Yeah? So did I. Spandex and stuff. Woot. She doesn't quite have whatever she used to have. Bummer.
Snark attack:
Looking back, however, it was clear that I was infatuated with Connie Selleca, Erin Gray (Battlestar Galactica AND Silver Spoons) and Lynda Carter. You sense a trend here? No, not that they're all women, but that they're brunettes, all.
Erin Gray? Battlestar Galactica? Er, no?
You feel bad because she's a lesbian. I feel bad because she's a lesbian and evidently has exactly the same taste in women as I do. (And I can seriously see the Laura Graham appeal, too.)
Snark Attack:
And yet - girlfriends? Blonde, every one. I'm just more attracted to brunettes but somehow end up with blondes.
Right. Ok, same wavelength.
Basically I was born a really masculine male and I shoulda been a diesel dyke. (No, not a woman trapped in a man's body, just better off, er, 'professionally'.)
Ok, next time around, definately going to be born on Mars. I INSIST.
Maybe in the next life I'll be able to tell Walter's story, if I'm very very good.
My only hot, young teacher was in junior high, when I didn't quite know why I was paying such close attention in class. Ah, Miss Ruggles (yes, "Miss"), the fun we could have had! An artistic free spirit such as yourself, combined with a morbidly over-verbal left-brainer like me -- magic.
One of the decidedly not-hot English teachers at my high school was married to one of the history teachers, who had been, once upon a time, her high-school history teacher.
Tangent: has anybody else noticed that over the past year, the number of news stories about female high school teachers giving "special" lessons to male students has shot through the roof? Honestly, it's been about one new story every three weeks and in the stories that have had pictures, the teachers are young and attractive to boot.
Definitely not consonant with my own high school experience...
has anybody else noticed that over the past year, the number of news stories about female high school teachers giving "special" lessons to male students has shot through the roof?
Yeah, that's what I was referring to (I know, poor phrasing with the preposition there, but I'm of the school of thought that says rearranging it to be grammatically correct ends up just making it look awkward - it's the kind of English up with which I will not put) in my comment. I wish I'd had a teacher as hot as some of these 14-year-old lucky bastards poor victims of pedagogian statutory rape, much less had the opportunity to unlock the secrets of her Jade Gate, as the Chinese might put it.
I just don't get it - what in Jenna Jameson's name could possibly be attracting gorgeous twentysomething women to 14-year-old boys? Is it the acne? The incessant graphic references to various bodily functions and sexual activities (ok, so that one could just as easily describe certain blogs as it does 14-year-old boys)? The unmitigated non-Innerness of Beavishood at that stage in life?
It's backlash. I'm sure it's always happened, but if we focus on women h.s. teachers fucking h.s. boys, and lots of people say "gosh I wish I'd been so lucky," then it trivializes sexual predation. It's like anything else. Men kill kids way more often than women do, but when women do it it makes headlines.
As to why it happens, my guesses are a combo of:
1. emotionally immature women who identify with their students;
2. women who are otherwise healthy, but in a bad patch and regressing;
3. the problem of finding adult men who aren't looking for social inferiors to date (some women like being looked up to)
4. the eroticized power of the classroom (don't deny it)
5. human fallibility
6. whatever the proper term is that means things get magnified b/c they violate our expectations--i.e., it doesn't happen all the time, it just seems to b/c we're shocked/titillated by it
7. Sexual attraction. No one finds it odd that straight men are often attracted to 14 year old girls, or that gay men are often attracted to 14 year old boys. It's not as common among straight women, but there's nothing all that strange about finding youth, health, and innocence attractive. It's still wrong in all of the situations listed, but it just isn't all that weird.
This has been a constant in nearly all of the stories I've read. Points 1-6 explain why it happens and the omnipresence of media explains why we're hearing about it, but points 1-6 have always existed and said omnipresence for at least a decade. The last 8-12 months, though, have been like that summer where shark attacks were happening every weekend.
Dude, there are totally 6' 14 year-old boys out there who need to shave. Not as many, but it isn't as though all boys go through puberty in college, nor as if adult men are only attracted to 14 year-old girls who could actually pass for 19.
(I now feel the need to state that I, personally, am not attracted to 14 year-old boys. Just that I don't find it all that much weirder than the gender-reversed situation.)
if we focus on women h.s. teachers fucking h.s. boys, and lots of people say "gosh I wish I'd been so lucky," then it trivializes sexual predation
So are you going to spank me?
Also, I agree with apostropher - all of the contributing factors noted have always existed, but there seems to be a sharp rise of late, and it just strikes me as odd. It's not like the media's prurient interest in stories involving underage victims of sex crimes is anything new, either: see Ramsey, JonBenet and Smart, Elizabeth. Yes, it's sick, but it's nothing new.
Yeah, but apostropher, there were actually fewer shark attacks that summer than in previous summers, there was just a craze for reporting the ones that did occur.
Walter, no, i'm not pointing to you; just talking about how the larger rhetorical situation works. Anyway, frankly, I don't think it's all that sick, even though at the same time yes, in fact, I do find it odd when men are attracted to 14 year old girls (or boys). Fourteen is damn young, even if someone looks sexually differentiated; the second they open their mouth, you know they're a kid.
But then I still think 18 year olds are kids, too. Sure some of 'em are hotties. But still kids.
Confirmation bias, yes, that's probably it. Thanks Ben.
if I may be allowed to sort-of echo Wolfson, two problems with the question:
1) I don't know any evidence that says the this is actually a new phenomena. Could have been happening earlier.
2) Contra Walter, simply because there is media interest doesn't imply the media were looking for these stories. Also, there's sure a large impetus for schools and families to keep these things quiet.
Most likely, the reporting is the new phenomena. There were rumors that one of my HS teachers had gotten caught with a guy in the class before me. (She was also old enough to have a kid in the class below me. Still had a good figure)
Fourteen is damn young, even if someone looks sexually differentiated; the second they open their mouth, you know they're a kid.
You're confusing two kinds of attraction here, I think. There's what I'll call sexual attraction, which is a product of looking, and then there's personal attraction, which we'll call a product of interacting. I frankly find it inauthentic for anyone to claim that lust of a sexually differentiated 14 year old to be weird. As if sexual attraction were some sort of rationalistic human function. What about a 22 year old who looks 14? I suppose we shouldn't be sexually attracted to him/her?
Seriously, somebody seems to have notice that women occasionally engage in er, non-optimal acts, so now it's a fad to report it. Which, I guess, is an improvement over the situation where the evil mens was currupting the chillens.
Or not.
I would think tho, that obviously, anybody in the business of standing in front of a bunch of 'impressionable' mind for the purposes of er, molding, tends to like the power situation, which can then get out of hand very easily, particularly when hormones are involved.
bitchphd, I know what you're saying about the whole "lucky guys" meme, and really, you're probably right. I just think it's one of those inevitable reactions by members of the more porcine gender, especially in the locker-room-at-Harvard atmosphere of Unfogged.
