quote:I think we should be giving teenagers a lot more credit than we do. They are perfectly capable of being intelligent, sane and responsible. Don't we all have the suspicion that our society's extended adolescence is a bad thing?
No. I don't have the same feeling about it that you apparently do. When I talk about extended adolescence being a bad thing, I mostly mean 20-somethings acting like fourteen-year olds.
But thank you for letting us know your views, Foust.
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Foust, I don't have any such concerns. "If we made everything legal there wouldn't be any crime" is a bad argument, and doesn't justify squat.
In todays world I don't think we are coddling teens. There are a lot of factors these days that were non-issues in other times, and I don't think preventing older men from preying on teens is a bad thing.
Mal, I don't think you are being a vigilante, per se. You are informing your neighbors about a possible situation and asking them to be aware, but you aren't going around trying to assault the guy. I'd say you aren't doing anything I wouldn't do, and I don't even have any children yet.
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quote:I think we should be giving teenagers a lot more credit than we do. They are perfectly capable of being intelligent, sane and responsible. Don't we all have the suspicion that our society's extended adolescence is a bad thing?
I don't think we should be giving teenagers a lot more credit than we do. I do think we should raise expectations, though, and that's quite a different thing. Either way, though, I think the place to start doing that isn't permitting middle-adolescents to have sex with middle-aged adults. Quite frankly, it really sounds like you have a very poor understanding of the dynamics frequently involved in these situations, Foust.
quote: Your second sentence is an argument in favor of my position, not yours. Cultures that refuse sexual relations between adults and teenagers have been few and far between through human history. I am certainly not arguing for some kind of return to the past, given that these relations often treated a teenage girl as the property of her adult husband, but I don't think we need to worry about that sort of thing so much anymore.
No, it really isn't. What cultures in the past have done is permitted sexual contact at certain levels of maturity. That has changed along with lifespans in our society. It's the way everyone is raised. Maybe if this man were a time-traveler from the Middle Ages, or the teenagers were, your objections would carry more weight. But they both, presumably, grew up in an American society, being taught certain things. One of which is: when you're in your 30s, don't have sex with people half your age! I'm perfectly comfortable with labeling people incapable of obeying that taboo as sex offenders. Mostly because they, y'know, are.
quote:Well, I think it would change enough to make you happy. I'm perfectly happy to label pedophiles - who have acted on their desire - as a legitimate danger to children. I just think we should be careful about throwing out the concepts of rehabilitation and/or a fresh start so easily and glibly. It is something to be thought about carefully - there is no room for a pitchfolk-and-torch reaction.
Who's been having that reaction, Foust? Keep your labels accurate, if you please, where you're willing to use them at all that is.
quote: My suspicion of this kind of reaction - that pedophiles are the highest form of evil in our society, worse than racists and sexists and therefore deserve no rights - is that it is more based on the chimerical notion of childhood innocence than it is on an actual calculation of danger.
Who said they deserve no rights? That's not part of this discussion. As for the 'chimerical notion of childhood innocence'...well, that would be a lot more compelling a sentiment if there weren't, y'know, hoards of statistics and reports that sexual contact in childhood - pedophilia - really messes almost everyone it happens to up. The calculation that it's dangerous has taken place because it's been shown to be dangerous! Experience has taught us that, not some fanciful notion of childhood. What a strange notion!
quote:I'll be clear: when it comes to pedophiles, I do not have a problem of neighborhood notification per se. My problem is with vigilante action.
Where is the vigilante action in this case?
quote:But Avid, would you agree that as bad as the 18/30 range marriage was, it shouldn't be illegal?
Just to keep your argument rooted properly, we're not actually talking about that. No one says 18 yr sex should be illegal. We're talking 15-30 split here. Unhealthy power structure says it all. What do 15 and 30 year olds have that would attract them to one another? Analyze that and you'll see what the cultural objection to it is. It has nothing to do with fanciful chimeras (a bit redundant now that I think about it) and everything to do with shrewd, pragmatic analysis.
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Yeah, none. There's no vigilante action here. Vigilantism is extrajudicial; you don't end up a vigilante just by informing people.
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quote:Foust, I don't have any such concerns. "If we made everything legal there wouldn't be any crime" is a bad argument, and doesn't justify squat.
I didn't say that. I used the word prohibition, which I guess was too vague. I mean the social prohibition; they're "untrustworthy" because what they're doing is condemned.
quote: There are a lot of factors these days that were non-issues in other times, and I don't think preventing older men from preying on teens is a bad thing.
You're begging the question. Of course "older men preying on teens" is bad, but I'm saying that not all of these relationships are necessarily a matter of predator and prey. You're playing with two generalizations. The first is that the only adult/teen relationships are between predatory men and naive teenage girls, and the second is that these relationships are always predatory. I tend to think that romantic love is far more unpredictable than we wish to give it credit for.
