock, as I’ve said in a few other threads. People in the US seem to be very hung up on sexual issues, to the point where even when both parties are willing they are held to be misguided. That kind of patronizing, we-know-what’s-best-for-you attitude activates my gag reflex. I think it’s disgusting that minors have little to no say in both cases like this and divorce. They are people too. They have feelings and opinions, and they are capable of making decisions. That faculty doesn’t magically appear at age eighteen.
I personally think that the only thing she did wrong was having a relationship with a student, which was inappropriate to her position as a teacher. I do not agree with the concept of statutory rape laws and I do not think that having sex at a relatively young age is automatically going to be traumatic. I think it’s more likely that society’s reaction to the sexual contact is going to be traumatic than that the actual sex will be. This knee-jerk “pedophilia” reaction is getting completely out of hand.
There was a case that was appealed all the way to the California Supreme Court wherein the ruling held that both the parties involved (a 13 year old girl and a 14 year old boy, if I remember correctly) were both victims and perpetrators of a crime. The decision specifically stated that the court did not want to provide any legal permission for minors to engage in sexual relations. The reason that the case went that far seemed to be because the boy’s mother thought it was ridiculous that her son was facing legal punishment for doing something both he and the girl wanted to do.
What was the worse victimization, the sex or the court system? The girl had to see her boyfriend brought up on charges for having sex with her, even though she wanted to have sex with him. He was probably facing juvenile hall and probation for having sex with his girlfriend. Both families incurred legal costs and tons of emotional stress. The kids were victimized by their parents and the courts. How would you feel if you were being threatened with arrest and jail time for having sex with your girlfriend? How would you feel if your mother tried to have your boyfriend brought up on charges for having sex with you? I’m absolutely certain that their emotional reaction was about the same as yours would be: shock, fear, anger, resentment, distrust of authority, the agony of seeing someone they cared about mistreated. I personally think they both would have been better off if no one besides them had known about it.
There’s another issue involved here too. How many teens are going to conceal sexual relationships from everyone around them because of cases like this? How much stress and social destructiveness will result because of that? How much of an impact will this have on parent-child relationships?
If I were a teenager right now, I would feel like I couldn’t even talk about any sexual relationships I had for fear that it might be considered “inappropriate” and either I or my partner could be facing criminal charges. My first two sexual relationships were in a grey area. I was nearly 18, but not quite, and the people involved were 29 and 25. They were technically committing statutory rape. If my parents had wanted to bring charges, they could have, no matter what my wishes were. My only regret, then and now, was that I hadn’t started at an earlier age. Sex and the issues involved with forging my sexual identity had an enormous effect on my life, for the positive.
I’ve seen this a lot. I work at a library and if a patron can produce a driver’s license they are considered an “adult” and don’t need to have a parent fill out a permission slip so we can create the card.
I can’t tell you how many times I ask young teens (9 times out of 10 girls) if I can see their driver’s license and they hit me back with “I’m 12 or 10 or 13 or (at the oldest) 14”.
Then their mothers come over and look absolutely shocked that the 23 year old man behind the counter (and I look about 17 when I shave regularly) would think their precious had a license.
They’re 12 and taller than me lady, what am I supposed to think?