In any case, what I was saying seems odd is not necessarily the fact that it happens, but that, as the apostropher said, these stories seem to be cropping up so often lately. When I said "what could be attracting these women?" it was really nothing more than a rhetorical set-up for the rest of the comment. Low-hanging fruit, you might say.
Seriously, somebody seems to have notice that women occasionally engage in er, non-optimal acts, so now it's a fad to report it.
That's a really good point. For a while there in the 90s (and probably before that; I don't know because I was too busy being under 12), it was definitely all the rage to make a point of how Bad men are. Maybe this really is just the gender-zeitgeist pendulum swinging back from its "Home Improvement"-style man-bashing apex.
Oh hey, I'm not even saying that the "lucky guys" meme is piggish. I agree, to a point. In fact, I think that there is a *major* difference between a 25yo guy fucking, say, a 16yo girl (let's get away from 14, which is a little too young) and a 25yo woman fucking a 16yo. The latter is more socially unacceptable, but likely far less exploitative. Not in any essentialist sense, but simply b/c of power differentials and so forth. Which isn't to say that you can't screw up a 16yo guy by fucking him, since in a way you're playing right into that whole "be a man" bullshit with a young man who is almost certainly incredibly nervous about it. But, in terms of his social self-perception, it's just way less problematic. Not always, but probably often.
Anyway. Back to the meaning of "sexual attraction." I think what you meant by that is what I meant by "hottie." I can totally see going, "damn, that kid is a knockout/will be a knockout in a few years." But the *sexual* part of "sexual attraction," to me, means actually wanting to fuck them. Which at some point is gonna involve talking to them. And I just can't imagine that anyone past, say, 25 could get it up for a 14yo kid.
But yeah, after I posted 34, I thought about it so much and came to the same conclusion. While a certain response to bodies might be age-independent, "sexual attraction" is typically a more robust concept, and age-dependant. Of course, I'm under 25, so, 14 year olds for me!
I think that there is a *major* difference between a 25yo guy fucking, say, a 16yo girl (let's get away from 14, which is a little too young) and a 25yo woman fucking a 16yo.
I agree. Political correctness and legal propriety demand that we treat them the same, but they really aren't. I mean, not to put too fine a point on it, or get all maudlin and Oprah-y about "bringing a life into the world", but the physical realities of sex, along with the potential results of engaging in it (which, at that age, are pretty much necessarily negative in a big way), are enough to demonstrate that, even without the psychological side-effects.
One interesting tidbit about differing reactions to this phenomenon. My understanding is that in France people were absolutely obsessed with the Mary Kay Letourneau story. To them, it was a beautiful story about the power of love to transcend all obstacles, and the fact that she wasn't initially allowed to reunite with the ex-student who fathered her two children was seen as an absolute scandal. Apparently, it briefly served the function previously performed by the saga of Mumia Abu Jamal -- encapsulating for the French all that is wrong about American culture.
PS to my last comment: "power" seems the wrong way to think about the wrongness of the 25-on-16 action. Is there some power differential inherent in that sort of relationship that's absent from cases of two adults? My first thought is that age is more plausibly linked to competent consent, adequate information, emotional manipulation, and so on. All of these can just as well be present in the older woman scenario.
And for the record, I try to avoid being a scold, but I'm troubled by the "young guy got hot action" response to these stories.
Sure sex can be harmful for men. But it isn't a philosophical abstraction. The fact is that, for 16yo boys, getting laid is an accomplishment--socially speaking--and for 16yo girls, it's not. It's a secret. That's why sexually active girls are "sluts" and sexually active boys are "studs." So, if a 25yo woman comes on to a 16yo boy, there is a social context in which that's proof of his masculinity. If you reverse it, the social context is it's a threat. Not to piss baa off, but this is partly social conditioning. Plus, there's the whole who runs the risk of getting knocked up question. And the whole whose body is getting penetrated question.
Which doesn't mean that it's *ok* for a 25yo female teacher to fuck a 16yo student. But it does mean that it probably, on the whole, does less damage overall. In most cases.
the differences in response, level of outrage, and so on, are created by a failure to take seriously (a) how sex can be harmful for males and (b) women's agency. The right to be punished, and all that.
I do think that's a part of it - kind of a patronizing mental block at the idea of the woman as sexual aggressor, even when the male is a minor. But I don't think that does anything more than amplify the basic psychological and physical reality that underage girls are far more vulnerable to serious long-term harm than underage boys (assuming a "consensual" relationship). Maybe the psychological part has more to do with society than nature, but not the physical part. And the two are not, of course, entirely unrelated. So even on the psychological question, I would have to say, admittedly without being an expert in developmental psychology, that I would imagine more harm is done to the underage girls involved in these situations than to the boys.
Oh. And I'm quite happy to agree that calling sexually active 16yo boys "studs" is bad for them. But I'm still going to say that the "young Man / older Woman" thing offers a balance of "dominant" and "powerful" categories in a way that young Woman / older Man" doesn't.
But! I also know a lot of women who, in their youths, had sexual relationships with much older men and do not think they were harmed by it--on the contrary. So it all depends.
My first thought is that age is more plausibly linked to competent consent, adequate information, emotional manipulation, and so on. All of these can just as well be present in the older woman scenario.
Can just as well be, but are much less likely to. I tend to think that a 16 y.o. is as competent to consent to meaningless sex with an adult as they are with a fellow teenager, and that it's not all that horrific regardless of gender (I do, with bphd, question the taste and the emotional stability of the adult in question for wanting to screw a child). Once you get into any kind of serious emotional relationship, I think that either a male or female teenager is absolutely unequipped to negotiate on any kind of equal level with an adult (barring the occasional freak relationship, but this is pretty universal) and the adult therefore is necessarily in a position of serious and immoral abuse of power.
The different reaction to the situation in the case of male and female teenagers is just the double standard at work -- meaningless sex is seen as something that teenage boys desire and are benefited by, whereas teenage girls are injured by. I don't believe that that's necessarily, or even usually, the case.
Certainly there are more health risks present for the young woman than the young man—cervical cancer, for instance, and the greater risks associated with pregnancy at a young age (not to mention the bare fact of pregnancy). Those aren't a result of social conditioning.
Bphd, why is calling sexually active 16yos "studs" bad? That's a real question: I (presume to) know you don't think sex is generally bad or shameful; so in this case is celebrating sex bad because of the double standard applied to women (which wouldn't really make it bad for the boys), because of the pressures it places on them to become sexually active, because they can't handle responsibility (something else that I don't really think would be bad for them in a developmental sort of way), or ...?
So nice that my plea-for-love post has turned to issues of statutory rape. The dirty little secret of fucking kids is that a lot (most?) of the psychological harm entailed is a result of the taboo and subsequent shame. What matters is the meaning of the sexual act, not (so much) the act itself, right? That said, the question then is, just how bad is it for boys to be saddled with this very strange notion of "studliness," that's bound up so much with power and manipulation? Pretty damn bad, is my guess. And it's the kind of bad that, in the long term, is also "bad for girls," insofar as these damaged boys will try to have relations with them.
