[butterfly]

Sorry, Katie, I didn't mean to piss you off.

I don't live in the States, but where I live, if males or females are under the age of 16, they are under the age of consent. This is the case whether the minor or the sexual partner is male or female. So, if a 23 year old has a sexual relationship with a 14 year old, the 23yr old would be seen as the assailant, the 14 year old as unable to have been in a consensual relationship.
It's also seen as unethical/sackable/(illegal I think, but I have to run off and check) for a teacher/tutor to have a sexual relationship with a pupil of any age, as it's seen as an abuse of power.

I hope that that goes some ways to explain my terminology.

I just wonder if perhaps we do a disservice to male victims of sexual assault if we start from the point where we describe all men as "cocked and ready to fire". (I know those are most definately my words not yours Katie-I really am not trying to start a fight, and I'm really worried that I have already. I just feel really strongly about this)

ETA I spent so long editing my post that ya'll have moved on! Haven't caught up yet, but wanted to be sure you knew I'm not trying to be inflammatory.

[katiebelle2882]

well thats the point bunnyb. its only sexual harassment if it makes the other person feel uncomfortable. thats actually the definition. its not if whether you think its appropriate or not, its whether the recipient does.

also, i want to point out that women do not pose the same threat, simply bc a full grown man can defend himself against physical attacks coming from a woman (ie rape etc) whereas the opposite is not true.

[bunnyb]

I don't think male sexual assault or rape is treated with the same level of seriousness (except if it was man on man) and that is shocking. Woman can be just as manipulative and pose as threats as men can.

I remember a conversation I had with work people last week about a female teamleader (24) who was texting a male member of her team (21) things such as "I wish I wasn't your boss because this is what I would do to you" and described it in lurid detail. I called it sexual harrassment and one of the boys I was with said it can't be if it's a woman, I brought up the film Disclosure and he said that wasn't sexual harrassment eaither as it was Demi Moore and who wouldn't? Boys.

When I was 17 a male teacher got in a lot of trouble for "inappropriate conduct" towards me. He should not have taken advantage but I will admit that I wasn't innocent, I was a seventeen year old girl who was playing games, not realising how serious they were.

[katiebelle2882]

yeah it probably is taken too lightly bc men arent supposed to show any sort of discomfort with getting laid, no matter who its from.

i do know however there were a few teachers i would have gladly jumped into bed with when i was 14 or 15. since i feel as though my feelings were justified then, i dont think i can definitively say no one elses are either. it always irked me when people said "you dont know WHAT you want you are so young". yeah well, its still my choice.

that lafave woman is just a moron. i would just like to see what the boys have to say about it.

[pollystyrene]

I had heard about the story, and just watched a couple of minutes of the interview and she just came across as totally clueless and seemed to be more sorry that she got caught, rather than sorry that she did it. When I flipped back later in the hour, I couldn't believe they were still interviewing her- she seemed to have the IQ of patio furniture and how they got an hour-long interview from her is beyond me.

I had a male acquaintence (I went to my sr. prom with him, after meeting him a month earlier on the internet, but we were just friends) who had been raped- he was at a party, got pretty loaded on drugs and alcohol and passed out. He came to briefly and some girl was on top of him, then he passed out again. He never even knew who she was or what she did to him. It was definitely damaging to him, and I don't think that male sexual assault is taken seriously enough, whether it's child/adult molestation or incest, child/child assault/"playing", situations like the teacher/student stuff where it's somewhat concensual (sp?) but it's really the adult taking advantage of the child.

The MaryKay LeTourneau thing- I guess after all these years, now that he's an adult and they have what would be a normal relationship (if it hadn't started when he was 11 or 12), I think I'm a little more forgiving. I think when it initially happened, people were saying, "there's no way they could be in love- she was just a predator"...I'm not saying that she wasn't, and she definitely should have been punished (maybe moreso than she was), and I'm sure the kid's messed up, but at this point, they're both adults, and from what I've seen they're in love, and he seems to be okay. I'm SURE there's some dysfunction, but what can you do?

I had a teacher in high school whose wife was a good 10-15 years younger than he was and they'd been married for several years. I came to find out that she was one of his former students. i think they met when she was 17 or 18, a junior or senior, and they got along, strictly as friends, stayed in touch when she went off to college and when she graduated, they ended up dating and getting married. So I don't think teacher/student relationships are never genuine, but obviously the LeTourneau thing was extreme.

