Ask Dr. Helen: Should Men Be Kicked Out of the Church Nursery?
Should men be kicked out of the church nursery for the crime of being male? Reader Sarah thinks this is unfair–so do I:
Dear Dr. Helen,
My question is in relation to an incident that happened recently at our church. A friend of mine was assigned to teach our son’s nursery class (like Sunday School, but for tiny ones ages 18 months to 3 years). There are about a dozen children in this class, so there were supposed to be two teachers, but they hadn’t assigned anyone yet, so my friend’s husband volunteered to help his wife out. A parent of one of the children complained to the bishop that a man was teaching the nursery class, so my friend’s husband was asked not to help out with the class anymore.I understand that there’s been a problem in my church in recent years (not in my congregation, but in other congregations) with some high-profile cases where a male teacher, teaching alone, sexually abused a child in the Sunday School class, so I thought it was a good idea when they instituted the two-teacher rule (every class is to have two teachers, which for practical reasons is a good idea). But I think this is going too far. Women can’t kick all the men out of positions of caring for children, and then turn around and complain that men don’t help out with the kids or that there’s a shortage of teachers. I would like to go to the bishop and complain about this, but I need some facts first. I am familiar with conditional probabilities and would like to crunch a few numbers for him.
My question is, what are the actual chances that a man would sexually abuse a child vs. a woman abusing a child? What is the incidence of sexual abuse in general? What percentage of sexual abuses of children are committed by men vs. women?
Thanks,
Sarah
Dear Sarah,
Your bishop may not be as safe as he thinks if he uses only female teachers. Although PC books and statistics would like us to believe that women do not commit sexual offenses against children, this is not the case. For example, here is some interesting information on female sex offenders from the Canadian Children’s Rights Council:
As recently as 10 years ago, it was a common assumption that females did not or could not sexually abuse children or youth. Even some professionals working in the field believed that women represented only about 1% to 3% of sexual abusers at most. However, mounting research evidence about sexual abuse perpetration at the hands of teen and adult females has begun to challenge our assumptions, though these earlier and dated views still tend to predominate.
The percentage of women and teenage girl perpetrators recorded in case report studies is small and ranges from 3% to 10% (Kendall-Tackett and Simon, 1987; McCarty, 1986; Schultz and Jones, 1983; Wasserman and Kappel, 1985). When the victim is male, female perpetrators account for 1 % to 24% of abusers. When the victim is female, female perpetrators account for 6% to 17% of abusers (American Humane Association, 1981; Finkelhor and Russell, 1984; Finkelhor et al., 1990). In the Ontario Incidence Study, 10% of sexual abuse investigations involved female perpetrators (Trocme, 1994). However, in six studies reviewed by Russell and Finkelhor, female perpetrators accounted for 25% or more of abusers. Ramsay-Klawsnik (1990) found that adult females were abusers of males 37% of the time and female adolescents 19% of the time. Both of these rates are higher than the same study reported for adult and teen male abusers.
Part of the problem is that “86% of the victims of female sexual predators aren’t believed, so the crimes go unreported and don’t get prosecuted.”
A July 2000 Justice Department report found that females account for 4% of those sexually abusing children under 18. The report also says they account for 12% of those molesting kids younger than 6. In a U.S. Department of Education report released in June 2004, at least 20% of students reported sexual misconduct whether verbal or physical by a female teacher or aide.
This latter statistic does not surprise me. I remember in junior high a female biology teacher who was notorious for having sex with the middle school boys. People thought it was funny. It really isn’t. Some boys can also have psychological issues that are as serious or more serious than girls who are sexually abused at a young age by an authority figure.
In terms of how many people say they are sexually abused, some sources say “about 25 percent of women and up to 17 percent of men say they experienced sexual abuse as children, ranging from seeing someone exposing themselves to intercourse. Boys are less likely to report abuse.”
Naturally, people are concerned– abuse by someone in authority against a child is a betrayal of trust and is a terrible thing. However, when a woman does it, it is often not taken as seriously. We seem to have a double standard in our society when it comes to abuse committed by men and by women. Female sex offenders are said to be few and far between,yet female teachers are making the news for abuse cases. However, excuses are made for these women but not for men:
“Men are demonized, women are diagnosed. Men are beasts, but women are troubled or mentally ill,” said media scholar Matthew Felling in an interview with Fox News. In fact, accounts of women sexual offenders are often more titillating than harsh. Felling calls the news coverage of young, attractive teachers involved with their students “part crime drama, part Penthouse letter.”
Part of the problem is that even when women commit sexual offenses or violent offenses, we often don’t consider that a crime, or society finds it much less threatening and tends to be more lenient. That makes all the statistics questionable.
But even if men do pose a greater risk, would that justify this discrimination? In our society, we generally oppose “profiling” of racial groups on the basis that they’re more likely to commit crimes of violence or terrorism. Why is this sort of profiling somehow different? Ask your bishop these questions and see what he has to say. I do want to add that the two teacher rule sounds like a good one in order to protect all parties.
What do you think–should men be kicked out of the church nursery? The other question I have is, have any male or female readers out there had any experience with a tryst with an older woman while they were very young? If so, were you scarred, appreciative, or did you feel somewhere in-between?
—————————
If you have a question you would like answered, please leave it below or email me at askdrhelen@hotmail.com. Your questions may be edited for length and clarity. Please note that your first name only or no name at all will be used to identify your question-if you want me to use your name, tell me, otherwise you will be referred to by your first name or as “a reader” etc.
Helen Smith is a psychologist specializing in forensic issues in Knoxville, Tennessee and blogs at drhelen.blogspot.com. This advice column is for educational and entertainment purposes only and does not purport to replace therapy or psychological treatment.
I had an 18 year old babysitter make a pass at me when I was about 12. I was completely baffled by it, but I would not say I was traumatized at all.
About a year later when my hormones had truly kicked in, I definitely wished she’d do it again. Getting rejected once seemed to be enough for her though — if anything I felt a little foolish about the whole thing.
I suppose you could make the argument that she “stole my innocence” or something like that, but I’d counter that most teenage boys would like nothing better than for that to happen.
This is going to keep happening until one of those guys who is asked nicely not to teach/whatever decides to go to court and sue for sexual discrimination – and wins
I’ve seen evidence that fathers play a significant role in the sexual orientation of 18-24 month children. Would it be perhaps abusive therefore NOT to include men in ministering to young children, particularly in a society where many children are being raised by a single female parent?
Don’t children need the kind of roughhousing and active gaming that men are particularly good at?
I can’t see such a lawsuit succeeding given that these are volunteer positions and not employment. Having said that I do think a “no men” policy is not the right solution. In my previous church we had a two-adult rule, and only women could take children to the bathroom or change diapers. Even that seemed somewhat onerous from my perspective, but at least from the children’s perspective they had healthy interactions with both men and women.
This kind of discrimination is just as bad as every other type, and should be treated the same way. Next we will be taught that “only women can be astronauts”.
There is a double-standard, and there should be.
Most age boys in puberty would have loved nothing more than for one of their teachers to “introduce” them to this particular subject.
Might a rare, unwilling and forcefully coerced boy suffer some kind of bizarre trauma if it happened? It’s conceivable, I guess.
But the majority would be delighted if the “hot teacher” took such an interest in them, and the boost in self-esteem and confidence those 99% would get from such an episode outweighs any potential trauma suffered by the one boy whom, I would wager, probably has other issues in his life.
Psychologists or not, as women, you really aren’t in a position to say it’s wrong. You’re bringing your own feminine baggage to this.
