.
Following up on the Zach kiyrdabyrs
Anderson case — the 19 year old on the Sex Offender Registry for 25 years for having consensual sex with a girl who said she was 17 (but was really 14) — comes this grandma’s letter. The Sex Offender Registry is a Free-Range issue because it grows out of the belief our kids are in constant danger and it perpetuates that belief, by making many non-threatening people like Zach into scary dots on the “maps of local sex offenders.” These are the maps many parents consult when deciding if they can let their kids walk outside or wait at the bus stop, or really have any unsupervised time at all. It is hard to let your kids roam the neighborhood if you are convinced it is an off-site wing of Sing-Sing.
Dear Free-Range Kids: I hope this young man gets a reprieve from this unjust law. Unfortunately, there are hundreds if not thousands in his and his families situation. I live in California, and while there are laws that restrict those whose age difference is only three years apart, the age of consent is 18, So if the girl is 17 (but looks 25, and has a fake ID) , and the male is 20/21, he is considered a sex offender. It doesn’t even have to involve sex, a touch (hug/kiss) is considered lewd conduct. Yes, our friends son spent time in prison for this! His life is over.
Our registry is life time. Forever. Most go to prison, not jail. We have over 100,000 on our registry. So, there is no way to know who is possibly a danger, because it is saturated, and some pictures may look like it was a dirty old man, but the offense may have been committed 30 or 40 years ago when the now old-looking man was 19 or 20.
And our tax dollars are being used to support these laws. No one can even tell us how much this is costing the tax payer, while our education system, infrastructure, water systems, etc. decay.
They can’t find housing (no one will rent to them), they can’t get jobs (no one will hire them), they are shunned by society. And yet it’s become the best way for politicians to get votes, by using them as pawns.
The general public has no idea what is happening, nor do they care if it happens to be someone who committed a sexual offense, but they ought to be concerned because someday it might be their son and their family torn apart over what a few decades ago was considered normal behavior.
I was just 16 when I met my husband of 21. Today, he would be considered a sex offender. I wonder what would have become of us if we had these laws back then. We have been successful, happily married for well over 40 years with children and grand-children. My grandfather is in a Hall of Fame, yet he married my grandmother while she was just 15, he being 20! People say, “Well that was different back then”. Really? I don’t believe that human behavior changes just because we are in a different century.
Yes, we need to protect the innocent, but let’s do that by ensuring only those that truly are a risk to our safety are prosecuted. This has become the biggest cash cow of our century. – Jill
.
If only you’d been thrown in jail for courting me, and then placed on the Sex Offender List so you couldn’t live near me or get a job.
.
But but but… that was like 70 years ago! Before the rise of the Snowflake Children and the teen culture that made a biological difference between those over and under 18!
Sarcasm off save for the remark about the snowflakes. As recently as the 60s no one would have cared.
Something reading that letter brings to mind: the cost to society of rendering that many people essentially unable to support themselves and be productive citizens must be huge. I mean the cost in dollars – not to dismiss the other human costs, but that alone should be a strong public policy argument against these laws.
if anyone should be punish it should be the girl who lied. she had to know that she wasn’t old enough to have sex legally but because she wanted sex she lied and messed up this guy who ask for someone old enough to do it with.
On my dad’s side, Grandma was 15 and Grandpa was 20 when they got married. My uncle, the oldest of nine kids was born just after her 16th birthday. Now times have changed since then. And I would not want to see this happening again, but for reasons other than sex.
These days women are no longer just wives and mothers.
These days there are more opportunities for life, education, career, travel and so on and so on. Back when my uncle was born, live for most people was eat, sleep, work, reproduce and do it all over again. Life is so much more now.
All that being said, and all those changes in our lives are great. But and it is a big but…………biology has not changed. If it had our kids would not go through puberty until they were 25.
@Emily Morris
“But but but… that was like 70 years ago!”
We Are So Much Smarter Today ™
“I don’t believe that human behavior changes just because we are in a different century.” I love this quote.
This seems to point more and more, to how technology and media (social and conventional) has made people more and more “stupid”.
I also dated a *sex offender* in high school. I was 15 when we met and started dating (he was a senior turning 18). He went away to college the following year, and once I got my driver’s license, I drove to visit him. It was 5 hours away! I didn’t even have a cell phone, how DID i survive? My parents loved him as much as I did. We broke up in college and he is now a prominent doctor and has a lovely family of his own. I can’t imagine his life path if he was place on the registry just for dating.
When I was 17 I briefly dated a 30-year-old. We again dated for a time about 6 years later. Great guy.
Warren’s right that women have so many opportunities these days beyond being wives and mothers (not that those aren’t noble positions) and I doubt I would recommend most girls get married and start procreating while in their teens. And, yes, I’m really quite conservative when it comes to teen sex.
But just because I wouldn’t recommend it doesn’t mean these teen attractions should be automatically criminal in every single case.
@BL
You just made me laugh right out loud with that trademark bit.
My family would be teeming with sex offenders! My grandmother at 16 married a young preacher who was 28–12 years difference. They were married until he died at 86, and my mother was one of five children. When I was a high school freshman, for a while I dated a college senior–no sex, but dating alone would make him sex offender material today. I married when I was 16 and my husband was 23.
And I still attended college, graduating magna cum laude, and had a rewarding professional career; we also raised three children and have a large family today. How many lives would have been ruined or never existed at all had today’s sex offender industry existed then.
What is the real issue here?
We want to be able to prosecute real rape, so we broadly define it to include tween/teen sex. Then, because of the definition, we go ahead and prosecute consensual sex, even if neither party (or only a parent) wants to prosecute.
Do we have a burden to save all tween/teens from their hormonal selves? Does it improve their health, welfare and access to education? Is the attempt to protect the younger party worth totally destroying the life of the older party?
Should there be an investigation and male imprisonment paired with every birth by a 13 to 16 year old girl, so the baby of an unprepared mother has the added challenge of a legally tainted father?
Is it ever ok for willing teens and young adults to have sex? If so, what legal parameters would you like to see in place that both protect the innocent but deal realistically with our biology and culture?
I’m glad that it allegedly worked out well for her, but the letter writer’s husband and grandfather are legitimate sex offenders in my eyes.
There is a huge difference in emotional and neurological maturity between 15/16 and 20/21. Any 20/21 year old who is interested in a 15/16 year old has some problems and needs help, not approval.
This is just sick.
A lot of girls would be on that list, too. I can name many 18 year old girls dating 14 or 15 year old guys.
Random thought: a lot of this is from the judge. How would have have reacted if it was a 19 year old girl and 14 year old boy?
And then I read the comments… oof.
Look, I’m sorry that so many of you have pedophiles in your family tree, but trying to justify and legitimize it now isn’t going to help anyone.
These predators are counting on you to make excuses for them like this. What they need is counseling to redirect their desires to age-appropriate persons and to deal with their underlying issues.
My twice-jailed (and rightly so) friend Ben wasn’t having sex with 15/16 year olds when he was 19-25 because he was in love and/or making mature decisions; he was targeting them because they were easier to impress than his peers, because emotionally he didn’t want to leave the glory days of high school.
My currently-jailed cousin-in-law Chuck didn’t marry a 17 year old when he was 20 because he was in love and/or making mature decisions; he targeted her because he knew that he could manipulate her. Thankfully the authorities stepped in and busted him for trafficking child pornography before he could make good on his online boasts that he was planning to groom their daughter for incest.
@Dan,
So pedophilia was the norm for most of human history?
@Dan Guy: (Again) My cousin was 14 when she started dating a 19-year-old in the early 90s (he came to her school to watch some sport event of his younger sister, my cousin was on one of the other teams). They married ~12 years ago and now they have two little girls and are still happy together.
Not everyone is like your friend or cousin.
“but trying to justify and legitimize it now isn’t going to help anyone.”
But criminalizing it IS????!!!
Dan Guy: “There is a huge difference in emotional and neurological maturity between 15/16 and 20/21. Any 20/21 year old who is interested in a 15/16 year old has some problems and needs help, not approval.”