The paradox, of course, is that the more we care about protecting children, and the more scandalized we are when they're abused, the worse it is for the kids.
Ogged! I agree with every word! We agree about sex! My god!
Ben, it's bad for boys because it makes it very, very hard for them to say no. And sometimes they should. It makes it hard for boys to admit fear, inexperience, or uncertainty. Therefore they do things that make them feel bad, and then can't admit that it makes them feel bad.
Which might actually be one reason for some 14yo boys getting involved with their h.s. teachers, come to think of it.
I'm more interested in the wrongness of the older person's actions. I suppose there's this sort of defense available:
1. because of prevailing social norms, sexual activity is seen as bad when women do it, good when men do it.
2. hence sex itself is or can be a form of harm to women but not men
3. hence my sexxxxing up the 16yr old was less harmful in virtue of his sex.
4. Hence it wasn't (as) wrong as if the roles were reversed.
It's interesting to wonder about whether gender stereotypes should be given this normative role, but it's not completely implausible.
a 16 y.o. is as competent to consent to meaningless sex with an adult as they are with a fellow teenager
Agreed, which is to say, not very. But whether it's wrong of the 16 yr old is a tricky question-- if 16 is not competent, it might be wrong of 25 to treat 16 in ways that, were 16 to treat 16 that way, would not be wrong. Not a double standard, a moral patient/moral agent distinction.
I dunno. At a gut level, I suspect you'd get more bad outcomes for the 16 yr girl - 25 yr man combo than the other. (I'm sure this is sexist). Except that I assume (and this is certainly more sexist) that any 25 yr old woman who'd sleep with a 16 yr old boy would be substantially more emotionally fucked up than the man in the other pair. So maybe the bad outcomes balance out.
In general, I think bright lines of the "no sexing people under X age" are probably good ones for minors of both gender.
56 came up when I was previewing my comment 58, ogged-59 (speaking of which, can we get comment numbers to show up on comment preview? 'Twould be a mighty boon); I was going to mention that I knew some girls in high school who were involved in relationships with much (~8years) older men, and they seemed pretty much ok (though I didn't know them very well). And BPhD's "law is an ass" thing: it's the same with anything based solely on the age of the actors. There's no way to make a law that actually captures more meaningful criteria without being hopelessly ambiguous, I suspect.
I can't tell how much of this entire discussion is focused on the fact of the student/teacher relationship, or just the ages involved; I'm rather inclined to the position that in cases where the actors aren't in such a preexisting relationship things be considered in a much more case-by-case way. (Surely it's plausible that in some of these cases, when both the older and younger party say they knew what they were doing, what the consequences were, and had genuine affection, or whatever, it could be true, and the younger person actually was competent?)
FL, wouldn't arguing in that way, and acting on those arguments, also have the effect of reinforcing those stereotypes, which themselves may be harmful? So even if part of the argument went through (it was less/more harmful in virtue of the person's gender), there would still be the cost associated with reasoning dependent on the stereotype.
Re Tim's 62: One of the problems with judging how much harm is being done is that the harm to boys is partly invisible because being somewhat fucked up in the way that being sexed up by an older woman fucks a boy up is normal for boys in this culture. Does that make sense?
(Surely it's plausible that in some of these cases, when both the older and younger party say they knew what they were doing, what the consequences were, and had genuine affection, or whatever, it could be true, and the younger person actually was competent?)
Some? Anything's possible. Any substantial percentage? I don't think enough that a brightline ban on sexual relationships with teenagers is a bad thing. What I see as the problem is that, precisely to the extent that there is real affection, and a real emotional relationship, the teenager is desperately unlikely to be any kind of equal partner in the relationship -- while the adult may be well intentioned, the teenager isn't equipped to be able to protect themself emotionally, and is at the mercy of the adult's superior skills at emotional manipulation.
For meaningless sex, this is much less of a problem, but I don't see the ban there as all that much of a loss: anyone who wants meaningless sex can stay within their own age group.
Ben, it doesn't seem like that kind of question. I'm not trying to prove harm in court, I'm saying that generally speaking, a teenage boy having sex with a significantly older woman will reinforce for the boy certain ways of thinking and patterns of behavior that aren't good for him or the people he tries to have relationships with.
Said like somebody who hasn't had sex in over a year and refuses to feel the appropriate level of shame about it.
Also, I agree with Ben. Men are kind of fuck-ups. (There's that sexism again). We age out of it, but there are a lot of guys who do a lot of truly strange and stupid things between 13 and (at a guess) 40. Can you really imagine a woman coming up with the idea for Jackass?
And it's the kind of bad that, in the long term, is also "bad for girls," insofar as these damaged boys will try to have relations with them.
Exactly right, and that in and of itself demonstrates why it's worse for girls. The "harm" done to boys leads to more harm being done to girls or women later in the boy's life; the harm done to girls is direct and immediate. And the big picture is definitely not just the individual effects, but the "bell curve" of effects. For example, a girl who is pushed into promiscuity by an underage relationship is not going to become an aggressive rapist, whereas that's at least on the radar screen for the boys. In other words, the girl ends up harming herself, while the boy ends up harming girls. I suppose you could say that if he ends up in jail for rape, then he's harmed too, but along the way, he caused serious harm to at least one woman.
Really, almost all of the side-effects I can think of are skewed much more negatively for females than for males. Unless I'm missing something, I think that's really the bottom line as to why people react differently to younger male vs. younger female cases.
No, ogged is right. And I've had plenty of sex in the last year, but then, I don't feel ashamed of it.
LB, part of the problem with the taboo, though, is--as Ogged is saying--that the taboo itself reinforces the shame that causes a lot of the damage to young people in such relationships. Which doesn't mean we should say hey, open season! But it does mean that easy labels are a bad idea. Yes, younger people are at the mercy of older people's manipulative skills (else we'd never be able to teach them anything) (joke) (kind of), but that doesn't mean it's not possible for a young person to have a relationship with an older person who genuinely loves them and is cognizant of the difference and treats it respectfully. In other words, it is possible for people to be mature about sex and love.
As to Ben's question, there isn't just one single cause for men (or women) getting fucked up around issues of sex, vulnerability, and love. But it's certainly true to say that simplistic ideas of masculinity, feminininty, and sexual agency are at the root of a lot of it.
Tim, that is sexist. How is Jackass any more idiotic than, say, anorexia?
Ogged, I don't see how the act itself is the problem. Feeling pressured to have sex with, well, anyone really, it needn't be an older woman; being manipulated or exploited by someone who has power over him; becoming accustomed to relating to women primarily in a sexual way, or several other things that might occur in a sexual relationship with an older woman, but could also occur in a non-sexual relationship elsewhere (like in the Onion article "Asshole Man Has Asshole Son"), sure—but I don't see the direct harm in actually having sex. (As for the bad effects deriving from the fact of the woman's age, unless this is related to BPhD's comments about being unable for adults to talk to younger folk except as children, and therefore being unable to relate otherwise, in this case, than sexually, to the young guy, what is the role of the advanced age? I don't think a 16yo guy and 20yo woman is really that outrageous; we've been talking about 16-25 (consecutive squares!), is that the kind of spread you're thinking of?)