I'm also unconvinced there is a major difference between even a manipulative adult male/teen girl relationship and older women manipulating older men, or in any other number of combination of age and gender.
quote:Quite frankly, it really sounds like you have a very poor understanding of the dynamics frequently involved in these situations, Foust.
I'm well aware of what common sense has to say about these matters. I just don't hold common sense in very high regard.
quote:It's the way everyone is raised.
This isn't a good argument, and you wouldn't let conservatives use it in other contexts. So don't bother here.
quote:One of which is: when you're in your 30s, don't have sex with people half your age! I'm perfectly comfortable with labeling people incapable of obeying that taboo as sex offenders. Mostly because they, y'know, are.
Circular reasoning. We are taught to believe they are sex offenders because they are, and they are sex offenders because we are taught to believe they are.
quote:Who's been having that reaction, Foust? Keep your labels accurate, if you please, where you're willing to use them at all that is.
I'll bet Mal's neighbor feels a bit like a 30s movie version of Dr. Frankenstein right about now.
quote:As for the 'chimerical notion of childhood innocence'...well, that would be a lot more compelling a sentiment if there weren't, y'know, hoards of statistics and reports that sexual contact in childhood - pedophilia - really messes almost everyone it happens to up.
My complaint is that we are extending the already shaky concept of innocence into adolescence. Nothing I'm saying has anything to do with pedophilia.
quote:Just to keep your argument rooted properly, we're not actually talking about that.
Avid was using the 18/30 marriage as an example of a relationship with a large age difference was unhealthy. I was responding to Avid.
quote:Unhealthy power structure says it all.
Again, begging the question. This is exactly what I'm arguing against. Undesirable power relationships exist across any and all pairings; take a couple with any combination of age, race, class and gender you like, and you'll find messed up power games. I'm saying that these unhealthy power relations are not inherent in any combination, with the exception of pedophilia.
quote:What do 15 and 30 year olds have that would attract them to one another? Analyze that and you'll see what the cultural objection to it is
We've all come across a dozen couples and have asked ourselves, "why on earth are they together?" What attracts two people to one another is quite singular - because love is singular. Statistically, like falls in love with like, but you know what happens the minute you go to the individual level. Do I understand how a hot women in her 20s could find a stinky, obnoxious teenage boy attractive? Of course not. Does Mary Kay Letourneau's story make sense to me? No, but it doesn't need to - people fall in love in strange circumstances. And even if love isn't involved, people of all stripes can become mutually attracted to one another.
quote:Yeah, none. There's no vigilante action here. Vigilantism is extrajudicial; you don't end up a vigilante just by informing people.
I'll drop the term for now.
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I would certainly inform my neighbors if I knew a sexual offender had moved into the neighborhood, though anyone with internet access can check the state website and find out for themselves.
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Sadly, many people in my extended circle (i.e. parents of the kids' friends) STILL don't know about the state registry website, or have forgotten since I last attempted to enlighten them. I'd personally rather have three well-meaning neighbors warn me of a danger I already know exists because I did my own research than have those same three neighbors assume that I already checked it out when I may not have.
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I agree. Interestingly, there is a book at the main office of every school in our county, so whenever I'm up there checking out a kid for a doctor's appointment I always flip through it to see if anyone new has moved into the area. The schools just print out the notifications and put them in there, the most recent on top.
I would say that most parents do the same, based on what I've seen, so I think that surprisingly low-tech option has made a big impact in keeping people informed.
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quote:If we are releasing these people because they are rehabilitated, then it is wrong to punish them after prison.
I think sex offender registries just recognize the fact that a) we can't lock people up for crimes they haven't yet committed BUT b) sex offenders have a high level of recidivism.
I don't disagree with the use of sex offender registries in principle, but in practice they are a joke. Any old fart that gets spotted peeing in his yard or college senior that has sex with his sophomore girlfriend gets an ominous bullet on those online sex offender maps and may have draconian restrictions placed on where they can live or work.
There needs to be some sense of perspective in the system.
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Maybe I'm just ignorant on this, but how do you rehabilitate a convicted felon, regardless of their crime? They're in a controlled environment where the temptation to repeat (probably) doesn't exist. I imagine that counseling can only go so far.
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there are actually plenty of situations where felons can be rehabilitated given the right resources. And it's recommendable because this results in a net decrease in drain on public resources. the only problem is that the system that tries to rehab felons has to be extremely methodological in determining what psychological profiles / groups are conductive to effective rehabilitation, etc.
counseling is pretty valuable for a large number of inmates.
