Are we infantilizing 16-year-olds? Points to ponder:
16 is the legal age of consent in: Andorra, Argentina, Australian Capital Territory, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia, Cuba, Estonia, Germany, Israel, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Russia, San Marino, Switzerland, Ukraine, Venezuela, the United Kingdom, U.S. states: Alaska, Connecticut, Georgia, Indiana, Maine, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, South Dakota.
15 is the legal age of consent in: Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Monaco, Poland, Slovakia, Sweden.
Legally, none of this stuff makes perfect sense, or even very good sense. Pretty much not possible. I have known 16 year olds who were more emotionally together than many, many others much older. I’ve also known 16 year olds who were most definitely children.
There is also a whole lot of bias to enter into it. Try as I might, I can’t consider a high school boy who gets a knobber from his totally hot teacher as anything like a victim. Emotional scars like that could keep him giggling for years.
Is it gender based? Hugh betcha! I also think women have the final say in whether or not to bear children, that is also gender based. Similarly, a man has somewhat more responsibility (not a lot, just some) that he maketh not the moves on the vulnerable.
And the crux of that would have to be: when in doubt, the answer is no. So…setting an arbitrary number like 16 is clumsy and crude, but it sets a marker, at least. Trouble is, most people at 16 desperately want to believe themselves fully mature and worthy of complete adult empowerment. There is nothing at appeals to that need more than an adult who is utterly fascinated by their intelligence, maturity, etc.
Also impossible to legislate is age difference: 18 seducing thirteen is far more repulsive than 23 seducing 18. 52 moving on 16 is…well…way out of bounds.
Not even close to reality on this count, even if they “all” knew. Foley had power, they didn’t; they put up with it exactly because he was powerful and they weren’t used to powerful people paying attention to them. What are you saying they could have done? Republican leadership ignored them and the media ignored them because they felt like it or decided there wasn’t enough to substantiate the charges. The kids who had a consensual relationship with him, maybe, aren’t victims. The ones who he tried to pick up who weren’t interested can certainly be called victims.
“Hebephile.” In Foley’s case, “ephebephile,” as he was into boys, not girls. “Pedophile” specifically refers to people who are attracted to pre-pubescent children. Baring unusual medical circumstances, a fifteen year old is post-pubescent. It’s got nothing to do with trying to make Foley “less creepy.” It’s about using the proper word for the situation.
On the other hand, you could try to argue that Canada (age of consent: fourteen) has legalized pedophilia. But I don’t think you’ll get very far on that track.
When I worked on an adolescent psych ward I had a patient that was molested by an older woman at about 15 or so…it seriously screwed him so much so that he was in a locked inpatient psych ward. He was not in any way emtionally ready for what happened and yeah, he was a victim.
I also know people who had sex younger than him, with adults, and were not screwed up. At that age there are so much differance from one kid to the next that there it is better to play it safe.
When I was 21 or so I met a really attractive girl was muture, looked to be about 18 or so, and was attracted to me. She turned out to be 16 and I left her the hell alone because wether or not she was above the curve emotionally it was illegal and immoral (IMO). Any man, gay or straight, who obviously knows that A: It’s illegal, and B: its a career ruiner and still cant control himself to keep from talking dirty is sick…its not a normal attraction it is a compulsion that is out of his control and it is only a matter of time till he acts on it. I know several gay men and none of them would do something this stupid. I’m sure there are plenty of legal aged men he could send suggestive IM’s to, it was the idea of them being under age that did it for him.
As others have said on this board and elsewhere, since his behavior has been been known about for several years a more useful October Surprise would’ve been in October, 2004. And who could’ve known it would have such “legs” and would spray shit on so many powerful people? There was a professional crisis manager (he worked for Clinton so he had plenty of experience) on the radio today who went through the rules of crisis management Hastert violated. All of them, it seems.
It’s hard to say how much of it is gay bashing. Obviously there are people who think this is just an example of typical homosexual perversion. Then again there are other people who just don’t think it’s right for a man his age to persue a relationship with teens no matter if the age of consent might be 16. I’d be pretty upset if a man in his 40’s was wooing my 16 year old son or daughter. I’d also be pretty upset if a woman his age were wooking my theoretical 16 year old son or daughter.
That’s not exactly true. The ancient Greeks and Polynesians and Japanese practiced it. The prophet Mohammed married a six-year-old and consummated the union when she was nine. (Though some scholars disagree with this.) In some African societies today, girls are married off before they even reach puberty. As I’ve heard, the ancient Romans even had a public holiday honoring young prostitutes.
Each culture has its own taboos, but none are universal.
I saw John Walsh and I heard him say something along the lines of ‘this is a pedophile thing and not a homosexual thing’. Granted that is just a paraphrase, but that is the jist of what I heard Walsh say.
I grant that Walsh seemed to be using the word pedophile in the wrong way, but I do not think that he equated gay with pediophile at all.
Walsh needs to be understood. Even if he understands the terms in question, he needs to get picked up on sound bites and say things that will be understood by the majority of people.
Going into explanations on what the difference between pedophilia, ephebophilia and hebophilia don’t make for a good thirty seconds on CNN.
Just to be clear, I didn’t mean to imply that Wlash was purposing trying to tie pedophilia to homosexuality.
But what I find incomprehensible is that we are even debating this subject at all. Isn’t this MB supposed to be about fighting ignorance? Now, I’m generally in favor of the principle that a word means whatever people think it means, but this case, like a few others, doesn’t fall in that category. If pedophilia loses it’s precise meaning, then we have to invent a new word to replace it because being sexually attracted to pre-pubescent children is markedly different both psychologically and legally from being attracted to post-pubescent teenagers.
All I’m asking is that if you really know what the term means, don’t use it incorrectly. IOW, don’t spread ignorance. How that can be a contraversial issue on this MB is mind boggling.
I agree that we shouldn’t be using “pedophile” incorrectly. I don’t know if Foley is one or not, but there is no evidence at this point that he is attracted to children, and by misusing that term, it gets the focus off his actual offenses. That being an abuse of power, sexual harrassment, and at least in one documented case, promoting the deliquency of a minor (by offering booze). None of those things are related to pedophilia.
It does seem like people are using “pedophilia” to make his behavior seem extra egregious and shocking. I hate when people do this with the English language.
Popular usage trumps the dictionary, I’m afraid. Nobody but us Doper-type pedants knows what an “ephebophile” is; most people are doing well to know that “pedo-” means “child”, and “child” means “minor”.
You’d have more success fighting the battles of “whom” and “their”. Foley is a pedophile. Deal with it and move on to something that matters to real people’s lives.
First, the dictionary is popular usage, although the vagaries of publishing and the speed of dialect evolution means the dictionary is always a couple steps behind.
Second, pedophilia is a medical term with a specific definition that does not include what Mark Foley did. Professional usage always trumps popular usage. It doesn’t matter what the layman thinks pedophile means. The definition is set by experts in the field of psychology.
Can you explain how that helps to fight ignorance? Remember, this thread is specifically addressing that issue, so it’s not some tangential semantic debate. As far as this thread is concerned, that is the debate.
I’ve never heard “popular usage” calling anyone a pedophile because they talk to 16 year olds. Such a person is usually called a perv or a dirty old man, but a pedophile is in another class. Pedophiles are guys like the Maytag man in that Very Special Episode of Different Strokes.
Why must we label his behavior with some special term anyway? If the pages in question were 20 instead of 16, his conduct would still be improper. The ignoramuses may not complain because you’re calling the guy a pedophile, but you lose credibility with anyone who knows what a pedophile actually is. That doesn’t matter to you?