Walter, what underlies the claim that underage promiscuity is correlated with becoming an aggressive rapist?
#72, I don't know. Fucked-up women do harm decent men. On balance, women are more fucked over culturally than men are, but I think it's also true that, on balance, individual men are more fucked-up about sex and gender than most women are. Fucked-up men do attack other men: it's called gay-bashing. They also suffer a lot in having a hard time establishing real relationships with women (or men). I would for sure say that "masculinity" is, at this point in U.S. history, way more limited and screwed up and damaging than "femininity," but I think it's important to say that even if women disappeared off the face of the planet, that would still be a bad thing for the boys.
Huh, did I say that adults can't talk to younger folk except as children? B/c if so, I certainly didn't mean to say that. I often talk to younger folks as adults. But that doesn't mean that they aren't, in fact, children.
The sex part is damaging, Ben, simply because sex *does*--not always, but often enough--create a kind of intimacy. Oxytocin and all that. You feel all good and tender after you fuck. Deciding you're in love with someone makes it hard to deal with it if they're an asshole. You don't have to fuck someone to be in love with them; but at the age of 16, it's a lot harder to tell the difference.
I guess in part I'm referencing male culture. Guys wince at Jackass, but they laugh about it, too, usually with fond rememberences of similar things they've done. This could be my limited experience, but I don't know anyone who laughs about their experience with anorexia.
Oh, well, that wasn't a really good characterization, I think.
You feel all good and tender after you fuck. Deciding you're in love with someone makes it hard to deal with it if they're an asshole. You don't have to fuck someone to be in love with them; but at the age of 16, it's a lot harder to tell the difference.
This seems to be different in kind from what's come before.
Walter, what underlies the claim that underage promiscuity is correlated with becoming an aggressive rapist?
Nothing statistical that I know of, I admit it. My thinking, generally speaking, was that a boy who gets imprinted with the "stud" self-image at such a young age by having sex with an older woman is more likely to be sexually aggressive than one who isn't, and the older woman element only exacerbates that effect. Probably not a very solid example, but it was only intended as that: an illustration of what I meant by the "bell curve" or range of side-effects.
Tim, there's a whole cult of anorexia bullshit online where women encourage each other about it. Seriously fucked up.
But yeah, it was a shitty analogy. I couldn't think of a better one. Something about the giggly girly cult of shopping and being brainless, maybe. Fun, but only in small doses.
For some reason I feel compelled to say that I am currently alternating posting with reading a paper my male independent study student wrote. The subject? Pornography.
Good lord, I turn my back on Unfogged for a SECOND and suddenly my Lauren Graham obsession has evolved into a discussion of sexual politics, underage sex and pornography. I heart the internet.
And to Ogged's original question, no pressure to have grandkids anymore, as my lovely older brother has taken care of it in spades by spawning girl and boy TWINS, or, as I call them, One Stop Shopping. I'd like to take this moment to give a mad shout out to my sister in law for carrying them for a record-worthy 40 weeks. I know people who live in studio apartments smaller than your uterus.
he saw that Eileen and Marty were struggling inside Eileen screaming play blackjack silver boxing champions belt with George M McFly World Middleweight .
Well, of course she is.
I had a crush on Erin Gray too!
Yeah? So did I. Spandex and stuff. Woot. She doesn't quite have whatever she used to have. Bummer.
Snark attack:
Looking back, however, it was clear that I was infatuated with Connie Selleca, Erin Gray (Battlestar Galactica AND Silver Spoons) and Lynda Carter. You sense a trend here? No, not that they're all women, but that they're brunettes, all.
Erin Gray? Battlestar Galactica? Er, no?
You feel bad because she's a lesbian. I feel bad because she's a lesbian and evidently has exactly the same taste in women as I do. (And I can seriously see the Laura Graham appeal, too.)
Snark Attack:
And yet - girlfriends? Blonde, every one. I'm just more attracted to brunettes but somehow end up with blondes.
Right. Ok, same wavelength.
Basically I was born a really masculine male and I shoulda been a diesel dyke. (No, not a woman trapped in a man's body, just better off, er, 'professionally'.)
Ok, next time around, definately going to be born on Mars. I INSIST.
ash
['The earth sucks.']
Posted by ash | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 12:26 AM
Don't worry ogged, I bet she's secretly cheap anyway.
Posted by Mitch Mills | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 5:41 AM
Her being a lesbian poses no obstacle. Sexual identity is a fluid thing. I lost my virginity to a lesbian, actually.
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 10:30 AM
Let's be fair, Adam: it does pose some obstacle. It might be surmountable, but it does exist.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 10:36 AM
I lost my virginity to a lesbian, actually.
That would've been even more impressive (and titillating) if you'd said "I lost my virginity to two lesbians, actually."
By the way, I lost my virginity to my hot 27-year-old English teacher. Does that make me a cunning linguist?
Posted by Walter Sobchak | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 10:46 AM
Isn't that kind of thing frowned upon?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 10:50 AM
Yeah... but I was just kidding anyway. It worked better if I put it as an actual rather than a hypothetical. Or at least, I thought so.
Posted by Walter Sobchak | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 10:54 AM
By the way, I lost my virginity to my hot 27-year-old English teacher.
Was he sweet to you?
(Sorry, but I couldn't resist. It's a favorite movie line of mine, said by Luis Guzman to Don Dheadle in Traffic.)
Posted by Mitch Mills | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 10:55 AM
Maybe in the next life I'll be able to tell Walter's story, if I'm very very good.
My only hot, young teacher was in junior high, when I didn't quite know why I was paying such close attention in class. Ah, Miss Ruggles (yes, "Miss"), the fun we could have had! An artistic free spirit such as yourself, combined with a morbidly over-verbal left-brainer like me -- magic.
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 10:56 AM
One of the decidedly not-hot English teachers at my high school was married to one of the history teachers, who had been, once upon a time, her high-school history teacher.
Weird!
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 10:59 AM
Um, Cheadle.
And Guzmán.
Posted by Mitch Mills | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 10:59 AM
Guzmá?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 11:08 AM
Was he sweet to you?
Where's Fontana when we need him?
Posted by Walter Sobchak | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 11:10 AM
Guzmán, Wolfson.
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 11:20 AM
Tangent: has anybody else noticed that over the past year, the number of news stories about female high school teachers giving "special" lessons to male students has shot through the roof? Honestly, it's been about one new story every three weeks and in the stories that have had pictures, the teachers are young and attractive to boot.
Definitely not consonant with my own high school experience...
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 12:05 PM
It's because feminism has turned all young women into sluts.