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quote:there are actually plenty of situations where felons can be rehabilitated given the right resources
Unfortunately a number of people view these rehabilitation efforts, effective or not, as being "soft on crime." So what if learning a vocational skill makes someone less likely to offend in the future, we shouldn't be paying to educate felons!
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I have mixed feelings on the registries, not only because they might contain too varied a mix of threatening and non-threatening offenders, but also because I have a feeling that when we deliberately shun and exclude people who did wrong things in the past we might be making it more likely that they relapse into criminal behavior. However, I will not pretend that recidivism can be cured by forgive-and-forget; I think it's a lot more complicated than that.
The complications go both ways, though, and I am not comfortable that I can accurately analyze a case and determine that the upsides of actively warning neighbors outweigh the downsides. (Those downsides include contributing to irrational fear and overprotective behavior which might have a negative impact on development, health, and happiness. )
My net impulse is to do nothing. I want victims of abuse to have public resources at their command to react to crime and hopefully prevent further abuses in the future. I want criminals who have served their sentences to have maximal chances to have a normal, decent life going forward. I want people to be realistic about how to protect their kids and also to allow them to have experiences that have great value even if they also carry some risk. I simply can't do the calculus to determine how to balance these wants (let alone the psychohistory to achieve a goal even if I could define it).
So I would not warn neighbors about the guy next door. I would not try to stop anyone from doing that, either.
Some simpler equations leave me less apathetic, though. While I most likely cannot reach a conclusion about whether it is best to actively publicize a criminal registry, I can conclude that teaching my children not to go into the homes or vehicles of strangers is a good idea. I can say that I think it's worth it to test and fund rehabilitation strategies and to set that as a higher priority than retribution.
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I have mixed feeling on them as well, but I would rather protect the right of children to grow up healthy than protect the right of someone to start over after molesting a child.
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quote: I mean the social prohibition; they're "untrustworthy" because what they're doing is condemned.
Or, put another way that doesn't thrust the blame on the prohibition itself, they're untrustworthy because they didn't stop themselves from doing what is condemned. Which isn't in this case something like paying an unjust tax or speaking peacefully against the government, but rather being an adult in your 30s and having sex with kids in junior high or high school.
quote:I'm also unconvinced there is a major difference between even a manipulative adult male/teen girl relationship and older women manipulating older men, or in any other number of combination of age and gender.
The difference is pretty obvious, I would have thought. Adults are their own responsibility. Teenagers (of this age) are not entirely their own responsibility. You can argue all you like that it shouldn't be this way in our society, but as long as it is? People dealing with them must take that into account-dealing with teenagers, that is. And when the 'dealings' are sexual activity, well, sorry kids, society says you don't get to entirely make up your own mind about it. If they don't like it, of course they're free to fume about it for awhile until they see things our way:)
quote:I'm well aware of what common sense has to say about these matters. I just don't hold common sense in very high regard.
That outlook is a lot more compelling when what you have to offer is at least on par with common sense or even better. So far your complaint is, "People are begging the question," and your evidence of this is a host of arguments that...well, beg the question or else just say, "That's not true."
quote:This isn't a good argument, and you wouldn't let conservatives use it in other contexts. So don't bother here.
When did conservatives come into this? I don't understand that objection. Anyway, it's an excellent argument on the trustworthiness factor.
quote:Circular reasoning. We are taught to believe they are sex offenders because they are, and they are sex offenders because we are taught to believe they are.
Well, yes. Words mean what we say they mean. That doesn't change, though, that the ideas, people, things, and places they refer to don't actually change depending on what we call them. A 30 year old who habitually has sex with 15-16 year olds isn't magically going to be a good guy in our society if we just start calling him that. Please note I said 'our society' where the differences between 15 and 30 year olds is much more striking than in centuries past.
quote:I'll bet Mal's neighbor feels a bit like a 30s movie version of Dr. Frankenstein right about now.
I have to admit, I'm not very concerned about the feelings of Mal's neighbor. In light of other considerations, that is, particularly in ensuring he doesn't sexually assault anyone else with slight force. Maybe if we re-evaluated our definition of 'sexual assault' and came to realize that 'slight force' isn't actually that bad, that people subjected to it were capable of resisting effectively, we could embrace the guy as a human being worthy of respect and comraderie?
quote:My complaint is that we are extending the already shaky concept of innocence into adolescence. Nothing I'm saying has anything to do with pedophilia.
Your complaints aren't entirely clear, for one thing. At times you'd feel a 'little' differently if it were a child, then it's a totally different case for example. And no, we're not equating pedophilia and sex between young adolescents and adults. What we're saying, though, is that there is not some magical line before which it's pedophilia and after which it's just normal sex between adults, which seems to be the thrust of your argument: that teens ought be treated as adults, sexually.
