The Siren Song of Sex With Boys

The last few months have produced a spate of cases where women are prosecuted for having sex with boys: Debra LaFave of Florida, another teacher, faces trial for sleeping with a 14-year-old student; Lisa Lynette Clark of Georgia was impregnated by her son's 15-year-old friend, whom she married a day before she was arrested; Silvia Johnson of Colorado was sentenced to 30 years for having sex with teenagers and providing drugs and alcohol.

Certainly no one doubts that a teacher who has sex with her students should lose her job. Or that a 37-year-old mother should not find herself pregnant by her son's 15-year-old friend. Or that a 41-year-old mother who provides sex, drugs and alcohol to teenagers so she can be cool among her daughter's friends is troubled.

But when the women face prison, questions are raised about where to set the age of consent. And because many of those named as victims refused to testify against the women in what they said were consensual relationships, not everyone agrees that the cases involve child abuse.

"We need to untangle the moral issues from the psychological issues from the legal issues," said Carol Tavris, the author of "The Mismeasure of Women" and a social psychologist. "That's the knot." She added: "You may not like something, but does that mean it should be illegal? If we have laws that are based on moral notions and developmental notions that are outdated, do we need to change the laws?"




http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/weekinreview/11zern.html

"The Siren Song of Sex with Girls"? No.

"Man Boy" love.

not dare to have such a discussion. If a male teacher had consensual sex with a 14 year old male student, we'd not have this discussion. If a 14 year old female student had sex with a female teacher we would not have such a discussion.


I don't share any desire for a double standard - as the article suggests.

the psycho-babble in the article is shameful when put in such a light.

as well, perhaps in a different manner, but traumatized none the less. The primary difference in scenarios is that boys won't likely admit to being harmed, and may not even be in touch with their own feelings, because of societal attitudes (like the one presented in the article.)

a 24-yr-old woman. He married her, they had the child, she beat him up daily. It was a horror. He has never recovered and seems unable to form normal relationships with anyone. Those women should be in jail.

no matter what sex is older - it's the fact the they are "older" and should have known better. The problem being is that we are still living in a male dominant society where it's okay to belittle and degrade women based solely on their gender. Would Brittney Spears and the like be so bankable and popularized if they didn't show off their bodies and behave in the way a Las Vegas stripper would? I think not - blame the media that sells this shit to our youth as cool and acceptable. My daughter is only 10 months old now but I'm praying that when she's 6-7, retailers would have had enough of selling slutty clothes to little girls - Has anyone been shopping lately for little girls? It's scandalous and believe me, I'm no prude but don't believe a 6 yr old needs to wear hip huggers and halter tops....:rant:

does sell kids clothes that are appropriate in those crayola colors you remember as a kid, not madonna mini-skirts, they sell great kids boots too, they also sell overstock on e-bay.
I think it helps if kids are not dressed as miniature adults, but I agree that children
need protected from individuals who would take advantage of them.

wherein the rape or even seduction of little girls by their teachers, priests or daddy's friends was deplored because it generally left them holding the bag and the baby when the old guy moved on. Since little boys didn't get pregnant, it was hey, wink wink, nudge nudge, what kid wouldn't want to shag his math teacher?

However, it's still a breach of trust when it's a teacher or even just the mother of a friend. I've known a few guys who started out that way, and they were all just a little screwed up by it. It's one of those porn fantasy things that tuns out to be a whole lot less than it's cracked up to be according to those who have actually experienced it.

Kids need to be off limits except to other kids.

EXACTLY! I've also known people who've experienced this, men who've never admitted the effect it's had on them because we don't fully support boys/men in our society in situations such as these. Imagine how a guy who admits being victimized in this manner would feel reading an article like the one above - which minimizes such concerns?

No matter what else, no matter how desperately consensual such a relationship is, it's still one older person (aka: adult) using a younger, more vulnerable person (aka: child), for his or her own needs, in this case sexual gratification. Doesn't matter how much the child may or may not like it, it's still very, very wrong.

Human relationships are wrong or just plain sick when they involve using the other party. That's abusive by definition. When one of the parties is a child (underage minor), it's child abuse, by definition. Bereach of trust is abusive by definition, esp. if it's intentional and involves a child.

Thanks for adding that you've known of cases and that it did screw the boys up. Lotta he-men around here think it's just too cool. And it's possible (tho unlikely, IMO) that it wouldn't screw every boy up -- but that's not always that easy for outsiders to see and judge, and in fact, sometimes not even the young person involved can determine that, often not until they reach a certain age or certain circumstances later in life. And in fact, that's one way that they are screwed up by this: this kind of behavior gets nromalized in their minds, when it's not normal, not good, not nice, not appropriate, not healthy.

It's not healthy. Get that, everybody? Not healthy. Adults doing things or involving underage minors in activities that are unhealthy is also abusive.

the bad memory of adult men, who can't remember the time a man was a boy and therefore believes the fantasy of sex that child sex is just the same as adult sex. Our sexual drives and identities have so shaped us, it's tough to remember what it was like BEFORE. We project.

I mean, thirteen. That's a world of confusion and hurt coming from that abuse of a power relationship.

How can we, as a society, even debate this issue??
Let me see if I get this straight: men, even young men, are incarcerated for long sentences for even computer-related crimes against young females; but female adults having sex with young boys is worthy of "changing laws"?!! Yikes!! Nuts is nuts!
Folks, time out.
Adults / Children
Never cross the line. To do so is: 1) Criminal; 2) Psychotic.