Posted by Anonymous | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 12:24 PM
Huh. Why didn't that post my name? That was me, bitch, being sarcastic.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 12:24 PM
feminism has turned all young women into sluts.
Well sure, that's both indisputable and laudable. But why the sudden surge now?
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 12:33 PM
has anybody else noticed that over the past year, the number of news stories about female high school teachers giving "special" lessons to male students has shot through the roof?
Yeah, that's what I was referring to (I know, poor phrasing with the preposition there, but I'm of the school of thought that says rearranging it to be grammatically correct ends up just making it look awkward - it's the kind of English up with which I will not put) in my comment. I wish I'd had a teacher as hot as some of these 14-year-old
lucky bastardspoor victims of pedagogian statutory rape, much less had the opportunity to unlock the secrets of her Jade Gate, as the Chinese might put it.I just don't get it - what in Jenna Jameson's name could possibly be attracting gorgeous twentysomething women to 14-year-old boys? Is it the acne? The incessant graphic references to various bodily functions and sexual activities (ok, so that one could just as easily describe certain blogs as it does 14-year-old boys)? The unmitigated non-Innerness of Beavishood at that stage in life?
I'm not sure I want to know.
Posted by Walter Sobchak | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 12:33 PM
Stockholm Syndrome?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 12:46 PM
It's backlash. I'm sure it's always happened, but if we focus on women h.s. teachers fucking h.s. boys, and lots of people say "gosh I wish I'd been so lucky," then it trivializes sexual predation. It's like anything else. Men kill kids way more often than women do, but when women do it it makes headlines.
As to why it happens, my guesses are a combo of:
1. emotionally immature women who identify with their students;
2. women who are otherwise healthy, but in a bad patch and regressing;
3. the problem of finding adult men who aren't looking for social inferiors to date (some women like being looked up to)
4. the eroticized power of the classroom (don't deny it)
5. human fallibility
6. whatever the proper term is that means things get magnified b/c they violate our expectations--i.e., it doesn't happen all the time, it just seems to b/c we're shocked/titillated by it
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 1:04 PM
Is 6 a flavor of confirmation bias?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 1:08 PM
7. Sexual attraction. No one finds it odd that straight men are often attracted to 14 year old girls, or that gay men are often attracted to 14 year old boys. It's not as common among straight women, but there's nothing all that strange about finding youth, health, and innocence attractive. It's still wrong in all of the situations listed, but it just isn't all that weird.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 1:09 PM
in a bad patch and regressing
This has been a constant in nearly all of the stories I've read. Points 1-6 explain why it happens and the omnipresence of media explains why we're hearing about it, but points 1-6 have always existed and said omnipresence for at least a decade. The last 8-12 months, though, have been like that summer where shark attacks were happening every weekend.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 1:14 PM
Except that 14 year old girls sometimes look sexually differentiated. That, in any case, is where I find it unsurprising, if still wrong.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 1:15 PM
Dude, there are totally 6' 14 year-old boys out there who need to shave. Not as many, but it isn't as though all boys go through puberty in college, nor as if adult men are only attracted to 14 year-old girls who could actually pass for 19.
(I now feel the need to state that I, personally, am not attracted to 14 year-old boys. Just that I don't find it all that much weirder than the gender-reversed situation.)
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 1:19 PM
if we focus on women h.s. teachers fucking h.s. boys, and lots of people say "gosh I wish I'd been so lucky," then it trivializes sexual predation
So are you going to spank me?
Also, I agree with apostropher - all of the contributing factors noted have always existed, but there seems to be a sharp rise of late, and it just strikes me as odd. It's not like the media's prurient interest in stories involving underage victims of sex crimes is anything new, either: see Ramsey, JonBenet and Smart, Elizabeth. Yes, it's sick, but it's nothing new.
Posted by Walter Sobchak | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 1:21 PM
Yeah, but apostropher, there were actually fewer shark attacks that summer than in previous summers, there was just a craze for reporting the ones that did occur.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 1:22 PM
Goddamnit, Wolfson, must you always be the voice of reason?
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 1:37 PM
Walter, no, i'm not pointing to you; just talking about how the larger rhetorical situation works. Anyway, frankly, I don't think it's all that sick, even though at the same time yes, in fact, I do find it odd when men are attracted to 14 year old girls (or boys). Fourteen is damn young, even if someone looks sexually differentiated; the second they open their mouth, you know they're a kid.
But then I still think 18 year olds are kids, too. Sure some of 'em are hotties. But still kids.
Confirmation bias, yes, that's probably it. Thanks Ben.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 1:41 PM
if I may be allowed to sort-of echo Wolfson, two problems with the question:
1) I don't know any evidence that says the this is actually a new phenomena. Could have been happening earlier.
2) Contra Walter, simply because there is media interest doesn't imply the media were looking for these stories. Also, there's sure a large impetus for schools and families to keep these things quiet.
Most likely, the reporting is the new phenomena. There were rumors that one of my HS teachers had gotten caught with a guy in the class before me. (She was also old enough to have a kid in the class below me. Still had a good figure)
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 1:44 PM
Excuse me. But I believe it was I, not Wolfson, who said that this isn't a new phenomenon. Wolfson is merely agreeing with me.
Not that I want to be a bitch about it or anything.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 1:51 PM
I was merely agreeing with BPhD.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 1:53 PM
Fourteen is damn young, even if someone looks sexually differentiated; the second they open their mouth, you know they're a kid.
You're confusing two kinds of attraction here, I think. There's what I'll call sexual attraction, which is a product of looking, and then there's personal attraction, which we'll call a product of interacting. I frankly find it inauthentic for anyone to claim that lust of a sexually differentiated 14 year old to be weird. As if sexual attraction were some sort of rationalistic human function. What about a 22 year old who looks 14? I suppose we shouldn't be sexually attracted to him/her?
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 1:53 PM
sorry, Wolfson was nearest. In agreeing with Wolfy, I agree moreso with you, the originator.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 1:55 PM
(Is it all due to feminism?)
Seriously, somebody seems to have notice that women occasionally engage in er, non-optimal acts, so now it's a fad to report it. Which, I guess, is an improvement over the situation where the evil mens was currupting the chillens.
Or not.
I would think tho, that obviously, anybody in the business of standing in front of a bunch of 'impressionable' mind for the purposes of er, molding, tends to like the power situation, which can then get out of hand very easily, particularly when hormones are involved.
ash
['Shit. Fan.']
Posted by ash | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 1:55 PM
bitchphd, I know what you're saying about the whole "lucky guys" meme, and really, you're probably right. I just think it's one of those inevitable reactions by members of the more porcine gender, especially in the locker-room-at-Harvard atmosphere of Unfogged.
In any case, what I was saying seems odd is not necessarily the fact that it happens, but that, as the apostropher said, these stories seem to be cropping up so often lately. When I said "what could be attracting these women?" it was really nothing more than a rhetorical set-up for the rest of the comment. Low-hanging fruit, you might say.