Now, if you were to frame your argument more reasonable in terms of sex between adolescents or those very recently out of adolescence, that would be quite different. A 19 year old who has sex with a 16 year old should not, I think, be on a sex offender registry for life, generally speaking. I'm a lot less uncertain about someone 11+yrs older, though.
quote:Undesirable power relationships exist across any and all pairings; take a couple with any combination of age, race, class and gender you like, and you'll find messed up power games. I'm saying that these unhealthy power relations are not inherent in any combination, with the exception of pedophilia.
Yes, I realize what you're saying. What you appear to be missing is that we as a society have no obligation to protect full-fledged adults from themselves in terms of their sexuality. Teenagers are a different case. Your argument that they shouldn't be treated as such centers around 'they're less innocent than we think they are'. Hardly compelling.
quote: quote:What do 15 and 30 year olds have that would attract them to one another? Analyze that and you'll see what the cultural objection to it is
We've all come across a dozen couples and have asked ourselves, "why on earth are they together?" What attracts two people to one another is quite singular - because love is singular. Statistically, like falls in love with like, but you know what happens the minute you go to the individual level. Do I understand how a hot women in her 20s could find a stinky, obnoxious teenage boy attractive? Of course not. Does Mary Kay Letourneau's story make sense to me? No, but it doesn't need to - people fall in love in strange circumstances. And even if love isn't involved, people of all stripes can become mutually attracted to one another.
Finding someone attractive is one thing. Mary Kay Letourneau's story absolutely needs to make sense, not only because she was an adult, but because the person she was having sex with wasn't just a random teenager (12, btw), but because she was his student in public school. That especially is a very specific kind of relationship.
It doesn't matter one whit if the two of them continued to be together for the rest of their lives in perfect, blissful happiness. If I beat someone into a coma and they remain there for 30 years and miraculously wake up three decades later and forgive me for it, I am not excused just because things turned out alright. Outcome does not retroactively change action.
quote:I'll drop the term for now.
For now, huh? Generous of you, since the term doesn't at all apply.
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The complications go both ways, though, and I am not comfortable that I can accurately analyze a case and determine that the upsides of actively warning neighbors outweigh the downsides. (Those downsides include contributing to irrational fear and overprotective behavior which might have a negative impact on development, health, and happiness. [Frown] )
Irrational?
quote:I have mixed feeling on them as well, but I would rather protect the right of children to grow up healthy than protect the right of someone to start over after molesting a child.
Agreed. And in the meantime, support politicians who go after sex-crime laws that are actually pragmatic as opposed to politically expedient.
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quote:Originally posted by scifibum: I have mixed feelings on the registries,
I don't.
1. A registry is a good idea in and of itself, but
2. The registry system we have now is broken and terrible and should be shot and killed and beheaded and its mouth stuffed full of garlic and buried at a crossroads, and
3. Once we do that, we should replace it with a system that doesn't suck and isn't modeled after zero-tolerance policies that also suck.
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The complications go both ways, though, and I am not comfortable that I can accurately analyze a case and determine that the upsides of actively warning neighbors outweigh the downsides. (Those downsides include contributing to irrational fear and overprotective behavior which might have a negative impact on development, health, and happiness. [Frown] )
Irrational?
I'm not sure if you're asking for clarification, or what. Assuming you are, I'll briefly explain what I mean.
People can have an disproportionate degree of fear about sexual predators, and it might be worsened by actively identifying and thinking about nearby offenders. I think that this is one contributor to a general trend of keeping kids indoors and at home as much as possible, which might be contributing to depression, obesity, and other problems.
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quote:I have mixed feeling on them as well, but I would rather protect the right of children to grow up healthy than protect the right of someone to start over after molesting a child.
The latter doesn't properly describe many of the people on the registry yet they get the same "sex offender" stigma. I'd have much less of a problem with a "child molester" registry.
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Yeah, we need the registry to actually MEAN something, rather than be filled with 14-17 year olds who are permanent sex offenders due to having engaged in consensual sexual relations with other minors, or 18 year old girls who had a 17 year old boyfriend, etc.
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quote:Or, put another way that doesn't thrust the blame on the prohibition itself, they're untrustworthy because they didn't stop themselves from doing what is condemned.
All you're saying is that people who do things that are socially condemned are untrustworthy -- without any regard to the justice of their act or society's judgment.
quote:And when the 'dealings' are sexual activity, well, sorry kids, society says you don't get to entirely make up your own mind about it.
I'll type... this... very... slowly. You're begging the question. I know it is socially condemned. This is what I'm questioning.
quote:So far your complaint is, "People are begging the question,"
In some circles, that is enough.
I'd like like to know where you think I am begging the question.
quote:A 30 year old who habitually has sex with 15-16 year olds isn't magically going to be a good guy in our society if we just start calling him that.