The other issue that I think the Bishop would want to think about is how their decision causes the congregation to view men. When churches everywhere are struggling to build an understanding of how to be a Godly man, to engage men and bring them to a commitment to the church community, but then demonizes men as a whole group this way — well it’s no wonder that there are more women in the pews than men. And if women/children don’t get a positive impression of good men from church – where on earth are they going to get it from?
This is a serious decision, and while I respect the Bishop for wanting to protect children good intentions aren’t really enough.
Once again, I think the whole abuse issue—-like so many other issues—-is not, nor should ever be couched as an issue of color, race or gender. To me it’s a, and pardon the pun, it’s a straw man.
Abuse is abuse, and since the beginning of time victims and victimizers have known no particular demongraphic.
If churches and other organizations want men to be involved, be it with kids or just the organization, they have to let them be involved. The husband volunteered; that indicates his willingness or his wanting to be involved. Then to say “Thanks for the offer but no because you’re a man” is guaranteed to make any man never offer again. If asked, he is more likely to say No. It doesn’t take much to imagine the guys pulling back and becoming disinvolved with everything to do with the kids.
Yes, I’m a man.
In terms of how many people say they are sexually abused, some sources say “about 25 percent of women and up to 17 percent of men say they experienced sexual abuse as children,
Am I the only one suspicious of a statistic that says 1 in 4 girls experiences sexual abuse as a child?
Hey, just wanted to say that I’ve been crusading for awareness of abuse against men for years. I run the base Chapel at Naval Station Newport, and I just instituted a program of police background checks for our Children’s Church and Youth teachers… often, they’re completely alone with the children. True, that won’t catch someone who’s never been caught, but it will provide some protection. Also, whomever’s on duty will, once or twice, go into the classroom. The reason I’m commenting is because I ran into the same wall… “They’re female teachers! They’re safe!”… that you were describing, and only after I was able to point out a Navy regulation covering the background checks for all personnel working with children, was I able to go ahead. Do I suspect the teachers? Of course not. I didn’t suspect the woman who molested my friend in High School, either.
Men and women are different. An astoundingly profound observation, isn’t it?
Double standards work–another profound insight, I know. They work much, much more than modern society is willing to credit. Yes, I want a male cop responding to my emergency call for assistance. Yes, I want the nursery school teacher to be a female.
Men have more upper-body strength and aggressive instinct, and women are more nurturing to small children. Get over it, idealists.
As children develop over the years from preschool to junior high, their needs for nurturing grow less and their needs for discipline and serious instruction grow greater. At midway through the elementary school stage, men are equally qualified, but not before then.
As for the last question, no, I was not molested by a horny female teacher, but I did have aspirations to be molested by a few certain ones after puberty had set in. Alas, they did not comply with my hidden desires, and my grades no doubt suffered while I spent valuable class time imagining it all in my head. Perhaps if one had been so kind as to molest me, I would have learnt much more.
I recall while in school there being one or two “hot” female teachers that were rumored to have given some special attention to some of the teenage boys, but I never found out if was true or not. They never tried it on me. But then I didn’t play football…
Maybe it is perceived as a “badge of honor” for a young guy to be initiated by an older woman (usually a teacher in modern folklore) but if I recall the popular media of those days, movies like “Little Darlings” with Tatum O’Neal and Kristy McNichol hardly made it seem like it was very far from teenage girls’ minds as well (O’Neal’s character tried to land an adult camp counselor).
Of course, we’re talking teenagers here and not 5-yr-olds…
I don’t see why private entities shouldn’t be entitled to put in place whatever discriminatory practices they feel like. No men, no women, no blacks, no Asians, no Jews. If you don’t like it, take your business elsewhere.
That said, if a volunteer outfit tried to pull a stunt like this on me, I sure wouldn’t volunteer anything there.
The woman that condones this by continuing to work there practically says that’s she’s a-ok with others suspecting her husband of pedophilia. I guess I would think twice about that if I were the husband.
“I remember in junior high a female biology teacher who was notorious for having sex with the middle school boys. People thought it was funny. It really isn’t.”
I dunno, I still think that’s funny. Just the thought of a gangly, puny middle schooler getting some is hilarious to me. And When I was in middle school, to have a situation like that would have been awesome.
Sean, like many people who don’t comprehend sex abuse, couldn’t be more wrong.
While teacher fantasies are common among both adolescent girls and boys, the real exploitation that occurs has absolutely nothing to do with those fantasies. Boys sexually exploited by older women, generally speaking, absolutely DO NOT receive a boost in confidence.
Potential long-term effects of adult woman abuse or exploitation of minor boys include: future marital-commitment problems, alcoholism, transferred sexual abuse (a “passing of the torch”), emotional distancing, alienation or an inability to develop healthy peer relationships, and a further sexualization of women. That’s just a handful. Ask young street hustlers about their mothers. Adult-child exploitation is horrible, and to lay a positive aura over it is just that more revolting.
Sorry Sean but your comment is asinine. To say that there should be a double standard is ill thought out and helps perpetuate the kind of thinking that keeps this issue a double standard. Any “child” that is involved in a sexual situation with an adult is by definition abused, whether they think at the time that they like it or want it. They are children and as such, incapable of making that sort of adult decision with full knowledge of the results of their actions. Flip your argument around and make it a 13 year old girl that is eager to be accepted and approached by a male teacher and would be delighted to have him make her a “woman”. Society rightly condemns that sort of behavior because we understand that a girl of 13 can not consent to such an adult activity and that she is not able to properly understand the consequences. Why is it any different if the child involved is a boy? What about a 13 year old boy and a male teacher? If you find that distasteful and wrong but a 12 year old boy and a woman acceptable, that says a lot about you and your morals.
What if the teacher isn’t “hot” and won’t stop trying?
“The Mother of All Double Standards” would have to be one of the storylines in the tv show,Desperate Housewives. An adult female has sex with a high school boy. Every episode I have ever seen on tv (or real life) where an adult male has sex with a high school girl ends with the male being handcuffed and sentenced to prison time and registered as a sex offender/pedophile.
To my knowledge I’ve not heard one peep of protest against that storyline. On the other hand, there have been at least two cases in my local area where women had sex with their son’s high school-aged friends. Those two women were really arrested, really tried, really sentenced to prison time, and really registered as sex offenders.
I guess the message in Desperate Housewives is that pedophilia ain’t pedophilia if you are a hot, bored, and lonely housewife.
I found this comment disturbing:
“Most age boys in puberty would have loved nothing more than for one of their teachers to “introduce” them to this particular subject.”
Just because boys in puberty might want a physical relationship with someone in authority does erase the abuse factor. These hypothetical boys would risk exposer to STDs and have not developed the ability to recognize what is in their own best interest. These same boys probably end up in therapy and suffer from higher rates of depression (check the suicide rate among teenage boys vs girls).
Quite frankly, I found the comment to be sexist.
Sean,
“You’re bringing your own feminine baggage to this.”
It depends how young we are talking about. Should 12 year old boys really be having sex with their teachers? Women abuse more children under the age of six than other age groups, do you agree that this is okay?
As a psychologist, I have seen what abuse by men and women has done to many boys. It can result in anger, violence and a lifetime of pain. I understand that there is a difference between a healthy older teen, 16 and up having sex with an older woman. That is probably fine if the boy is not coerced–but to think that all boys, except for the rare weirdo would benefit psychologically from early sex with a TEACHER is a bit of a stretch. On the other hand, I don’t think teachers should be sent to jail for long prison terms for having sex with students of either sex who are willing.