Posted by Walter Sobchak | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 1:57 PM
Yeah, gotta agree with Michael on that.
Not to derail...
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 1:57 PM
Seriously, somebody seems to have notice that women occasionally engage in er, non-optimal acts, so now it's a fad to report it.
That's a really good point. For a while there in the 90s (and probably before that; I don't know because I was too busy being under 12), it was definitely all the rage to make a point of how Bad men are. Maybe this really is just the gender-zeitgeist pendulum swinging back from its "Home Improvement"-style man-bashing apex.
Posted by Walter Sobchak | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 2:04 PM
Oh hey, I'm not even saying that the "lucky guys" meme is piggish. I agree, to a point. In fact, I think that there is a *major* difference between a 25yo guy fucking, say, a 16yo girl (let's get away from 14, which is a little too young) and a 25yo woman fucking a 16yo. The latter is more socially unacceptable, but likely far less exploitative. Not in any essentialist sense, but simply b/c of power differentials and so forth. Which isn't to say that you can't screw up a 16yo guy by fucking him, since in a way you're playing right into that whole "be a man" bullshit with a young man who is almost certainly incredibly nervous about it. But, in terms of his social self-perception, it's just way less problematic. Not always, but probably often.
Anyway. Back to the meaning of "sexual attraction." I think what you meant by that is what I meant by "hottie." I can totally see going, "damn, that kid is a knockout/will be a knockout in a few years." But the *sexual* part of "sexual attraction," to me, means actually wanting to fuck them. Which at some point is gonna involve talking to them. And I just can't imagine that anyone past, say, 25 could get it up for a 14yo kid.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 2:10 PM
#39: Yeah. What I said. "Backlash."
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 2:12 PM
But the *sexual* part of "sexual attraction," to me, means actually wanting to fuck them. Which at some point is gonna involve talking to them.
the flaw in my method.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 2:18 PM
Indeed.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 2:20 PM
But yeah, after I posted 34, I thought about it so much and came to the same conclusion. While a certain response to bodies might be age-independent, "sexual attraction" is typically a more robust concept, and age-dependant. Of course, I'm under 25, so, 14 year olds for me!
(kid-ding! really.)
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 2:26 PM
I think that there is a *major* difference between a 25yo guy fucking, say, a 16yo girl (let's get away from 14, which is a little too young) and a 25yo woman fucking a 16yo.
I agree. Political correctness and legal propriety demand that we treat them the same, but they really aren't. I mean, not to put too fine a point on it, or get all maudlin and Oprah-y about "bringing a life into the world", but the physical realities of sex, along with the potential results of engaging in it (which, at that age, are pretty much necessarily negative in a big way), are enough to demonstrate that, even without the psychological side-effects.
Posted by Walter Sobchak | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 2:27 PM
One interesting tidbit about differing reactions to this phenomenon. My understanding is that in France people were absolutely obsessed with the Mary Kay Letourneau story. To them, it was a beautiful story about the power of love to transcend all obstacles, and the fact that she wasn't initially allowed to reunite with the ex-student who fathered her two children was seen as an absolute scandal. Apparently, it briefly served the function previously performed by the saga of Mumia Abu Jamal -- encapsulating for the French all that is wrong about American culture.
Posted by pjs | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 2:28 PM
Well, maybe the French remember Eloisa and Abelard. Just to continue to reveal more than I should, as I was doing in the other thread.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 2:31 PM
[redacted]
Posted by [redacted] | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 2:35 PM
PS to my last comment: "power" seems the wrong way to think about the wrongness of the 25-on-16 action. Is there some power differential inherent in that sort of relationship that's absent from cases of two adults? My first thought is that age is more plausibly linked to competent consent, adequate information, emotional manipulation, and so on. All of these can just as well be present in the older woman scenario.
And for the record, I try to avoid being a scold, but I'm troubled by the "young guy got hot action" response to these stories.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 2:39 PM
Anyone at all could know about Eloisa and Abelard. What's revealing is that you think it's revealing.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 2:40 PM
Sure sex can be harmful for men. But it isn't a philosophical abstraction. The fact is that, for 16yo boys, getting laid is an accomplishment--socially speaking--and for 16yo girls, it's not. It's a secret. That's why sexually active girls are "sluts" and sexually active boys are "studs." So, if a 25yo woman comes on to a 16yo boy, there is a social context in which that's proof of his masculinity. If you reverse it, the social context is it's a threat. Not to piss baa off, but this is partly social conditioning. Plus, there's the whole who runs the risk of getting knocked up question. And the whole whose body is getting penetrated question.
Which doesn't mean that it's *ok* for a 25yo female teacher to fuck a 16yo student. But it does mean that it probably, on the whole, does less damage overall. In most cases.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 2:41 PM
It depends on your point of view. People divide over it about 50-50. Either it's romantic, or it's criminal.
(The position of a teacher is slightly different from a regular person tho.)
They aren't as age-strict in France or Holland or whatever as they are here.
Whether that's good or bad is a matter of opinion.
ash
['Morals, an Exact Science, by James Dobson.']
Posted by ash | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 2:41 PM
Well, see, Ben? Another reason unfogged needs an edit function. Why don't you write one?
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 2:43 PM
the differences in response, level of outrage, and so on, are created by a failure to take seriously (a) how sex can be harmful for males and (b) women's agency. The right to be punished, and all that.
I do think that's a part of it - kind of a patronizing mental block at the idea of the woman as sexual aggressor, even when the male is a minor. But I don't think that does anything more than amplify the basic psychological and physical reality that underage girls are far more vulnerable to serious long-term harm than underage boys (assuming a "consensual" relationship). Maybe the psychological part has more to do with society than nature, but not the physical part. And the two are not, of course, entirely unrelated. So even on the psychological question, I would have to say, admittedly without being an expert in developmental psychology, that I would imagine more harm is done to the underage girls involved in these situations than to the boys.
Posted by Walter Sobchak | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 2:45 PM
Oh. And I'm quite happy to agree that calling sexually active 16yo boys "studs" is bad for them. But I'm still going to say that the "young Man / older Woman" thing offers a balance of "dominant" and "powerful" categories in a way that young Woman / older Man" doesn't.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 2:46 PM
But! I also know a lot of women who, in their youths, had sexual relationships with much older men and do not think they were harmed by it--on the contrary. So it all depends.
Which is why the law is a ass.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 2:48 PM
My first thought is that age is more plausibly linked to competent consent, adequate information, emotional manipulation, and so on. All of these can just as well be present in the older woman scenario.
Can just as well be, but are much less likely to. I tend to think that a 16 y.o. is as competent to consent to meaningless sex with an adult as they are with a fellow teenager, and that it's not all that horrific regardless of gender (I do, with bphd, question the taste and the emotional stability of the adult in question for wanting to screw a child). Once you get into any kind of serious emotional relationship, I think that either a male or female teenager is absolutely unequipped to negotiate on any kind of equal level with an adult (barring the occasional freak relationship, but this is pretty universal) and the adult therefore is necessarily in a position of serious and immoral abuse of power.