This is the example you keep bringing up - which is fine - but obviously it is the example that generates the most outrage. This is what you're playing on - outrage. And while I am not claiming this is true of you in particular, the flipside of this outrage is this. (a link to a South Park clip, with all the mildly-nsfw connotations that involves)
(Maybe I stretched the argument a little to fit that clip in. )
quote: What we're saying, though, is that there is not some magical line before which it's pedophilia and after which it's just normal sex between adults, which seems to be the thrust of your argument: that teens ought be treated as adults, sexually.
Actually, I'm offering to add to this: that there is no magical line before which it is dirty old men taking advantage of innocent young girls, and after which it is two adults. We all already acknowledge that the age of consent is basically arbitrary - why not 15? why not 17? why not 18 and a half? - I'm questioning it's value as anything other than an empty regulatory mechanism.
quote:Outcome does not retroactively change action.
Boy oh boy, did you ever just step into a deep hole of deontological ethics that you'll never dig your way out of. But this is a good thing! Neither of us are consequentialists! Which means that even if Letourneau's story did end in tears, it doesn't mean she necessarily did the wrong thing.
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quote:All you're saying is that people who do things that are socially condemned are untrustworthy -- without any regard to the justice of their act or society's judgment.
Yes. The untrustworthiness is not necessarily tied to justice. It's important for a society to be able to say to its citizens, "There are things you cannot do, even if you really, really think you've got a good reason. Even if you're sure. You may turn out to have been right in some cases," (see homicide), "but we're the ones who will be making that decision, not you."
quote:I'll type... this... very... slowly. You're begging the question. I know it is socially condemned. This is what I'm questioning.
I'm aware I'm begging the question. You're saying, "We should let them make up their own mind." I'm saying, "Until we decide to do that, you don't get to make up your own mind." That's part of what it means to live in civilization.
quote:I'd like like to know where you think I am begging the question.
The parts about teenagers being a lot more capable than we give them credit for, for example.
quote:This is the example you keep bringing up - which is fine - but obviously it is the example that generates the most outrage.
It also happens to be the example that's actually being discussed here, and the example you expressed objections to.
quote:Actually, I'm offering to add to this: that there is no magical line before which it is dirty old men taking advantage of innocent young girls, and after which it is two adults. We all already acknowledge that the age of consent is basically arbitrary - why not 15? why not 17? why not 18 and a half? - I'm questioning it's value as anything other than an empty regulatory mechanism.
Of course there's no magical line. Why not 15 or 17 indeed? But until we change the line to go two years or one year or eight days back, the line is where it is. It's arbitrary. It does not reflect reality in all cases. But that doesn't make it an 'empty regulatory mechanism', because while there are going to be some people denied physical consummation of true love, there's also at least as many - or do you not grant that, even? - people who will be protected from being victimized by older adults preying on their comparitive inexperience and powerlessness?
quote:Boy oh boy, did you ever just step into a deep hole of deontological ethics that you'll never dig your way out of. But this is a good thing! Neither of us are consequentialists! Which means that even if Letourneau's story did end in tears, it doesn't mean she necessarily did the wrong thing.
What it means is that while intent and outcome matters, there is also the act itself in the framework of the society we live in. I'm comfortable putting this in 'wrong' category. I recognize it's arbitrary. That's the way life is sometimes. I had to look up deontological ethics, and now that you bring it up, it is like that. I'm fine just saying, "These are the rules, this is your duty," to 30 year olds wanting to have sex with 15 year olds.
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quote: I'm saying, "Until we decide to do that, you don't get to make up your own mind." That's part of what it means to live in civilization.
So you're about one centimeter away from just saying it's wrong because society says it is wrong, and we all just have to live with society's judgment. Is that really where you want to go? Are you taking this tact because you have no other way to justify your outrage and squick?
quote:
quote:I'd like like to know where you think I am begging the question.
The parts about teenagers being a lot more capable than we give them credit for, for example.
No, I was making an empirical statement there. Would you agree that there is a subset (of whatever size) of 16 year olds that could pass for 25? Would you agree that there is a subset of 16 year olds that could pass for 25 if there weren't constantly told "you'll understand when you're older"? I'm making a statistical argument, it isn't circular at all. I use this to say that we needlessly condescend to teenagers all the time. It is useless to judge by age.
quote:
quote:This is the example you keep bringing up - which is fine - but obviously it is the example that generates the most outrage.
It also happens to be the example that's actually being discussed here, and the example you expressed objections to.
Not true. This thread has been full of abstract, hypothetical scenarios. The discussion moved beyond Mal's one specific example before I came along.
quote:...while there are going to be some people denied physical consummation of true love, there's also at least as many - or do you not grant that, even? - people who will be protected from being victimized by older adults preying on their comparative inexperience and powerlessness?