You do realize you’re dismissing most people in the history of the world as perverts, right? Basically, in all pre-modern societies, and even in many less industrialized societies today, those have been and are totally normal ages for marriage, right? In fact, the main exceptions have been places and times with an even bigger age difference: the brides were that young and the grooms in their thirties or older. Not because they were perverts, but because the man needed to to developed some financial stability.
Also, I know it’s a stereotype, but I’ve taught both high school and college, and on average, the stereotype is true: the girls tend to be on average several years more mature than boys their age.
I live in a country were 15 is the age of consent and a 15 year old can consent to sex with a person who is 15 years old or older with no further limits. There is also an exemption for those close in age so for example a 14 year old and 16 year old can be a couple without much fear on the part of the 16 year old. I see couples all the time where one is in their teens and the other in their early twenties and this is not a big deal here at all and if a parent does not like it, it is up to them to try to convince their teen to not do this, not something the police has anything to do with. I do not say that there are not 20 year olds who would not use a 15 year old, what I am saying is that this is not always the case,.
My view is that many of the 20 year olds who do date younger people are immature and really are mentally at the same level as their younger partner so they usually make a pretty good match. Often it is a mature girl and an immature guy so they are usually equals and the girl is sometimes even more mature.
Arranged marriages and a lack of rights for women were the norm for most of Western history as well; that doesn’t make them laudable.
The expectation that old men would marry young girls absolutely gave cover to pedophiles throughout history, while most men were just conforming to the societal expectation. Even when men married girls with the best of intentions back then, though, we have to recognize the unequal power dynamic at play and that even the most loving of these marriages involved implicit coercion.
We know better now.
Dan’s assumption also ignores the very recent cultural development of a teen mentality, which really did not exist until the past century.
“The expectation that old men would marry young girls absolutely gave cover to pedophiles throughout history.”
Do you have any evidence for this? And if you mean a 20 or 21 year old man and a 15 or 16 year old girl, as your earlier remarks suggest, that simply isn’t pedophilia in any sense. Look it up!
Also, if the version of history you’ve been taught tells you that everybody until the day before yesterday was wicked and stupid and did things for no good reason it’s probably not a great version of history.
Essentially, people have historically married at those ages because if as a society you (a) don’t have birth control, (b) don’t want children born who will be unprovided for, and (c) don’t think it’s realistic to expect total abstinence from all the youth for years after puberty, you pretty much need to marry people off shortly after puberty. Why were the men a bit older than the women? Well, have you spent much time around a 16-year-old boy lately?
Dan Guy,
I hate to tell you but there has been no example of a pedophile in any of these stories. You should really educate yourself better.
Then again, you friend, your cousin…………hmmmm makes one wonder. People tend to hang around those with like interests.
Dan Guy,
For your information. One of the major reasons for young women marrying older men had absolutely nothing to do with sex. It had everything to do with the man being established, and her entering into his life. There was nothing like we do now where young people start out together.
I think this sentence from the original post says it best:
“Yes, we need to protect the innocent, but let’s do that by ensuring only those that truly are a risk to our safety are prosecuted.”
We need to stop lumping 17-year-olds who have consensual sex with 15-year-olds in with 40-year-olds who kidnap and rape 10-year-olds. It’s NOT the same thing! And filling the registry with the former only serves to hide the latter, the only ones likely to cause any danger to other victims in the future. (And the same goes for someone who urinates behind a tree in an emergency. That doesn’t make him a future danger to little girls.)
I also think this (from Anna) is a very good point:
“Something reading that letter brings to mind: the cost to society of rendering that many people essentially unable to support themselves and be productive citizens must be huge. I mean the cost in dollars – not to dismiss the other human costs, but that alone should be a strong public policy argument against these laws.”
The penalties of being on the registry are so harsh that we are almost guaranteeing that the “criminal” has no chance of “reform”.
And as stupid as I think hook-up apps are, the boy who was charged is, in my mind, also a victim of the girl who duped him about her age. As the mother of a 14-year-old boy, the power that young girls have to ruin any male’s life with an accusation scares the crap out of me. It’s like the Salem Witch Trials all over again.
Let’s see… depending on which state I was living in at the time, by today’s laws, I think I could have been a catalyst for 10 or more sexual misconduct cases. I didn’t have intercourse with every one of those guys, but there was fondling for sure!
I was an exceptionally mature young woman… great vocabulary, quite the intellect, and heck, once you are post-pubescent, you’re post-pubescent. It’s hard to tell sometimes whether a girl is 14 or 28, depending on the context. Human females are designed to be “good to go” around age 14, typically. So are males, but they don’t always look the part.
Like I said in the last post, I never lied about my age, but when I was 16, men in their 20 certainly found me attractive, not just sexually, but for companionship. I was often the more mature participant, taking care of birth control and disease protection. I think the biggest age spread I had at uni was when I was 16 and my mom set me up with a delivery guy she’d started up a conversation with. He was 27 I think. We both liked old cars. It did end up being quite weird, but he wasn’t a bad guy.
When I was 20, I was seriously involved with a man who was 34, and desperate to marry me. I refused. I did end up marrying at age 24, to a man 10 years my senior. We’re divorced now, and he’s married to a woman 20 years younger than he is (36 and 56, respectively). I’m married to a man who is a year younger than I.
Seriously. Once you are fully developed and have all your secondary sex characteristics, we’re not talking about pedophilia anymore. And I pity the fool who thinks every young woman under, say, the age of 18 or 21 is “weak” and “manipulable” and “vulnerable” to “predators.” It simply isn’t the case. I’m living proof…
According to the law, it is the person’s responsibility to be aware of the other person’s age prior to sexual play. That is the argument the prosecution would use against Zach. They’d say he should have checked her Drivers License or some other form of ID.
But at the same time, can we not use a little common sense here? I know a guy named Evan who is now a married 24-year-old man. Very, very nice person, thank God. Because when Evan was in the 6th grade, he was already shaving and had big sideburns and had a deep voice. When Evan turned 14 and was in the 9th grade, he could grow a beard and had hair all over his chest. Evan was a big, strong kid who played football and wrestled. He looked like he was 22 but was only in the 9th grade!
Well, if Evan was not the nice boy that he was, he could have easily hitchhiked to the nearest college town, popped into a frat party and struck up a conversation with a very attractive 19-year-old female college sophomore and told her that he was gonna be a junior majoring in business and that he lived in such and such a hall on the other side of the campus, etc., etc. Basically a bunch of lies. Then before you know it, he could have been invited back to the girl’s dorm room for a little evening delight. BUT, Evan is only 14!!
So would it have been unreasonable for this 19-year-old college sophomore to assume that Evan was of legal age and that he really was a student at this university? Would she have been foolish for not asking to see some form of ID that would verify Evan’s true age? And even if she did, what if he had a fake ID? Would it have been her fault for not recognizing the ID as being fake?
Unfortunately, in probably 99 our of 100 cases, a Judge would still declare this girl (woman) guilty. Because the general public reading about this case in the newspaper or internet would NEVER see a picture of Evan because he’s a minor. The fact of him looking way old beyond his years would not resonate with the public. So if the Judge acquitted this girl because of that particular circumstance, everybody would be asking for the Judges head and he might even be removed from the bench! In the meantime, CPS would throw Evan into counseling because he was sexually “abused” by this adult! Forget the fact that he was twice as big and three times stronger than the 19-year-old female. This is how crazy American society is when it comes to kids and sex. No perspective and no common sense.
Fortunately, Evan had very good parents who brought him up right! They did not tolerate him taking sexual advantage of any female and particularly an adult female. Because they knew the advantage he had and would emphasize to him the consequences the woman would face. But apparently, not every physically mature kid has parents like Evan’s.
Once someone has their secondary sex characteristics, any attraction to them is not pedophilia. Pedophilia is attraction to immature children
“17-year-olds who have consensual sex with 15-year-olds”
A 15 year old is incapable of granting consent.