Because of a big IMBALANCE OF POWER and Violation of trust by the adult to exploit a child .
The adult has power and inordinate influence over the child.
The relationship is NEVER equal.
The Child is not in a position of power here.
The child is vunerable especially if the adult is a teacher or parent preies or coach or some other "upstanding" trusted member of society by the adults. Always in adult child abuse the kid being taken advantage of by the adult no matter how the adult wants to explain his/her actions the adult is in the position of power and is abusing power..
The adult ALWAYS has contr over the kid.

So pedophila is always WRONG.

where men say "if only I had had THAT teacher!" etc., I think we have to maintain the same standard here as we would in the other situations. I think that while "trauma" is not the right word, this does not leave the young male unscathed. It has to potential to affect the rest of his life, sexually, and greatly affect his relationship with women forever.

If it's the right word to use when girls are subjected to this type of abuse, it is the right word for boys. Of course, "trauma" may not be strong enough a word.

I hesitate to post this, but the article in the OP infuriates me.

A shockingly large number of women I've known were sexually abused, usually by a family member, when they were young. One was essentially a sex toy for her father's brothers (her father never touched her but looked the other way at what his brothers did) up until she was 16 and ran away from home to escape the abuse. I have listened to some long, terrible descriptions of feelings from these women, and what they have experienced is classic trauma. What is coming to be realized is that many of these women exhibit classic symptoms of PTSD that had been misdiagnosed as other disorders and even medical illnesses for years.

What that has to do with the male perspective is simply this. I could relate to these stories in a very personal way. In fact, the reason I found the number of these women who had experienced something like this shocking is that I came to a realization they were only telling me about it in response to my sharing with them tidbits from my past. I began understanding that many women and men never mention it, to anyone, and the only reason I ever got beyond the "tidbit" stage myself, when trying to explain a problem I have without getting too gory, was because we had both shared a similar experience and could relate on a level those who have not experienced something like this cannot.

I don't care to discuss details in a public forum such as this. Suffice to say I was 8 once, and then I was 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13, and I went through a range of emotions from terror even to reluctant acceptance when a very strong-willed, older, female family member convinced me what we were doing was "just natural" and that I should feel lucky. A hormone driven 13 yo sorta did; he would have called it consensual. But, later, when he was alone and thinking about what was happening, he also felt disgusting and wrong and ugly, and what would his grandma think, and 20 years later he still hates even the sight of that woman or anyone who vaguely resembles her. And, he always seems to talk about it in the third person, as though the disconnect makes it more palatable.

even though I usually associate it with blood and gore.

I am so sick of hearing psychobabble excuses for criminal conduct. There is a great word for this woman and those like her, Predator. If I had sex with a 15 year old student of mine rest assured no one would be writing an article like this. And remember that if the woman becomes pregnant the boy ends up having to pay child support until he is at least 33 and maybe 37. That seems like a huge potential problem to me.

:toast:

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but adults shouldn't seduce children. There is nothing right about that, and I don't care if Mohammed married a nine year old.

Men can be attracted to barely pubescent children all they want. However, laws to protect those children are going to take over rather quickly, and if they act on that attraction, they'll find their sorry asses in prison, as it should be.

As for the dream of mating and breeding 12 year old children, are you aware of the health consequences they face? Do you know what cystocele and rectocele are? Do you know what happens to girls in cultures where they're obsessed with virginity and marry little girls off the month after menarche?

Good grief.

:toast:

This is what you get when you try to discuss the issue in a non inflamed way, without wearing colored glasses.

I didn't promoite sex between adults and 12 year olds, I questioned 18 as age of consent and referred to a list of these ages around the world and marled that 18 is used by few countries outside USA. If you take that as US kids are more immature than their counterparts in other countries, I can accept and agree to that. But please, leave your haussed up feelings at the door and let's discuss this in a quiet and civilized way. I also pointed out that there is virtually no reasearch done in the area due to stigmatization.

And can you stop extremizing everything? Good grief, I say too. Who talked about marriage? If you think age of consent has anything to do with marriage, then maybe you should take a look at age distribution of marriages in USA over the past ohhhh let's say 30-40 years. If your theory holds water then you would not find any marriages in USA involving anyone under 18. Stop beeing so naiive.

a good friend of mine had her first sexual experience at the age of 14, with a man in his twenties. She was extremely mature for her age, more so than a lot of 18 year old's...she said the experience was very beautiful and she didn't regret it at all. Obviously she never considered herself "abused" and I think you make a good point about age 18 as not always being a mature boundary.

The age of consent in many, if not most states is 16 as per the link provided.

at 16 which is young enough.

You appear to suggest that there are no rational age limits if one is "sexually attracted" to another regardless of age? :eyes: If this is what you suggest, it's BULLSHIT. I don't give a crap if people are "attracted to young people" or not, this discussion is not about the harm to adults who partake in abusing children.

Further, (contrary to your assertion) there are NUMEROUS studies that indicate long term harm to children who've been molested by adults.

I'll check back tomorrow.

This is a discussion of our cultures MORALS. In some cultures it's moral to marry a 12 year old but in ours it's not. In some countries it's acceptable to grow coca plants in your back 40; not here.

Morals have nothing to do with biology. Ask a gay person.

Explain that! :P

there is a double standard on this issue when it is a teenage girl and older male involved...i am not touching that at all right now

all i am saying is that at 15, all you think about is fucking. if at 15 me or any of my friends had a chance to fuck a woman 10 years our senior we would've taken it without so much as even a first thought. and when i was 17 i DID sleep with a woman 10 years my senior (well...9) and it was and still is one of the best experiences of my life. i am 20 now and am still enthralled with older women because i learn so damn much from them, and not just about sex. leave these kids alone. fire her for sure but it was a completely consensual act so cut all this "the boy was abused by her power of him" crap