Paul,
You are right. Children do need men involved in their lives as part of their psychological development. The 100% risk of taking men out of children’s lives and the damage that will do has to be weighed against the very small chance that a child will be abused in the church nursery.
Hold on one moment–since when does a teenage boy wanting something make it good for him, even assuming that all teenage boys want their teachers to molest them–an eroneous assumption at the least. Someone is once again beating the “all men/boys are animals” drum again.
Teenage boys want a LOT of things that they shouldn’t have. And even then, why would that excuse any female teacher who takes advantage of that? How is that any different from a male teacher taking advantage of a girl who is desperate for male attention?
Sean, you can be an animal if you want to be. But I for one highly resent that characterization. Boys and men can learn self-control quite easily–all it takes is for people to expect it of them.
When I was an undergrad in the early 1980s I worked part time at a day care center, because the girlfriend of one of my buddies worked there. I guess I did okay with the kids because they kept me on for a couple of years. Then I graduated and moved out to Seattle.
While I was waiting to start grad school (to establish residency for a year) and looking for a more suitable job, I went and applied at a local day care. They had me come down for two days, and all of the teachers said I was fabulous with the kids. They said one girl who had been grabbing me by the hand to come out and play with her had never taken to a male teacher like that.
But then the director came right out and said they wouldn’t hire me because I was a man. This was when a lot of the big (faux) scandals were all over the media. I probably could have easily sued but I didn’t, and went off to work in a bank instead.
You’re fighting a losing battle. Even if you win, you lose. Any man that actually wants to work with children is considered that much more suspect. Anyway you now know what your fellow christians think of you. I’d find another church or pasttime.
At our church, the husband would also have been denied, but only in that specific situation where he was volunteering to serve with his wife. Our policy is that no two people who are closely related by blood or marriage may serve without a third unrelated person there. My understanding is that it’s a liability issue. If he volunteered in a different classroom, that would have been fine. Also, if there had been a third person there.
While I can think of a few teachers in my day who I had naughty thoughts about, and many men like to think it would have been great, I always think about the Mary Kay Laternau case. That boy she seduced and abused is one messed up kid. I don’t have the specifics at my fingertips, but I remember reading an update, a “where are they now” piece, that really made me realize just how screwed up abuse of a adolescent by a female teacher can make a young man. He may not think it is abuse, but as several folks above note, since when to teenage boys know what’s good for them?
Why would anybody belong to this bigoted church? This isn’t an issue of safety for the kids, with two teachers in the classroom. This is some busybody projecting her prejudices.
Do you think the kids would be more protected with one teacher, albeit female? I don’t.
This is still very difficult for me to talk about 33 years later; it took me nearly 20 years to tell anyone about it at all. My mom still doesn’t know about it, and probably won’t unless she reads this.
When I was six years old, I was sexually abused by a 14 year old babysitter. Of course at that age it was impossible for me to perform sexually, and when she discovered that her efforts were futile the babysitter proceeded to tell me that I was a freak, and ugly anyhow, and that no woman would ever love me, and that if I told anyone what happened nobody would believe me.
The experience scarred me for life. I had one date in high school, and was absolutely terrified; I got completely fall-down drunk beforehand. I basically stayed drunk all the time from the age of 17 to 27. I didn’t have a girlfriend until the age of 26.
Things got a little better for me when I was 24 and told a roommate what had happened to me. Relationships with women are better now, but I still have a long way to go.
Now, if the experience had happened 8 years later, when I was 14 and the woman was 22, the result would have been much different.
I’ll draw the “age of social consent” line in the sand for each community: take the youngest kid you’ve prosecuted as an adult for some crime, subtract a year or two, and that’s the age you don’t have to worry about an adult hitting on a boy.
And I clearly said that SOME, a very small minority, might get messed up by the experience. People are in therapy for lots of reasons.
Most folks use common-sense, and do not put much stock in psycho-babble when it comes to stuff like this.
I know that as early as 7th Grade, I was lusting after teachers (probably earlier). When I was 14 I wanted every youngish mom on my paper route to take me in one day and pay, in lieu of the $2 weekly subscription to the paper, with this very act we’re discussing. That’s all I thought about on my route, LOL.
I can’t sit here and imagine any scenario where I wouldn’t have considered that the greatest day of my young life. My confidence with the ladies in the future would have been dramatically improved.
When someone starts blathering about how that paperboy/ hot housewife thing would have been wrong,, I must admit, I tune out. How could I have been the victim if that was what I wanted? All I hear are people living in some academic bubble, separated from real life.
And yes, it’s totally different for girls, when the roles are reversed. Under no circumstances should the opposite ever be acceptable. Young girls just want to “fall in love” with an older man, without much thought of what “love” is to an older man. Boys just want to rut like wild pigs. There’s a huge difference there, and if you can’t see that, well, you’d best return to your medical journals and psycotherapy lecture.
Helen: On the other hand, I don’t think teachers should be sent to jail for long prison terms for having sex with students of either sex who are willing.
So you think statutory rape laws should be watered down?
Please explain.
I understand the fear that people have about children being abused. I feel that too many are letting their fears take over their common sense. To deny children the interaction with good, caring men is down right scary, we are relegating men to the role of sperm donor, and cash cow which is very detrimental to the overall well being of our children and our men. I have worked with children for most of my life and feel that men are needed and important in all of our lives, babies,toddlers, young children, tweens, teenagers and young adults all do better with good, strong, caring male role models. Do back ground checks on all people who work with anyone, the elderly can be abused also, and then let them prove their worth. Yes there might be some abuse but there is so much more good that can be done that it is worth the risk in my opinion. We need to quit throwing out the baby with the bath water and let the good men back into all of our lives, they do much more good than harm.
This post at Blowing Smoke fits right in with this discussion in a funny, but oh so true way.
Check it out:
http://blowingsmokethemovie.com/archives/2008/01/sad_but_true.php
What if the hot older woman is actually a fembot?
I’m surprised that there’s only one comment that addresses one of the most obvious problems: pregnancy. That’s a real risk and there is no good way for it to turn out.
If she has the child, what kind of a family will the child have? (consider Mary Kay Letornou, mentioned above). If she decides to have an abortion, and tells the boy (if only out of guilt), how does it affect him in any positive way? If he doesn’t want it, the experience encourages him to think that there are no consequences to risky behavior; if he does want it, how will it affect him through life to know that his child was destroyed and he couldn’t stop it? (yes obviously this can happen at any age, but it’s far less likely in a marriage.)
As for the “that’s what boys want” argument, there are lots of things that 13 y/o boys want that they don’t know how to handle, including Everclear, high explosives, and a 600 hp Mustang GT (I still want that last one).
Returning to the first subject of Helen’s post:
This sounds like a Mormon/LDS ward to me. I’m not sure how many other congregations specifically have nursery for those aged 18 months to 3 years, nor how many refer to the leader who would make a call on this as “bishop”.
My wife is a primary (ages 3-11) teacher, and I’ve helped to teach her class of 6-7 year olds on numerous occasions without any complaints. There is a two teacher rule, yes, and the most common pairing is a husband and wife team. Personally, I like the two person rule for practical reasons – crowd control. There are plenty of men who help out in the nursery in my ward, mostly in husband/wife teams again. It’s one of the preferred callings to receive, as it’s always a lot of fun to do. The situation described above is certainly not typical.
I don’t have all the facts here, but it sounds like the bishop simply doing what parents demand. I don’t think the parent is in the right, of course. There is the possibility of something under the surface we don’t know about this particular man, but I think she’s in the wrong.
