Er, what’s a May/December relationship, exactly? (just fighting my own ignorance… I don’t think I’ve ever heard that expression before).
I absolutely understand everything kung fu lola said in her last post, and I agree with her.
But (and there always is one, isn’t there), I really struggle with agreeing that laws that make consentual sex illegal. I know that the argument is that someone under 18 can’t give consent, but I honestly think that’s a load of hooey.
Also:
What about 19 and 17? I guess my point is that we’re talking about making sex illegal based on arbitrary lines of ‘maturity’.
Also, and not to harp on this too much, here again we have the older male preying upon a younger female to satisfy his desire to ‘use’ someone young and naive. I’m not saying that this doesn’t happen, and I don’t think that anyone here is saying that that is an okay thing. But, there are all sorts of relationships that can occur across that 18-year-old line, and I don’t think it’s fair to paint the most sinister as the standard for this argument.
Younger (May) older (December) relationships.
Ever see the movie Harold and Maude?
And if he isn’t, where do statutory rape laws fall on the matter? Answer: silent.
First, I agree with those who say the registry should be limited to nonconsensual offenses. That seems to be the clearest distinction here. Violence shouldn’t really be a contributing factor, I don’t think, because there are potentially non-violent offenses that should qualify, such as date rape. I do think that sex offender registry is a good idea, though it could be improved.
Someone mentioned recidivism rates for sex offenders, noting their relatively low comparison with crimes such as arson and burglary. I wanted to comment that the comparison is low, but the actual numbers are not. I saw quoted anywhere from 20-25% for reconviction of sex offenders. That is an awfully high number and shouldn’t be swept under the rug just because it looks better placed next to crimes that, btw, actually occur at a greater frequency.
I also wanted to ask about a related subject. A few people have said that people who have served their time should just be allowed to go on as well as possible, to be given a second chance. I want to know why? Why should we automatically forgive and forget when the prisoner is released? We didn’t give up our right to criticize when the perp did the crime, and we’re not bound by the length of the prison term. It seems to me that social criticism was once a pretty decent tool for keeping some public order, and I know it got a bad name because it was abused, used by some people to control and oppress others. But I think we have gone too far in this culture to the point that any social criticism is bad, simply for its potential to be abused, or even more so, misunderstood. When did criticism become unfair? I look at it this way: the victim will be living with the consequences the rest of his or her life; why should the perp be any different?
I don’t think an older guy really increases his status by dating a high school girl. You aren’t the only one who (correctly or not) thinks that a guy who dates a much younger girl is doing it because he can’t get girls his own age.
Companionship?
What is there that’s “wholesome and healthy” that a 20 year old would want from another 20 year old, but wouldn’t want from a 16 year old?
Because it’s the humane thing to do. We realize that people make mistakes and we hope that once they have been removed from society, and hopefully rehabilitated, they will change. We also realize that integrating them back into society is key to getting them to change - someone who can’t get a house because his neighbors don’t want to live next to one of Those People will end up homeless; someone who can’t get a job because no one wants to hire one of Those People will turn to either welfare or crime.
And because the point of sentencing them for a fixed amount of time is that they will be done with their sentence at the end of that time. If we don’t expect them to be done by then, we should sentence them for longer.
There’s a difference between criticizing someone and branding him with a scarlet letter.
You don’t think he’ll have to live with his painful and humiliating prison experience, or with the guilt of committing his crime, for the rest of his life?
Look, you guys are missing the point. Just go back to letting judges use thier discretion in sentencing, as they once did, isntead of having all these damn mandatory sentences for everything. The judge can give lesser sentences or even parole for the 19 year old sleeping with the 17 year old, and heavier sentences for the 30 year old doing the same. They can put some folks on the registry – repeat offenders, nonconsensual offenders, violent offenders – and leave Romeo and/or Juliet off it.
There’s no hard-and-fast rule you can set for things of this sort, so take advantage of human judgement here. Sure, some guys will get away with light sentences who probably shouldn’t, but for the most part, what you’ll get is sentencing that most reasonable people would call “fair” – much more so than with mandatory sentencing and mandatory offender lists.
You know, I find it tempting to think so, but then I immediately have to ask myself if I think crimes like rape or child molestation are “mistakes.” A person cannot be mistakenly raped or fondled. The nature of most sex crimes involve intent.
But do we keep hoping against hope? A 25% reconviction rate is very high and at a certain point, it seems like we need to weigh that against treating each and every individual offender with this kind of hope. At a certain point, hope makes us a fool, or worse, a victim.
I’m not so sure reintegration is helpful, or even necessary, in some cases. I would think enough psychological and criminal research has been conducted at this point to develop some criteria for identifying likely repeat offenders. If we can actually do this, then at a certain point we have to ask ourselves if we’re willing to let people out we know will reoffend in order to protect the idea of civil rights for all. What I’m getting at here is, that’s a hard call, when I really think about it. Idealogically, it’d be easy to take the default liberal position that civil rights are civil rights and tampering anywhere in the system will result in a system-wide reduction in said rights (which truthfully, I’ve been inclined to do most of my life), but then I have to think about all women, men, boys and girls getting raped or fondled right now (now that’s mind-boggling), or who will be raped or fondled tomorrow, and the next day, etc.
I know we can’t cover all this in this thread, and the problems are much bigger than just this area of the criminal justice system. I’m at a loss for solutions myself, but something doesn’t jibe for me with some of the idealogical arguments. I’m just voicing my own cognitive dissonence, I guess. This has barely scratched the surface of all that I consider when I think about the topic of sex crimes, but it’ll have to do for now. It’s late and I’m tired.
