Why is it not up to people who think that it’s the same to prove that it is? Passing the buck to those you ideologically disagree with is pretty simple. I only knew one guy who had sex with his teacher personally, and he was a bit of a mess.
I fail to see why it is so emotionally traumatic for a boy to have sex with his teacher. Oftentimes boys dream about having such an opportunity.
Well, I suppose it’s because the idea of gender equality has gained currency over the past 30 years or so. Just as it’s assumed that girls are as intellectually capable as boys (and therefore should not be discriminated against or discouraged from pursuing careers in scientific fields), it’s starting to become accepted that in such emotional matters the genders should be treated equally. Likewise with race: I doubt a study has been done comparing the abilities of Hispanics and Asians in opening locks; however, when such evidence is not available, it seems reasonable to assume that their abilities in this regard do not differ.
I also want to emphasize that even if it was scientifically proven that boys, as a group, respond differently to sex at, say, 12 years of age than girls, as a group, that still does not mean that a specific legal case should be resolved differently.
(Consider the idea of a woman applying for a construction job. True, it’s a male-dominated industry, and physical differences between the sexes are probably the major reason why this is so. But, that does not mean that a specific woman should not be hired if she is just as qualified as the men she is competing against.)
Okay, but so what? Girls might also fantasize about such situations. Besides, just because you fantasize about something doesn’t mean you would react positively if it actually happened. Some things should remain in the imagination for a reason.
Well according to this study
This is just from a casual search, I don’t have the time, required website membership or the knowledge to critique the article.
However I think that if you look its not too hard to find multiple studies that “prove” that guys are less emotionally invested in sex than ladies. From this its not much of a leap to postulate that sex that would otherwise be considered “normal” and “healthy” were it not for the age of the protagonists is going to affect guys less than girls.
Just wanted to pop in and answer this.
I remember during uni days in the early 90s. I had a holiday job at a aluminium wearehouse. Picking orders to be sent out. Most of the stuff was things like pipe, tubing, square bars etc - anywhere from 2.4 up to 5 meteres long. The stuff wasn’'t heavy, but to carry it around required reasonable grip strenght as it had to be carried upright.
A female student applied for a temp job - the boss was happy to hire, but doubted ability to do the job. So he gave her a test - if she could carry the stuff she would have been hired. She couldn’t so she wasn’t.
How does it relate to the idea of underage sexual congress - couldn’t we base the sentencing on a pyschological report on the actual damage done? How did the victim feel about it all. If it rocked his / her world = light sentence. If caused some ongoing damage then heavier sentence. (of course, you would need to address the reliability of the report etc etc, but that’s a whole 'nother discussion)
Except all that article proves is that boys’ attitudes tend to differ from those of girls. There are innumerable social factors that may influence their responses, or their actual attitudes.
Anyway, I’m not arguing that men and women necessarily have the same views on sex as groups, or even that male and females under 18 do. But even if these things are true:
it does not mean that adolescent males and females engaging in intercourse with older persons are affected differently by such actions
even if adolescent males are less affected, on average, they may still be significantly affected, on average
even if adolescent males, on average, are not significantly affected by it, a specific underage male may be. Therefore, by the same rationale that we currently use to restrict the ability to consent of underage persons generally, a specific instance of an older female having sex with an underage male should not be differently at the outset than if it happened with an underage female. IOW, even if it’s accepted that the vast majority of boys can have sex with 30yo persons with no emotional damage, the fact that a specific boy may still experience such damage should preclude treating the case differently.
(I should also note that the same people that advocate differential treatment tend to consider both the sex of the underage person *and *the sex of the adult. So, if a 13yo male had sex with a 24yo female, that’s fine; but if he had sex with a 24yo male, the response tends to be far less enthusiastic. This suggests that social prejudices, rather than any kind of informed opinion, are guiding people’s positions. But YMMV on that point.)
Agreed; that might be the best approach from a moral standpoint. The problem is that the emotional damage, if any, might only show up years later. Plus, there is the logistical / financial limitations of administrating such tests.
In theory, some children may be better off if they weren’t forced to go to school. But we have no way of identifying them, so we just issue a blanket requirement.
Er if be “differently” you mean less negatively - then yes.
You asked for proponents of differential treatment to provide a cite that underage sex is less damaging for boys than girls.