I agree with Helen. A lot of it just comes down to age. 16 isn’t a child or even just a ‘boy’ anymore.
On the other hand, of course, 6 or 7 is. For many.. they still are children up until 15…. But, once you get closer to 16, it starts to be case by case.
Based on the language and terms used in the post, I believe I know what church is involved here. As a member, here’s how it was described to me.
There is a two-teacher rule for young children, not only to protect against *actual* reports of abuse but *imagined* reports of abuse. As I recall, there have been studies shown how adults can influence a young child’s memory of events and get them to recall instances of abuse in shocking detail, that didn’t actually happen, when they repeatedly question the child in an effort to find the “truth”.
In the strictest case, a husband and wife should not be considered a fulfillment of the two-teacher rule, because if something were to go wrong, it may not be enough of a legal defense that a husband or wife would definitely watch out for the inappropriate actions of the other. It would be reasonable to suggest that, if one is an abuser, one’s spouse is likely to be a victim of such abuse themself.
So in this case, I don’t know if it was strictly a problem with a “man in the classroom” or the fact that the man was the other teacher’s husband. It’s usually ok, for instance, for there to be two men in the room. Except that is usually avoided as well, because when you need to go get a parent for a breakdown or a diaper change (not even women teachers should do diaper changes, which I agree with, otherwise you’d never get anyone to accept a nursery calling), that would leave just one guy again.
It’s a hard situation to deal with. I don’t envy bishops or child care center owners or anyone who is in charge of putting adults in charge of kids. I hesitate to make any judgments as to what is the right or wrong way to handle it, because there doesn’t seem to *be* a right way to handle it.
This sounds like a Mormon/LDS ward to me. I’m not sure how many other congregations specifically have nursery for those aged 18 months to 3 years, nor how many refer to the leader who would make a call on this as “bishop”.
Sounds like an Episcopal church to me, given the feminist bias of most Episcopal churches.
A two or more person rule is always a good idea in nursery and Sunday school classes. That said, my two year old is greeted in nursery by several different (they rotate weeks) male volunteers who greet him with a high-five and a “how’s it goin’, dude?” He loves it. He loves the hugs he gets from the female volunteers, too. Kids need both. I would be disappointed if he only saw women on Sunday.
His dad goes to church regularly, but for those kids who don’t have dads at home or whose dads don’t attend church, they especially need to see that church is a place for men and women both.
I recently joined a new YMCA and am baffled by the dressing room rules. There is a family/special needs dressing room for parents to take children to, there is a woman’s dressing room, a men’s dressing room for men over 21, and a boy’s dressing room for men and boys under 21. I asked about this and wasn’t given a direct answer about why they did it this way but was told my 18 year old son should use the boys dressing room, which isn’t as nice as the mens. My theoretical eighteen year old daughter should use the women’s.
I guess they assume that half their clients are potential sex offenders? And they don’t realize that eighteen year olds are old enough to bring a discrimination law suit?
In the old days, when I was a boy, there was only one dressing room at the YMCA, the women went to the YWCA. And we all swam naked too!
When I asked why they didn’t have a sauna I was told that it was for “liability” reasons.
The fact is girl or boy the term teenager is a construction of the last century. Before that you were either an adult or a child not in between. Most people got married and were sexually active shortly after entering puberty. Not that I would want to back to the days of child brides, but the idea that people are not emotionally fit to have sex before they are eighteen is ridiculous. At some point we have to recognize that someone who abuses a ten year old is not the same thing as having sex with a 16 year old. The second may rightfully violate societal norms and be immoral but it is not sex abuse.
What if the hot older woman is actually a fembot?
Any teacher that can be replaced by a machine should be.
I am sympathetic to the “boys don’t mind so much” argument to a small degree. There were a few teachers who, I thought, could have made my life quite wonderful when I was a teenage boy. But this is likely wrong.
Just because I (and most other boys) was keenly interested in such an adventure doesn’t mean I was actually ready for it. I also wanted to be a war hero Marine at 14-15 years old. That does not mean I would not have been seriously screwed up by going to boot camp followed by combat.
Different, I know, but illustrative of the concept that the adventure a older boy/young man desires is something he still needs to grow into a bit before atually undertaking it. Some 15 year olds are ready for love affairs, combat, etc. Most aren’t, but may be in a few more years. The social bar against allowing even the ready ones to do so protects the many more who are not.
So under Sean’s understanding, if an adolescent boy wants to have sex with older women, there’s no reason whatsoever that he should not, nor any reason that the woman should not solicit such. Or am I reading him wrong?
I will cop to such things as he speaks to. When I was 13, there was nothing I wanted more than to caress the silky legs of one of my mother’s 19-year-old co-workers. But even then, I knew that such was a) improper, b) immoral, and c) impracticable, given my status. That didn’t stop me wanting it any more, or fantasizing about it, but it did mean I made no move to actualize it (whether I would have had the strength to resist such a move on her part, I cannot say with certainty. Probably not, depending on how far it went).
I’m sorry, but I’m not of the opinion that teaching young boys to gratify their sexual impulses at every available opportunity has been beneficial to society. Nor do I agree that winking urbanely at older women “introducing” (pleh) minors to an active sex life will, in the long run, be good for either party. Just because it doesn’t hurt doesn’t mean it isn’t wrong.
Sean:
“Psychologists or not, as women, you really arent in a position to say its wrong.”
“And yes, its totally different for girls when the roles are reversed.”
So you are saying it is ok for *you* to speak for women, but not for women to speak for men?
“How could I have been the victim if that was what I wanted?”
Huh?! That excuses a lot of trouble teenagers can get into, then. Drug use by teenage boys should be allowed under that justification. There were days when I was a teenager that I wanted someone to run over me with a car and end my emotional pain, too. Had it happened I still would have been a victim.
“All I hear are people living in some academic bubble, separated from real life.”
I fail to understand how you are different. You are speculating about the effects of something that never happened to you. You THINK it would have been a good thing. You don’t know.
Your fantasies are just that. Why would you bother picturing a situation where things could actually turn out badly for you? Did you fantasies include getting caught by the woman’s husband and killed in a fit of jealous rage? No? Why not?
Did your fantasies include a woman coaxing you into her home, then she and her husband restraining and viciously torturing you? No? Why not?
Did your fantasies include getting the woman pregnant, her getting divorced, and then chasing after you for years insisting that she still loves you, wants to be with you and expects you to be a father to her child? No? Why not?
Get a grip on “real life” yourself, Sean. You can’t imagine it being a bad thing because a) you don’t want to, and b) it never happened to you. And yet I’M the one in an “academic bubble” and out of touch with real life? It sounds to me like you’re living in a dream world. I’ll take my bubble, thanks.
I teach in an LDS primary (of which nursery – and I agree with Jan that this sure does sound like one of us Mormons – is a part) and the rule as articulated to me was:
– have two teachers whenever possible,
– always follow the Scout rules when dealing with Scouts/Cubs (which means if it’s a Scouting activity they always go two-deep,)
– always have two teachers in Nursery,
– don’t have men teaching children alone,
– work to install windows in all the classroom doors, and
– only have team teachers of opposite genders if the two are married to one another.
It appears to be about protecting the reputations of the majority and the safety of an (important, but small) minority.
(For the original correspondent, assuming you are LDS: the official FAQ is , and says “Can a man serve in the nursery?
“At least two teachers should be called for each nursery class. If the teachers are not husband and wife, they should be the same gender. Both teachers should be in the class during the entire Primary time” (Primary 1 [2000], ix).)
We also have rules (at least in our ward) about keeping the door open when adults meet with children, or unmarried adults of opposite genders meet with one another: every individual interview I’ve had with our bishop and his counselors has taken place in a large room with a big table between us and the door open to the hallway.
Anyway, this year it looks to me like the nursery has at least two married couples teaching, the five-year-olds have a married couple teaching, and the ten-year-olds have a married couple teaching. Whenever the wife from those pairs is sick or has to be somewhere else, they find an adult male to take her spot. For the previous two years the nine- and ten-year-old classes had a pair of men teaching them, and last year I was the only teacher of kids between seven and twelve who didn’t have a team teaching partner for at least part of the year (we ran out of adults, I think.)
Given that there’s a former LDS missionary who was recently convicted of molesting two girls (I think it was in Nevada) over the course of about 45 minutes, in which half a dozen adults were in and out of the room, you can understand the reason for caution.
Incidentally: Jan, last year my class was all-girls, and when a boy moved in whose dad was in Iraq, they promoted him up a class just so he could have the interaction with the husband in that particular team-teaching pair. It’d be terrible to lose our male teachers, especially since they make up such a small percentage of public elementary school staff.
When I was 17, I had a brief sexual relationship with a female teacher twice my age. It was as awesome as you would hope it would be, and it didn’t screw me up. I still look back on it fondly.
For better or for worse, we’ve set completely arbitrary age limits on certain activities. There’s no real intellectual difference between an 18-year-old and a 17-year-and-364-day old, but the former can vote and the latter can’t. You can freely take a sadomasochistic photograph of the former, but photographing the latter is a federal offense with a ten year mandatory minimum.
Arbitrary age cutoffs sweep more than they need to, or too much, depending on who you ask, but we need to draw the line somewhere. I don’t see any justice in compounding the problems of bright-line cutoffs by doling out severe punishment for barely-illegal activities.
Ideally, sentencing in adult-minor sex cases would reflect the true nature of the relationship and the harm to the minor. But that’s not the way the system works, and it’s hard to imagine the means by which the sentencing guidelines would take into account whether the 17-year-old dude was mature enough to choose to have sex with his teacher.
Perhaps the only answer here is prosecutorial discretion, although I’m pessimistic about how much that could accomplish. I wouldn’t have wanted the prosecutor to charge my teacher, and if I could not prevail on him not to, I would have refused to testify. But the prosecutor might not need me, and my parents might push for her prosecution. I guess what we really need is common sense from parents and prosecutors. I’m not holding my breath.
I agree with Sarah (1/11 10:48am) – you want to avoid even the appearance of impropriety, hence the open doors. You have to think ahead sometimes. Even though a youth leader is not trying or even thinking about anything inappropriate, something as simple as giving a ride home to a youth of the opposite sex without someone else can lead to questions and worse – and this is regardless of good intentions, and in most cases nothing has happened. Yet the reputation of the adult in question can be irreparably damaged. In other words, common sense has to be applied to every situation.
I’m sure 99% (not a scientific number) of the men and women serving the kids would never even think about doing something like this, but you also don’t want to give any reason for anyone to question or in the worst case, falsely accuse someone. This policy also makes it harder for someone with those proclivities to act on them.
I think the bishop in this case overdid it, especially if he is LDS, because this isn’t what the guidelines say. I will say it is sad that we even have to worry about this, but I would rather worry about and prevent it beforehand with common sense measures than have to repair the damage afterward.
Excluding men from the nursery is a great way to kill a church.
When I was ten years old, I had a neighborhood paper route.
I also had to collect the monthly dues for the papers, and so had to ring the doorbells of my subscribers homes when the bill was due.
One day I rang the bell of my neighbor’s house and heard the young wife say “Come in!”
So, front door being unlocked, I walked into the living room and heard another invitation, “Come in… I’m in the bathroom.”
So, being ten years old and just trying to collect a meager couple of bucks, I approach the bathroom and pop my head into the room and this woman (probably in her late 20′s) is stark naked in her bath tub, fully exposed and asks me -”How much do we owe you?”
I bolted from the house and resigned from my paperboy job the next day.
Because she was the first voluptuous naked female I ever saw, I’ll never get that image out of my head. (The one I think with…)
And, because she was truly beautiful, she caused me to set my more mature aesthetic standards pretty high.
For which I am eternally grateful.
Did she abuse me?
No.
Exploit me?
Yes.
Dr. Helen wrote: ” … Some boys can also have psychological issues that are as serious or more serious than girls who are sexually abused at a young age by an authority figure….”
C’mon Doc!! Your customary good sense has deserted you this time. Your statement is probably valid for pre-teen boys, but once a guy gets to be, say, 14 he knows what he wants, and if he is lucky enough to get it from a moderately attractive 20 or 30 year old, it is absurd to call him a ‘victim.’
I’m not condoning any sort of pre-marital or extra-marital sex involving young teenagers, and I think the teachers involved ought to be fired; but calling it ‘rape’ makes a mockery out of real sex crimes.
Speaking as a former teenaged boy, I can guarantee you that this is the ultimate “victimless crime.”
Paul,
“So you think statutory rape laws should be watered down?”
I think that the age of consent should be 16–it is in some states.
If an adult female teacher becomes pregnant by her 14 year-old student, is he obligated to pay child support until the baby turns 18? If so, does his obligation begin upon birth of the baby or upon he himself gaining legal adult status?
I absolutely agree that the binary “child” or “adult” distinction falls down. Whether its abuse cases or juvenile crime, calling high schoolers mere “children” is grossly misleading and inadequate.
A related issue has come up in the back and forth within the Catholics Church over homosexuals in the priesthood and reforms aimed at preventing sex abuse. The strictest want no homosexuals in the priesthood at all.
I personally think that is a mistake — I’m sure thee have been countless gay men thru the centuries who found the priesthood the one place in society where they could sidestep marriage w/o question, and whom I sure went on to provide great service to their communities.
That said, I think the gay community is trying draw a phony distinction between calling it pedophilia rather than a gay act. I’m sorry, but their young victims have typically been post-puberty, reasonably physically mature “teens” and not first graders.
When a straight man gets in trouble for relations with a physically mature underage high school girl, it is properly considered sleazy, a criminal, but he is not considered mentally ill or a pedophile.
The blanket “child” label muddies thinking and, in the case of the priesthood, is being used to deliberately cloud the issues.
The formal situation here is difficult simply because it is not at all clear that the objective is to protect the children. My read is that the Church is trying to put in place procedures which will radically reduce its liability. Not the same thing at all. And if that is the case then it would make sense for the bishop to make that crystal clear. “No hard feelings but our insurer has set down the rules.”
Now, informally, the entire sexual abuse hysteria has made many men, including me, rethink our willingness to volunteer for everything from coaching to teaching. I am unwilling to be cast in the role of potential child molester as part of a screening process to become a soccer coach.
I don’t think there is a real solution for this and noting that women abuse too really does nothing to help. No parent wants their child abused by anyone. However, short of eliminating all non-family events from a child’s life, there will always be a, one hopes tiny, chance of abuse. And, even in happy family land, the range of “funny uncles” and “nasty cousins” is astonishing.
To a small degree a parent can work from the other side encouraging their children to report uncomfortable situations but that is fraught in the sense that children perceive the world in somewhat opaque ways. And, worse, by the time the situation is really uncomfortable the abuse may already have happened.
Isn’t raising children in a church itself a form of child abuse? Atheists make up 16% of the world’s population. No other religion has more than 13% of the world’s population as members, so isn’t childhood a bit young to “consent” to an entire world view based on the parents choice of one of five or six epically old books, many of which resort to fright to control behavior, of either being tortured with fire and knives for…ever, or being re-born as a cockroach? Oh, and that all the world’s existing species fit in and thrived in a big boat for several weeks, around three thousand years ago, including, one one presume, the dinosaurs.
When I was in college though, it was the church-going girls, finally release from the prying eyes of their parents who were the most predatory about hooking up with most any guy around. Nice job. Just like the DARE (Nancy Reagan’s anti-drug program) *increased* drug use by both advertising obscure drugs as well as making it “cooler” to be a drug user.
Question though, for those who think it’s every boy’s fantasy to nail a teacher: what about gay boys?
Given that 90% of both Eastern gurus who set up shop in the USA and famous American televangelists were caught for sexual misconduct (the latest being Pastor Ted’s use of a gay prostitute, the same pastor who yelled evolutionary scientist Richard Dawkins off his parking lot in his BBC tv show “Root of All Evil”).
Some VERY interesting posts on a difficult subject.
Most of the time, I don’t buy arguments that invoke we HAVE to do it, because “it’s for the children”.
In these “cases”, I think it really is for “our children”.
I will say I was a “trustee” of a mainstream church, and we needed to set the policy for “who, when, and where” about people who interacted with “our children”. And, “our” two-people policy prohibits married or “significant others” from being the “two people”. Because of a “very few”, but very nasty incidents. Not “ours”, but “known”.
I do like to tweak people who take offense about the Scouts not really liking gay “people of power” in their structure, and trying to “ban them”. I don’t have a problem “with gays working with boys”, but you had better have a “three adults present at ALL times” rule.
You figure out how to monitor that on “camping out in tents” trips. I loved scouting as a kid. And, the adults were about as “manly” role models as you could ever ask for. I never knew of “any problems”. In the “1950′s”.
I do know that one time in “my tent” a boy two years older talked to four of us about how his older brother’s wife had taken his virginity when he came over to a Friday night poker party. And, all the men watched them. I don’t know if this was true. But, it was the first time I ever saw a male jack off to orgasm while he told us the story, and we watched him. No homosexual “interaction” took place at all. But, at age twelve, it made me very erect, which “I hid”. And, I felt VERY guilty.
And, it was MUCH later in my life before I felt REALLY comfortable with any and all hetrosexual “stuff” with partners.
So, I never “discount” people’s versions of “their lives”.
Maybe true. Maybe not.
When I’ve been hit with the this Scouting is being “unfair to gays” argument, I say:
OK, you have a 13/14 year old daughter.
She’s in the Girl Scouts.
You think this age can’t be a “bit of a precocious child” ?
And, wanting to try out “her skills” ?
You don’t have any problem with me as a hetrosexual male taking her troop on a weekend camping trip.
And, I get to determine the “tent arrangements.
You don’t have any “problem” that I might see her as a “sex object”.
Do you ?
That is based on some “similar” stuff.
That I RAN FROM.
Reasonable people want to avoid “ANY child/teenager temptation” at all costs.
It could cost your your reputation.
It could cost you your FREEDOM !
Even worse, it could screw up some kid’s life.
Dr. Helen wrote: ” …I think that the age of consent should be 16 …”
I’d vote for 14 for boys and 15 or 16 for girls,. but this is certainly a detail where reasonable people can agree to disagree. But you left out a key point: Do you think that the age of the partner should matter as long as there is no hint of implied coercion in the relationship? I don’t, and if I’m not mistaken, the current law in Canada agrees with me.
As an aside: I don’t know what the law is in other States, but here in Montana any 14 year old who has passed a 10 hour hunter safety course is legally permitted to go Big Game hunting *ALONE* in Grizzly Bear country.
So, as far as the State government is concerned, my 14 year old daughter is mature enough to pick up a 30-06, strap a pistol and some knives to her waist, and go make life & death decisions involving deadly force with the exact same rights & responsibilities as, say, a 40 year old.
So, in other words, she is legally presumed to be capable of holding her own against a 400 pound bear or an 800 pound Elk; but if some 150 pound man [gasp, shudder] comes along and tries to flirt with her, she is presumed to be a helpless infant — the same as a 4 year old.
This is DUMB !!!!
Meade asks: “If an adult female teacher becomes pregnant by her 14 year-old student, is he obligated to pay child support until the baby turns 18? If so, does his obligation begin upon birth of the baby or upon he himself gaining legal adult status?”
There have been cases like this, and yes, the child has been required to pay child support. BTW, child support termination varies by state, from 18 up to 23 in some places. Try to imagine graduating from high school and realizing that for the next 19 years you will be paying a third of your net income to a sexual predator. Isn’t the law wonderful?
For Sean and company:
Should we also lower the enlistment age or the minimum age for hazardous occupations? Of course teenagers want sex, and fantasize about that fact. I also fantasized about conquering the world and other crazy things. Teenagers are largely not responsible and don’t think things through. The maturation process occurs at different rates, but you can’t rely on a subjective judgment. For legal purposes, an objective standard is required.
I also love how the situation described is always a replay of the fantasy. Sorry, but life is not porn movie. Not all teachers are hot. Sex has consequences, especially sex in a power relationship.
I’ll not comment on the rightness or wrongness of any of this–to do so would put me at risk of being identified as a paedophile.
But I have nightmares about the many years that I worked with girls softball teams, soccer teams, co-ed marching bands, and several other such activities.
I never once did anything that was wrong then or wrong now, but there are thousands of situations which could be part of somebody’s recovered memory fantasies against which I would have no defense at all. We have three daughters and my wife was closely involved in all of that.
No male in his right mind would have anything to do with anybody else’s children, (or his own, I guess) in this day and age where you can’t even have a bank scandal (cf. Omaha world Herald for 1989 and 1990 for some of the most lurid, there have been others more recently) with “child sex abuse” as a major component.
This may have been mentioned already – I’m sorry I don’t have time to read the whole thread – but the rule we use at our church is two unrelated adults with children. In this case, the problem was husband and wife – they are related by marriage after all. We don’t want to discourage men from teaching or imply that women never act inappropriately.
“…Teenagers are largely not responsible and don’t think things through…”
For 99.99 percent of human history, persons over the age of ~14 were treated as adults by the rest of Society, and for the most part, they acted like adults.
The idea that they are not capable of being responsible is a fallacy of modern Western European culture that has only arisen during the last hundred years or so. And it is a self-fulfilling prophecy: If you treat people like irresponsible idiots, they’re going to act like irresponsible idiots; if we treated them like adults, they’d act like adults.
I do wonder at the “*married* man & his wife” rule for Sunday school classes.
Is the idea merely to show a married couple as role models?
Or that the presence of the wife would keep a man on his toes to the point of avoiding even the possible *appearance* of impropriety?
I’m not sure I but that — there have been plenty of sicko women who covered for their husbands, even participated in abuse.
But that doesn’t stop The State from prosecuting minors as adults.
I think the issue of male teachers at most grade levels is moot. Society as a whole has decided that education, particularly at lower levels, is a female role and male teachers are “suspect.” There are any number of molestation cases I read in my local newspaper, and the obvious risk is that which society responds to.
The debate is just over. Male teachers will be slowly phased out except perhaps football and other male athletic coaches who will teach something on the side in HS.