There’s an important difference between a mistake and an accident*. A mistake can be a lapse in judgment, or a moment where passion overcomes conscience. Someone who makes a mistake can be taught the error of his ways and will, hopefully, not make the same mistake again.
- This difference was not heeded in a TV commercial a few years ago, where a little girl was drawing in a coloring book on the carpet. She got ink on the carpet and said “Uh oh! I made a mistake!” If she intentionally spilled ink on the carpet, then realized she shouldn’t have, then it was a mistake; but if she didn’t mean to do it, it was an accident.
Sure. If we know someone will reoffend when he’s let out, we should keep him in prison - not let him out and then make him a pariah.
That’s an extremely arrogant statement.
When I was in my 20s, I generally dated men who were ten years older or more so I could be with men who had some depth and maturity. My peers were dolts who cared more about partying and getting laid for the most part.
I didn’t care about dating people my own age. Of course, I also have never felt a need to conform to external pressures that would tell me how to be either. Nor have I stood in judgement of others who were in a consentual relationship that may be considered outside the norm.
Perhaps you can muster the maturity to stop shaking your finger in disapproval and listen rather than judge.
[QUOTE=Mockingbird]
That’s an extremely arrogant statement.
When I was in my 20s, I generally dated men who were ten years older or more so I could be with men who had some depth and maturity. My peers were dolts who cared more about partying and getting laid for the most part.
[quote]
Heh, and why a man would date a woman 10+ years younger than he has nothing to do with partying and getting laid, I’m sure…
This is the same justification DAs used to keep sodomy laws on the books. If the guilty party is actually guilty, convict him of the crime he committed. Icky as it is for a 19-year-old to have a 15-year-old girlfriend, the law should not assume that he is raping her.
There’s a key difference, though: emotional damage and property damage are bad things in and of themselves. A 19 year old having sex with a 15 year old is only bad when it’s nonconsensual, and if the prosecutor can’t make the case that it was nonconsensual, then oh well - better to let a guilty man go free than to put an innocent man in jail.
Is it only bad when it’s not consensual? Some disagree. Is it rape? Some think so. Can it be consensual when one of the parties is emotionally immature? Some think not. This is a very grey area here. I know the question you are asking in this thread is if a Romeo-Juliet age difference is rape, and should be treated as such, and there are two arguments to this issue.
I know that when I was fifteen I thought I wanted to have sex, but looking back I don’t think it would have been a good thing AT ALL. Why? Because I was emotionally, financially, physically immature – and you can argue that all you want but it’s the truth. Are 19-year-old men taking advantage of that immaturity when they have sex with the girl? Maybe. Is it rape? I’m not sure. Should we discourage sex between 19- and 15-year-olds? For the above reasons of immaturity, yes. How do we do this? By deterrence, even though it doesn’t work very well. We fall back on deterrence because we don’t have an adequate alternative, and if you can think of one, please tell me.
Is that really the justification they used for keeping sodomy on the books? Maybe one of them, but not all. The real reason they kept it on the books is the ick factor, and religion, and a whole host of other reasons. I don’t think you can equate sodomy and statutory rape. They are two different issues. Sodomy hurts no one, statutory rape can hurt the immature person in ways that have nothing to do with the physical.
Then “some” can press rape charges and prove their case in court. If they have evidence that when a 15 year old girl says “yes”, she really means “gee, I have no idea, I’m only 15” then they should have no problem proving that whoever has sex with her is a rapist.
Then I guess it’s good that you didn’t. When I was fifteen, I wanted to have sex too… and looking back, I think it would’ve been a good thing. Is either of us wrong about our pasts? Or is it only some 15 year olds who shouldn’t be having sex?
Generally, they’re psychologically affected only when the sex is nonconsensual (i.e. when they’re an unwilling participant).
For me, the registrations are an attempt to pass the buck from the justice system on to the victim or potential victim.
“We knew he was dangerous and we told you he was dangerous. Your fault if you didn’t get the memo.”
All the women, men, boys, and girls getting raped right now aren’t being helped at all by registration. If the offender is dangerous, they are dangerous if they are registered. The only way they stop being a danger to the public at large is if they are imprisoned.
IMO, the laws that exist now are the lesser of two evils. Yes, 18 is an arbitrary age at which to set the age of consent, but we have to have some kind of factor to determine who can consent and who can’t.
Besides, what’s so earth-shattering about sex being illegal between a 19 and 17 year old? They can keep it in their pants for 365 days or less. No one is 17 forever, and sex is not the only satisfying part of a romantic relationship.
And in your role as The Ultimate Arbiter of Right and Wrong, you of course are correct and can put upon others your narrow view and claim it is right and should be so.
Why is it that throughout this thread you have spouted off stereotype after stereotype about relationships and sex and continue to do so, even in the face of information that goes to the contrary of your Footloose moralizing?
I don’t write letters about this to my member of parliament. I am not planning on becoming a policymaker in my life. Everything I’ve said is my opinion, and in the end it won’t change the world at all.
In my opinion, romantic relationships between teenagers and adults are inherently exploitative and harmful. I am happy with the law the way it is. If your opinion is different, I shrug and say whatever.
Ah, but you’ve heaped your judgments on almost all relationships where there is an age difference.
Of course you walk off and say ‘whatever.’ You feel that your sense of propriety outweighs anyone elses and is invalidated by your regal decree.
:rolleyes: