And, wouldn’t it be easier for an adult female to convince an adolescent male to have sex? I mean, boys who just hit puberty are probably pretty excited by all things sexual. So, wouldn’t it be easier to manipulate them?
pepperlandgirl,
As a former 13 year old boy I would have to say yes, but I don’t think any convincing needed to be done though.Not that it justifies having sex with him, I just doubt that most pubescent boys need to be manipulated into having sex.
When I was 13, I’d have tripped over my own feet running to even a 30 year old woman who offered me sex. I don’t figure that many 13 year old boys would refuse.
We all know that there is a draw for some men to young girls of 13 on up to 19. What is not all that well known is that there is a draw for women for young boys of a similar age. Currently there is a website for women who like to date younger men, albeit the guys are older than 19. I know a couple of ‘older’ women who liked to have sex with men around 10 years younger than them – like in their 20s, because the guys were more energetic, ‘prettier,’ and could go almost all night.
However, if the law of statutory rape is to be a blanket law, then the woman has to be charged. If they break it down to a criminal offense for men but not for women, then assorted groups will cry discrimination.
Remember Richard Pryor in his real life comedy, pointed out how he met a woman after doing his ‘little kid’ act, who, upon getting him alone, wanted him to talk like a little kid and the younger he talked the hotter she got? In his own words, “She gave birth to me at about 2 AM that morning.”
m3 wrote:
My thoughts exactly.
I think it’s healthy for adolescents to get some sexual experience early on, if they want it. When I was a teen-ager, I sure as heck wanted to, ahem, get my feet wet a lot earlier than I actually did. And the largest untapped repository of sexual experience for adolescents is that huge pool of adults that have the hots for teen-agers. Driving a wall of felony charges between them just makes both parties more sexually frustrated, and I’m of the strongly-held (but not statistically supported 
) belief that sexual frustration is responsible for most of the Bad Things[TM] in the world.
It’s unfortunate that pregnancy got involved in this Atlanta case, though. I don’t think the woman should be prosecuted (and I don’t think the older person should be prosecuted if the gender roles are reversed, either, unless the younger person did it under duress). But I don’t think the boy should be held responsible for the child or forced into marriage, either.
OK, I’m going to let my libertarian and my fundamentalist sides show.
My libertarian side says shes happy, hes happy, and both sets of parents are happy. Noone wants to press charges but the DA right? Sounds to me like some DA wants to get his name in the paper.
My fundamentalist side says their married right? Then everthings ok. This is how the world works. Boy meets girl, girl gets knocked up, they get married, boy gets job at carwash, they buy a trailor, live happilyever after. amen.
Hmm. My health teacher has repeatedly told me that rape is always the man’s fault. Always.
I not sure if I’m ready to rewrite the laws, but I think one reason for the apparent double standard might be that boys don’t get pregnant.
A thirteen year old girl is not a good candidate for pregnancy. It’s bad for her and the child. While a thirteen year old boy wouldn’t be much of a father to the kid, it would do him no harm to ahem donate the sperm. I think the baby would probably come out healthy too.
I think some of our attitudes also stem from our wanting to imagine our young ladies as virginal and chaste, but I think our attitudes about that can really be traced to practical reasons too. Men used to be concerned about the virginity and chasteness of their wives because there was no reliable way to determine who fathered a child. Women OTOH have no reason to doubt that it’s theirs. Of course, paternity tests are a reality today and so is effective birth control, so those ideas don’t seem to matter anymore, but I think that’s where our double standard came from.
Spoke - the only reason you don’t see anything wrong with this, is probably because when you were 13 you wish this had happened to you! :D:D
I can’t believe that there are people that think that just because the two people consent it is ok.
For those that don’t see anything wrong with this, at what age is to young? Eight, five???
m3: you are right, a 13 yr old boy can’t be pregnant–but he CAN make a woman pregnant and be legally responsible for that kid all his life. And he has not the maturity to understand the ramifications.
That is why it is Illegal: a 13 yr is is not (usu) mature enough to consider the ramifications.
If he was even 16, I would say “Go for it”, BUT HE’S JUST A KID.
Danielinthewolvesden,
To me the saddest part of this whole story is that he actually got her pregnant. The second worst part is that they decided disrupt their best efforts to have a family after the real damage was already done to the boy.
If she hadn’t gotten pregnant the kid would probably just have a fond memory of how he lost his virginity. Instead, he has a memory and constant reminder of why he’s working in a carwash instead of going to college.
I’m not advocating rewriting the laws just trying to explain the level of outrage (or lack thereof).
The age of consent is different from state to state (some rumoured to be as low as 14) and from culture to culture. I personally don’t think that there’s any magical age when you “understand the ramifications of parenthood”. The closest you can come maybe is when you see your peers having kids and how hard life is for them.
Yeah sure he’s a kid, I don’t think he should be slapped with a paternity suit if he decides fatherhood isn’t right for him. Something tells me he has real feelings for this woman though and her to him as well. The law is there to protect the innocent, but I think its too little too late at this point, and only doing more harm than good.