The obvious “opportunity cost” risk is that boys will lose any appropriate male role model, particularly with the epidemic of single motherhood, but society has decided to focus on the obvious cost (molestation risk) and avoid thinking about the other less obvious risk (lack of male role models causes boys to grow up unfocused and dysfunctional and unable to channel themselves into productive ways).
As for the “hot older teacher and adolescent boy” issue, I think the question dodges the main issue. It might or might not harm or benefit the boy or the woman, depending on circumstance.
But the big issue is how boys are taught (and mostly are not) to approach women in ways to enhance romantic success. I think we are entering a sea-change in how boys/men relate to women.
Boys who have early physical maturity, higher levels of testosterone and related aggressiveness, risk taking, generally experience positive reactions from approaching girls and have expectations of success in any relationship or prospective relationship with women. Confidence is built on past experience of success, starting at an early age.
MEANWHILE, boys who mature later, experience rejection, as their female peers select the lucky genetic few who mature physiologically early. They lack confidence as their past experience is one of rejection in favor of more aggressive peers. They are likely to have negative views of girls/women and either become too aggressive or withdrawn into various substitutions. Such as games, porn, etc.
I don’t think we as a society do a good job preparing most boys to succeed in relationships. And even if we rounded up every Desperate Housewife it would not do much good since there wouldn’t be enough numbers to make a difference (in producing a confidence-boosting experience). It’s interesting to note also that the teenager the Desperate Housewife engages in activities with is “hunky” and not the type of boy who would need confidence boosters.
The appearance on the scene of a guy like “Mystery” frankly disturbs me. I take it as a sign of a cultural failing.
The most effective way to avoid sexual abuse of your children at church, or during church-related activities, is to keep them the h**l away from church. Pun intended.
At some point attempts to minimize risk become self-defeating. America has definitely reached that point. Kids aren’t allowed to be kids anymore.
And adults aren’t allowed to be adults. The whole society is becoming infantilzed due to ludicrously excessive risk avoidance. As in, “Aren’t there any grown-ups here?”
This is merely one such instance.
newscaper,
The requirement for two unrelated adults, i.e., not married to each other, is due to a legal rule of evidence that spouses cannot be compelled to testify against each other. The idea here is that, if the husband molests a kid, his wife can’t be compelled to testify against him as to what she saw.
Lawyers could therefore argue that having a husband and wife supervise kids in the church nursery is the same as having the husband alone do it.
As a single, childless male in my 30s, this is the type of nonsense that has caused me to completely withdraw from the world of minors. I am an Eagle Scout, but I don’t volunteer with the BSA, I don’t coach youth sports, volunteer with Big Brothers, or even offer to watch my friends’ kids so they can take their wives out on a date.
And I am hardly alone. Today’s children will pay a very large price for growing up without male role models and learning from their ‘nurturing’ mothers that men are something to be feared.
In addition, it is noteworthy that because I am never around children, I can’t stand them. All they are to me is loud, rude, demanding, selfish, mean, dirty, snotty little monsters that I wish their parents would keep in their homes and not ruin my dinner out. I believe this is a case of a lack of familiarity breeding contempt.
In this day and age a man should want to make sure that others are present when around children. Here is a scenario: Someone is trolling for an opportunity to make an accusation so they take their child to the church nursery. Seeing a man present they make a false accusation of abuse. Who gets hurt here? Not the child. Men, don’t be with children without others present! That toddler’s mother may be on the make for a settlement.
Chalk up one more “molested” teenage boy who absolutely loved it and suffered no harm whatsoever.
When I was 15, I went to a party with a very nice looking 20 yr old woman who worked for my dad and needed a date. That night, and most nights for the next couple of years, she screwed me cross-eyed. She introduced me to every variety of sexual pleasure and taught me exactly what I needed to do to make women putty in my hands. She also taught me all about birth control. My life was enriched immeasurably by her gentle guidance.
I really don’t care what Bible thumpers think of it. I am SO glad she chose me to “molest” and would be tickled pink if a nice older woman did the same with my own son.
I’d like to comment about the mention of Mary Kay LeTourneau(sp?). I live less than 30 miles from where her story took place and I recall some newspaper accounts quoting the young boy in the relationship as saying he just wanted to find out what it was like to make love to a woman, as well as stating explicitly that HE was the one who initiated the relationship.
The more things change, the more they stay the same ….. two verses extracted from the olde English folksong “The Trees They Do Grow Tall.”
Father, dear father,
you’ve done me great wrong
You have married me to a boy who is too young
I’m twice twelve and he is but fourteen
He’s young,
but he’s daily growing.
{{SNIP}}
And so early in the morning
at the dawning of the day
They went out into the hayfield
to have some sport and play;
And what they did there,
she never would declare
But she never more complained of his growing.
{{SNIP}}
I think the Bishop “protest too loudly”. I would check him out, better yet I would keep my children far, far from a church
I was also a teenage boy once, and I began sexually fantasizing about attractive female teachers as early as age 13. When I was in high school, I developed a crush on one of my female teachers who was very attractive and who also had a temperament that was complimentary to mine. We got along very well and I joined the extracurricular activity that she was in charge of, probably in part due to her presence. I think it soon became obvious to her that I had a crush on her, and while she never came on to me, she did flirt on occasion. Her flirtations were always very subtle, such as touching my arm, squeezing my shoulder, or giving me a quick tickle when I said something smart. I suspect that she liked the attention that I gave her, hence the flirting, which I enjoyed and wanted more of. Naturally, as a teenage boy, I fantasized often about sex with her, and while nothing ever happened, I doubt that physical intimacy with her would have “screwed me up.” I would have been more worried about what it would have done to her marriage. See, men and women are just wired differently. If this woman had slept with me, I wouldn’t have expected her to leave her husband and run away with me, and I suspect that I would’ve been horrified if she had suggested such a thing. I didn’t want a wife. I wanted sex. It’s just the way males operate thanks to millions of years of evolution in a world where survival of the species is contingent on men spreading their “seed” early and often. So no, I see little harm to teenage boys who engage in consensual sex with older females, though I do question the sanity of any adult woman who is sexually attracted to an adolescent boy.
Curious antidote: before the Web became really popular there was a Unix command-line Internet, in which blogs were non-existent, but Usenet (now Google ‘Groups’). And kiddie porn was abundant, as were all manner of survivalist/libertarian/revolutionary types of people (early adopters seem to indeed ‘Think Different” TM).
The fact that Porn turned the Net into a commercially viable venture is inconsequential footnote.
But Usenet had “Binary” groups, in which, due to it’s TEXT-ONLY format, people posted pirate software there, in some sort of text-only coded format.
They also posted PORN. Lots of it. The earliest online porn of course used letters (“ASCII”) to make text into ‘Centerfolds.”
But one day some pervert posted an inquiry to a normal porn group…asking for pictures of 13-14 year old girls. The age of consent varies in various countries, and in a couple of near-Russia countries it was like 12-13, so “kiddie porn” was at the local bookstores, and it got posted to the Net.
But this one guy actually asked for it. And boy oh BOY did he get jumped on!!! Normal, religious and semi-religious types pounced on him. The next day, he logged on again, and suddenly all those men (there were no girls who wore dresses on the Net back then) became all fatherly.
Why? The poster was 12. He wanted to know what girls with boobs looked like, near his age. Rather than posting pictures of their nubile daughters, they gave paternal and nostalgic advice to wait, and ignore his growing pains as best he could.
If that hypothetical 40 year old man was having a sexual relationship with your 14 year old daughter I think your opinion on the matter would likely change.
Shadowmerchant,
Most states’ statutory rape laws also include an age differential in the law. The other component missing is authority. When the older party in a position of authority (teacher, priest, etc) over the younger more complications are introduced.