And this is the base line rational of most legal thinking - taking a generalization and forcing all particulars under it. I'm arguing for the ethical importance of particulars - sometimes we just have to tell generalizations (even statistically well founded ones!) to go stuff themselves in the name of the unique, the new, the flashing appearance of what could be.
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As a former 16 year old assumed to be 26 on occasion, I'm not a fan of the thought of other 26 year olds considering me fair game. The phrase "jailbait" kept a remarkable amount of pressure off me, which I appreciate.
I guess I just don't see your argument, Foust. I should have been subjected to three times the near-constant social pressure to get physical because occasionally a 16 and a 25 year old are right for each other? How bout she just waits two years to sleep with him and other girls like me get to keep their temporary reprieve?
Cause if you haven't had to approach the majority of social situations wondering how much of the attention you're getting is because somebody wants to touch something, I'm not sure you appreciate the subtle insinuations that come with it. What if at every party a large group of guys wanted to talk to you until they found out how old you were and then didn't any more? What if people at your hobby were enjoying a nice conversation and stopped dead when they realized you were standing there? If every plan with them had to be changed because of your presence?
It's tough enough being mature for a teenager and looking older. I had sex young and married my high school boyfriend. I, of all people, am not arguing that teenagers aren't mature and can't make decisions about sex that they won't regret. (Though I'm not sure if anyone can ever really be ready and a certain amount of that may come down to luck.) I'm saying the good outweighs the bad, broken sex registry and all.
Change a few broken laws. Revamp the registry. But lets not compound the problem.
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When I was speaking about passing for 25, I meant mentally, not physically. As for your experiences, it sounds rough, but a lot of that is just down to human sexual politics regardless of age. If you're hot, you'll always wonder about people's motives.
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quote:So you're about one centimeter away from just saying it's wrong because society says it is wrong, and we all just have to live with society's judgment. Is that really where you want to go? Are you taking this tact because you have no other way to justify your outrage and squick?
Yep, you hit the nail on the head. The only real reason I object to 30 yr olds having sex with 15 yr olds is because society tells me it's wrong, and I do what society tells me and think what it thinks. Or, wait a second, maybe what I was talking about there was about a smaller section of the matter at large, and what you quoted does not describe my entire thinking on the matter. But it's probably the thing that makes me a sheep.
quote:No, I was making an empirical statement there. Would you agree that there is a subset (of whatever size) of 16 year olds that could pass for 25? Would you agree that there is a subset of 16 year olds that could pass for 25 if there weren't constantly told "you'll understand when you're older"? I'm making a statistical argument, it isn't circular at all. I use this to say that we needlessly condescend to teenagers all the time. It is useless to judge by age.
You had me right up until 'useless'. Useful does not mean 'right in every single instance'. The exact same reasoning you're using means we ought not have laws against, for example, assault. How do we know, before the event happens, that the assault wasn't merited? It's useless to make prior judgments. A person might have been defending themselves. A person might have been provoked beyond endurance. Two people might be having a fight club. Since we cannot know prior to every event what every cause and background was, it's needless to have a law against it.
Or a much saner, more reasonable solution would be instead of abolishing the law that works to protect the vast majority because it isn't perfect, to change the law to better fit reality, offering more variability to adapt to different situations. 19 yr old with a 16 yr old, for example. Keep `em off the registry. 30 yr old with a 15 year old? Either wait three years or go on the sex offender registry. It's a cruel, cruel world out there where a person in their 30s has to wait awhile for sex from half their age, I know, but they can handle it.
quote:Not true. This thread has been full of abstract, hypothetical scenarios. The discussion moved beyond Mal's one specific example before I came along.
Well, no, actually what happened was that you called the initial scenario and response described a 'dick move', and we were off to the races. It's not your overall philosophy I'm objecting to so much as your insistence it ought to be applied in a way that removes restrictions already in place.
quote:As for your experiences, it sounds rough, but a lot of that is just down to human sexual politics regardless of age. If you're hot, you'll always wonder about people's motives.
If you're 25 instead of 15, you'll most likely be much better equipped to deal with those worries.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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Odd question Mal, how did you find out in such a way that no one else did? do you regularly check the interwebs to check out your neighbors or something?
Posts: 2302 | Registered: Aug 2008
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From the Megan's Law website in California:
"The information on this web site is made available solely to protect the public. Anyone who uses this information to commit a crime or to harass an offender or his or her family is subject to criminal prosecution and civil liability. Any person who is required to register pursuant to Penal Code section 290 who enters this web site is punishable by a fine not exceeding $1,000, imprisonment in a county jail not exceeding six months, or by both the fine and imprisonment. (Pen. Code, § 290.46, subd. (h)(2).)"