I am not a proponent of such differences in treatment, but a 60 second google threw up the reference that is very highly indicative of exactly what you were asking for. And its not very nice to rephrase “less negatively” to “differently”. That’s a bit disingenuous to say the least.
And yes - I do agree that how a population views something does not equal how an individual views something. However, when making policy it forms a pretty good starting point.
Also on the idea of of straight vs gay. For me its not the staight vs gay that’s the issue, its more a case of “further from the maintstream”. (not sure of a better term).
I used to work for my Dad’s company, and the company had some 29 divisions around the country. I used to occasionally travel with him for business purposes, and we would get adjoining hotel rooms, and eat together, and be seen together. You have no idea of the wink wink nudge nudge we used to get as at the time I was in the 17-20 range, and he was very obviously in the 50 year range.:rolleyes: The jackassery of guys hitting on me by telling me I shouldnt be out with my boss, I should go back to their rooms with them, they would give me a better time …
I used to work with this one guy. Once in a while we would go to the local neighborhood bar and have a few beers.
When we did, we both cus’d like sailors. No big deal right?
Well, one time I went to his house and met his wife for the first time. We were sitting in the living room (there was a whole group of us) So I’m talking like I normally do.
At some point he wispers into his wifes ear. She leaves the room immediately and I didn’t see her for the rest of the night.
The next day I was talking to another friend of mine who was a part of the group that was there.
He explained to me that his wife had to leave the room because of my use of swear words!! “He doesn’t allow his wife to be exposed to such nonsense”
Seriously, if you don’t want me talking that way in front of your wife that’s fine. Just tell my FCOL!! Asking your wife to leave the room of her own f’n house is just rediculous!!
Reminds me of that movie “Sleeping With The Enemy”
I know I should have two most egregiously sexist acts, but one’s for girls and one is for guys.
Going into 7th grade in the late '70s, my guidance counselor advised me against taking algebra (even though I’d tested into it) because “it wouldn’t be wise socially for a girl to be too good at math.” Luckily, my mother would have none of that BS.
10 years later, my uncle raised a stink and removed a man as coach of his son’s baseball team. The reason? The man in question was a stay at home dad. Even though he’d played college ball and was a stellar coach in his previous town, a “househusband” as my uncle called him apparently wouldn’t make a good role model for young boys.
There’s a lot of evidence indicating not only that males tend to be more violence on average, statistically, but that they may have more of a biological propensity towards violence.
Raise your hand if you think a curfew law that applies only to males would be a reasonable response to urban violence.
A friend of mine was asked by a frat goon whether it was true she was a lesbian. When she agreed that she was, indeed, a lesbian (she says she’s proud to be a “technical virgin”), he said, “I think all it would take to fix you is a big, hard cock.”
She mused for a moment and replied, “Funny, I was just thinking the same thing about you.”
Oooh! Recently:
My local Morrissons (a supermarket chain that is big enough to bloody well know better) puts Private Eye, a well-known cleverdick political satire magazine, in its “Men and Motors” section.
I move it into Women’s Interest*.
*I concur that this is not ideal either, but in the absence of non gender-segregated sections it will just have to do until I dash off my “Disgusted of Preston” letter in green crayon and spit.
When my parents began their family of four kids, in the 1950’s, it was a very different time. My Dad was a factory manager and, though he valued education very highly, realized he could never afford to put all four of his kids through university. So he took out insurance policies that would mature when the child was 18yrs, and could be used toward an education, for instance. But only on his two sons. That’s right, he reasoned it would most likely be them who would seek out higher education. Of course, neither did, they simply cashed in the policies and bought their first cars. At the same time that his two daughters were struggling to finance their university educations! This is forgivable because it was the 1950’s and that’s what anyone would have thought then. But the irony was lost on everyone in the family, except me and my sister!
In the 1970’s when I was at university, I had a female foreign student friend who had a very disturbing dating episode. She’d been out on a date, a couple of times, with this fellow when she started to get a little creeped out by him. So she dropped him like a hot stone and refused contact or calls. The creep broke into her place and smashed some things and, using a knife, slashed her pillow and bedsheets, (no, she never slept or made out with him, all they’d every shared was a good night kiss!). She, rightly, called the police, who took a statement and name, found him and charged him. When it’s time to go to court, as a foreigner she’s nervous, as this boy came from a wealthy family, so we went with her for moral support. I have never been so embarrassed for my country!
