On one hand, I think Diogenes has horribly overblown this whole thing. Being stupid or not diligent enough in confirming someone’s age (which very likely happened in this case) does not equal “pervert who deserves to rot in jail with all the other rapists.” It means the guy is stupid. Foolhardy. Selfishly stupid, very likely. He deserves a scare—perhaps a big one. But he’d not be an eeevvvvvilll rapist, at least not in the context we’re thinking of (knowingly manipulating or forcing an innocent who is not capable of giving consent).
However, there’s something a little creepy about saying that just because they “seem” old enough, or they gave consent, it’s okay. There are plenty of young people who seem mature enough, and yeah, they consented, but they seriously are just too clueless to really know what the consequences are. For instance, I think age 12 is waaaay too young. What if that kid gets pregnant? Has a baby? Is that 12-year-old capable of taking care of that child (providing that they don’t get an abortion or give it up for adoption)? Do they really comprehend the risks and possible consequences of sex? Sure, they consent to it—they want it—but they really don’t comprehend. We’ve seen this repeatedly. 12-year-old girls want to have a baby of their own, so they consent to sex. Of course they can’t really comprehend what caring for a baby really means and as soon as the child arrives they’re over their head and their life is somewhat screwed, but hey. They consented to the sex, so that makes it okay, doesn’t it? Not as far as I’m concerned.
So I’m with Diogenes as far as that issue goes. But I don’t share his outrage about this specific guy (at least not yet) because it sounds like it’s quite likely the guy was just incredibly STUPID and FOOLISH. For that (if that’s the case) he deserves to have the shit scared out of him—perhaps some probation or something—but come on. It’s totally going overboard to want to lock him up and throw away the key.
If I made the laws, 16 would be the general age of consent. But it would be ok as young as 14 as long as the older party is not more than 4 years older.
Having sex with a 14 or 15 year old would be a misdeamenor if you are 5+ years older.
Having sex with someone under 14 would be a felony, but there’d be an allowable difference of 3 years.
Diogenes, as a female who was below my state’s age of consent far more recently than I’d like to admit, I think you’re doing a pitiful injustice to teenage girls and our possible maturity levels. By painting every woman who’s had consentual sex with an older guy while she was under age as a victim, and her partner, a hideous criminal, you deny our ability to think for ourselves and make decisions about our sex lives. You’re saying that at the age of fifteen, all girls must be witless little field mice, certainly not mature enough to have sexual relations with someone a few years older than us without it being labeled “child rape.” Why must you insult us so?
This is a very reasonable position. What I want to know is, how do you go from this to “The guy’s a predatory sleeze who deserves to rot in prison for the rest of his life”? The guy broke the law. He’s going to have to be punished for that. Sucks to be him. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s the scum of the Earth. There are plenty of scenarios in which this guy didn’t mean to cause an harm, and by your own admission, there are scenarios where he didn’t cause any harm: the aforementioned “exceptions and specific situations.”
This girl was sixteen, right? In that state, what he did was illegal. There are a lot of states in the Union, not to mention the entire nation of Canada, where it would have been perfectly legal for him to fuck this girl. Is he a sexually predator who has emotionally scared this girl if he fucks her in Ontario? If so, why isn’t there a law against it?
These laws are guidelines: they’re best guesses at what the minimum safe age for sexual activity should be, because it’s different for every person. Some people, yeah, it might very well be as young as twelve. Other people are never mature enough to have sex. The law takes its best guess, and it usually errs on the side of caution to protect as many innocents as possible. But that doesn’t make everyone who breaks the law evil, or immoral, or (needless to say) a rapist. It just makes them, at bare minimum, stupid.
And I’m not saying it’s okay to fuck fourteen year olds. Yeah, it’s possible that a specific fourteen year-old is mature enough to make a responsible decision about sex. But the law says no, and it’s not the responsibility of individual citizens to decide when laws do or do not apply. And while the legal repurcussions on this guy are going to be deservedly more severe, it is entirely possible that he bears no more moral culpability for this action than a guy who decides that a 55 MPH speed limit is just too slow, and it’s perfectly safe to do 80 down the freeway. He’s not acting out of malice, and he might even be right, but that doesn’t excuse breaking the law.
FWIW, I met my first boyfriend when I was fourteen, started "going steady’ with him almost a year later and began having sex a year after that. I was sixteen and a half, he was a month short of twenty. We were the slowest couple around at that time.
Most of my friends lost their virginity at about 13, to guys in their early twenties. This was just normal for that place and time. (Early/mid Seventies.) Multiple partners weren’t just the norm, they were a badge of honor. Sex was a game. It was almost a competition to see who and how many you could nail. Keep in mind, this is the girls I’m talking about.
One friend used to actively seek out men, usually by hitchiking, and take them home. After sex, she’d tell them how old she really was. By fourteen she could pass for twenty or so. She ended up pregnant at fifteen and married at sixteen, to a guy in his mid-twenties.
