It's funny, the older I get, the less tolerant I feel about older people having sex with teenagers. When I was a teenager, I was all for it--hey, I'm a grownup, I can make my own decisions Mom, it ain't rape if I say yes, if I want to bang a twenty-two-year-old or a forty-three-year-old then I damn well will! From fifteen to seventeen, I was all about the overage boys, and online I even pulled the Reverse Chris Hansen: "wanna cyber, im ninteen!"
Then I crossed the magical Eighteen Line, and there was a funny incident: I was flirting with a guy at a party and someone pulled me aside and said "you do know he's fourteen." (He was like six foot with a full beard, I had no idea.) And I was disgusted. I was comfortable with breaking the age barrier with myself on the lower side, but not in the other direction. I could be statutory-raped and go "hehe, technically you're raping me!", but "hehe, technically I'm raping you!" just wasn't as funny.
Then a couple years later my sister (five years younger than me) got into all sorts of trouble with boys, and I started to realize; viewed from the outside, she really wasn't making good and free decisions. Like any teenager, she was pulled every which way by peer pressure and impulsivity and defiance-for-the-sake-of-defiance. And for an adult to step in on that sort of confusion and use it for sex wasn't just icky but evil.
I used to have some sympathy for the guys trapped by Chris Hansen: they never did anything with a real child, after all, and they were practically entrapped! Now I really don't. (Well, I do think some of the specific crimes they're charged with are inaccurate in the absence of real harm to a minor, but I still think they're totally horrible people.) Any adult who responds to "I'm fifteen" by continuing to even talk about sex doesn't deserve sympathy.
All this comes from an incident last night where I told a guy I was thirteen (just for shits and giggles because he came out of nowhere to agrammatically "a/s/l hunny?" me) and his response was "well do you wanna talk to a 22 year old guy?" Urgggh.
Then I got him banned and he called me a "bith." That's right honey, I'm an evil bith.
"Bith"
ReplyDeleteIt was funny then, and it's still funny now.
...Christ I miss everything good.
ReplyDeleteOh Boy. I may be lambasted for saying this, but I have mixed feelings on this one.
ReplyDelete(let me preface the rest of this by saying I have zero interest in fooling around in any way with anyone underage. First of all, I'm in a happy monogamous relationship; second of all, even college senors look too young to me now. Ah, is this middle age?)
I guess the (non-)conclusion I've reached on the topic is that it's not necessarily as bad as it's made out to be; and it's probably not a good thing.
When I was a teenage lad, I would have been psyched if some reasonably hot (i.e. any) 20- or 30-something female wanted to bang me. Would it have ended in tears? Almost certainly. Would I have been permanently psychically scarred? I kind of doubt it.
The grammatically-challenged dude who wanted to cyber with the 13 year old you... definitely a creep. Quadruply so if you had said you were 11. But what if you had said you were 16? What if HE had been a SHE? Probably still a loser, but just as creepy? Is it any less creepy for a 43 year old to by hitting on an 18 year old? I dunno.
The reality may be fuzzy, and the line may seem arbitrary, but hey, you have to draw a line SOMEWHERE.
What really does strike me as creepy is the way our society demonizes/fetishizes underage sex... Like 'Barely Legal' magazine, which I think you have nicely scewered elsewhere in this blog. Like all those 14 year old looking (or are they actually 14??) models in the fashion magazines, posing all sexily and unattainably. Like all the freaking 12 year old girls running around with 'JUICY' printed across their ass. Argh.
Meh. It's all kind of depressing when you think about it. Wanna thyber thomtime bith?
Lawrence - I actually agree somewhat. Consensual sex with Creepasaurus Rex probably doesn't do serious permanent harm to most teenagers, and there's no question that THE PEDO MENACE AROUND EVERY CORNER is overplayed in media and law enforcement.
ReplyDeleteHowever... it's just such an egregious dereliction of adult responsibility. The adult knows (or should know) that this is only going to end in tears for the kid, the kid doesn't know, and the adult goes ahead anyway.
Any lines I draw are going to be subjective and depend on the individuals, but I'd say that under 17 with over 20 is creepy, and under 14 with over 20 is
edging pretty close to downright rape.
I don't think gender matters that much; teenage boys are nearly as good as girls at emotionally overcommitting.
I think some of the underage sexuality problem comes from the conflict between a 12-year-old's self-image of "I think I'm mature for my age, I feel sexual, damn right I'm juicy!" and adults' image of the same person as a child. The only difference in recent years is that there have been more skeevy adults willing to market to the 12-year-old's imagined maturity.
Holly, I agree with what you say. I do think that it wouldn't be nearly such a big issue if we (collective we) weren't still so damn Victorian about sex.
ReplyDeletethen there is the question of agency - can a 13 year really honestly be said to be able to conesnt to sex?
ReplyDeleteme, i would say if its a giy in her age range, who is not trying to take advantage of her, she can.
but i ALSO think that a LOT of people who chat online think that they are being told, often, that a person is younger than they actually are, because there is now this perception (or again this perception, or still this perception, depinding on where you stand on the issue) that everyone thinks hotter is better - so some people think an 18 year old will lie and say she is 14. i really doubt that it happens very often, but there are people who think it does.
all fucked up, which ever way you take. especially because the hotness if youth is really just a reflection of the fetish for virginity, which in my opinion is the most useless fetish of all.
anyway, enough babbling from me...
sorry - that was YOUNGER is HOTTER is BETTER, can't type, it seems
ReplyDelete