What 13 year old is emotionally mature or responsible enough to participate in sexual activity? It doesn’t matter if they are male or female and those adults who prey on children should be prosecuted.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by ren *
**
I gotta agree with ren here. If this kid isn’t mature enough to understand the consequences of sex, how the hell can he understand the consequences of marriage? Hell, most adults don’t understand the consequences until their first divorce, if then. I can’t believe this is legal.
I think the statutory rape law is just and the woman should be prosecuted. When I was 13, I wasn’t mature enough to handle a sexual relationship and could be easily manipulated by a 20 yr old woman. (both are still true today) This kid has NO IDEA what’s happened to him. The law that should be changed is the minimum age for marriage. I think it should be set at 30.
I got news for you, 13 year olds have sex, and they have been since the dawn of humanity. Heck when a human’s life expectancy was about 40 it was probably necessary. It doesn’t take an older person preying on them either. It’s a little bit meaningless to say they’re not mature enough to have sex because they’re doing it anyway.
We draw out childhood in our industrialized society so that our kids can get enough education to function as adults. In some cultures though when life was simpler, puberty was pretty much it.
In our society especially, there are many good reasons why people shouldn’t be engaging in sex at that age, but there’s no magical age limit that should handed down like we’re the voice of god or something.
Frankly, I know folks in their twenties that aren’t mature and responsible enough to participate in sexual activity. There would probably be a law against that too, but they happen to be old enough to vote.
With all of that said, I support the law, I think it’s well intentioned and prevents more harm than it causes. I just think it was enforced tragically in this case.
And this guy is still teaching?
How very sad.
sorry, I meant to say this “person”.
And for the record, I think she should be prosecuted. 13 is just too young to make these kinds of decisions. That’s why there are statutory rape laws. Gender is irrelevant.
Point for consideration:
Until about ten years ago, the age of consent in Georgia was 13. So if this had all happened ten years ago, it would have been perfectly legal.
m3 is right. This idea that thirteen-year-olds are too young to have sex is a fairly recent construct. When America was a more rural society, marriage at that age was not at all unheard-of. (And a 20-year-old would have been considered an “old maid.”)
I think some 13-year-olds, at least, are capable of understanding sex. In spite of the law, they are certainly old enough to “consent” to sex. What makes someone “mature” enough to engage in sex? Understanding of the consequences? Thirteen-year-olds know where babies come from, for crying out loud. Thirteen-year-olds are not as stupid and/or naive as some posters seem to think.
A bigger concern for me is the age difference. (And in fact, that’s the concern of the law as well. If the kids had been the same age, there would be no felony. It might have been a misdemeanor. I’m not sure.)
I agree that, at 20, this woman was probably too old to be messing around with a 13-year-old. I’m still having a hard time working up any serious outrage over it, though, and I certainly don’t see the point of throwing her into prison.
How would y’all feel if the boy had been 15, and the woman 19? That would have been equally criminal in the eyes of the law. Should it be?
The law is gender-neutral because it has to be to pass muster under the Constitution. That doesn’t change the fact that the law was really designed to protect young girls from older men. I still say a young girl has much more to lose in such a situation than a young boy. Yes, I am a big ol’ sexist.
For discussion:
Another consideration in the passage of this law was that in many cases, the underage girl was being actually raped, but it was difficult to prove, because the girl maybe didn’t “put up enough fight” or fully voice her lack of consent, or was afraid to testify. The statutory rape laws removed that barrier to prosecution. (A good idea, in my view.) That same consideration just isn’t present when the genders are reversed, in my view. How many young guys are being actually raped by older women? (And how does that work, anyway? Wouldn’t physical arousal be some evidence of consent?)
NO! Physical arousal is not evidence of consent. The only popular culture example I can think of is those VC Andrews books. The young girl victims often experience “arousal” but that makes it no less of a crime for your step-daddy to have sex with you.
I’d say throw her in jail. It’s very easy to lead a 13 year old male into the bedroom, in most cases. (I was terminally withdrawn and probably would have never noticed the first pass.)
As I recall of being 13, I knew how it was done. Was eager to find out more. Hadn’t the first clue about any emotional aspects. I didn’t understand that until much later. She should be in jail, regardless of how much he may have wanted it (if he really did), his life is changed, maybe not for the better.
There seems to be the presumption by many posters that the woman initiated the sexual conduct. How do we know that? How do we know the boy wasn’t hitting on her, and that she just finally relented? There’s no reason it couldn’t have happened that way. I remember being 13 very well. I was shy myself, but I had plenty of friends who were not at all shy about propositioning classmates and, yes, older women as well. I had one particular friend who looked older than he was, and who was quite persuasive. He talked his way into the bedroom with several older girls (though not with any 20-year-olds, to my knowledge).
Oh yeah:
Point taken on the physical arousal thing. I was off base on that one.