Mother gets 30 Years for Seducing Boys
Well--if it was a guy--they would call it "molesting" rather than seducing but at least the courts are holding women responsible for their actions. See the story here. But my question is, if she had killed the boys rather than seduce them, would she have gotten less time?
posted by Helen at 2:59 PM
12 Comments:
Helen
This is where you and I disagree, mostly due to: Clark, R.D., E. Hatfiield, 1989, "Gender Differences in Receptivity to Sexual Offers", Journal of Psychology & Human Sexuality, Vol. 2(1)
This refers to an experiment performed on the campus of Florida State University in 1978 and replicated in 1982. (It may also have been replicated again in 1989.) In the experiment, person of sex A walked up to an unknown person of sex B and said "I have been noticing you around campus. I find you to be very attractive". This was followed by one of three questions (which were the independent variables): "Would you go out with me tonight?", Would you come over to my apartment tonight"? or "Would you go to bed with me tonight?" The dependent variables were the subject's reply: yes or no.
When a man asked a woman for a date, the woman agreed 56% of the time in 1978 and 50% in 1982
Asking for an apartment visit: 6% and 0%
Asking for sex: 0% and 0%
When a woman asked a man for a date, the man agreed 50% of the time in both 1978 and 1982
Asking for an apartment visit: 69% and 69%
Asking for sex: 75% and 69%
In other words, not one of the women agreed to casual sex, while the men were more willing to go off and have sex with a female stranger than have a date with her. Furthermore, when asked for sex, the male and female demeaner was completely different. The men were flattered and at ease. The women acted hurt, insulted and angry.
In other words, the "boys" in your news article were almost certainly NOT molested, and it is nothing more or less than a blatant attempt by women to impose female's preferred behavior on men to insist that they were.
To Bobh,
I put molested in quotes---that is because we do not know that these boys were actually molested. Frankly, I do not believe that this woman deserved 30 years in jail for this act--yet men are almost always treated more harshly in the same circumstances. I think men and women should be treated equally under the law. According to your logic, the act becomes a problem if the person is upset and hurt by it. In that case, some boys are upset by these sexual acts and some girls are not-where do you draw the line? If the law says that you are not to have sex with people under a certain age, should it add--only if you are a woman? Do you think it is fair to have one rule for women and one for men? I do not.
The "party mom" also gave the boys meth, which the judge said was unconscionable. That partly explains the long sentence.
As a man, and an ex-high shcool kid, I would have been delighted to have been seduced in high school. Having made this comment several times, I am always interested in the scorn it receives from many women. However, even the most PC of men will agree with it when in an all male setting.
The law should apply equally, and this is a tough one. But in determining the law, we should not pretend that the views of men and women are the same on this issue.
I think everyone is missing an important point, as we let our own feelings about sex and society cast a shadow on the conversation. It's easy to make jokes, and validate the stereotype that teenagers or even all men always want sex regardless of who offers it.
Sex is often about other things than coitus or orgasm. Yes, there are horndog men. Yes, there are horndog women. We all make jokes about it, even though those jokes are not really funny.
In many cases, sex is about exerting power. Anyone who has been to a strip club sees both sides of that: men using the power of money to get women to move seductively, and women moving seductively to exert some power over men. It's true, if clinical.
So when a mother is having sex with teenaged boys, it isn't really about sex, is it? It is about everything except those boys---a feeling of youth, exerting power over very horny boys, etc. When an older man has sex with a much younger woman, he too is attempting to use his age and experience (money, influence, or experience) to exert his will over another.
With very few exceptions, these people have nothing in common. I often hear folks say that "men want sex all the time" as a truism. And there are folks who are the equivalent of nymphomaniacs---some of the anonymous sex that takes place in certain groups comes to mind---but most folks actually aren't quite so cavalier about the subject.
There is always a power differential in these kinds of relationships (one partner much older than the other).
That needs to be dissected away from the rest of the discussion.
Finally, an older woman having sex with a young boy CAN psychologically damage that boy. It's not all Anne Bancroft and Dustin Hoffman, folks.
The mother in the case discussed should spend time not only in prison, but in a psychiatrist's office. And I would think the same thing about an older man preying on young women. There is a very famous biologist in Los Angeles who is currently on trial on this very subject: he the older mentor, and she the young admirer.
Sorry to go on at length.
-Anonymous XY
To anonymous
First, how do you know that the mother in question isn't a fat, chain-smoking alcoholic who was feels incredibly old and can't attract males except by buying them drugs? Is she operating from a position of "power" then?
Second, an older woman NOT having sex with a young boy can psychologically damage him too. In fact, the best way may be by intermittently and capriciously cutting him off. Intermittent reinforcement is an excellent way of cementing behavior in a subject (or in the population of a totalitarian country.)
Third, why did you say to send her to a psychiatrist? As a society, we don't "punish" anybody any more. We send them to therapists instead. The intent is the same - to modify their behavior - but this way we can still think of ourselves as wonderfully caring and giving people.
The issue of sexuality in teens is such a highly controversial one in the US--that it is hard even to discuss. I believe there are some (if not many) teens who can decide for themselves whether sex is right or not for them. Not long ago, girls were married in their teens and sexuality for them was not such an issue. Now, adolescence is extended to 30 and we treat everyone like a child until they are around 36 at which time they are deemed, "old."