The different reaction to the situation in the case of male and female teenagers is just the double standard at work -- meaningless sex is seen as something that teenage boys desire and are benefited by, whereas teenage girls are injured by. I don't believe that that's necessarily, or even usually, the case.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 2:48 PM
Certainly there are more health risks present for the young woman than the young man—cervical cancer, for instance, and the greater risks associated with pregnancy at a young age (not to mention the bare fact of pregnancy). Those aren't a result of social conditioning.
Bphd, why is calling sexually active 16yos "studs" bad? That's a real question: I (presume to) know you don't think sex is generally bad or shameful; so in this case is celebrating sex bad because of the double standard applied to women (which wouldn't really make it bad for the boys), because of the pressures it places on them to become sexually active, because they can't handle responsibility (something else that I don't really think would be bad for them in a developmental sort of way), or ...?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 2:53 PM
So nice that my plea-for-love post has turned to issues of statutory rape. The dirty little secret of fucking kids is that a lot (most?) of the psychological harm entailed is a result of the taboo and subsequent shame. What matters is the meaning of the sexual act, not (so much) the act itself, right? That said, the question then is, just how bad is it for boys to be saddled with this very strange notion of "studliness," that's bound up so much with power and manipulation? Pretty damn bad, is my guess. And it's the kind of bad that, in the long term, is also "bad for girls," insofar as these damaged boys will try to have relations with them.
The paradox, of course, is that the more we care about protecting children, and the more scandalized we are when they're abused, the worse it is for the kids.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 2:53 PM
Ogged! I agree with every word! We agree about sex! My god!
Ben, it's bad for boys because it makes it very, very hard for them to say no. And sometimes they should. It makes it hard for boys to admit fear, inexperience, or uncertainty. Therefore they do things that make them feel bad, and then can't admit that it makes them feel bad.
Which might actually be one reason for some 14yo boys getting involved with their h.s. teachers, come to think of it.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 2:56 PM
I'm more interested in the wrongness of the older person's actions. I suppose there's this sort of defense available:
1. because of prevailing social norms, sexual activity is seen as bad when women do it, good when men do it.
2. hence sex itself is or can be a form of harm to women but not men
3. hence my sexxxxing up the 16yr old was less harmful in virtue of his sex.
4. Hence it wasn't (as) wrong as if the roles were reversed.
It's interesting to wonder about whether gender stereotypes should be given this normative role, but it's not completely implausible.
a 16 y.o. is as competent to consent to meaningless sex with an adult as they are with a fellow teenager
Agreed, which is to say, not very. But whether it's wrong of the 16 yr old is a tricky question-- if 16 is not competent, it might be wrong of 25 to treat 16 in ways that, were 16 to treat 16 that way, would not be wrong. Not a double standard, a moral patient/moral agent distinction.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 2:59 PM
I dunno. At a gut level, I suspect you'd get more bad outcomes for the 16 yr girl - 25 yr man combo than the other. (I'm sure this is sexist). Except that I assume (and this is certainly more sexist) that any 25 yr old woman who'd sleep with a 16 yr old boy would be substantially more emotionally fucked up than the man in the other pair. So maybe the bad outcomes balance out.
In general, I think bright lines of the "no sexing people under X age" are probably good ones for minors of both gender.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 3:03 PM
56 came up when I was previewing my comment 58, ogged-59 (speaking of which, can we get comment numbers to show up on comment preview? 'Twould be a mighty boon); I was going to mention that I knew some girls in high school who were involved in relationships with much (~8years) older men, and they seemed pretty much ok (though I didn't know them very well). And BPhD's "law is an ass" thing: it's the same with anything based solely on the age of the actors. There's no way to make a law that actually captures more meaningful criteria without being hopelessly ambiguous, I suspect.
I can't tell how much of this entire discussion is focused on the fact of the student/teacher relationship, or just the ages involved; I'm rather inclined to the position that in cases where the actors aren't in such a preexisting relationship things be considered in a much more case-by-case way. (Surely it's plausible that in some of these cases, when both the older and younger party say they knew what they were doing, what the consequences were, and had genuine affection, or whatever, it could be true, and the younger person actually was competent?)
FL, wouldn't arguing in that way, and acting on those arguments, also have the effect of reinforcing those stereotypes, which themselves may be harmful? So even if part of the argument went through (it was less/more harmful in virtue of the person's gender), there would still be the cost associated with reasoning dependent on the stereotype.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 3:06 PM
Yup. Definitely a good spot for brightline rules.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 3:07 PM
Re Tim's 62: One of the problems with judging how much harm is being done is that the harm to boys is partly invisible because being somewhat fucked up in the way that being sexed up by an older woman fucks a boy up is normal for boys in this culture. Does that make sense?
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 3:09 PM
I'm currently reading this book, in which the 35-year-old Georg Lichtenberg (my hero!) is quite taken with his 13-year-old inamorata.
Ogged, how then do you know that it was the sexing-up of the boy that fucked him up?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 3:11 PM
(Surely it's plausible that in some of these cases, when both the older and younger party say they knew what they were doing, what the consequences were, and had genuine affection, or whatever, it could be true, and the younger person actually was competent?)
Some? Anything's possible. Any substantial percentage? I don't think enough that a brightline ban on sexual relationships with teenagers is a bad thing. What I see as the problem is that, precisely to the extent that there is real affection, and a real emotional relationship, the teenager is desperately unlikely to be any kind of equal partner in the relationship -- while the adult may be well intentioned, the teenager isn't equipped to be able to protect themself emotionally, and is at the mercy of the adult's superior skills at emotional manipulation.
For meaningless sex, this is much less of a problem, but I don't see the ban there as all that much of a loss: anyone who wants meaningless sex can stay within their own age group.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 3:13 PM
Ben, it doesn't seem like that kind of question. I'm not trying to prove harm in court, I'm saying that generally speaking, a teenage boy having sex with a significantly older woman will reinforce for the boy certain ways of thinking and patterns of behavior that aren't good for him or the people he tries to have relationships with.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 3:14 PM
Ogged -
Said like somebody who hasn't had sex in over a year and refuses to feel the appropriate level of shame about it.
Also, I agree with Ben. Men are kind of fuck-ups. (There's that sexism again). We age out of it, but there are a lot of guys who do a lot of truly strange and stupid things between 13 and (at a guess) 40. Can you really imagine a woman coming up with the idea for Jackass?
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 3:16 PM
#69 was re: #65.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 3:17 PM
Ben, I don't think there's a tag to include numbers in comment preview, sorry.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 3:21 PM
And it's the kind of bad that, in the long term, is also "bad for girls," insofar as these damaged boys will try to have relations with them.