Posts: 15 | Registered: Oct 2001
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quote: The registry system we have now is broken and terrible and should be shot and killed and beheaded and its mouth stuffed full of garlic and buried at a crossroads
Georgia’s Supreme Court is upholding the government’s right to put non-sex offenders on the state’s sex-offender registry, highlighting a little-noticed (but growing) nationwide practice.
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quote:I'm saying the good outweighs the bad, broken sex registry and all.
Does it though? I realize that you personally feel good about registries, but how would go about demonstrating the good provided in order to weigh that against the harm. Do people on registries offend less than those not on registries? Do sex crimes decrease in an area once a registry is put in place?
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Every time I see this thread I find myself singing the subject line (in my head) to the tune of "Girlfriend in a Coma."
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quote:I'm saying the good outweighs the bad, broken sex registry and all.
Does it though?
no. sexual offender lists have now been so diluted that they're virtually useless for actual law enforcement, unless you count prosecutors and police departments using them as tools of blunt coercion by threatening you with getting stuck with the label FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE and being unable to live in most places in most cities FOREVER unless you cop a plea.
FUN FACT: you can get made a sex offender for life by being a high school student who sexted, or by being drunk and peeing on a bush alongside the road.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Foust: ! Which means that even if Letourneau's story did end in tears, it doesn't mean she necessarily did the wrong thing.
She did though. He was 12, for god's sake, and she was in a position of power over him.
Do you honestly think that she was right and did nothing wrong? Because if so I think I'd notify my neighbors if YOU moved near by.....
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Well, he appears to think nothing was done wrong if the outcome is good. That it's impossible to do wrong, or evil, or be mistaken, pick your word, if it leads to good results.
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quote:I'd like to point out that from the few posts I've seen from malanthrop over the past day, I'm pretty sure this is a troll. He didn't pass out flyers. There is no sex offender. He's just trying to start an argument.
Well, yes, that's quite likely. But at least this is an interesting topic, and there are some actual contradicting positions in it that don't come from him, so it's interesting.
Fair enough. As I think you pointed out, I don't have a major problem with sex offender registration, but I DO have serious issues with the classifications of sex crimes. Public urination is a sex crime requiring registration. So is streaking, I believe. So is a college kid having sex with his high school girlfriend.
Every single male here has peed by the side of the road dozens of times. If these laws were applied consistently, we'd be a nation of sex offenders.
Btw Jeff, what's up? Where are you now?
edit: Looks like this is almost word-for-word what Samprimary just said. Cool. Then focus less on us all agreeing that sex offense classification needs revamping and more on what's up.
Posts: 3293 | Registered: Jul 2002
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The only reason I know I have a pedophile for a neighbor is due to the registry. Every couple months, I do a neighborhood search in the registry.
This guy lived there longer than I realized. He was just released from a two week stint in jail for "failure to register".
I don't care about victimless crime criminals living in my neighborhood. I looked at his record. I won't deny that registry includes people who have been caught masterbating behind a tree, or charged with having sex with their girlfriend the day after their 18th birthday......this guy is different.
My sharing of knowledge did destroy one friendship. On my two block stretch, there are three Jamaican residences, the pedophile is one. One of the others is the one I talked out of performing machete justice for his teenage daughter. Prior to my notification, they were friendly with one another.
Posts: 1495 | Registered: Mar 2009
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I'm getting the feeling that a lot of people don't realize that sexual assault can be just about anything. There was a girl at my high school who had made allegations of rape to the police. Later she dropped the charges and it became apparent that the sex was consensual, but who's to say what would have happened if the charges weren't dropped? Or how about the story of how my friend went home with a guy after a party, said yes when he asked her if she wanted to go upstairs, and told everyone she got raped afterwards (another friend was downstairs and the guy definitely didn't hurt her physically)? A lot of the time in these types of cases its one person's word against another's and it can be impossible to tell what really happened. If these are some of the cases that go to court, then I'm not sure what to think about what constitutes rape anymore. Where do we draw the line? The age for statutory rape is pretty arbitrary right now and if having sex with a drunk girl is considered rape, then I know plenty of guys (including myself) who are rapists and plenty of girls who have gotten raped. As a student in college the very idea that I could end up going to court faced with charges of rape because of a one night stand scares me a lot. On topic, mal I feel like if you were conflicted about what to do, its best to inform your neighbors anyways and get it off your chest. Personally I wouldn't have done with it, but don't feel beat yourself up too much about it.
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quote:Originally posted by SoaPiNuReYe: I'm getting the feeling that a lot of people don't realize that sexual assault can be just about anything.
And when the definition continually expands, it really looks like there's a growing problem. It also makes it harder to ascertain the real threats when words like "violent, assault, forced" etc, are used when no violence or force was used.