Marco said…
“I didn’t want a wife. I wanted sex. It’s just the way males operate thanks to millions of years of evolution in a world where survival of the species is contingent on men spreading their “seed” early and often.”
Your take on evolution isn’t quite right. Men have the urge to spread the wild oats as part of our heritage as mammals However, in our evolution as humans, monogamy developed as the default strategy due to the long helplessness of human infants (due in part all of us in effect being ‘preemies’ becasue of brain size versus mom’s pelvis size) and the need for a male to stick with and support his mate in primitive conditions if any of his progeny are to make it.
“Marriage” is the cultural recognition of this arrangement, because the tribe has an interest in helping promote known paternity, so the next generation is raised and fewer provocations to violence between the men exist.
Men cheating, the wealthier/powerful having outright mistresses, or even multiple wives, are holdovers in our temperament from the mammalian past. Polygamy as an institution only seems to have existed once hierarchical cultures developed in which a few men could escape the equality of poverty.
Very few mammals (only wolves come to mind at the moment) show any signs of fatherhood caregiving. Only birds seem to be fully, truly monogamous. Humans could be characterized as ‘mostly monogamous’ due to the tension between the older and more recent evolutionary strategies.
P.S. i highly recommend The red Queen by Matt Ridley as a starting point into the field of ‘evolutionary psychology’ — you’ll learn more about fundamental human nature, including how its expressed in different cultures, than you ever will from a typical psychology, anthropology, or sociology class.
There is a simple reason why boy/woman relations feel different from man/girl relations. In male/female relations, the male is almost always dominant: physically, socially, legally, economically. Man/girl relations feel like an exploitive exaggeration of this typical dominance. Boy/woman relations cut against the grain; they seem less exploitive.
Also note that people are more comfortable with an older man/younger woman marriage than the reverse: exactly the opposite of the reaction toward affairs. Of course as affairs become longer or produce children they are viewed like marriages.
It’s too simplistic to say that women are sexual predators of children, just as men are. While harming a child of whatever age is indefensible, there is a world of difference between, say, a 12-year-old and a three-year-old. How many women sexual offenders have you ever heard of who went after babies and pre-schoolers? It’s like suggesting that 60-year-old women can rob convenience stores, just like young men — sure they could, but it’s not likely, so let’s not pretend that there isn’t a difference between men and women where pathology of this sort is concerned. Remember the hysteria of the ritual abuse day care cases of the early 1990s? I know of two women still in prison who were accused of molesting pre-schoolers during that period: Nancy Smith of Ohio, and Fran Keller of Texas. They were convicted of crimes that never happened and are doomed to spend decades behind bars unless they get help.
Dr. Helen’s article says that the Justice Department report claims that women account for 6% of sexual predations against children and 12% of attacks on children under six. She links to a news article which references the report. But the original source document, the report itself, says that in incidents of sexual assault reported to police, women are the accused 6% of the time. [Snyder, H. (2000, July), Sexual assault of young children as reported to law enforcement: Victim, incident, and offender characteristics.] This doesn’t mean a crime OCCURRED, it means a crime was REPORTED. Further, the data was collected between 1991-1996, which was during the tail end of the ritual abuse frenzy when dozens of female pre-school teachers were being accused of sacrificing infants, slaughtering animals and sexually assaulting little children as part of secret nation-wide cult of satanists. There was a dramatic rise in reports of child sexual abuse during this period, and I would view any statistics produced during this time with great skepticism.
Females do molest very young children, and not only in the context of incest, with the usual horrible consequences. This is well known among family law practitioners and courts.
I have personally handled such cases, and encountered one during five years as president of my county’s parents of twins association.
Marco wrote,
…though I do question the sanity of any adult woman who is sexually attracted to an adolescent boy.
A good point and one rarely explored as abusers are often previous victims.
From my understanding the predominant dynamic in child sex abuse is power/control over a weaker person.
A secondary abuse motivator is learned sexual experience, i.e. one’s first sexual experience, given it was not traumatic, often remains the most stimulating and the one subconsciously entertained.
In other words, child abuse victims first learn that a sexual encounter is not a meeting of equals, but one based on a power imbalance between adult and child.
Thus child sex abusers are seeking to recreate a learned experience characterised by power and desire.
As I understand it, as adults this is the only sexual experience they are comfortable with and desire, as they can control the object of their conditioned lust.
Given all this, there’s something which has always intrigued me, regarding the statistics…
From memory, some 20% of child abuse victims will, in turn, become abusers themselves as adults, due to the phenomena outlined above.
Therefore, if 17% of boys and 25% of girls are sexually abused, why then are adult abusers predominately male..?
I am a male and one of the most rewarding jobs I ever had was working for a company that provides group homes and home health care to the disabled, mainly children. I had to quit my job though because I could not make any money when they would often schedule me and my one male coworker for less than 15 hours a week. You often worked alone in homes with young children and they had a standing policy that men could only work with male clients, while women could work with both male and female. When I asked why this was and why it was that females got preferential scheduling, I was told,”because men are more likely to be abusers so you can’t work with little girls.” I love children and I loved my job but I couldn’t support a family like that and had to quit. It is no wonder that there are very few men in the field.
I am a male and one of the most rewarding jobs I ever had was working for a company that provides group homes and home health care to the disabled, mainly children. I had to quit my job though because I could not make any money when they would often schedule me and my one male coworker for less than 15 hours a week. You often worked alone in homes with young children and they had a standing policy that men could only work with male clients, while women could work with both male and female. When I asked why this was and why it was that females got preferential scheduling, I was told,”because men are more likely to be abusers so you can’t work with little girls.” I love children and I loved my job but I couldn’t support a family like that and had to quit. It is no wonder that there are very few men in the field. Coincidentally, the lady who trained me was later caught having an affair with a coworker while allowing an autistic child to watch. Oh but only men abuse!
I see a lot of comments here that claim that an adolescent boy isn’t really all that victimized by the sexual advances of an adult female. After all, he wants it, and she gives it to him.
What I am curious about is why then do we automatically assume that girls don’t want it. Because, as far as I can tell, teenage girls are just as randy as teenage guys. She wants it, sees an older man that will satisfy her feminine tendency toward hypergamy, and he gives it to her. Why do we automatically assume that the girl is an innocent victim of a craven male, and the boy is a willing participant in some sort of mutual sexual fantasy between himself and an adult woman?
“I think that the age of consent should be 16–it is in some states.”
Dr Helen, what do you think about setting the age of consent at 14-15 for girls and 16-17 for boys? After all, if girls mature 1-2 years earlier than boys, it follows that the laws should recognize this earlier agency.
Back to the church nursery question – my experience & opinion:
When our daughter was a baby and toddler, there was a man (lawyer, taught swimming lessons to blind kids, married with 3 young sons) who confessed to abusing baby girls in the church nursery, as well as little girls in the swimming classes. Claimed he started with kiddie porn and soon the images weren’t enough. Begged for forgiveness, was not prosecuted, etc. I had bad vibes about this guy b/c he always commented on our little girl – “she’s so beautiful”, etc. So, I stayed with my little one in the nursery during those years or took her into church with us. I’ve seen far too much poor caregiving in daycare or church nursery situations to think it’s a good setting for kids compared with the care of loving parents. I don’t think it’s fair to single out men for suspicion, but unfortunately I think men have to be vigilant about avoiding any remotely questionable circumstances. And I believe both boys and girls are damaged by the sexual advances of an adult of either sex.