I mean, teens should not be having sex at all. I am appalled that we have fallen so far as a society that we are not only condoning teen sex but making excuses for the rape of children who are incapable of consenting.
“I mean, teens should not be having sex at all.” I for one agree with you on that, and I imagine some others here do too. But that doesn’t mean we should criminalize it, and even less so that we should put such teens into a special class of criminals that will make them outcasts for life. Do you?
Dan Guy,
You do realize that thousands of teens are enlisted in all branches of the Armed Forces. That teens routinely die defending their country. That teens vote in elections. Teens hold down full time jobs. They go to college. They play professional sports. And so on. Yet they are incapable of consenting to a natural act?
So the 14 yr old girl in the other post, that lied about her age, went on an adult site to find an older guy for a hook up was incapable of consenting?
Dude get some help.
“A 15 year old is incapable of granting consent.” And this is a fact because. . . ? I have to assume that your position is based on an unarticulated assumption that the law creates morality. The law says she can’t consent, therefore she can’t.
It’s entirely possible that on the whole it’s good to have laws that posit that (i.e., statutory rape laws) but exactly how they should be framed and what the cut-off should be is clearly a prudential matter. Do you really want to argue that because in America in 2015 the law happens to say 18 is the age of consent, that therefore that’s the bright moral line of absolute morality, by which all humanity past and future should be judged? Who knows, perhaps the next generation will be shocked we thought 25-year-olds could consent, given that we now know they have a right to be on their parents’ health insurance because they’re still children.
As others have pointed out here in the past, it’s a bit odd that our legal system currently posits that a 15-year-old is morally capable of committing murder with full intent and should be prosecuted as an adult, but at the same time that it’s completely impossible for her to consent to sex with her 17-year-old boyfriend.
Dan Dude,
Just what are you basing your claim on, that a 15 year old is incapable of consenting? What magical power do you have to know this?
@Dan Guy – your comments would be amusing if you didn’t seem to be serious. Arranged marriages of post-pubescent girls to men over 20….established men….is STILL the norm in many non-Western countries. And anecdotally, from friends who are in them or have relatives who are, the majority seem to work out fine, better than many of our love marriages due to shared expectations. And good luck with informing my aunties who married men a fair bit older that their husbands were sex offenders.
The key is post-pubescent. My 15 year old would be a pedophile’s dream currently as she’s mentally and emotionally mature and about a month away from the age of consent here, but still has the body of a child. I would be angry and deeply suspicious of any person wanting to sleep with her, in spite of her close-to-legal status. The 14 year old on the other hand is fully physically mature and can dress up to look like she’s late teens/early twenties. Should she choose to lie about her age, go out partying and sleep around, it isn’t the boys or the men I’d be cross with. …
I heard of a story that tugs at the heart strings. A 6 year old boy was killed when he was dragged by the bus. He got caught in the door while exiting. The driver didn’t notice and drove to the next stop.
This is horrific! However it’s debatable what’s worse. Is it worse to have an intensely agonising pain that last for a short while or is it worse for that pain to be not as sever but lasting for decades?
I extracted this from an anti bully website.
Covert or hidden bullying
This sort of bullying is often harder to recognise and can be carried out behind the bullied person’s back. It is designed to harm someone’s social reputation and/or cause humiliation. Covert bullying includes:
lying and spreading rumours
negative facial or physical gestures, menacing or contemptuous looks
playing nasty jokes to embarrass and humiliate
mimicking unkindly
encouraging others to socially exclude someone
damaging someone’s social reputation or social acceptance.
Now the confusing part. Is this something that we should not do or is this a guideline of how we should punish sex offenders? After all. There is a problem of guys of any age running off to let the pregnant woman deal with the child. If we torture enough people, this won’t happen as often. Isn’t that a good thing?
I’m certain that there are thousands of ‘sex offenders’ that would absolutely LOVE to trade places with the 6 year old boy. (at the beginning of the story) Emotional pain that goes on for decades is torture and the end is a HUGE welcome.
I’m really glad that you’re standing up for people like Zack.
All the people noting the marriages in their family history are missing the point; marrying was how you got around these rules back in the olden times.
Too many people confuse interest in sexual activity with morals. The two are utterly unrelated. Someone can lie, cheat and steal and be celibate; a person can have sex with every willing partner in a four state area and be completely virtuous. People have had an unhealthy interest in the sex lives of other people for approximately all of history.
There have been people having premarital sex for, well, longer than there’s been marriage. But if you insist on pretending that everybody only has sex with one other person during their lifetime, well… you’re going to end up with some teenage marriages.
“17-year-olds who have consensual sex with 15-year-oldsâ€
A 15 year old is incapable of granting consent.”
Are you speaking as a matter of fact, or as a matter of law? If you’re claiming this is factual, you don’t know what you’re talking about. If you’re talking about law, it depends on where you are at the time.
Did Granny have sex BEFORE they were married?
I know, who cares about children, we need gay, trans, whatever “marriage” because adults are all important. But we need to be paranoid about kids.
As I keep mentioning (and being ignored), if the man sires a child, he will be responsible for child support for at least 18 years, and the child him/herself will likely outlive him.
Is “free range kids” supposed to be “kids abandoned by their fathers because we find it problematic”?
One of the reasons we have ceased to have “free range kids” is that the mother is biologically hardwired to be overprotective. Most fathers are absentee, but take the kids out and challenge them and let them explore, and take risks, and occasionally get hurt (and say whining about bruises or tiny cuts or insect bites is not proper).
I need to add, people aren’t thrown in jail for “courting” but having sex – possibly transmitting STDs or getting the woman pregnant.
Was “Granny” promiscuous? If he had sex, and she got pregnant before she was married and didn’t want to pretend it was premature, would she fly to a foreign country or a state that permitted abortion?
Any time I see a Government creating a permanent hate lists of citizens it tells me this has become a society in decay. It will soon devour itself as it runs out of scapegoats and eats its own. They said it would only be sex offenders but oh what a slippery slope it is. Next it was domestic violence lists and animal abuser lists, then drug dealers and every day they think up more. Soon everyone will be on a list created by a Government that is supposed to represent us. Get rid of the lists and return Liberty to our land.
I have a friend who is just a little nuts on this subject. I have known her for years but we didn’t start talking about certain subjects until 3 or 4 years ago… Anyway, as I said, she’s just a little nuts. Any kind of an accusation and she wants to throw the offender in jail for life at best or put to death at worst. Who needs evidence?? I’ve told her she’s just a bit overboard but she won’t listen.
Anyway, I met her parents maybe a year ago and she started telling me about them. About how they have been married for 50+ years. How happy they are, etc… Then she tells me how they met and how her father fell in love with her mother at first sight. He knew immediately that she was the girl for him. Quite literally ‘girl’ as he was 20 but she was only 11. They did at least wait until she was 16 before they married though.
I wanted to point out the contradiction, but I knew she would just dismiss it. People are scary sometimes.
tz, interesting points raised. I’d submit the idea in relation to what James Pollock was saying. Sure, Granny possibly was having sex before marriage as this is indeed as old as time. But culture plays a lot into this. Before the advent of the pill with its greater reliability of pregnancy protection, marriage was a way of protecting all parties in the case of pregnancy. Sometimes it was considered the honorable thing (and I’d generally agree with that, get a girl pregnant, own up to it and help all parties.) I heard of one culture where the two biological parents didn’t raise children, but the biological mother and one of her male relatives. An uncle was more beholden to his nieces or nephews than his own offspring. Family unit of the sort intact. Even if premarital sex wasn’t necessarily frowned upon, marriage offered stability. Indeed, in many cases it was a possible part (perhaps unofficial, but hey) part of courtship–you could have sex outside of marriage and reasonably expect the creation of a stable family unit. Sure, there are all sorts of stories where an out-of-wedlock pregnancy ended badly, but I think many cultures had their ways of taking care of everything, one way or another. Not knocking the pill, but I think in some ways it placed all familial responsibility on the female. If we’re going with the general notion mothers are more likely to be protective, this might decrease your number of free-ranged kids.
