Teen Sex - Inequality Anyone?

[Still Sensible]

From the Sheboygan Press:

"A 17-year-old Sheboygan girl was charged Thursday with misdemeanor sexual assault for allegedly having sex with her 14-year-old boyfriend.

"Norma J. Guthrie, of 1034-A Michigan Ave., was in court a day after a 17-year-old Sheboygan boy was charged with a felony for allegedly having sex with a 14-year-old girlfriend.

-snip-

"On Wednesday, Alan J. Jepsen, 17, of 1416 New York Ave., was charged for allegedly having sex with a 14-year-old girl who he claimed told him she was 16. Jepsen is facing a count of felony second-degree sexual assault, which carries a maximum prison term of 25 years."

http://www.sheboyganpress.com/article/20090109/SHE0101/901090467/1973/SHE0201

[Veritas_et_Aequitas]

1. I'm not touching this one with a ten-foot pole.

[lumberjack_jeff]

2. The disparity only makes sense if you assume...

... that 14 year old boys are better equipped to make appropriate decisions for themselves than 14 year old girls, And/Or that 17 year old girls are less responsible for their actions than 17 year old boys.

Either way, the presumption is that boys are more like grownups than girls. If we agree with that, it's reasonable to question at which age women and men become peers.

[Warpy]

7. Or that girls are forever sullied by sex

even if they don't get pregnant from it.

That's equally insulting.

The disparity is wrong. Both should be charged with misdemeanor and shoved into counseling.

[BlooInBloo]

3. I always assumed that such differences arise out of the widespread belief...

that girls are more likely to be harmed (more deeply) from certain situations like this than boys are.

Let the flameage begin.

[jobycom]

8. I agree with that. The belief is that girls shouldn't have sex, but boys should.

So underage girls must be protected more closely, whereas with boys, it's just a matter of nature and natural order. For girls, sex corrupts their basic identity, for boys it is just something they do.

[BlooInBloo]

9. Let the record reflect that that isn't what I said...

Not saying it's false, just that it isn't what I said.

[jobycom]

11. The record is so adjusted, but then what did you mean?

[Warpy]

4. You're right

and I'm sure Jepsen's lawyer will be only too happy to point that out.

This is the kind of thing that is plea bargained down. Since he's a juvenile, it's not likely to haunt him for the rest of his life as he's labeled a sex offender.

That's the only good thing to come out of this mess.

Even kids need to be careful about who they experiment with. No matter the sex of the participants, there's little way sex between a 17 year old and a 14 year old can be anything but exploitative. The maturity and power differences are just a little too great. The real shame is that the younger kids probably did lie about their ages, but the sex was casual enough that nobody cared to look a little more closely.

All either kid can hope is that the judge has more common sense than the DA does, that there are no lasting consequences, and that these two separate messes might warn other kids to think about where they're sticking it.

[anigbrowl]

18. I can't agree on your assertion of exploitation.

FYI, here's a comprehensive list of countries and US states with the age of consent for each: http://www.avert.org/aofconsent.htm

In general, I don't think that differing standards correlate strongly with social ills. Additionally, many countries distinguish between sexploitation involving an adult over the age of majority, as opposed to the situation in the OP involving 2 teens. Nobody would assert that a relationship between a 24 and a 21 year old must be based on exploitation, and I don't really see why that should hold true for a 17 and 14 year old if attraction is mutual.

Personally, I'm in favor of lax standards in this area, with a social emphasis on harm reduction (ie educating people early about the risks of coercion, pregnancy and STD transmission) and a legal emphasis on coercion as the dividing line between misdemeanor and felony activity, especially at the peer level. One has to take into account also the moral suasion of parents who may disapprove of their offspring having sex and pressure them to deny they entered into it voluntarily.

Finally, unless coercion is clearly involved, I don't think peer-level offenses as described in the OP should be the subject of criminal charges or remain on a person's record. The idea that aa 17 year old who's had unforced sex with a 14 year old should be subject to a prison term of 25 years or a lifelong requirement to register themselves is absurd and unjustifiable.

I think attempts to legislate away the facts of biology and criminalizing consensual sexual activity between teenagers are impractical, authoritarian, and wrong, and a holdover from an archaic view of offpsring as chattel.

[jobycom]

5. There was a case in Williamson county were a woman was sentenced to 24 years

in prison for having sex with a 16 year old, whom she considered her boyfriend. In addition, the courts stripped custody of her young children, so that she could never see them again. The woman was 42.

Around the same time, a cop in his twenties was given probation for sex with a teenager, because, well, he was a cop, and because men just do that sort of thing.

So the inequality is not always in the same direction.

Oh yeah, this same county tries to build a reputation of being tough on all crime, but when the police chief's daughter was busted with drugs, then busted again while out on probation, she was given a short period of house arrest, then probation for a couple of years. A friend of mine, for essentially the same crime, was sentenced to 7 years, until his lawyer discovered that the law did not allow that length of sentence, and it was reduced to three.

Those who claim to be toughest on crime are also usually the least fair.

A bit of a wander, but oh well.

[dkofos]

6. Let's fuck up their lives for seeking pleasure.

[cali]

10. I really hate this shit.

I highly recommend reading Judith Levine's excellent book, "Harmful to Minors".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmful_to_Minors

[truedelphi]

15. I hate it too. And thank you for a link so I have a more educated point of view

And some researched talking points.

The only thing really weird is that after initializing their normal human/animal nature, the teens are punished for it by newly developping and very weird standards.

We have gone from a society that for decades deliberately was ignoring priests abusing children to these days imprisoning kids who jack off together with friends after finding Daddy's Playboy. Especially if the friends are older or younger.

A rookie teacher in my neighbor hood is doing hard time for four years in prison because some of his seventeen year old students stopped by his house uninvited. He let them in and offered sodas and meanwhile a sex tape the teacher and his girlfriend had been watching was left playing in the background while the students asked about assignments and grades.

Was the young teacher guilty of bad judgment? Definitely. But four years in jail and then registering as a sex offender for the rest of his life? (And in this day and age, teens are seeing really perverse sex scenes at 3:30Pm on cable movie stations. Over just the last month, I've seen a handful of movies that were box office hits because of the raunchy sex that came up somewhere during the plot of the movie. But are we putting cable TV station presidents in jail for their lapse of judgement in scheduling their movies?)

[kath]

16. A very interesting book - second the recommendation.

[jaysunb]

12. Ah...the "pussy police."

They all seem to forget their own teen years. :evilfrown: Or, maybe not.

[Bunny]

13. Charming.

[Still Sensible]

14. I want to follow this because I suspect

a further travesty could be that one defendant may end up on a lifetime sex offender list and the other won't.

Furthermore, I question the prosecuting as a crime consensual sex between teenagers. Don't get me wrong, there needs to be something to protect teens and anybody else from rape, but it seems to me these kind of statutes aren't the answer.

One question is the "line" that gets drawn. Generally speaking, both of these cases look like sex between a high school junior and a freshman. In my mind it is ridiculous to call that activity a crime unless one party was unwilling.

[ConcernedCanuk]

17. "I question the prosecuting as a crime consensual sex between teenagers" - I agree

.
.
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Rape is a complete different issue in my opinion

"statutory" rape is a ridiculous discrimination

if one is not "forced" - then it should not be a crime/felony

coercion/threats/drugs/alcohol should be considered of course.

But a couple obviously in favor of each others actions should not be processed as criminals.

If the age is a concern, counsel - yes.

But not criminal records to ruin their lives