Some time ago, my wife and I were discussing how girls are going into puberty at younger and younger ages. I mentioned that it seems like quite a few guys can’t tell the difference between a woman in her early twenties and an underage girl who snuck into a club/bar/etc with a fake ID and dressed the part. I mentioned an episode of Dateline where they had a two ‘bait girls’ sit at a bar talking to guys while everything was recorded. The bait girls would make it a point during casual conversations with men to mention that they were only 15/16, and that they had snuck in with fake IDs. This revelation definitely didn’t stop plenty of men from hitting on them/inviting them back to their hotel, car, or out back for some ‘coffee’.
Perhaps because she works in Child Protective Services and is particularly sensitive to how children and teens get treated, my wife doesn’t believe for a second a guy could be involved with a woman he thinks is over 18 but later turns out to be underage. She feels that the guys who claim ‘I thought she looked 18!’ are just playing dumb to remove responsibility from themselves in making it a point in knowing just how old is the person you are having sex with. I pointed out that admittedly some 16 year olds could pass off as a 22 year old. If they look the part, and act the part, have a fake ID, how would a man know? My wife insists, “he would know, he would just choose to pretend like he does not now”.
So what do you think? Are guys just playing dumb when they get busted from being sexually involved with an underage woman? Or are they in fact genuinely fooled?
The fact is that some underage people use fake IDs to try and go drinking. Bartenders are fooled sometimes. Bouncers are fooled sometimes. If they are fooled when it’s their job not to be, how can you expect the average guy not to be fooled by the same shtick? Undoubtedly, there are some guys who have been completely and genuinely fooled by their underage partner. There is no way that you can say, across the board, every single man is lying or playing dumb.
The question that should be asked is, what happens then? Is it fair to bring the law down on the older person, but not on the person that purposely lied to him?
I think a lot of them probably suspect, but don’t care to know for sure. I would guess that it’s pretty rare that the man really is shocked to find out a girl is underage.
On the other hand, if you meet someone in a bar, it’s fair to assume she’s of age (obviously not if she says she’s not, but in general).
I could’ve fooled anyone, when I was 16. And I did, and I know the difference between when people genuinely thought I was about 20 and when they didn’t.
I see your wife’s point though: probably most of the people who get caught are just disgusting sleaze bags who really did know something was wrong. Guys who are 50 and defend themselves saying they thought she was 18, like that makes it ok.
It’s different if the guy is 19, and a 16 y/o girl will say she is 18 and a 19 y/o will believe that. But I suspect fewer of those guys get “caught”, because it’s probably usually less disgusting. (Not never, I know that sometimes these guys are “caught” too.)
This raises a question in my mind: if you’re at a bar, and you meet someone and wind up having sex with them, and then are accused of statutory rape because they are under age, do you have grounds to sue the bar for not detecting that someone was under age in their establishment and thereby putting you in the position of violating a law unknowingly?
I don’t know. I work with college freshmen, who tend to be 18, and I generally think that their maturity level, even when appropriate for their age, makes it completely obvious that they are young, in the 18 and under category.
I’m not really sure how this changes based on how much time an adult is spending with the young woman. An hour long conversation over coffee during the afternoon? Yes, most adults would be able to make a reasonably accurate educated guess in most cases. A ten minute conversation in a bar, where the objective is to hook up? I’m not sure if an adult would have enough time to form an accurate opinion – although, I also think most adults would be *aware *that they didn’t have enough information to form an accurate opinion.
I agree with gracer, that bets are off a bit when you are a talking about a 19 year old guy – they’re probably too close in age to the girls in question, and have less ability to judge age.
In all of the above, I know there must be individuals who are genuinely fooled – I simply think this is a very small minority, and that the much larger percentage of adults involved with underage girls are adults who really didn’t care that much to begin with. Hey, I genuinely don’t know what the capital of Samoa is – that doesn’t mean you can’t reasonably expect me to find out (if there was some sort of law about knowing the capital of Samoa).
It probably wouldn’t be successful. The law seems to not be flexible on statutory rape being a strict liability crime, and I don’t think they want to go introducing a lot of gray areas and nuances. Otherwise, most men could make a case that they didn’t know.
But it might also depend on how diligent the bar had been. If they’re not even checking IDs, they’ve obviously done something wrong. But if the 16-year-old girl used her 21-year-old lookalike sister’s real ID, you can’t really fault the bar for that. And if she showed that ID to the guy too and he had no reason to suspect anything was amiss, then that is really really unfair for him. But again, a very rare situation I think.
Around here the AoC is 16 and there must be a 4 year age difference for it to be a crime. I have put more than a few people in jail for the offense. Not one was unaware of the age of the girl. A few were really stupid and ignorant of the law but that is not an excuse.
Years ago I went out with a girl who turned out to only be 16 YO. I was 19 YO and she told me she was 18. It creeped me out. Fortunately I never had sex with her and the legal age of consent was 16 YO in that place. Heck a girl could get legally married at 13 YO with parents permission back in those days. Still even back in the early 70s, we all knew the meaning of ‘jail bait’ and ‘14 will get you 20’.