I’m sure this idea could be picked apart by those more knowledgable than me, I’m just throwing out my musings.
But back to what tz was saying and my thought process from there: if we can’t trust to some reasonable level that all possible results from sex could be handled by the parties, then yes, we will probably develop laws to protect parties and those laws could extend far beyond the mark of where they are helpful.
@James – really? Now you sound odd. Sexual conduct is very much a part of many moral codes, both cultural and religious. As for not having sex with more than one person, I married my husband and then slept with him, and so far haven’t slept with anyone else. At my age the options would be arguably limited, lol, but whether to have sex or not is a CHOICE.
I do get sick of our oversexed culture acting like sex is some kind of overarching drive that it is impossible for individuals to do without. What rubbish! It’s heaps of fun, but not the be all and end all of life.
“Sexual conduct is very much a part of many moral codes, both cultural and religious.”
But wrongly s9. Are you capable of dealing with someone you’re sleeping with in a moral fashion? Are you capable of dealing with someone you’re not sleeping with in a moral fashion? Did you answer the same to both questions?
“As for not having sex with more than one person, I married my husband and then slept with him, and so far haven’t slept with anyone else. At my age the options would be arguably limited, lol, but whether to have sex or not is a CHOICE.”
Sure it’s a choice. The reason cheating damages marriages isn’t the sex. It’s the lying.
“I do get sick of our oversexed culture acting like sex is some kind of overarching drive that it is impossible for individuals to do without. What rubbish! It’s heaps of fun, but not the be all and end all of life.”
Agreed. Some people have a high sex drive, and some people don’t. This has nothing to do with anything else.
@James – so thousands of years of human cultural and religious practices have been wrong, and James is suddenly right?
Hmmmm. Okaaaay.
Also, regarding the high sex drive, so what? People go through times of high and low sex drive. So those with a high sex drive at the moment are somehow exempt from, or unable to say no to, sexual encounters? Will tell my husband that the next time I feel like bonking the hot mechanic down the road.
We talk here all the time about not treating kids like babies. Now you want to infantilise the whole human race? And make us slaves of our biology?
Again, James, absolute garbage. You are free to bonk as many women as you like. Just admit that that’s a choice, and not something you’re forced to do. Also, don’t make the mistake of assuming that those who choose to wait for sex and then just have it with one person have a low sex drive. They don’t, they simply choose to exercise willpower – they make a choice to follow a particular code of conduct.
“so thousands of years of human cultural and religious practices have been wrong, and James is suddenly right? ”
It’s not sudden, and it’s not new. Although recent (historically-speaking) developments have increased the obvious-ness of it. (You think I’m talking about The Pill, but I’m actually referring to genetic testing that can accurately determine fatherhood.)
“Also, regarding the high sex drive, so what?”
Exactly the point. So what?
“So those with a high sex drive at the moment are somehow exempt from, or unable to say no to, sexual encounters?”
Huh?
“Will tell my husband that the next time I feel like bonking the hot mechanic down the road.”
Good. Honesty is part of good moral conduct.
“We talk here all the time about not treating kids like babies. Now you want to infantilise the whole human race? And make us slaves of our biology?”
Again, huh?
“You are free to bonk as many women as you like.”
Are you sure you understand how consent works?
“Just admit that that’s a choice, and not something you’re forced to do.”
Which part of “Sure it’s a choice.” do you find is NOT admitting it’s a choice? OF COURSE it’s a choice. But it’s a choice that reveals absolutely nothing about how moral a person is, or the nature of those morals. Compare two men. One has a wife, sleeps only with her, but treats her with no respect, the home is filled with violence, and causes her to live a life of fear, degradation, and anguish. The other sleeps with his wife and others, treats them all with kindness, respect, dignity, and honesty. (Feel free to alter the genders as you see fit). I see one as more moral than the other… do you?
“Also, don’t make the mistake of assuming that those who choose to wait for sex and then just have it with one person have a low sex drive.”
I don’t recall making this mistake (although the one does make the other one considerably easier.)
“They don’t, they simply choose to exercise willpower – they make a choice to follow a particular code of conduct.”
However, choosing to follow that particular code of conduct does not guarantee that one is of good moral character, nor does not choosing to follow that particular code of conduct indicate a lack of good moral character.
You, James, are making the mistake of assuming a moral code is whatever feels right to you. Neither of the examples you mentioned are moral men by any code of morals I know.
And as for your huh comments, try rereading. You might get it if you try hard enough. Although I did mean to imply that people with high sex drives are not exempt from the need to say no to that drive at inappropriate times.
hineata,
You have been exposed to James’ character and personality on a regular basis now for awhile. Do you honestly believe he is free to bonk as many women as he likes?
Actually, you might try reading. …forget about rereading. ..before you cut and paste what others have written.
I am a little concerned about your seeming lack of ability to comprehend simple statements people make. Or rather I would be if I were a client of your’s. Even Warren, who is in a trade occupation, seems to have a better reading comprehension rate. You are supposedly a lawyer, but you seem to need things spelt out in very small bites.
Bonking someone implies you have their consent. Rape would be another matter. Do I seriously need to spell that out?
@Warren – lol! And no I am not meaning to imply that tradies can’t read, simply that white collar occupations usually rely more on the written word, and one would hope that anyone involved in such an occupation had an excellent reading comprehension level.
In her book “Delinquent Daughters” Prof. Mary E. Odem describes how “age of consent” laws at the turn of the 20th century were used to control young women’s sexual choices. Such laws aren’t to protect girls, they are to protect the power of others to control women’s sexual choices.
“You, James, are making the mistake of assuming a moral code is whatever feels right to you.”
I’ve neither made this mistake, nor claimed anything remotely like this. And you accuse ME of not reading well…
” Neither of the examples you mentioned are moral men by any code of morals I know”
Another claim not made..
“And as for your huh comments, try rereading.”
Perhaps you should assume that “huh”” is shorthand for “why are you ascribing this attitude to me, when I have not made any such claim?” rather than “I don’t understand what you have written”, and work from there.
“Although I did mean to imply that people with high sex drives are not exempt from the need to say no to that drive at inappropriate times.”
And you were expecting resistance to this? I’m not sure at all where your “people with high sex drive are unable to say no to sex” notion is coming from… It’s certainly not from anything I’ve written.
“I am a little concerned about your seeming lack of ability to comprehend simple statements people make. Or rather I would be if I were a client of your’s.”
“You are supposedly a lawyer”
Again, it is YOUR reading comprehension that is in question. I am an IT administrator. I am not a lawyer. I do not claim to be a lawyer. I have never claimed to be a lawyer. I have specifically pointed out, on several occasions, that I am not a lawyer. And you find that *I* have a lack of ability to comprehend simple statements people make…’K
hineata,
Not a problem. It is all about exposure. Hell I enter into service contracts with customers and in all honesty do not fully understand some of the legal jibber jabber. That is what we pay our accountant and our attorney for. Just as I would not expect a lot of people, even those with higher education to understand some of our technical jibber jabber.
I have know highly educated idiots, and barely educated genius’. And vice versa.
As my Grandpa use to say,”Schooling doesn’t make the man, neither does his job. The man makes the man.” When I asked him what he meant, he told me “Everyone has the same opportunities. One can be a great person or an asshole.”
People even find it hard to accept that ‘things were different back then’. I was trying to have an online discussion about the topic and had people telling me my grandfather was a pedophile because he married my grandmother when she was 16.
And please do tell me why, in America, the worst thing that can happen to anyone is sex?
Have been sitting here waiting for a shipment that is now very, very late. My youngest is crashed on the shop sofa with the twins (grand beagle/aussie crosses). She brought me a coffee and insisted on staying to help unload. TV is on as background noise, Sean Connery in The Untouchables.