[katiebelle2882]

sexual assault and agreeing to be involved in a sexual relationship are two different things. and i think you knew i meant that. honestly it pisses me off that you would think i thought anyone asked for sexual assault.

i am saying that 13 is not far from 14. and frankly i know many boys who lost their virginity at ages 13 and 14.

i agree with pepper that society looks at male sexuality differently, which is why it affects them differently. personally, i dont think it is the same for men as it would be for women in the same situation (and i am not talking about any other situation).

also, if you have two boys who agreed to it as opposed to a girl who was coerced into it as the situation so often seems, then i think making a choice makes a huge difference.

personally, while i think its young, i do believe both men and women can have sexual experiences at these ages and inot be scarred. how else would you explain the fact that mary kay's "victim" chose to marry her years down the road?

i think its gross and weird like i said before, but i absolutely do not think its the same situation as it would be with a girl. and consent has everything to do with it.

that being said, we will never know all the details. and i agree with pepper that it can have unforeseen affects, but i think it may be a mistake to label a twenty something year old going after a 14 year old "molestation" in every circumstance would be a mistake. men or woman, girl or boy.

pepper just a question. wouldnt having that experience make your ex feel like he was only a sex object? i find it interesting it went the other way. who knows.

[butterfly]

"not scarred by things like this, if anything, they love it"

wow. Really Katie?

Um, are you saying that male survivors of sexual assault were asking for it?

What if it was an older *not* hot teacher?
What if the assailant had been male?
What if a 14year old boy who had homoerotic fantasies was in a sexual relationship with a male teacher?

[pepper]

yup, my ex was essentially molested at a pretty young age by his teenaged babysitter. he talks about it like it was some awsome thing that he was lucky to have happen to him but you know what? his attitude about women SUCKs and i think that what happened to him as a young boy helped to shape that. seriously, he views women as objects for pleasure, he evaluates women based on their attractiveness. i am pretty darn sure that that stems from having had a sexual experience so young without any sort of intellectual base to view it from. perhaps in another culture where there are coming of age rituals that define the separate times in boys/men and girls/womens lives and what that means to them an early sexual experience wouldn't be so detrimental but from what i know engaging in sexual behavior with a 'minor' in that sort of tribal community is forbidden. as it has been here.
so, while i agree that young boys having that kind of interaction with older girls/women might not ultimately be as traumatic as it can be for girls in the same situation, it certainly is NOT harmless. it has a lasting effect and can be traumatic in unseen and unpredictable ways throughout the life time of a boy who suffers that sort of abuse.
not only that, sexuality in males is glorified while it is the opposite for women. what man is going to claim to have been traumatized by that? our cultural attitides don't allow it. so he suffers the abuse and then the guilt about feeling abused.
this issue is huge, too big to be summed up so tritely i'm afraid.

[katiebelle2882]

the difference btw these women and men are HUGE. the women men prey on usually want nothing to do with the advances. on the other hand, these men have a much much lesser chance of being scarred from this. i dont know about you guys, but when i was 13 and 14 most men i knew would have had their dreams come true if an older hot teacher come on to them. while i think what these women did is weird and irresponsible, by NO means is it the same situation. not even close. mary kay, while we dont understand it, is now married to the boy who is in his 20's. you really think he didnt make that conscious decision at 20-something? come on now get a grip.

instead of making judgements, why dont you take a look at thee boys and see if they care at all? i dont agree with it, but women have gone through century upon century of being victimized by older men, and like it or not, we live in a society where young boys are not scarred by things like this, if anything, they love it. i dont think these women are victims, but GGG, you are a victim/survivor bc its something you didnt want. do we really have any idea what the boys think? chances are, they dont feel as you do.

[anna k]

I hate these women. They are sick predators but don't see themselves as rapists because they don't have dicks, and they wrap it up in self-pitying emotional bullshit. They are sick bitches. Oprah did a show on it, and the father of one boy said right to the predator's face, "You raped our son over and over again."

Mary Kay marrying her victim and raising their children . . . that's nasty.

[wombat]

I watched that show, too, and she was scary, she was so freaky, but... the whole .. if she was a man argument I have trouble with -- because if she was a man, she would have 50 victims, spanning decades, moving from place to place and job to job with no-one willing to say SHIT, and sometimes even being violent with the victims or killing them, and only belatedly, when elderly, ever being prosecuted.

Cause that's what I see on the news, so, so, often, all the more so if it's his own family. Here she is getting chased down for a LOT LESS. Not that she shouldn't get chased down, but ... men do and get away with this stuff a whole. lot.

[girlygirlgag]

I don't know where I should put this, but I am watching this woman on TV. As a survivor, I really want to skewer this woman. I am outraged!!!!!!!!!! She is the victim?


She is killing survivors and the survivor movement.


" I went and picked him and his cousin . and they did what they wanted."


The main problem with that assertation:" She went and picked them up."


FUCK THIS MONSTER

They were 13, she was 24. This was not the first time.

And now they are blaming being Deborah being bi-polar.

Why is she not being treated like a man? Because she is hot.?.?