In some areas - being 16 isn’t underage. It is for drinking, but not for sex.
Your wife has ONLY dealt with girls. By definition - the only population she is exposed to at work (when dealing with this question) is “underage” girls. She isn’t exposed to the millions of 18-21 year olds - or older - that get picked up at bars.
There is no magical way for a guy to know a girl is of legal age at a bar. Plenty of girls look like adults. If you have a good ID - there aren’t any bouncers out there that turn people away cause they “look 16”. I don’t see how you can be that good at guessing ages. I’m guessing most of those girls in the stings weren’t “girls” anyway, but young looking adults (I know they confessed to being “kids” - but the guy approached an adult most likely).
Most guys aren’t predators out there looking to bone 14 year olds - and I think most guys are attracted to adult looking women. Where the line is - I don’t know (attraction wise). However - when a guy goes into a bar - he is most likely thinking there will be women (not girls) there. It probably isn’t even on his radar that she might be under 18, 21, 16, whatever. Hell - I think most guys aren’t even LISTENING if they are talking to an attractive women/girl when she tells him their age. I’m guessing most guys don’t know what the age of consent is in their state.
IMHO - I’m not excusing, or defending, the guys who make the claim “I thought she was 18!” I’m explaining.
So, it’s a bar, so they theoretically only let in people who are old enough. The guy has maybe had a drink or two, so judgement isn’t 100%. The young lady in question is not generally discussing tax planning strategies so determining age based on conversation is not really the best approach. It more like, “So, you like partying?” “Yeauuu, I love partying!” For a guy who is older than say (oh, I dunno…) 33(?) he may not be able to accurately distinguish a 17 year old from a 19 year old in the best of situations. And, finally, in most situations people are not on the lookout for someone fooling them, why would they be? - that’s why fooling someone works!
Conclusion - Guys saying, “I thought she was 18!” have a lot of valid reasons.
Obviously there is no magic way to tell a 17 and a half year old from an eighteen year old. But you can tell when someone is borderline and take appropriate precautions.
It’s worth remembering that sex is usually pretty private, and you really aren’t going to get a statutory rape charge unless you get caught and someone is pissed off about the proceedings- and that usually indicates more going on than just picking up the wrong girl.
There are exceptions to every rule, outliers, etc. Sure, there are 15 year olds who genuinely look like 25 year olds, but I don’t think that’s the majority of them.
It’s my experience that women tend to be generally better at pegging a girl’s age. An example happened last month while 2 female friends, 1 male friend, and I were on a cruise. There were two girls, both. . . well developed, one with probably one of the best natural DD racks I’ve ever seen. Hips, butts, mature faces, etc. Our guy friend was oogling and I told him to stop. “Why? Don’t get jealous!” I looked at him and said, “I’m not jealous, but that young one? There’s literally no way she’s a day over 14. The older one? She’s not a day over 17. Don’t be that gross man.” He told me I was crazy, saying he was certain they were 22 or 23 and 24 or 25. I told him to ask our other female friends, they both immediately said, “No way, dude-- those girls are 14 and 17.”
So, we found out the answer: 14 and just turned 17 that week. My friend is a 30 year old male. We are two 27 year old women and one 47 year old woman.
I also coach high school debate and many of our judges are colleges students. The male coaches can almost NEVER tell the college students apart from the high school kids, while the female coaches generally can do it without much confusion .
But if we recognize that an adult can’t tell the difference between 17 and 19, that’s not an excuse to go for it. That’s a reason to pass it up. THAT is a valid decision.
(“It” being the situation, not “it” referring to the girl.)
I would guess the occurrence of the “Pick the underage girl up at a bar” scenario is statistically insignificant when it comes to statutory rape cases.
I think most men who preferentially hit on women who look young enough to be their daughters aren’t fooled into thinking they are dealing with an adult. Because odds are they are experienced enough to spot a teen by their manner of speaking, style of dress, and limited conversational range Girls do not talk like most women, and any dude that hits on women with any regular frequency should be able to see this.
Are there cases in which men are fooled and end up sleeping with a minor? Sure. But I have a hard time believing this is common. And what does “fooled” mean anyway? I wouldn’t be surprised if in most cases, the guy at least suspects she’s a kid but doesn’t bother investigating the truth because he thinks it’s unimportant or that he won’t get caught.
When I was 33, I joined a top English private school as a full-time chess teacher.
To publicise this innovative event, I had my picture taken with the 16 year-old girl who was captain of the chess team.
This was in the holidays, so we both wore smart casual clothes.
When the newspaper came out, I was asked by many friends and colleagues if I would be dating my glamorous colleague. (:eek::smack: ) Most thought she was about 30 years old.
doesn’t matter if they were genuinely fooled or are playing dumb, still the fault of the 20 year old because it should be his responsibility to make sure whoever he’s fucking isn’t a child