Exactly right, and that in and of itself demonstrates why it's worse for girls. The "harm" done to boys leads to more harm being done to girls or women later in the boy's life; the harm done to girls is direct and immediate. And the big picture is definitely not just the individual effects, but the "bell curve" of effects. For example, a girl who is pushed into promiscuity by an underage relationship is not going to become an aggressive rapist, whereas that's at least on the radar screen for the boys. In other words, the girl ends up harming herself, while the boy ends up harming girls. I suppose you could say that if he ends up in jail for rape, then he's harmed too, but along the way, he caused serious harm to at least one woman.
Really, almost all of the side-effects I can think of are skewed much more negatively for females than for males. Unless I'm missing something, I think that's really the bottom line as to why people react differently to younger male vs. younger female cases.
Posted by Walter Sobchak | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 3:24 PM
No, ogged is right. And I've had plenty of sex in the last year, but then, I don't feel ashamed of it.
LB, part of the problem with the taboo, though, is--as Ogged is saying--that the taboo itself reinforces the shame that causes a lot of the damage to young people in such relationships. Which doesn't mean we should say hey, open season! But it does mean that easy labels are a bad idea. Yes, younger people are at the mercy of older people's manipulative skills (else we'd never be able to teach them anything) (joke) (kind of), but that doesn't mean it's not possible for a young person to have a relationship with an older person who genuinely loves them and is cognizant of the difference and treats it respectfully. In other words, it is possible for people to be mature about sex and love.
As to Ben's question, there isn't just one single cause for men (or women) getting fucked up around issues of sex, vulnerability, and love. But it's certainly true to say that simplistic ideas of masculinity, feminininty, and sexual agency are at the root of a lot of it.
Tim, that is sexist. How is Jackass any more idiotic than, say, anorexia?
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 3:26 PM
Tim, that is sexist. How is Jackass any more idiotic than, say, anorexia?
Or, say, the Oxygen Network?
Posted by Walter Sobchak | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 3:29 PM
Ogged, I don't see how the act itself is the problem. Feeling pressured to have sex with, well, anyone really, it needn't be an older woman; being manipulated or exploited by someone who has power over him; becoming accustomed to relating to women primarily in a sexual way, or several other things that might occur in a sexual relationship with an older woman, but could also occur in a non-sexual relationship elsewhere (like in the Onion article "Asshole Man Has Asshole Son"), sure—but I don't see the direct harm in actually having sex. (As for the bad effects deriving from the fact of the woman's age, unless this is related to BPhD's comments about being unable for adults to talk to younger folk except as children, and therefore being unable to relate otherwise, in this case, than sexually, to the young guy, what is the role of the advanced age? I don't think a 16yo guy and 20yo woman is really that outrageous; we've been talking about 16-25 (consecutive squares!), is that the kind of spread you're thinking of?)
Walter, what underlies the claim that underage promiscuity is correlated with becoming an aggressive rapist?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 3:30 PM
#72, I don't know. Fucked-up women do harm decent men. On balance, women are more fucked over culturally than men are, but I think it's also true that, on balance, individual men are more fucked-up about sex and gender than most women are. Fucked-up men do attack other men: it's called gay-bashing. They also suffer a lot in having a hard time establishing real relationships with women (or men). I would for sure say that "masculinity" is, at this point in U.S. history, way more limited and screwed up and damaging than "femininity," but I think it's important to say that even if women disappeared off the face of the planet, that would still be a bad thing for the boys.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 3:33 PM
Huh, did I say that adults can't talk to younger folk except as children? B/c if so, I certainly didn't mean to say that. I often talk to younger folks as adults. But that doesn't mean that they aren't, in fact, children.
The sex part is damaging, Ben, simply because sex *does*--not always, but often enough--create a kind of intimacy. Oxytocin and all that. You feel all good and tender after you fuck. Deciding you're in love with someone makes it hard to deal with it if they're an asshole. You don't have to fuck someone to be in love with them; but at the age of 16, it's a lot harder to tell the difference.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 3:37 PM
BPhD:
I guess in part I'm referencing male culture. Guys wince at Jackass, but they laugh about it, too, usually with fond rememberences of similar things they've done. This could be my limited experience, but I don't know anyone who laughs about their experience with anorexia.
Walter:
Shut up. I like Oxygen.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 3:40 PM
Oh, well, that wasn't a really good characterization, I think.
You feel all good and tender after you fuck. Deciding you're in love with someone makes it hard to deal with it if they're an asshole. You don't have to fuck someone to be in love with them; but at the age of 16, it's a lot harder to tell the difference.
This seems to be different in kind from what's come before.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 3:41 PM
Walter, what underlies the claim that underage promiscuity is correlated with becoming an aggressive rapist?
Nothing statistical that I know of, I admit it. My thinking, generally speaking, was that a boy who gets imprinted with the "stud" self-image at such a young age by having sex with an older woman is more likely to be sexually aggressive than one who isn't, and the older woman element only exacerbates that effect. Probably not a very solid example, but it was only intended as that: an illustration of what I meant by the "bell curve" or range of side-effects.
Posted by Walter Sobchak | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 3:43 PM
Tim, there's a whole cult of anorexia bullshit online where women encourage each other about it. Seriously fucked up.
But yeah, it was a shitty analogy. I couldn't think of a better one. Something about the giggly girly cult of shopping and being brainless, maybe. Fun, but only in small doses.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 3:44 PM
Shut up. I like Oxygen.
Your secret is safe with me.
Posted by Walter Sobchak | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 3:48 PM
For some reason I feel compelled to say that I am currently alternating posting with reading a paper my male independent study student wrote. The subject? Pornography.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 3:49 PM
Don't reveal too much!
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 3:52 PM
Porn is a subject that one could study in any number of contexts.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 3:53 PM
Yes, but we now have three (3) statements, the overlap of which contains less than any one does individually.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 3:56 PM
I'm assuming that most people are too lazy to bother. The regular Unfogged crowd doesn't frighten me.
You mean "more," btw.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 3:59 PM
No, I meant "less". "Intersection" might have been a better choice than "overlap", though.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 4:02 PM
More information, but less space in the Venn diagram.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 4:02 PM
'Course, that could just be the fatal moment, couldn't it? The "I am among friends here" relaxation.
Oh well, fuck it. If I get Dooced, it'll give me an excuse to move.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-10-05 4:02 PM
Good lord, I turn my back on Unfogged for a SECOND and suddenly my Lauren Graham obsession has evolved into a discussion of sexual politics, underage sex and pornography. I heart the internet.
And to Ogged's original question, no pressure to have grandkids anymore, as my lovely older brother has taken care of it in spades by spawning girl and boy TWINS, or, as I call them, One Stop Shopping. I'd like to take this moment to give a mad shout out to my sister in law for carrying them for a record-worthy 40 weeks. I know people who live in studio apartments smaller than your uterus.
Posted by moira | Link to this comment | 03-11-05 12:34 PM
What a delightful image.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 03-11-05 12:38 PM
he saw that Eileen and Marty were struggling inside Eileen screaming play blackjack silver boxing champions belt with George M McFly World Middleweight .
Posted by Tessa Kayli | Link to this comment | 01-25-06 1:06 AM