Effectively his family had hired a fancy high priced male lawyer who stood before the court and said his client was hoping to be a lawyer and any conviction would stand in his way. First offense, ‘boys will be boys’. When he said that last bit, all the male white lawyers, including the judge, in the room, chuckled knowingly. He stood, looking terribly chagrin, while the judge chewed him out and walked out of the courtroom without a record or conviction, and a smirk on his face. I was appalled, and still am today!
Worst ever? I woman I was dating was going through a cancer scare and her only option was to get a hysterectomy. We had just come back from a vacation that she really didn’t enjoy because she was terrified of the surgery. She was also depressed because even though she never had kids and never had a desire to have any, that was no longer an option for her. She was something of an emotional wreck and was heavily relying on me for support.
I got in a cab and started talking to the cab driver. For some reason I ended up telling him about GF’s situation. His advice? “Leave her. She is no longer a real woman. A real woman will give you many children.” Assmunch.
Far further down on the list is someone who is a feminist bordering on the extreme. I made frineds with a few people last night, and this one woman, while very nice, peppered every statement with something about how all women (especially eastern Europeans and Poles) are so oppressed. Since her friend (also Polish) corroborated how bad things were over there, I take what she said at face value. That’s fine. Sexism exists. But this woman just could not get off of the subject. She could not carry on a polite discussion without without bringing up sexism.
For instance, we were talking about Scandanavia and what it must be like to live there. I mentioned the low levels of light in Finland during the winter, and someone else mentioned the high suicide rate there. Someone else mentioned that it was especially high among men. “That’s because women are too busy doing all the work”, this woman replied. Earlier in the night, one guy mentioned that a friend of his was really into eastern European women. The woman in question replied “That’s because he wants someone to do all of the cooking and cleaning and because he wants a slave.” She could JUST NOT LET IT GO.
To be fair, at least she didn’t blame men for all of the world’s ills.
A few years ago, but still in this decade, I was at a project meeting with my boss, a female team member, several people from other teams, and a certain company VP. As it happened, I’d been occupied with other projects or operational issues since the last meeting, and hadn’t accomplished a thing for this project. My coworker, on the other hand had been able to get well ahead of her schedule. My boss was there to deflect the VP, who was the type of guy who believes that there is nothing as important as his projects, from ranting at me.
The order we went around the table was such that my coworker was to give her update before I was to give mine. The VP starts grilling her, attempting to find something wrong with her every action, and lambasting her for running ahead of the group. This might have made sense, except the only person who’d be impacted by the work she’d done was me, and she’d asked me what I needed before she’d gone on. Once he was finished with her, my update was that I hadn’t done anything, which he should have at least given some negative reaction to, as my work was a blocker for several people in the room, but he just let it slide for the week.
My coworker would’ve probably let it slide, and I was too shocked with relief to realize what had happened. Our boss, though, disappeared after the meeting, and when next I saw him he had HR in tow, and pulled my coworker into a confrence room. Within a couple of weeks the VP’s position had been modified so that he no longer had any direct reports, or any direct project authority, he also sent a formal letter of apology to my coworker. So there’s at least a happy ending.
Interestingly, female members of the Donner Party survived at a much higher rate than male members. This is thought to have been - IIRC- because they were allotted equal rations, but required far less.
Every time I travel in Mexico, I see help wanted signs like this: “Want to Hire a Young Woman Between 18 and 24, and Must Have a Nice Aspect.” Well, that’s the English translation, obviously. This is illegal in Mexico, but like so many other things down there, enforcement isn’t the top priority.
Yes, of course. Unless you’re talking something like a department store.
In yours they don’t?
In the 1980s I was working for a Fortune 100. A VP in a meeting ON DIVERSITY said “I’d never promote a woman to manager, they just have babies and quit.” In front of his staff. Which contained four women with small children at home. In fact, in the years I worked for him, many women on staff had children - not one of them became a SAHM.
His boss refused to hire a male secretary - or a female one that wasn’t good looking - his stated reason “I want a secretary I can fuck.” He got fired for sexual harassment.