Human societies rely on a variety of methods to govern behavior ranging from the informal: customs, folkways, mores, taboos, to the very formal codified laws enforced by the state. To suggest that we are taught from a young age to keep our hands to ourselves and that this issue is a simple black and white situation, overlooks the fact our society has numerous complex and nuanced rules concerning personal contact, whether that includes maintaining personal space, handshakes, dancing, smacking fellow athletes on the butt or moving in for a first kiss. Our society makes distinctions between different types of touching and sexual touching has its own distinct set of rules.
Show of hands, how many here have verbally asked for and received permission to touch specified anatomical areas while on a date? (e.g. Darling, after I kiss you may I squeeze both of your buttocks?) Probably not that many. I don’t think I ever have. This because we have informal and unwritten rules governing how this is supposed to take place that do not rely on verbal responses. If the phrase ‘mating ritual’ is offensive and too evocative of primates, perhaps we can call it a ‘dating ritual’ instead if that’s more acceptable, but this touch process usually works incrementally - hey, they didn’t stop me when I kissed lemme try this next…until a ‘no’ signal is given, which could be either verbal or non-verbal. The advances have customarily been initiated by male, although that may be changing.
But make no mistake the adolescent horndog in question violated The Rules when he attempted to treat the hallway situation as if they were on a date, and his behavior should be corrected. The question is, what is the best and most appropriate mechanism for that to happen? I am far from convinced that invoking the power of the state/law is called for in this instance, but am willing to change this view if a compelling argument can be made for it.
Legal consequences if he doesn’t apologize is not that far away from him serving time.
It isn’t as big a deal as you seem to believe, in my opinion. Pinching a girl’s butt is bad, no doubt about that. Putting it in the same legal category as “sexual assault” is an over-reaction.
Isn’t there any middle ground between doing nothing, which nobody suggests, and threatening him with legal charges? Don’t we have any sense of proportion at all?
Many schools have School Resource Officers, usually a cop in uniform. I’m sure a talking-to from an intimidating man or woman in uniform with a gun on the hip will be most impressive.
Bonus points if the boy’s parents are also present.
You want to see change? Or do you want to see the status quo?
Because I promise you, every young girl in this school is VERY much watching to see. Watching to see if you will stand with her or prioritize his needs, delivering a slap on the wrist. The slap on the wrist has a long and glorious history of ineffectively making change and strongly communicating to young women a very damaging message. And to young men, a loud message that this is no big thing.
Tell us all the nature of your ‘slap on the wrist’, that’s really going to drive a change. Because I’m not seeing one, to be honest. This is how it has traditionally always come out, and you cannot keep doing the same thing and expect change.
The problem though is that the legal system likely doesn’t see it that way nor would deal with it that strongly, so an unsupported message like that isn’t appropriate.
I find several things wrong with this approach, starting with (as said above) it would be inappropriate to threaten someone with charges if the legal system doesn’t support it. It’s even worse to coerce subsequent behavior under threat of said punishment. Legal consequences are better used to first dissuade people from breaking laws, and secondly to punish people who insist on doing so anyway. But in either case they apply to the incident it’s self, and shouldn’t be used to force subsequent actions on a person after the fact. A coerced apology, especially under threat of punishment, would not be authentic coming from the perpetrator nor would be taken as genuine by the victim, which defeats the whole purpose IMO.
In addition, I don’t think the idea of making this a public issue is in the best interests of either person. Public humiliation for a (mostly) private and inappropriate action that just a few people likely saw sounds more like scape-goating or revenge rather then advocating for change. It is also likely to cause the girl more harm than good too, being showcased and talked about in front of the whole school after having had an experience that may well have already been embarrassing enough. One of my former high school teachers was charged with sexual assault of a minor student. Her name was not released by the courts and nobody in the public ever found out who she was; never the less everyone at her own school figured it out and she had to change schools in order to finish her education due to the social awareness pressures… and she was the victim.
Okay, legally I believe it is sexual assault. I also don’t believe anyone would actually charge or convict under these circumstances.
I will use an anecdote from my own life. A young man back in Edmonton, sent my daughter a series of really, really ugly text messages. I mean vile, hate-speech type messages. Did I want him charged? No. What did happen was the RCMP Liaison officer from the school had a meeting with the school, his parents and the young man and they had a come to Jesus moment.
A similar approach to this would suffice. He is young, and still teachable, use this moment to teach him, but drive that lesson home.
A lot of change has already occurred and continues. 30 years ago when I was in school I heard stories of the occasional male teacher pinching girls butts and snapping their bra straps; that was only considered “risky” at the time. Today such actions would result in termination, loss of a teaching license, and likely criminal charges. The former teacher from my high school story above permanently lost his teaching license (the newspapers said he’d never be allowed to teach again) and was put on the sex offenders list.