Now with all the hang ups, worries, and preoccupation with sex in the states……..well the last time the US was this bothered by one single thing going on in society it led to prohibition. How are you going to prohibit sex, and are you going to have a bunch of federal agents crashing into people’s bedrooms with shotguns, in pin striped suits yelling “This is a raid!!!!!!” In a heavy scott accent?
hineata,
I remember Jimmy telling all that he is not a lawyer. He bragged about passing the Bar, but never worked as a lawyer. In my opinion the only bar he passed was a Hooters.
I met my husband in 1996 at 16 in Arkansas. He was 21. If I didn’t have a child already he would be in jail too! Luckily in Arkansas it has a clause if you already had a child nothing happens. We have been together for 15 years.
“Actually, you might try reading. …forget about rereading. ..before you cut and paste what others have written. ”
Let me help YOU out.
I DID say that the number of other people a person has had sex with has nothing whatsoever to do with a person’s moral content.
I DID say that the frequency a person wants to have sex has nothing whatsoever to do with a person’s moral content.
I DID NOT say “a person who wants to have sex a lot has no ability to say no”.
I DID say that having sex with a lot of people is a choice.
I DID say that this choice has nothing to do with whether or not that person is of good moral character. To summarize, a person can be of good moral character, and sleep with a lot of people. A person can be of good moral character, and sleep with very few, or no people. A person can be of poor moral character, and sleep with a lot of people. A person can be of poor moral character, and sleep with few, or no, other people. Because these two things are not related.
I DID NOT say that those who choose to wait for sex and then just have it with one person have a low sex drive.
I DID say that some people have a high sex drive, and some people don’t, AND THAT THIS IS UNRELATED TO ANYTHING ELSE. (Emphasis added)
I DID NOT say that my moral code is based on “whatever feels right” or “whatever feels good”.
I DID NOT make any statements about my moral code at all.
Hope this helps going forward.
@Warren – amen! To your grandfather’s ideas. And Hooters. …must be an interesting bar exam there..
My grandmother was 16 when she met my grandfather, who was 23. She was the manager of a candy store in Carthage, Missouri. He was a contractor from Kansas City hired to remodel the store. My grandmother was the third of her parents six kids. Her dad owned the Barber Shop and was organist and choirmaster at a local church. In those days, about a hundred years ago, children were raised differently, were treated as adults at an earlier age. They dated. They married. They moved to Kansas City and adopted a baby boy. they had three more biological children. No one got bent out of shape about the age difference. The marriage lasted almost 50 years, until my grandfather’s death.
A generation earlier, my great-grandmother was a young teen-ager singing in a church choir in Tullahoma Tennessee, when a new choir director was hired. He was in his twenties, from farther north, having lived in Ohio and Indiana. They dated they married, they had a bunch of kids, including my grandma, Alva Josie, before moving to Carthage.
Several generations later, a young military draftee from Tennessee was deployed in Germany where he met a fourteen year old young woman at a a party. The was quite taken with him, and they began to date, though he was already in his twenties. Her parents liked him and gave full consent , and even gave their daughter permission to move to Tennessee and live her boyfriend’s home until several years later they were married. Her father was an officer in the American Air Force serving in Germany. The man from Tennessee was Elvis Presley. The woman’s name was Priscilla..
Times have changed. And laws have changed. In the times long passed when the young people in my family met and pledged their love, young people were treated more credibly, and parents were the final authorities on when and whether their progeny were mature enough to move on to the next appropriate stage in development.
Now parents ae too busy to make those decisions. Is that it? They have two or three jobs and other commitments. So they have given the decision making to the LAWMAKERS and CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES so that they do have to think through they consequences of their decisions. They can resort to knee-jerk parenting. One-size fits all parenting. Keeping-up-appearances parenting. It-must-be-right-because-it-is the law-of-the-land parenting.
I agree with Jill. Not only that Zach, and others like him, should get a reprieve from idiotic penalties imposed on him for a minor offense, but in the larger sense, in the existential context of the shift in cultural mores. Jill’s children and grandchildren may never have seen the light of day if these silly laws were in effect when she was young. In my family, there are hundreds of us, a thousand maybe, from the Gulf Stream Waters to California, to the North Shore along the Great Lakes–we would not have been permitted to live because they would not have been permitted to love.
So what’s that got to do with you? You may be raising your children in the authoritative style to respect the rules and regulations of their churches and state governments. they just finished a week of Vacation Bible School, and they standards are your standards.
That’s what my great-grandparents thought and their parents thought. That is what Priscilla Presley’s parents probably thought. Right up to the minute that they were faced with the decision: do I cut the apron strings? Or do I risk having my daughter run away–with the likely outcome that I will never see her again.
When I was growing up, close to the Church, I knew a lot of people who disowned their daughters for marrying too young or outside the faith or outside the ethnic group. I knew others of my faith who gave their daughters permission to make their own way in the world. A second year high school student in the convent school I attended in Houston was sixteen when she married her twenty-something boyfriend with her parents blessing. The entire class was invited to the enormous ethic wedding and we all went. The nuns,too. I had never seen anything like it. All the family and friends in the colorful formal dresses and menswear of the country they left to come here. I was worried about my friend and asked one of the sisters if the woman, Elizabeth, was making a mistake? “Oh, no!” she answered. It is the way of her people. Elizabeth will be happy and blessed all her life.”
Why can’t we allow Zach and the young woman in Michigan to be happy. Why can’t “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” be their legacy?
When did we get so insanely judgmental?
@Catherine Scott, agreed, and I’d add please do tell me why people can’t understand what a pedophile actually IS?
“Jill’s children and grandchildren may never have seen the light of day if these silly laws were in effect when she was young.”
Statutory rape laws are not a new invention. Congress passed the Mann Act 100 years ago to stop people from taking advantage of different age of consent laws.
Zach Anderson will likely get his reprieve under intense public pressure, but what then? One teen may be rescued from the registry, but there are over 845,000 names on that registry, and only a few of these names are those who will reoffend.
The concern I always have with movements focused on one person is that the root of the problem is rarely addressed. That problem is the registry itself.
The registry MUST be repealed– not revised, reviewed, or merely reformed. The registry is a hydra– if you cut off one head, another head merely takes its place. After all, the registry, under the Jacob Wetterling Act, was a police access-only list of repeat or serious offenders and the registration period was only 10 years. It only took 2 years to change that law with Megan’s law. The registry was then made public. After a decade of increasing the scope of those added to the registry, the USA passed the “Adam Walsh Act” (AWA) in 2006, changing the scheme by which we separate the “high-risk” from the “low-risk.” The AWA increased the number of high-risk offenders overnight.
Michigan is an AWA tate. Zach was given a level 2 status by virtue of the fact his “victim” was a minor. Ironically, the AWA has a “Romeo and Juliet” provision but the age difference was too much. (It is worth noting the AWA’s R&J provision does NOT have to be implemented for a state to be considered “substantially compliant” with the federal law). Under the old law, Zach might not have received registry status but even if he did, it would have been as a Tier 1.
As long as the registry exists, we will see more Zach Andersons. Slay the hydra!
As someone who works with teens, I find it alarming that we focus so much on age when consent and intent are always the real issue.
Some of my 14-17 year old students have confided in me that they are dating much older adults, but seem very happy with the relationships and are treated respectfully by their partners.
Compare this with the almost weekly occurrence of a girl being taken advantage of by boys her own age while intoxicated at a party. This is the new norm for one’s high school sex life.
Just like “Never talk with strangers!” the concept of “Never fall in love with an adult!” uses a small minority of negative examples to establish and enforce paranoid, puritan morality on the entire population.
Pure love is rare enough as it is, why on Earth are we so obsessed with sticking our noses in other people’s relationships?
Paul Bearer: AMEN!
Lol fifteen year olds cant consent? I was having sexual thoughts about my boyfriend at that age. He didnt even know. Dan guy, go back to trolling tumblr or something.
“As someone who works with teens, I find it alarming that we focus so much on age when consent and intent are always the real issue.”