So, you see, all “little” girls aren’t sweet innocent angels. Some of 'em are more predatory than any guy I’ve met. Trust me on that!
Oh yeah, about my “exploiter”? We were a couple until I was twenty and then we just broke up. I met mr zoogirl and he never had a steady relationship again. We were the best of friends and had a good relationship until he passed away back in '91 at the age of 34.
Stately: not to put words in dio’s mouth or anything, but I can’t imagine it’d be easy to raise a daughter. I think his concern is honestly out of, well, concern.
I know that when I was younger I was less than honest to or caring of my partners, and while a daughter of mine might very well be mature enough to handle her sexuality, I’d still worry that she simply didn’t have the decision making facilities to evalutate her partners well. There are plenty of guys, of all ages, who’ll take advantage of naivate.
And less be frank here, no matter how mature or good a judge of character someone is, there’s no substitute for experience.
Although, as should be evident, I don’t hold nearly as extreme a position as Dio
I can totally understand the concerned father viewpoint. Have been frustrated into wall-punching frenzies because of it, but I understand it. But concerned father angles work better when they go something like, “Look, there are some real douche nozzles out there, and I know because I used to be one of them, and here is my sagely advice” rather than “You are too immature to know what’s good for you, and on top of it, anyone who would dare think about touching you is a predatory douche nozzle who should have maggots eat his brain from the inside out while being raped by Bubba in a medieval dungeon setting, and no, there are no exceptions. Go play with your Barbies until your eighteenth birthday.” Not that I’m putting words in anyone’s mouth, either.
What got me was the extremety of his arguments, and the way in which he seemed to dismiss an underage girl’s ability to make decisions about her body and life, insisting that those who had had sex with legal adults were victims of perverted-ass sexual predators. Miller, that was a well-worded post.
I never said the dude should get life, just that I didn’t feel sorry for him for whatever time he did get.
FinnAgain is correct. I have a daughter and that colors my views. There’s nothing like having a daughter to make you acutely aware that male = pig.
I find all the talk about predatory 13 year olds rather disturbing and misogynist. A 13 or 14 year old girl who is that aggressively promiscuous with adults (or even other kids for that matter) is almost always a victim of earlier sexual abuse.
Even if a 13 year old is sexually aggressive, that doesn’t make it ok for an adult to stick his dick in him/her.
There is no reason that anyone must drill a teenager. No adult is being unfairly victimized if he is not permitted to place his penis inside the body of a minor.
It is the adult’s responsibility to know what he’s putting his cock in. It is not the responsibility of a minor to inform him or to tell him the truth.
I am personally creeped out by adults who are unable to form sexual relationships with partners who can vote and don’t have curfews. No adult should have any serious interest in a high school girl. It’s skeevy, skeevy skeevy. It’s loser behavior at the very least and predatory at worst.
Have I been over the top in my condemnations? I suppose so. That’s just my personality. I get emotional. I hyperbolize…and I have a daughter.
Once again we have a case of someone not reading or not understanding my OP. I wasn’t pitting Diogenes for taking a side. I was pitting him for ignoring my request and crapping on my thread. He has since apologized for not reading my warning, which I accept, and if I may sermonize for a brief moment, I think the bare minimum you should do before making any comment of substance in a thread is reading the entire OP.
I can’t even make sense of Machetero’s post in this thread, so maybe I called it wrong on him and should revert to hypothesis 1- failure to understand the english language.
For the curious, my friend was 24 at the time. The debate in here regarding age of consent is interesting, but I don’t really want to get more into the specifics of the case.
Both sides have a point. On one hand, we want to protect our children from predation. On the other, it seems absurd to lock up a high school senior for having sex with a high school sophomore. If you care to take a look at AgeOfConsent.com’s chart, you will see a wide range of legal ages for consensual sex. There are different standards across the globe, and I’m not sure which is “right.” As another poster pointed out, when you have strict age limits, someone is going to get screwed. My personal opinion is that age 16 would be a very safe minimum age in all U.S. states. Multiple years in prison for uncoerced (i.e., no one is in a position of power such as a supervisor or a school principal), consensual sex with a fifteen year old seems draconian.
For the wordsmiths, I thought the word “scumbag” derived from used cum bag. It sure sounds like it, at least. And if not, used cum bag was still more interesting and fun.
…which is kind of odd, since the most strongly-worded comment about predatory 13 year olds was from a female.
Cite? (seriously–I’d like to see what kind of data there is on this)
So what level of verification is appropriate? Should I ask for ID? Should I buy one of those UV flashlights to check for fake ID? Should I drive her down to the county hall of records and look up her birth certificate?
Sure, I’m skeeved out as much as the next person by predatory acts, but I also realize that there are shades of gray.
