[QUOTE=Miller]
Sending dirty IMs to a thirty year old is pretty skeevy if you’re in your nineties.
[/QUOTE]
Cite? I think if we could find a ninety-year old who was hip enough to IM that person would be a national hero, and if he/she could interest someone in their 30s we’d say more power to him/her! This is off-topic, but IMHO the real skeeviness factor comes when a person in their 30s hits on someone in their 90s, as in a gold-digger, Anna Nicole Smith type situation.
A minor (heh!) point, but you are assuming that in a power-imbalanced relationship it is the one with the power going after the one without. Often people can be attracted to the person with the power, so who is the one being taken advantage of there?
[QUOTE=rayh]
A minor (heh!) point, but you are assuming that in a power-imbalanced relationship it is the one with the power going after the one without. Often people can be attracted to the person with the power, so who is the one being taken advantage of there?
[/QUOTE]
Very good point.
I did a snark-in-passing at Bill Clinton, and yet based on what I’ve heard the sexual liaison was incited by Ms. Lewinsky. Or at least such has been claimed by many. Assuming for the sake of argument that that’s true, it’s still off limits, and the person with the extra power in the structured power difference is the one with the balance of responsibility for saying so and preventing it from occurring.
I think it’s less creepy than if the person with the power makes the overtures, but it’s still not OK. 14 year olds are off-limits even if they’re doing their dead-level best to get into your pants; you don’t get to say “The kid started it”, you’re still in the wrong, you’re the responsible party, and that’s pretty much that.
The general formula is the guys age/2 + 7 or the legal age of consent, whatever is higher.
For example as a 33 year old guy, the girl should be 23 or older.
for a 20 year old guy, the age would be 17 (or 18 dependent on your state).
Unless you’re Hugh Hefner.
[QUOTE=Contrapuntal]
Was he actually a page when the e-mails were sent? This seems to suggest otherwise –
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15063977
Not that changes anything in my mind. Just setting the record straight.
[/QUOTE]
To me it sounds like he was emailing to express interest in him while he was on the job and the *really * skeevy ones happened once he returned home. It’s kind of vague. I’m sure more clarity will come as this thing unfolds.
The part that pissed me off the most was the report that he was vocally outraged about the infamous Clinton-Lewinski Oval Office Blowjob (CLOOB). Now that he’s committed POSH (page-oriented sexual harrassment), he’s blaming it on the booze.
Incidently, does anyone know if the written word alone is enough to get him arrested, or do they have to catch him in the act of making contact a la those stings Dateline conducted over the summer? I’m sure his career is done for, but did he commit a crime?
Although I didn’t see any specific instance that this violates in the Terms of Use I’m sure that someone will happily point it out if I missed it.
I’d like to remove the abstract. I have an SO for having consensual sex with a 16 year old female when I was 29. I have never denied my culpability, responsibility or sentence. I was given 10 years just as an FYI. But I have a question for the board as a whole that removes the abstract nature of this thread.
Age of consent was 17.
She was sexually active before me.
She had a crush on me and found that I was going through a divorce.
She pursued me.
She was quite physically mature and had a healthy understanding of her sexual appetite.
I was emotionally vulnerable at the time. Divorce tends to take its toll on a psyche.
I said I was flattered but said no at first. But I did fail to remove myself from the situation. I’ll be honest, the attention was gratifying.
I was not attracted to her because of her age, rather despite it. In fairness, I was attracted to the attention.
I had to take a rather intensive treatment program prior to release.
By my therapist’s own definition, I was not an SO. Her (and I want to emphasize that part, HER) description was, to put it bluntly, that I was an idiot.
Clinically I could only be diagnosed with ephebophilia or hebephilia. However, neither actually fits squarely.
Depending on the definition (and a little bit of research on the two will show there is a spectrum for both), which are evolving with understanding, the following apples.
Ephebophilia is sexual attraction to post-pubescent females between 15 and 19 years of age (and gender bias is also noticeably prevalent) but carries with it the connotation of a brain chemistry abnormality making the attraction unavoidable. This didn’t apply. As a general rule, I find people in that age range annoying, regardless of gender, and honestly don’t even like taking to them.
Hebephilia is becoming more an attraction to pubescent females. Just budding so to speak. (At the time that she offered her opinion the definition was much closer to ephebophilia in regards to age but didn’t carry the genetic component, rather a far more dangerous component I’ll explain). The primary attraction was actually based on easy mental manipulation, i.e. a lack of emotional development or efficacy of ego. But this didn’t apply either. I am attracted to strong, confident partners who know what they want. Remember, she pursued me.