This makes sense to me. It seems to me, it might be reasonable to have statutory rape laws on the books (though probably with a minimum age difference of several years specified), but the purpose of having such laws is to be able to throw the book at the true creeps, like 40-year-olds who seduce their 13-year-old Sunday school students.
But given that such a law flies in the face of our biology (which has no problem with post-pubescent sex) and is premised on a legal fiction (nobody under 18 is capable of consent, period), it should be enforced with great restraint, only when doing so obviously serves justice, not every time you can find someone who can technically be prosecuted.
“Once someone has their secondary sex characteristics, any attraction to them is not pedophilia. Pedophilia is attraction to immature children”
It’s even stricter than that, because as soon as puberty starts any attraction is called hebephilia. Once a girl has all her secondary sex characteristics, it becomes ephebophilia, which is what we’re talking about on this thread.
@Hineata: “so far haven’t slept with anyone else. At my age the options would be arguably limited, lol”
Given the fact that these two are the same age, I’d say that depends on more factors than just that one….
http://tinyurl.com/opqerfe
http://tinyurl.com/pc25uw7
“But given that such a law flies in the face of our biology (which has no problem with post-pubescent sex) and is premised on a legal fiction (nobody under 18 is capable of consent, period), it should be enforced with great restraint, only when doing so obviously serves justice, not every time you can find someone who can technically be prosecuted.”
You want to write the law in such a way that every time it’s violated, it should be prosecuted if the evidence is available. You DO NOT want to write the law so that the prosecutors decide whether or not to pursue something based on something other than “is there sufficient evidence here to secure a conviction.”.
@Papilio – thanks so much, there’s hope for me yet! 🙂
@Hineata: You’re welcome, hahaha 😀
“You want to write the law in such a way that every time it’s violated, it should be prosecuted if the evidence is available.” I disagree that this is even possible. There are things we need to be able to prosecute, but also able not to prosecute. That’s why any justice system needs to involve not just laws and regulations but people with some discretionary power in charge of enforcing them. It’s also why there has always been such a thing as executive privilege and executive pardons: because any laws that are severe enough to protect society when need be, are also going to be too severe and cruel in certain cases.
““You want to write the law in such a way that every time it’s violated, it should be prosecuted if the evidence is available.†I disagree that this is even possible.”
I assure you, it’s entirely possible to want this.
“There are things we need to be able to prosecute, but also able not to prosecute.”
So, things like the murder law in the Jim Crow South, where we don’t bother to prosecute if the victim was a black man and the murderer was white?
“That’s why any justice system needs to involve not just laws and regulations but people with some discretionary power in charge of enforcing them.”
Only if you can track down incorruptible men to be put in these positions of authority.
“It’s also why there has always been such a thing as executive privilege and executive pardons”
Just the opposite. Executive clemency is applied after a conviction (Nixon’s notwithstanding). When you have a conviction that was technically correct but not in the interest of justice.
You want to write the law so that, if a person has violated it, they deserve the conviction that results from being caught and tried. You absolutely do not want a law that covers 100 things, 50 of which should be punished and 50 things which should not be, and then rely on the prosecutor to use discretion and only prosecute the 50 that deserve it. Instead, you want to rewrite the law so that it covers only the 50 things that should be punished, and does not cover the 50 things that should not be punished.
Which would be better… a law that creates a registry that puts only people who have convictions for violent rapes where force was applied or threatened, or a registry that puts anyone convicted of a “sex crime” on it, at the judge’s discretion?
: because any laws that are severe enough to protect society when need be, are also going to be too severe and cruel in certain cases.
“Only if you can track down incorruptible men to be put in these positions of authority”
ANY system of authority has that as a weak point.
“‘Only if you can track down incorruptible men to be put in these positions of authority’
ANY system of authority has that as a weak point.”
Absolutely true. Which is why you want your laws written to minimize the exposure.
The Zach case on the next thread over is a prime example… the prosecutor had discretion to use a provision in the law that would have kept this kid off the registry, and didn’t do it. The judge had discretion to overrule the prosecutor on the matter, and didn’t do it.
I could very well have been another victim of Clifford Olsen. That being said I do believe sex offender rules are too stringent. To group everyone forever in the same list that includes Clifford Olsen and Robert Pickton is wrong. I have no clue how to go changing that. It’s not a fair or just to label a sex offender forever, DEPENDING on the severity of the crime. The problem is society doesn’t much care about this issue. Only family members of those who feel unjustly slandered for life and they are not a group many have much sympathy for.
“The judge had discretion to overrule the prosecutor on the matter, and didn’t do it.â€
That’s another problem. The general public is addicted to the chemical that produces outrage. If he overruled the prosecutor, (I think he should have) the public would hang him for being light on sex offenders. Unfortunately, we built a system of ‘Damned if you do, Damned if you don’t’. That’s why I keep bringing up how many people have become weaklings. I compare them to a puppet on a string and why changing this problem is so difficult.
My blog explains it a bit further
http://www.onmysoapboxx.com/puppet
“That’s another problem. The general public is addicted to the chemical that produces outrage.”
That means that tomorrow, they’ll be all outraged over something else.
“If he overruled the prosecutor, (I think he should have) the public would hang him for being light on sex offenders. Unfortunately, we built a system of ‘Damned if you do, Damned if you don’t’”
When I took Criminal Procedure, the professor points out that there is no political constituency for dialing back on accused criminals, or convicted criminals. Some states even take away the right to vote from convicted felons. This means that there is nobody in the legislative branch who is looking out for them.
How many years did it take to figure out that Prohibition was a bad idea? How many years to figure out that drug prohibition is a bad idea?
“Something reading that letter brings to mind: the cost to society of rendering that many people essentially unable to support themselves and be productive citizens must be huge. I mean the cost in dollars – not to dismiss the other human costs, but that alone should be a strong public policy argument against these laws.”
Or a strong argument for not supporting “criminals” with social security checks…
Which of course would drive those people into becoming actual criminals, resorting to burglaries, drugs trafficking, armed robbery, etc. etc. to make ends meet, at which point some cop comes along and shoots them, problem solved, or they get shot by a home owner or gas station employee, problem solved.
Many of these people don’t get old anyway. They’re high on the list of suicides, problem solved.
And yes, it’s problem solved. If you’re the politician who cares only about using laws like this to get votes and denying votes to others, because these people wouldn’t vote for him anyway, and would vote for someone else, so if they’re dead that’s effectively 2 votes for him…
Congress gave us our original sex offender laws in 1994. Congress supports even more harsh laws against young people like Josh Anderson. State legislators passed the subsequent Draconian state laws.and tighten the vise with new restrictions, like residency requirements, on those on the registry, every time they are in session.
Aren’t you curious about who among them are hypocrites? Wouldn’t it be likely that the very ones who are are holier than you and me dated and married– with the permission of their parents, of course–at an age that would have put them on the registry, if it had existed at the time?
Since they are happily married and faithful and attend church weekly and condemn teenage sex and pass harsh laws against others, they are protected by a smokescreen of their own making.
But the Zach Anderson case raises issues that every elected official, every voter, must address before the next election.
What if the Presidential Debates addressed the issue? For those candidates whose spouses were “young” when they first dated? Would those candidates say, “We had the permission of her (his) parents, and mine, so in our case, it was OK. We’ve been married __ years!
What if we asked the candidates for public office this fall–the judges, say–about their personal experience with the issue? Candidates are usually very open about issues like “How did you and your wife first meet?”
It would be educational! I’d be willing to bet that some, perhaps many of them them, would have been “Candidates for the Registry” like Jill’s husband, had these idiotic, cash cow laws been around WHEN THEY WERE COURTING. The laws THEY passed. Before THEY PASSED THEM.
“Congress gave us our original sex offender laws in 1994.”
California gave us our original sex offender registration laws, some fifty years previous.
“I’d be willing to bet that some, perhaps many of them them, would have been “Candidates for the Registry†like Jill’s husband, had these idiotic, cash cow laws been around WHEN THEY WERE COURTING. The laws THEY passed. Before THEY PASSED THEM.”