We have come to see sex abuse as worse than murder--which is why I made the reference in the post about the length of time one receives for sex abuse--murderers often get off with less time. I find this ridiculous. We have pathologized every touch in our society to one of pathology and we make the victims of real sex abuse feel worse by our horror of it.
Yes, people who have been abused (if they see it as abuse) may need treatment--but some of (I am not saying all of) the issues they need help with is the stigma of the sex abuse which makes them feel like damaged goods.
I have watched group therapy with sex abuse victims conducted where the therapy itself did not seem helpful--people were crying and talking about being victimized while the group and leader confirmed their worse fears--they were damaged goods. It is far better to help people learn to adjust, cope and move on than dwell on being a victim.
As the father of two boys, who are currently 8 and 10, I'd go rather ape if at 13 or 14 (technically a 'teenager' -- I don't think the article mentioned the boys' ages ?) an *adult* female started a sexual relationship with them. This is not about gender, and it's only peripherally about sexual acts, it's about trust. Your trusting other adults to behave themselves, and a boy's trusting an adult not to lead him down inappropriate paths.
What if an adult female regularly served alcohol to your 14 year old and both got drunk together ? If your 14-year-old said "But it was no big deal," would *his* judgement or your own prevail ? What it the adult said "Hey, I didn't let him drive home." What if we substitute cigarettes ? There are many things that nearly all societies place into the realm of adult judgement. In our society, sex, alcohol, tobacco, and voting are among them. Let's not go down the path of "but SEX is okay" -- society and I do NOT agree that adult judgement and a teen's judgement are the same in this arena.
On another note, I must be anomalous. I am a male and I still had feelings even as a teenager. I would not have claimed at 16 to be able to separate lust from love. If I found out the object of my affection was only using me for sex, I think I'd have been crushed. Or is it only teenage females who can be preyed upon by unscrupulous adults ?
Dr. Helen, you talk about girls married in their teens, and "sexuality for them was not such an issue." I consider the argument to be technically correct but out of context. It was precisely *because* they were married that the sex was "not an issue." Maybe this was good, maybe it was bad. But it is apples to oranges to compare sex among married teenagers in years gone by to premarital sex today. In 1900, the ratio of divorced to married was less than 1% (http://www.census.gov/statab/hist/HS-11.pdf), in 2000 I get 13%.
Lastly, I sound like a prude, so let me say one thing: I am not per se opposed to premarital sex among consenting teenagers, all other things being equal. I was a willing participant in my time, and I expect my kids will be as well. Nor am I necessarily a supporter of it. It is simply a fact of life, has been, and will be. But let us not invoke the image of two 16-year-olds fooling around in a back seat in this case. What I find potentially evil and potentially depraved, certainly criminal, and worthy of sanction in the USA in 2005, is sex between someone well into adulthood and someone barely out of childhood. It's not a good analogy, but let me ask: Would you countenance a 15-year-old playing poker with his/her life's savings against an adult ? Why not ? The teenager *might* be an ace player, and the adult might be lousy at it ? But is that the way to bet ?
"I'm pretty sure that few healthy heterosexual 14-year old boys would be able to rationally evaluate the pros and cons in such a situation."
Which cons? At about the same age, I was attracted to the married woman next door. Our families were very close, we spent almost all our vacations together with them and their two sons (same age range). There were hundreds of occasions were I was in natural physical contact with her (hugging, games, riding in the car side-by-side on the backseat) and I often tried to provoke situations were I could brush against her breasts. She never made the slighest attempt to provoke such a situation herself, it was just natural and inevitable to make physical contact.
But I wanted it, probably out of sexual curiousity. I once asked her if she would allow me to touch her breasts. She said no, clearly and friendly, I guess she understood my "troubles".
What if she had given in? Would that have done any harm to me? Certainly not, it would probably have satisfied my curiosity and it would have confirmed the mental picture I had of a person of the other sex. But did I have a mental picture which was in line with reality? No. The only other way to get somewhat closer to this reality, to understand what a female body looks like under the tissues (at the time, we didn't have TV, and there were absolutely no bikinis on the front pages of magazines), was to get hold of books on sexual education ... with schematic drawings.
Why do we shy away from this physical "thing" as if it was dangerous or unnatural? Why is it ok to have physical contact with all body parts, except a few inches of our skin? Why do we shamefully hide what more than 50% of the world population see everyday?
To come back to the topic: there must be other criteria to determine if a person should be sentenced for physical contacts with an adolescents. And yes, I feel that there is a huge difference between a man and a women doing the same thing. And between doing it with a girl or a boy.
Anonymous XY,
I know you are referring to The Graduate from 1967, but actually the actors were only 5 years and 10 months apart and both in their 30s. My parents are slightly further apart. I liked your part addressing the truism of all men are horny all the time. I am a virgin and yes it would be nice to try out sex, but there are plenty of women who I would not want to be with.
Dr Helen,
I think the punishment for murder should increase, rather than the punishment for sexual abuse decrease. I used to chat with a girl who had been sexually molested as a child (the molestor received no punishment as the jury/judge did not believe her) and then raped by her boyfriend when she was around 18. She went to a therapist who was really good at helping her to move on. I think her method was to tell the patient to forget her past.
I had an experience when I was around 15. I was with my immediate family and we went camping in this desert area with several of my dad's cousins. There was a woman there in her 30s who I had never met before. She was slightly drunk and was flirting with me. It made me feel really uncomfortable, possibly because she was married.
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