So, from a clinical stand point, none of the labels fit. However, legally a crime was committed without a psychological trigger associated with any definable “philia” at all.
An offense that requires registration occurred but the purpose of the registry is to protect against predatory (clinical) issues.
In fact, upon release on parole, I had no restrictions. The pale officer took it upon themselves to assign restrictions themselves despite psychological evaluation and release without them.
That life is harder now is undeniable. That I get hit with the pedophile label is unavoidable. That’s life. I was convicted of a criminal offense and have to deal with the consequences. As do my family members. Including my children. Despite be extremely qualified in my career field I have great difficulty find meaningful our fulfilling enjoyment. I met a wonderful and beautiful woman and married again. I rebuilt a life. But the continued belittling and ostracizing became more than she could handle.
When does the spirit of the law and actual psychological evaluation come into play?
If a clinical diagnosis isn’t possible or doesn’t fit, should labels be considered libel? Or slander? Or defamation of character?
It’s recognized that a person can kill another person and not commit murder. Can a person commit a sex offense and not be a sex offender?
Hoo boy.
OK, let’s distinguish between legal and moral culpability. Legally, I doubt any of your (theoretically, at least) mitigating circumstances make any difference.
Morally, I think the only person you have to convince is yourself, and, if you find another legally intimate relationship, your new partner. I doubt if you are going to get anyone else, except possibly guys who are pervs themselves, to agree that you are without blame. It may not be fair, you may actually be entirely blameless (I am not prepared to say one way or the other) from a moral perspective, but there are only two people who know the whole truth, you and the girl. Other people will make judgments based on what they know or think they know, however hard you may try to convince them.
To answer your last question: I think there is no doubt that it is possible to commit an act that is legally a sex offense but that morally is not. On the point as to whether this applies to your case, I am agnostic.
By the way, you have revived a thread that has been dead for 9 years, so likely you will be seeing some allegedly cute responses about “zombie sex.” You might be better off starting your own thread and letting this one die out.
He didn’t say he is without blame. He explicitly owned up to his responsibility. His main point isn’t that the circumstances he mentioned mean he wasn’t responsible, rather, the main point he was trying to make was that the circumstances he mentioned would indicate that, despite the fact that he violated the law, he’s not a danger to anyone. He seems to be asking, not about what the law is, or about the moral status of his action, but rather, about what the laws should say about cases like his.
I’m not offering an opinion, just clarifying what I take his question to be.
I don’t think statutory should be strict liability. The lowest standard of mens rea above that, sure. But if a 15-year-old makes a deliberate effort to falsify their age in order to seduce someone, that’s hardly predatory behavior on the part of the someone (not saying I necessarily believe the ZP, though I guess I believe that he believes it at this point).
The counterpoint is that if the older person is at all uncertain, they can always not have the sex; that is an option that is on the table.
*** NOTE: this thread is nine years old ***
Which means the girl is 25 yo - a respectable age.
I still think this thread is pretty hot.
And any more comments like this will get you a Warning.
Knock it off.
[ /Moderating ]
The only thing I take from this is that if you’re sleeping with a 16 yo girl, do it in a state where it’s legal.
Aside from that, your prosecution and conviction is bullshit, a state action that serves no one’s interests. Waste of time, waste of (my) tax money, and a waste of law enforcement resources. No where in western Europe is what you did a crime. Which is as it should be.
16 will get you 20 in this state.
I think it’s interesting that as American society has become more loose about sexual morality in general, it has at the same time become more strict about sex between minors and adults.
a) I would not carve out an exception to the law that would have gotten you off the hook.
b) I don’t see you as much of a victimizer here. If you’re looking for some sympathetic acceptance, I’ll offer that. You’re guilty of bad judgment, you aren’t a pervert or sexual predator. I suppose I could call you a slut but not a creep.
c) I’m all for rethinking the entirety of our approach to criminal justice and punishment but the version we’ve got is designed around “one size fits all”. The law as written makes sense, given that it is a compromise attempting to draw lines in the sand to protect people who need protection.
Minors are by nature, impressionable and prone to being taken advantage by adults. Hence that’s why they are minors under the law.
VUGLocal831’s assertion that the laws should be possibly different for his situation because he doesn’t believe he has any type of psychopathy, is well…kind of bogus in my opinion.
His own admitted idiocy means that it is his idiocy. You don’t see a lot of other 29 year olds having sex with 16 year olds. Why, cause it’s not right to do that to a child.
Are there any Western countries apart from the US where the age of consent isn’t 16 or lower?
It’s 17 in Ireland, Cyprus, South Australia and Tasmania. It’s 18 in Malta and Turkey.