The registry might be new (ish), but statutory rape laws existed. In fact, fornication was a criminal offense in many states. The Mann Act was passed in 1910. The United States Supreme Court struck down laws making consensual sodomy a criminal act… a little bit less than 15 years ago. It’s not just age difference that was criminal back when grandma and grandpa were courting… extra-marital sex may have been a criminal act, oral sex, in or out of marriage may have been a criminal act (depending on when, exactly, your state got around to repealing these sorts of laws.)
“The judge had discretion to overrule the prosecutor on the matter, and didn’t do it.â€
Sex offenders are not the only ones that can get a label attached to them for life. Judges and politicians do as well. I think the judge should have overruled this decision, however the label, ‘Judge Soft on Sex Offenders’ would follow him around for years. It makes a great headline and will sell newspapers. Many Judges and politicians have a serious case of decisionphobia. It’s scary to be anything other than a sheep. Don’t stand out. Don’t bring attention to yourself. Follow the norm. They do this because WE are so quick to attack. Many people are extremely gullible and will believe the label without knowing or caring the circumstances of how he got it. (As long as they get their outrage fix is all that matters)
We do a lot of finger pointing about problems. However we need to consider if we are to blame for some of these problems.
I made a drawing of this.
http://www.onmysoapboxx.com/wp-content/uploads/decisionphobia-1024×683.png
“the label, ‘Judge Soft on Sex Offenders’ would follow him around for years. It makes a great headline and will sell newspapers.”
Whereas politicians’ races are routinely contested, judicial elections are almost never contested.
To group everyone forever in the same list that includes Clifford Olsen and Robert Pickton is wrong. I have no clue how to go changing that.
Clifford Olsen’s sentence ensures that he will die in prison. Robert Pickton won’t be eligible for parole until he is 83, if I understand his sentence correctly. He will probably die in prison as well.
In the United States, those men would not be on the registry until they are released from prison. Perhaps it is different in Canada. In any case, two dangerous men were given sentences that made sure the Neighborhood Watch never needed to worry about them moving in next door.
For the sake of argument, though, let’s say that Pickton is found to be reformed, is released on parole when he is 83 and is taken in by a family member or an old friend. The family member or friend do not deserve to have their address on the registry. They do not deserve to be exposed to public shame and humiliation just because they share a residence with someone whose crime is a registrable crime.
The registry doesn’t affect only the registrant. It affects his family. It affects his neighbors. It affects his ability to find employment and become a contributing member of society.
When we try to decide if the registry is necessary, we should always think of the collateral damage–those who didn’t do anything wrong but are damaged by the registry anyway.
Like many things, our lack of historical knowledge seems to really mess up how we view things. Age of consent laws were not historically rooted in theories of psychological development. People under a certain age were considered “unable to consent” not because we believe they were biologically or psychologically incapable of consenting to sex or of having a sexual relationship (of course not, as historically the age at which a person can marry has been below the age of consent), but because they were under the authority of their parents and thus unable to legally consent. It was positional–their parents were in a position of authority over them, and were the ones to make decisions about what sexual relationships their child could or could not enter into–and not psychological. And, it was also rooted in a deep prohibition against premarital sex. Traditionally, age of consent laws were about protecting parents’ ability to determine who their child did or did not enter into a marital relationship with.
Of course we’d find that abhorrent today. We’d find the idea that a parent has the right to determine who their 15 year old daughter can or cannot marry or to determine what she does or does not do with her body regressive and patriarchal and gross. So, we’ve decided that instead of post-pubescent teens being positionally unable to consent to sex, they are psychologically unable. The problem, of course, is that that’s nonsense and we all know it. Nothing magical happens in our brains when we turn 18, or 16, or 21. Maturity varies widely between people–you can find 14 year olds far more mature than some 18 year olds, and vice versa. And, as noted, just because about a hundred or so years ago we invented a category of people called “adolescents” (replacing the older pattern of people being children and then, after puberty, young adults) doesn’t mean that human nature has changed. If 14 year olds were capable, for much of human history, of marrying, having sex, working, and raising children, they didn’t suddenly become unable to do so because we have decided that they are of more use to society if they stay in school until 18 or 21 or 25 and put off marriage and childrearing until their education is completed. (I’m not arguing, to be clear, that our current belief is not good or even better. Just that it’s new and certainly not somehow indicative of some fundamental truth about human nature or psychology or development.)
I’m not arguing against age of consent laws, but simply against the belief that a person who violates those laws with a fully-willing, non-coerced post-pubescent partner is a disgusting, sick pervert who has abused a poor, helpless child, as opposed to somebody who made a choice that many people throughout history have made, but that we no longer allow because it just doesn’t fit with the structure of our society and who we can punish in a way that is sensible, non-hysterical, and that allows them to move on with their lives.
It never occurred to me that the age of consent laws were a means of keeping kids in school. I would like to think so. But it doesn’t quite make sense. I know American kids with duel citizenship who go to their other country for college. But college is so outrageously expensive in the USA that that argument doesn’t work for me.
I would make more sense to pass laws that no one would be allowed to marry–or have sex–until they had proved their maturity and self-sufficiency by having paid all their college loans in full.
If we wanted them to finish high school and then college, we would, like Canada and Germany, make college affordable.
A hundred years ago, when my grandmother left high school at sixteen and got married, only six (6) percent of the population of the US had a high school degree. Boys typically left before age 13– the age at which they were able to work like adults. My grandmother left at sixteen to work, too, and also because that was all the education a girl needed, then. Girls did not go to college–because girls got no respect!
During the Great Depression– the one before the one that started in 2008–families of unemployed fathers received “the dole”, with a payment for each child under 13. Children of 13 were expected to work–though there were no jobs. A thirteen year old was considered an adult under the law. Because there was no money for food for them, thirteen years olds left home in droves, sleeping in alleys and under bridges, riding the rails, taking their chances and taking handouts when they could get them. Many died jumping in and out of boxcars. Girls as well as boys. Thirteen was thirteen. Adult.
American poet Woody Guthrie wrote a song, Hobos Lullaby. He knew they were babies, but the law didn’t. The Great Depression for these poor kids finally ended due to the efforts of Eleanor Roosevelt. But there is as yet no guarantee of college.
So, for many young women, the only thing between them and poverty is a man. Middle class girls can count on Daddy to support them. But only if they do as Daddy says. If they cross the line, it’s: “you’re being tossed out on the street, my girl!”
Some marry to escape from Daddy. Some meet their soul mates and live happily ever after.
Some, like myself, live at home while working our way through college, graduate debt free, leave our oppressive and repressive childhood environments, and make our own way in the world, no strings, no APRON strings, attached.
My position is that the parents, not the state, should be the final arbiter for the child. In the final analysis, the State is more repressive and oppressive, and gets worse every legislative session.
Can we stop persecuting the young woman from Michigan? At fourteen she was just barely an adult, by what was the former standard in the USA. In 1940, she’d have been on her own, unless her parents had money. But why should that, or the era, matter? We all know people are smarter today.
As for Zachary Anderson, if the purpose of the law was to keep young people in school, why didn’t Judge Wiley consider the intent of the law in sentencing Zach?
“I’m not arguing against age of consent laws, but simply against the belief that a person who violates those laws with a fully-willing, non-coerced post-pubescent partner is a disgusting, sick pervert who has abused a poor, helpless child”
The catch, of course, is knowing if a person is fully-willing and non-coerced. Is mostly willing and barely coerced close enough? Partly willing and no more than 50% coerced? This is why the law is written as it is… making this kind of determination is hard enough when both people are actually telling the truth. But people tend to lie about their sexual activities. Figuring out the actual facts are difficult, at best. So the laws are written not on whether or not a person has freely chosen and is capable of accurately figuring risks and benefits, but on whether they’ve passed a specific birthday… that’s easy to check. Are some people fully ready before they reach that birthday? Yep. Do some people think they’re fully ready before hitting that birthday, but they’re really not? Yep. Are some people still NOT ready after hitting that birthday? Yep a third time. But you can make the same arguments about obtaining a driver’s license, or voting, or drinking age.