So when Joe Schmoe is browsing the registry looking out for "evil doers", he sees the words "violent, assault" and imagines some horrific, cinematic event filled with screaming or whatever his mind concocts. Now, it seems clear from Mal's description that his neighbor doesn't fit this scenario, but it's more common that you think, and many people who are on the sex offender registry for something they did as a teenager are becoming the victims of vigilantes.
This kind of language hijacking is absolutely detrimental to real-world solutions and makes things muddier, not clearer. Growing up Jewish, I'm also worried about the broadbrush stigmatization that's going on, and how that's eroding our rights and freedoms. It's very reminiscent of Nazi Germany, except substitute Jews and Homosexuals. Between the pedophiles and the terrorists, we're more than happy to hand our rights away it seems, whether it's airport security, the Patriot Act, or censoring the internet.
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quote:Originally posted by Sala: Okay, here I am. I am a teacher and we are periodically sent the list of sexual offenders in our county. I scanned the list and discovered that a man now lives on my road, next door to children, and the road has a lot of children on it. It's a cul-de-sac road, so the children play all around the road, and in it, often. Do I inform my neighbors? I've considered it, especially the next-door neighbors. Or do I just stay out of it. And then if something happens feel guilty for not informing my neighbors? ~Sala
See what details you can get before spreading the word. The registry has a lot of people on it that are no danger to anyone. In Georgia where I lived, there was a woman in her 30's who was a registered sex offender because she had oral sex with a classmate who was two weeks short of his birthday. People end up on that list for all kinds of reasons.
Mal did his best to make sure the fella he ratted out wasn't one of those. Some folks don't. Don't start something unless you're pretty sure the 'offender' is an actual threat.
Posts: 9293 | Registered: Aug 2000
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quote:Mal did his best to make sure the fella he ratted out wasn't one of those. Some folks don't. Don't start something unless you're pretty sure the 'offender' is an actual threat.
Unsurprisingly, this is excellent advice:)
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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Olivet, I haven't done anything yet exactly because of what you just stated. I don't know enough yet to be sure I need to do anything. But I'm not quite sure how I would go about finding out if there is a threat. How do you do that? All I know was he was on the registry.
Posts: 315 | Registered: Dec 2005
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SoaPiNuReYe - Saying yes to going upstairs is not saying yes to sex. Rape is rape if the girl says no and the man continues anyway. If the girl is unconscious or unable to give consent, assume it is not given. Whether a woman fights or not does not determine if it is rape. She says no to penetration, if he continues, it is rape, regardless of anything else that proceeded it. Numerous rape victims don't fight beyond saying no because they know they can't win the fight, so why get raped and assaulted? Or they freeze in a moment of terror.
If you don't want to be charged with rape, make sure the terms are explicit. You are engaging in a fairly intimate act, you can take a few minutes to make sure you are not crossing the line. If she is too drunk to consent, then don't sleep with her.
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quote:Originally posted by Sala: Olivet, I haven't done anything yet exactly because of what you just stated. I don't know enough yet to be sure I need to do anything. But I'm not quite sure how I would go about finding out if there is a threat. How do you do that? All I know was he was on the registry.
Your profile says you live in Georgia. Go to the Georgia Sex Offender Registry and do a search for your county, zip code, or the name of the person you know is on the registry. There you can gain information on the exact crime the person on the registry was charged with, and the conviction date. Some legal charges are unclear, so it might be a good idea to google "GA sexual battery law" or what have you to figure out what acts fall under that charge .
Posts: 2409 | Registered: Sep 2003
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scholarette: I think SoaPiNuReYe's point was that the guy in question believed that he did have consent, and it was only later that the woman (in the guy's mind) changed her story.
Maybe she had "buyer's remorse" and decided to make a deal out of it. Maybe someone convinced her she was raped. Maybe she wanted to get back at him for some slight.
The point is that nobody knows, and even if the allegations turn out to be false, it can still ruin the guy's life.
Everyone agrees that rape is horrible. Fewer people agree that false rape accusations are equally as horrible.
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
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The criminalization of normal heterosexual behavior continues.
FACT: a 15 year old girl is often more inherently attractive to a heterosexual male than a 25 year old woman or a 30 year old woman. In fact, a 15 year old girl is way more fertile than a 25 year old woman or a 30 year old women. It simply wouldn't make biological sense, then, for that 15 year old girl not to be inherently more attractive.
If the guy in question slept with 8 year old girls, then sure, he really is a pedophile. If on the other hand he slept with 15 year old girls (who probably chose him as well) then he really shouldn't be punished. Age of consent laws are just another way feminists want to punish normal heterosexual behavior.
Posts: 25 | Registered: Mar 2010
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