That change doesn’t come as fast as we’d like it doesn’t mean we need to be so ruthless dealing with young people who make bad decisions. The courts seem to agree with that…
My concern with the suggestions of engaging the law enforcement industry is that they do what they do. That machine can move in unexpected, and not always desirable ways. I am not faulting them, I’m saying, in these type of cases, it runs the risk of using a bazooka to deal with a mosquito.
So, keep that in mind, everyone saying “Charge him!”
If you believe this, why do you keep talking about “dating rituals?” Grabbing a girl’s ass as he did has nothing to do with any dating ritual. But you’ve brought it up twice, so obviously you think there is some justification or excuse for it.
This idea that nothing short of arrest will change anything is just wrong. How do you think this plays out realistically? There’s 0% chance of a conviction for a butt pinch by a minor. And when that happens, is the message now that boys get away free when a girl complains?
Report it to the principal or school district. Put it in the kid’s record so he can be watched for a pattern of behavior. Maybe he gets a stern lecture, maybe he gets suspended for a few days - we don’t know the details enough to say what’s justified. There doesn’t have to be criminal charges filed for others to see that there are consequences for what he did.
Pinching isn’t flirting, or expressing interest. Pinching hurts. Squeezing someone’s butt while kissing is a mutually pleasurable act. Pinching someone’s butt is hurting them because it makes your dick twitch in a fun way.
How would the school treat it if a boy walked up to another kid–boy or girl–and backhanded him across the face, breaking his nose? I’d treat it like that–like a significant physical assault.
Exactly right. Calling the cops and charging him with a crime is several steps above what is reasonable. People seem to think “dropping charges” is easy to do once the criminal justice ball is rolling, and everything has been reported in the newspaper. A complete over-reaction.
The guy got hit in return. Perhaps the school principal or counselor should talk with him and make him see that he shouldn’t be touching or pinching other people. Maybe her parents should call his parents. But leave the cops out of it.
So he should be charged with attempted murder? Because attempted murder is a significant physical assault, just like pinching someone’s butt is a significant physical and sexual assault. And we need to take these things seriously, or nothing will change.
No, because grabbing a girl’s ass should be as significant as hitting someone in the face. Why don’t we treat it at least as seriously as a sucker-punch?
Deliberately causing someone else physical pain is assault. Just because one action garners the assailant a sexual thrill doesn’t make it a lesser crime. If anything, it makes it worse.
…how was it, do you think, people like Harvey Weinstein got away with what he did for so long?
You can read this thread and you will know exactly how he got away with it. “Just a socially awkward horndog.” “Legal charges will be excessive.” “It will create hassle for her.” “Making this public won’t be in the best interest of both of them.”
Listen to the message you are sending. Don’t speak up. Boys will be boys. Don’t make this a problem. Don’t make things worse for him. Congratulations guys. This is why women don’t speak up.
What should happen here is that the options should be explained to the daughter. And then whatever the daughter chooses to do: she should be supported 100%. This isn’t about the boy. When the boy chose to touch someone else without their permission he “made his bed, now he has to lie in it.”
I mention it because it’s possible the dweeb in question may believe that going on a group date with her recently serves as a sufficient level of familiarity to establish him as belonging to the ‘dating’ category. I happen to think he would quite mistaken in that belief, but see this as being the only plausible explanation I can think of to explain his behavior as being somehow arguably ‘appropriate’ in his eyes.
I don’t think anyone is saying that. But there has to be some middle ground between the two extremes. I do not advocate boys will be boys but neither, in this instance, lock him up and throw away the key. As Poysn said, a Come to Jesus meeting can go a long way.
If he consistently shows a pattern of this, then yes, absolutely it becomes a matter for the criminal justice system. But for a first offense? No. It needs to be reported to some authority, so they can tell if that pattern emerges, but the principal (or whoever’s in charge of discipline at the school) will work just fine for that purpose.
Manda JO, I think you must be using the word “pinching” to mean something different from what I think it means. I just pinched my own butt, and it didn’t hurt at all. The pain level wasn’t low; it was zero. Now, it’s possible to pinch someone so hard that it does cause pain or even injury, but we have no information at all to indicate that that’s the case here.
So a school kid pinching a girl’s ass is now equivalent to Harvey Weinstien sexually assaulting numerous women over many decades. A pinch in the hallway by a teenager is the same as a studio head using his considerable power and status to pressure and assault women?
I’ve seen girls playfully - and not so playfully - slap and punch boys with little or no provocation. I’ve never once heard anyone say the cops should be called and criminal charges filed. Unless there were serious injury, I would say it would be overreaction to call the cops and charge a girl with assault in these cases.
This isn’t about male or female, or “boys will be boys”, its about not escalating childish or teenage behavior into criminal charges. The point needs to be made clear to the boy that he isn’t allowed to do this… but without bringing the legal system into it, or making both of their lives hell by making it into a much larger issue than it is.