It seems as if the United States are on the right way to arranged marriages where the engaged couple get to know each other at the day of their marrying. All other ways of getting together could turn out as illegal, couldn’t they?
I am really flabbergasted about the things I can read here.
Greetings from Austria, Europe 🙂
Age of consent. I’d like to hear more about this from those of you who are more knowledgable than I. I was deeply moved to hear from one comment that there is an entire country where the young people are so well behaved and well brought up and responsible and clever that the age of consent is fifteen (15). For the whole country. Not just the brightest and the best?
And I read in the news recently that in Denmark sex education in the schools is now designed to teach young people how human reproduction actually works. This, because the birth rate has dropped to such low rates that the country is in danger of becoming seriously UNDER populated.
Funny, in a way! Pick your poison!
@James, the problem, though, is that this does not cease to be an issue once a person has a birthday. If we think coercion in sex is wrong, then we should have laws against coercion, period. It doesn’t make sense that coercion would be unacceptable if a person is 15 and 51-1/2 weeks old but okay if a person is 16 and 1/2 weeks old. If force is wrong–which our laws indicate it is–then force is always wrong, period. We don’t say that, well, it’s wrong to force somebody to have sex if they are 16, but not if they are 17.
There actually are countries where there are laws against using coercion and manipulation to obtain sex from anybody of any age. These countries also generally have lower ages of consent than we do.
Oh, and our laws are not “written the way they are” because it’s just too hard to prove coercion. Of course not. They are written the way they are because, as I noted, historically minors–especially minor women–were considered unable to consent because of the structures of authority in the household. The young woman was under the authority of her parents, including in matters of her sexuality. Their will overrode hers, legally. So she could not consent to sex because that was a decision for her parents to make, not her.
Again, it wasn’t until recently that we threw out the idea that unmarried women were under the control and authority of their parents. Once we did, we came up with a new rationale for our age of consent laws, which became that people under a certain age were innately, psychologically incapable of consenting to sex, despite there being no evidence that this is actually the case (and the age that states and countries pick vary).
“If we think coercion in sex is wrong, then we should have laws against coercion, period.”
We do. And, in addition, coercion (well, undue influence) is also presumed when the younger person in the relationship is below a certain age (which varies from place to place.)
“It doesn’t make sense that coercion would be unacceptable if a person is 15 and 51-1/2 weeks old but okay if a person is 16 and 1/2 weeks old.”
Which is why nobody has laws that work that way.
“she could not consent to sex because that was a decision for her parents to make, not her.”
I’ve no idea where you get that idea from.
“it wasn’t until recently that we threw out the idea that unmarried women were under the control and authority of their parents.”
Right.
“Once we did, we came up with a new rationale for our age of consent laws, which became that people under a certain age were innately, psychologically incapable of consenting to sex, despite there being no evidence that this is actually the case”
Right. The idea that children (minors) are incapable of the judgment of adults is a new idea. Which is why it’s been part of the common- law of contracts for centuries. Try again.
@James, but we used to allow people to marry at 13 or 14, with parental permission. So the issue was NOT that “children” could not make “adult” decisions. It was that primarily unmarried women were under the authority of their parents. Once she was married, she was no longer under their authority.
You seem to have very little understanding of the thinking that influenced the development of these ideas in common law. It was NOT that teens were children, because at the time, they were not seen that way. It was all about structures of authority.
And, in the U.S., we actually do not have laws against coercing a person into sex, as long as force or threat of force isn’t used or the person wasn’t in a state where they are considered incapable of consent.
You seem to have very little understanding of how age of consent works. You do realize, right, that it is a very serious felony for, say, a 21 year old to have sex with a girl who is a week away from her 16th birthday, yes? But that it is entirely legal, in most states, for a man who is 50 to have sex with a girl who turned 16 yesterday (provided they don’t talk about it online that day, at which point THAT conversation would be a felony while the sex itself wouldn’t)?
For somebody who is such an expert on all matters legal, you don’t even seem to have Wikipedia-level understanding topics you know oh-so-much about.
“@James, but we used to allow people to marry at 13 or 14, with parental permission.”
Used to and still do.
“So the issue was NOT that “children†could not make “adult†decisions. It was that primarily unmarried women were under the authority of their parents.”
This does not follow. We allow underage children to marry “with parental permission” not because the parents have authority, but because the parents are adults (thus, able to make adult decisions) with responsibility for their childrens’ well-being. “with parental permission” doesn’t mean that only parents can make the decision… courts can also override age limits on marriage.
“Once she was married, she was no longer under their authority.”
But parents who do not have authority over the child can ALSO authorize underage marriage (and underage enlistment in the armed services).
“You seem to have very little understanding of the thinking that influenced the development of these ideas in common law.”
Right. No, I don’t have your wacky notion, is what you mean.
“It was NOT that teens were children, because at the time, they were not seen that way.”
At common-law, teens are “infants”. Really. Look it up. The age of majority was 21, and people who were below it could invalidate otherwise enforceable contracts, solely because they were minors.
“in the U.S., we actually do not have laws against coercing a person into sex”
Unless you count the many, many laws that are against coercing a person into sex, sure.
“For somebody who is such an expert on all matters legal, you don’t even seem to have Wikipedia-level understanding topics you know oh-so-much about.”
Thank you for the compliment. No, I DON’T have a Wikipedia-level understanding of law.
@anonymous mom – I always find your comments interesting. I’ll have to beg to differ on the idea that it is repressive to have a say over who my 15 year old wanted to marry though.
Marriage is huge, and always has been. It should be a lifetime commitment. …sure, it fails sometimes, but at the get-go it should be viewed that way. So no, if my 15 year old wanted to marry (which is a moot point here anyway because 16 has always been the earliest age at which it can be done WITH parental consent…..not sure these days about without, probably 18), I wouldn’t consider myself the least repressive if I prevented her marrying a guy that I could see was absolutely not right for her/was simply not adult enough to be entering into a marriage.
I really appreciate this blog and an alternative perspective to the scare tactics used by the mainstream media and politicians bent on climbing the rung on the backs of former offenders.
I molested my sister’s friend when I was in my late 20s and she was 15. Yes, she was fully developed physically and very sexually active, and I knew what I was doing was not appropriate. I turned myself in because I did not want her to go through all that I did, having been molested/raped at 15 myself. While it does NOT excuse my actions, nor do I say it to diminish/excuse my actions, I never got to be “the victim”; I never got the healing process of being recognized as being victimized and the ensuing help that should follow. Yes, I believe my rape left me emotionally damaged and lead to my crime. But since that time over 20 years ago I went through lots of counseling and healed that part of me to where I don’t feel shame and guilt over what happened to me as a child.
But 20 plus years later, despite serving a sentence, I am still serving a sentence. I honestly would have less consequences in my life had I murdered someone. I can’t get a business loan. I can’t travel out of the country. I can’t use Facebook to stay in touch with my family. I am ostracized at every turn work-wise and housing-wise. This is a lifetime sentence. And then I get the usual “well your victim will suffer a lifetime so should you” Actually, the courts set my punishment. They did not say lifetime. I didn’t get a life sentence even though the consequences continue. What has happened is they created the Registry, and now I have received a life sentence because I am on the Registry. With all the punishments meted out because of my inclusion there, its a lifetime sentence.
Looking back, I could have lied and said nothing happened, that she made it up. But once I did it, I knew I couldn’t put someone else through what I suffered through. And I felt that I had crossed a line I knew I shouldn’t and that scared me, I knew I needed help. And that first step in getting help was taking responsibility and exposing myself to the shame not only of what I did, but what happened to me. It was the only way I knew she would get help and I could finally start to heal.
Actually, in California while the age of consent is 18 a 21 year old could marry the 16 year. The age of consent in California is 18. It is illegal for anyone to engage in sexual intercourse with a minor (someone under the age of 18), unless they are that person’s spouse. There is also a three Romeo and Juliet law…although it is limited in scope.